What to Look for when Buying a PC

3rd Feb 2007

One of the things I get asked quite often is what to look for when buying a new PC. So, here’s a few basic tips, with some figures that I’ll try and keep updated from time to time. If you’re looking to run Windows Vista, check out the section at the bottom.

Hardware

CPU
This is the heart of your computer, basically, the faster the better. Either Intel or AMD, go for a P4 or an Athlon, the Celeron and Sempron are low-budget versions but won’t last as long, they’re under-powered and, for the price difference, a bad investment. I’d suggest about 3 Ghz (that’s gigahertz).

RAM
I’d recommend nothing lower than 512Mb, the more the better. RAM is cheap and you can always add more later. If you plan on running Vista, I’d recommend 1Gb, if you plan on doing video editing, manipulating sound or images, aim for 2Gb.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
Chances are you’ll get a disk far bigger than you can fill in most systems. HDDs are pretty cheap so don’t be wowed by big storage figures (big is 200+Gb, anything else is ordinary). Again, these can be added to later if you need to, or you can use and external HDD via USB or Firewire, literally just plug them in the back and away you go.

Ports and Connections
USB ports will allow the connection of most peripherals these days and USB hubs can expand the number of ports you have (up to something like 256, so no worries there on one port in your PC, basically attach hub to PC, then keep adding hubs to each hub, using the additional ports for peripherals). Ideally, look for the option of USB ports on the front as well as the back, much easier to access that way. USB ports come in two flavours: 1.1 and 2. Make sure you support USB 2 (all new computers will), it’s much faster.

Firewire (aka IEEE 1394) ports are useful, especially for video cameras and external storage. Think of them as like USB ports, only they daisy chain (you can plug one device into the back of another one and form a big chain of them). Although technically slower than USB 2, transfers are usually much quicker over firewire, but there are fewer devices supporting it. Again, it comes in different speeds: 400 and 800 and with different types of connector (mini and full-size).

Bluetooth is a short range wireless technology, useful if you want to connect your phone to your PC for syncing contacts, calendars etc, and some devices like printers and video cameras use it so you don’t need cables.

Optical Drives
A DVD-ROM (ROM means read-only) drive is a must, a DVD writer (DVD-R+/DVD-R-/DVD-RW) is nice but not essential unless you want to create DVDs or backup huge amounts of data, but for the price these days you may as well have one (most systems will come with one). Most drives these days come with CD writing capability (CD-RW), even on DVD-ROM devices.

Graphics Cards
Many systems will come with on-board graphics (built onto the motherboard), but if you plan to do anything graphical, video editing or play games, a separate card is a must. AGP was the standard but PCI-Express is also gaining popularity. Go for one with 128 Mb of on-board memory or more ideally, if you like 3D gaming (first person shooters for example) go for a card with lots of on-board memory.

Sound Card
An on-board sound card is okay, better to have a separate card, especially as they’re usually pretty cheap, but this is optional unless you want stereo-quality sound.

Monitor
Pretty much any system will come with an LCD flat screen these days. Look for 17″ or bigger, also note the resolutions it can handle, 1024×768 (that’s horizontal x vertical pixel counts) is a minimum really.

Laptops Only

Here’s some stuff that affects laptop users only:

Size
Laptops come in a variety of sizes, the average is 15″. That’s about as big as you can go and make it easily portable, the bigger 17″ desktop replacements may be more powerful, but you’ll need a forklift to move them. Smaller notebooks (i.e. smaller than 15″) typically sacrifice power and drives for portability the smaller you go.

Optical Drives
Make sure your machine comes with an optical (CD or DVD) drive built-in or at least an external one is supplied, some of the smaller ‘ultra portables’ don’t come with any and cost extra (usually well north of £100), most machines will not come with a floppy disk drive, but you can survive without one.

Expandability
There aren’t many things you can do to a laptop, increase the RAM perhaps, you can swap the HDDs out, but it’s not an easy process, so make sure it has plenty of ports to allow expansion via plugin devices (like DVD writers, HDDs, sound cards, etc).

Software

Operating System
As XP has now been discontinued, it’s Vista all the way if you’re a windows person. First off, there are six versions: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. Ignore starter, it’s designed for ‘emerging markets’ (like India and China) and has limited functionality. Ignore Business, Enterprise and Ultimate for home use, so you’re left with Basic and Premium. Basic doesn’t come with the new Windows Aero interface, and some other features, so you’re probably best off with Premium.

As for the rest, personally I’d recommend staying away from Microsoft except for the OS, download free copies of Firefox (web browser) and Thunderbird (email), they’re more secure.

Also recommended are anti-virus and, if you’re online, a firewall (don’t trust the MS default, it’s wimpy), both of which you should be able to download for free. Also try and get a free copy of a spyware detector (something like AdAware). Check out the Security Basics post for more info.

Windows Vista

The newest version of Windows, names Windows Vista, is seriously heavy on the requirements on it’s hardware, the minimum specs from Microsoft are:

• 800 Mhz processor
• 512 Mb RAM
• 20 Gb Hard Disk Drive
• 15 Gb free space
• SVGA (800×600)
• CD-ROM drive

However, I’ve heard the system runs slow even on 3Ghz PCs and that 1Gb of RAM should be a minimum.