Computers - What To Look For When Purchasing
by Andrew Johnson
When looking online, watching advertisements or visiting computer stores, it's often hard to narrow down what hardware you would like for your own machine. With so many numerical values - both for names of devices and the power the device delivers - it's difficult to figure out which numbers really matter. While some businesses opt for a simpler naming routine for their products, such as NVIDIA and ATI/AMD, others aren't so user-friendly. Buying a power supply for example might lead many consumers to think purchasing the one with the highest power is the best option, when really that's seriously overpowered and just a waste of money in most cases. Here are some tips for buying computers.
The Core Parts
The trio that makes the entire computer function. This is what you figure out first, especially when building your own PC. The motherboard acts as a hub for all the other components and provides a series of slots for the different devices. Everything connects to this, and you should pay special attention to its capabilities before purchase.For example, only certain RAM and processors will attach to certain motherboards, meaning you need to plan ahead with both your budget and the desired limits of the machine.
The processor in this regard is easy to decide upon. Once you've got your motherboard chosen, you'll be restricted to a single series of central processing unit (CPU). For example, last generation Intel motherboards only accepted Core2Duo and Core2Quad processors, while the current generation accepts i3, i5 and i7 processors, which are the latest ones.
Obviously the higher the speed of the processor, the faster it works, but there's something to be said of cores as well. A processor with more cores will function a lot better in multitasking environments or when presented with programs that can utilize multiple cores at once for increased efficiency. However, this can also be bottlenecked by the RAM.
Random Access Memory (RAM) serves as a temporary storage device for the processor to access whenever it needs. Due to the speed of the RAM, it can deliver the necessary information much quicker than if the processor were to access the hard drives repeatedly. The more you have, the more information it can store for the CPU. The speed of it can make loading up applications much quicker, though while the RAM provides a bottleneck for the CPU, it works vice versa as well.
Power
This is a grey area for many consumers, as it's difficult to know how much power is required by your PC. However, you can purchase peripherals that will tell you how much electricity your PC is consuming while on, so you could use another computer to figure it out. Otherwise, you should purchase a 400w for a standard, no-graphics card computer as this will likely suffice. The higher quality brands will provide guarantees and will likely last longer. For those utilizing graphics cards, even multiple ones, consider at least 700w with the necessary cables to power said cards.
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Andrew Johnson is an expert in computer consumables. If you want further info about computers or are searching for a trusted computer online retailer please visit ebuyer.com
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