Pass this guide along to new users or users interesting in buying a computer, but do not know where to start.

WARNING This post is LONG almost 2000 words WARNING

Feel Free to comment, and I will make changes/additions etc.

Now- lets get into the actual computer. Obviously there are two types of systems- desktops (towers) and laptops (portables). Desktops are generally less expensive for the same amount of computer as a laptop, but lack the option of running on a battery or be used in your lap. I will start with desktops and then cover laptops, as there are differences to cover other than the obvious ones (size of the machine).

In the world of desktops there are two options: building or buying. Building is going to a store like Intrex (http://www.intrex.com) or online to Newegg (http://www.newegg.com) and ordering the parts for a PC, and then assembling the machine yourself. Local shops usually will build the system for you for free when you buy it from them, or for around $90 if you buy the parts elsewhere. The huge advantage to building (or often called DIY for do-it-yourself) is you get exactly what you want on the system. Since the choice of components is vast, the computer can be customized anyway you wish. DIY computers are almost always more upgradable than a store bought system. Building a PC is not for everyone however, as there is a basic requirement of some technical knowledge, feeling comfortable working with the inwards of a computer, and waiting for your system. Generally, built systems like 3-5 days to be built from a local store, or parts about 3 days to arrive if ordered.

Going to a big box store like Best Buy, Circuit City, directly to a maker (like HP/Compaq or Dell) is the other option for a desktop computer. Here, it is possible to take the PC home with you the same day you purchase it. There is no waiting involved. Buying, on the low-end is almost always cheaper than building. Low-end in the computer world is now defined as a desktop PC costing less than $500 or so. For someone who has never owned a PC before, or has no knowledge for the workings of a PC, this is generally the best option. The options are vast, and most salesman will know enough to at least point you in the right direction. Buying online is generally cheaper than retail, and some customization is offered. However, you must wait for the system. For the tax-free weekend, this is ok. As long as the system was invoiced during the 3 day weekend, you are fine. Delivery does not have to be taken during the 3 days for the system to qualify.

Lets break down the components of the system now:

CPU- The brain of Central Processing Unit (CPU) of the computer is the chip that allows your PC to operate. The speed of this unit is measured in gigahertz (GHz). There are two companies in the PC world who provide these units: AMD and Intel. Intel is the larger of the two companies and currently offers the best processors available stealing the crown back from AMD. There are generally 3 segments of CPUs: Budget, Mid-Range, and High-end.

Budget chips (Celeron brand for Intel and Sempron for AMD) are used in low-end system generally costing under $750. Even these processors are more powerful then the most computers costing $5,000 were just a few years ago. Budget chips are perfect for word processing, office use, internet surfing, or light gaming. These processors run into trouble in 3D operations such as high-end gaming, video work, steaming video and similar uses. These processors are always single-core. More on single and dual core in a minute. Systems in this range generally perform at acceptable levels for around 2 years.

Mid-Range processors (Athlon 64/Athlon 64 X2 for AMD and Pentium 4/D/Core2 (Conroe) for Intel) can be either single or dual core units. Any computer containing an Athlon 64 X2 or Pentium D CPU is a dual core system. Dual core means the computer has two brains and (with software properly written to realize the system is a dual core unit) can perform multiple tasks at once. This generally speeds up the computer. The vastly majority of users fall into this category. Mid-range systems cost between $750 and $1500 when equipped with these CPUs. Athlon 64 and Pentium 4/D form the low-end of the this range, with the X2 and Core2 taking the higher end. Operations like high-end 3D gaming, video work, complex calculations, steaming video are all possible at this level. Systems in this range generally perform at acceptable levels for 3-5 years, with the closer to the top of range lasting the longest. Right now, Core2 systems offer the best performance in the industry but will cost the most.

High-end processors (Athlon 64 FX for AMD and Core2 Extreme for Intel) occupy the high end of the market. Systems in this range generally cost at least $2000. Unless there is a specific need (application that requires major horsepower) or the user is an extreme gamer, there is no reason to buy a system in this range. Unless you fall into one of the mentioned categories, buying one of these CPUs (which cost almost $1,000 for the chip alone) you ar overbuying. Avoid high-end CPUs unless there is an absolute need.

