That was pretty much what my boss was saying everyone that met me when I started my new job. The uninitated amongst you might think ‘wow – she must be some sort of technological genius!’. Alas, the initiated will be asking what all the fuss is about – ‘building a pc is pretty commonplace nowadays!’.

When most people comment on me being able to put together a pc, my immediate reaction is ‘its cheaper and I know what I’m getting’; to me thats the key issue with shop bought PC’s – you don’t know what you are getting half the time, and might well end up with a horrendously expensive and high end machine just to send emails to your family. The idea behind this little article is the highlight some of the pitfalls of shopping for a pc and to introduce you to the concept of building your own.

I don’t understand all this jargon!!

I’m often asked to go with friends to choose a new computer as I ‘understand what all the jargon means’. Here’s a brief breakdown of what you are likely to come across when viewing the specs of a computer;

• Processor; This is essentially the ’muscle’ of the computer that does all the work. There are a vast number of different processors around now, although the ones you will come across most frequently in shops are Dual Core, essentially meaning that the processor has twice as much oomph and can deal with two intensive tasks at once. Don’t let this worry you too much – all you really need to know is higher number = faster processor i.e. 1.8ghz < 3.0ghz
•  RAM/Memory; The memory stores regularly used information to facilitate quick movement between applications. The clearest example of this is swapping between windows and how the pc copes with this. Generally, the more windows you have open, the slower the pc can change between them. The more RAM (Random Access Memory) you have, the faster these changes will be. Memory is measured in Megabytes or (more commonly nowadays) Gigabytes. I would recommend a minimum of 2gb of RAM to ensure optimum performance in the most modern machines.
• Hard Drive; This provides the storage for all the usual gubbins that end up on people’s computers (Music, pictures, documents, video etc). This is again measured in Gigabytes and the bigger the better. I’ve always maintained that it doesn’t matter how much space you have, you will use it all, so make sure you get the most you can. A lot of shop bought pc’s today come with upwards of 250gb of storage, with 500gb becoming increasingly common.
• Graphics; If you are looking to play modern games on your new toy, graphics capabilities are arguuably the most important factor when choosing a machine. Graphics come in two flavours if you like; Intergrated and Dedicated (to use laptop specific terminology). Integrated means that the graphics are built into the motherboard of the computer and will use up some of the systems RAM to operate. Dedicated refers to the fact that there is a seperate graphics card in the machine that has its own RAM. This is the better option if you are looking for optimum graphics performance as it will not be using up any of the system RAM, therefore preventing slowdown. As a (very!) general rule of thumb, when looking at the descroption of a graphics cards, the higher the number,. the better it is when looking at cards made by the same manufacturer, eg. an NVidia 8800 is better than an 8600. 

That covers the basic specs that you’re going to come across looking in a shop and should make buying something a little easier! There’s more to come when I’ve got the time covering building a computer from scratch.

Fingers crossed all the above made sense!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 10:50 am and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.