Computer

I hope i'm posting this in the right forums

I'm about to buy a new computer next week and I just want to know the specs of a good computer like the:

Speed of the processors
Size of the hard disk
How much RAM
are there any DVD Writer in the market??
What are the best graphics card and sound card?

I am a 1st year University student taking software engineering course. I also doing a little bit graphics and animation as well as web designing, before this i have a very low spec PC. and I could'n do much in that computer. a little helps from you guys are welcome and i will appreciate it. thanks.

 

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My answers are in the quote

 

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A good way to choose a computer is to start by figuring out how much you want to spend and then go from there.

 

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ok let's start at the top of youre list. (please excuse the very simple langauge, but i dont know you're understanding of this so i have to presume you know nothing)




Processors:
there's only two makes to go for either an amd (athlon range) or an intel (pentium range) the speed's are messured diffently for both i.e an athlon 2000+ means it runs at around 1.6 ghz but due to more efficient methods of calculation etc it runs at the same speed as a pentium 2 ghz or 2000 mhz thus we get athlon "2000+"

my recomendation: amd athlon, they are just as good but cheaper (only because they are not quite as well known as pentium), they go upto the 3000+ now but there way expensive i'd suggst anything above 2000+ depending on how much you have to spend.




Hard Drives:
There are several makes on the market, but the thing to remeber is not just to think about size, speed varies in hard drives too however prices do not. What i mean is hard drives are not where the prices vary so splash out a little here. Make sure you ask for one that runs at 7200 RPM (that's the top speed at the moment). You shouldn't need more than about 40 GB but if you're thinking of getting or have a fast intenet conection you'll fill it up in about a week so you might want more like an 80 GB. If someone in a shop or somthing askes you about 'cache' remeber it's not important they go upto 8mb i think 2 is standard it makes a marginal difference in access/response time to youre drive but you wont notice the difference.

my reccomendation: maxtor is a good make, 40gb - 80gb (you can get about 200 gb if you have the money), 7200 RPM (Revolutions per minute), dont worry about the cache but 8mb is always handy.




RAM:
Try and get 512mb, you'll want a nice chunk of ram if you're doing graphics and animation. again speed is impotant. when you go into a shop most ram will be DDRram there's also RDram(slow) and RDram(stupid and expensive) so ask for DDR PC2700 (pc700 means that the ram runs at 333mhz you can get pc3200 aswell but i dont know how much more it costs)

my recomendation: 512 mb , DDR PC2700 , you never here anything about the model/make so dont worry either way they'll all be the same regardless of make etc.




Drives:
DVD writers are available but run at about 2x speed and take almost all night to burn a dvd they also cost about £300/$400, unless you really need this i wouldnt bother getting one. the makes of drives arent important and there is really only spedd to consider.

my reccomendation: DVD drive 32x speed and a CD writer 48x speed, cd drives go upto 52x speed but they're £20/$27 more for about 8 seconds less burn time. another option is combo drives, these play dvds and cds and can also burn cds but it is slower at all three operations and not recomended (by me)



Grapics and sound equipment:
ok this is a complicated area so ill just tell you the basic bits, the two top types of graphics card are radeon and geforce, i recomend the geforce since they have just brought out the geforce fx, if you want the best get the latest model of that with a built in 256 mb ddr memory module. this is very expensive! i mean serious equipment here. other wise you might want to ask for a really good radeon(dont know much about them) or the geforce 4 ti 4600 with AGP 8x and built in 128 mb memory module(i have a similar card and itll run anything on the market and will for a long time to come, plus you'll get seamless graphics and design work on it) (also comes with video-in and video-out

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). If you're buying a computer from scratch you're going to need a mother board and i would recomend a gigabyte one, they have in built 5.1/6 channel surround sound it'll support the ram and proccesors above(make sure you buy one appropraite to amd or pentium they need different boards, also ask if it suports DDRram PC3200 if you decide to get it coz some only go upto PC2700) it has built in network card, firewire, usb 2.0 etc and it goes nicely with any graphics card.

hope this helps! also most importantly take a look around on the net etc and if you like the sound of the stuff i mentioned take notes in detail of the exact things you want with full features and everything so you know exactly what you're going to get and what to ask for in a shop.

 

thanks man, you've help me alot.

 

a few notes. the Pioneer DVD+RW drive used by Apple writes a DVD in about 3.5 hours. (IIRC, it's a 2x drive)

The drive costs about $200 by itself. Sony's DVD/-RW/+RW dual format drive costs $300 now, so $400 is way off the mark.
sony's top of the line DVD/-RW/+RW drive hmm, saw it for less the other day, must have been on sale somewhere
DVD-RW drive from NEC and this is even a bit more $$ than I would be willing to pay for this drive. $175 should be do-able


Windows has "Windows Movie Maker", and Dell currently is offering a similar program on their machines. Apple's iMovie is about 15 step above either of these two offerings, though. If you are planning on breaking into movies, a used Mac with OSX and iMovie may be the way to go.


For simple work and "a little graphics design", you most certainly DO NOT NEED anything like 3.06Ghz HT Intel Proc. Go for an Athelon XP 1800+ or 2100+, and save yourself $400.


I like Macs, but WinXP is so similar in basic functionality and design that it's nearly a moot point these days (I still like MacOSX, esp for developing - Unix is great. and OSX breaks less often than Linux). However, Macs cost more than windows machines.


Hard drive - yeah, what he said.

RAM- yeah, what he said

graphics and sound-yeah what he said.


check out
http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html
for their recomended systems. they are geared toward the techically savvy, so remember that for 85% of the stuff you are going to do on the machine, rememeber that you don't even need the hardware that is in the "budget box"

Dell is a good place to buy a pre-built system from. They have been really blowing them out lately. check out www.fatwallet.com for coupon codes and such. $350 for a 2.2Ghz Intel machine shipped

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and Dell quality and support is great.

edit: keep in mind that Windows XP currently has a bug in it which can cause applications to take 10x longer than they should to launch. MS has a fix, but hasn't released it to the public (they are waiting to bundle it with the next service pack. If you have Win XP, call MS support, and ask them to send you the patch via email). The fix should be available to the public in the next month or so.

 

My suggestion:

Get a 2.4ghz processor - they're about $200.

Spend the most money on fast RAM, graphics and a SATA hard drive.

Get a good motherboard; use Intel or IWILL motherboards. Avoid ASUS.

Don't ever buy a Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway or Apple.

 

I am not a big fan of apple because I use PCs, but I wouldn't tell someone to avoid it simply because I dislike them. Apple, like linux is an aquired taste. You're trying to put Compaq and Apple in the same barrel by telling someone to avoid them both. From my experience as a salesman for Compaq I would never trust their computers because they load junk from the recovery disks, they have shotty hardware and their tech support just plain sucks.

Do Macs have similar problems that Compaqs have?

 

About Dell : I don't try it for personnal use, but at work and at university, those computers are really good ! The only problem would be for evolutions if you don't take care of the "box" (take a high size tower).

 

apple proccessors are and have always been much slower than windows based machines, peeking at around half the speed. however the graphics hardware used in apples are in general superior . The standard apple chips used to be the geforce kit, now with some models you get a choice between an amazing geforce card from nvidia or the ATI chips from a great radeon model.

 

I think the apple processors, like AMD, are clocked slower but still can compete with intel.