When we want to buy a new computer, what should we pay attention to? what should we know before purchasing a computer? There are some things to know before purchasing a computer, I will give some of the main issues to take into consideration when we go to buy a computer. Some computer buying tips can’t hurt, we will make better choices, and benefit in the long run.
The first stage of buying a computer is deciding what type of computer do we need. By choosing the type of computer (I am talking about a desktop computer in this article). We need to think about what do we need/want to do with the computer, do we need it for computer games? or just for browsing the internet and working with an office package, meaning writing documents, or calculating using excel. Depending on the type of use you need from your computer, the choice of configuration is made, and accordingly, you will get the most suitable price offer that will suit your needs.
Desktop computer for basic needs – browsing and document writings:
When you need your computer to just serve for some document writing and browsing the internet, you can choose a simple desktop computer, with all of its sockets on-board (it means the motherboard comes with all of the sockets on it). This will make the desktop computer’s price cheaper since you don’t need a sophisticated with great performance graphic card, an on-board graphic card is more than suitable for your needs.
Recommendation on what to include in the simple desktop computer:
1. RAM memory – should be at least 2GB (but a better choice for the long run would be 4GB).
2. USB sockets – make sure you have at least 4 USB sockets – (the more the merrier) and it is preferred to have some more, as we have more and more devices that use USB sockets, in case you want to connect them all to your computer.
3. CPU – depends on how much do you want to spend, but a basic DUO (dual-core) will be more than enough for this simple computer.
4. Motherboard – Again choice of how much do we want to spend, but a basic motherboard would be enough.
5. Hard Disk capacity – Well, the most basic ones are more than enough for browsing and document writing, the basic ones are most likely 160GB, if you want to download many files, maybe play some movies, you might need larger hard-disks – the cost of hard-disks are not too expensive so a 500GB or 1TB (1000 GB) will be suffice.
6. Sound – the on-board sound card should be enough for playing some music, or listening to online movies or even playing movies. But if you want a more powerful sound, with bass boosting, you can always add a better sound card on one of the motherboard slots (PCI).
Desktop computer for gaming or watching high definition movies:
When you want to buy a stronger computer, for computer games, playing high definition movies, and enjoy a more advanced performance, you will need a stronger computer, with a separate graphic card – which will sit on one of the motherboard slot and will boost your performance since more graphic performance will be taken care by the graphic card, and your computer. Graphic cards have many options for better performance, it depends on how much would you like to spend.
Recommendation on what to include in the simple desktop computer:
1. RAM – should be at least 4GB, if you have the budget, increasing RAM will help to multitask and run the computer games much easier.
2. USB sockets – You should have at least 6 USB sockets, and better have 8 USB sockets since if you’re like me, you will want to connect a mouse, keyboard, joystick, a racing wheel (if you like racing games), which just those will occupy 4 USB slots.
3. CPU – I would recommend at least QUAD CPU (4 CPU processors within one processor), it will increase processing and boost performance.
4. Graphic Card – There are many good graphic cards our there – choose a graphic card with at least 500MB RAM on the graphic card – and 1GB RAM on the graphic card, will be better. The RAM on the graphic card enables more stored data to process on the graphic card instead of the computer, which enables faster graphic changes at a quicker pace.
5. Hard-disk capacity – You will need a large capacity hard-disks since they do not cost too much I would recommend at least 1TB (the computer games of today occupy much storage space and they increase in size as they include more graphics and more quality).
6. Sound card – Invest at a good quality sound card – so you can enjoy the sound effects that games have today.
7. Motherboard – Choose a motherboard that can enable you to plug in all of your expected tools, so it will have enough space for graphics cards, sound cards and any other improvement you might want to insert in the future.