tenpastmidnight

Advice on buying a PC

If you're thinking of buying a PC, here's a little advice for you: buy the cheapest in the range.

Not exactly revolutionary: "get yourself a good deal." Here's how you need to look at it:

What am I going to do with my PC?

That is the most important question in your whole computer buying process. Not "What processor does it have?" Not "Does it have a nice flat screen." Do not get swayed by computer magazines telling you about hyperthreading, or the speed of the memory, work out what you're going to use it for first.

OK, we're hitting a bit of a problem in that no matter what you think you're going to use your computer for now, you're bound to use it for something else as well in the future. Let's simplify things a little:

Are you going to use your computer for playing the very latest games, or for heavy 3D graphics?

If the answers to these questions are "Probably not, no" then you are in a very good situation. If the answer is "Yes" to games, you'd better go off and research places like Tom's Hardware Guide and Hard OCP as you're in for a long, expensive rush to keep up with the latest technology. If it was "Yes" to 3D graphics and you're looking to make the next Shrek, then you'd better all ready know some places to go and look up the hardware you need, otherwise you frankly haven't got a hope in getting that digital masterpiece out of the door, my friend.

Now, for everyone else, here's my advice: buy the lowest PC in the range, and add some more memory (RAM.) If you're looking to run Windows (and the year is 2003 or 2004) I'd suggest geting 512Mb of RAM, that's enough for Windows to run quite happily, but might be slightly more than comes as standard in the PC if you're buying the lowest in the range.

You might think "Lowest in the range? That'll be no where near as good as the others!" But really, this computer was top of the range six months ago. Then it was a steaming powerhouse of ultimate computing technology, and to be honest, it still is. Lets look at what you might do on an average day:

OK, so that last one's probably just me.

Any computer being sold today can do all of those things, and much, much more, without breaking in to a sweat. My PC at work is almost two years old and is still fantastically fast to use. It was top of the range when it was bought, but within six months was too slow to be on sale any more, and now most PC sellers would sniff in derision at it's specifications. The power of PCs now is incredible, so practically anything you buy will do everything you'll need it to for years.

So, buy the bottom of the range. You might have some money left over, so you can look at perhaps buying a nicer monitor if you're going to sit in front of the computer all day. Or you could buy a nicer chair to sit on, a nicer desk, or a cat and some crampons.


Paul Silver, September 2003