RAM: Random Access Memory- This is short-term storage for your computer that allows it to operate without using the hard drive (which would slow down the system drastically). Memory is erased when the system is powered off. Nowadays, users generally want to have at least 1GB of memory in their system. Double that for gaming, video work, or if you plan to purchase and install Windows Vista when it is released in 2007. Budget systems use DDR memory, while mid-range systems use DDR2 memory. If buying a system that uses DDR memory look for DDR-400 (the speed of the memory). For mid-range Intel systems look for DDR2-667 and look for DDR2-800 for AMD systems. If you are building the system, the RAM speed will be listed right on the page for the memory, or have a salesperson tell you the speed at a store. If buying at retail store, look on the spec card (if it is listed). Slower memory is okay, your computer just will not be as fast as it can be.

Hard Drive: Long term storage- when users store files they want to keep when they turn the computer off. Look for a hard drive of at least 160GB. The current "sweet spot" for hard drives are drives between 250GB and 320GB in size. They offer the best price/performance ratio. Make sure the drive is a SATA (Serial ATA) drive, over an older PATA (IDE) drive. PATA drives are being phased out and SATA is the wave of future. Also, SATA cables are much smaller than bulky IDE cables. Another reason to go SATA is some motherboards now only offer 1 IDE connector which limits you to two devices.

Optical Drives: CD and DVD drives are referred to as optical drives, due to the drives using a laser. Most users should opt for a DVD burner on their computer when possible. DVD burners are very inexpensive nowadays (can be bought for around $35) and offer the user the most options. DVD burners can burn onto blank DVD or CDs and read both types of discs as well. If the user is going to be making a lot of copies of discs, opt for a system with 2 drives (most store bought computers come with 2 drives).

Video Card: For gaming, the MOST important component of the system. 3D gaming requires a dedicated video card. Most budget systems use something called on-board or integrated video to lower costs. While this is fine for general computer use such as web-surfing or word processing, it will not work if the system is going to be used for gaming. Look for a video card with 256MB of RAM for gaming. nVidia and ATI are the major video card makers. The spec card will generally list the manufactor of the video card and the model number. Geforce cards are from nVidia and Radeon are from ATI. Look for a card that is at least a Geforce 7600GT or Radeon 850 (x1800XT and x1900XT are the other two at the higher end to look for) from ATI. Lower-end cards or on-board video will not be acceptable for gaming uses. If the system is not for gaming, video cards are generally not that important. Having a video card will speed the system up always over onboard due to the video card and not your CPU processing the image on your monitor.

Monitor: Most computers sold today come with LCD monitors. CRT monitors still exist and are perfectly okay if one wishes to save money. LCDs are lighter, use less power, and do not flicker, but CRTs still offer a superior picture. When looking at a monitor, purchase a 17" or 19" model. If gaming or dvd movie watching is going to be a main use of the system, consider a wide screen model up to 20" in size. LCDs generally up about 1.5" bigger than a CRT (a 17" LCD is basically equal in viewable size to that of a 19" CRT monitor) so keep that in mind. This is due to an LCD being able to extend the image to the very corner of the glass, as CRT monitors leave a black border around the image (there are actually wires under the screen there).

Software: Most computers run Windows XP. Most store-bought computers come with XP Home or XP Media Center edition. For home users these operating systems just fine. For college students taking a PC to college, check with your school. Many schools REQUIRE Windows XP Professional, and won't let a computer running XP Home be used at their school. Check ahead, changing a system later is expensive and a hassle. Generally, most users will want to opt for a system that includes Microsoft Office. This is usually always an added cost, but having Office (the standard in terms of word processing, spreadsheets etc) is worth it. Many schools won't accept papers in formats other than Word. Keep this in mind. If you do not wish to purchase office, consider OpenOffice which is a free alternative. (http://www.openoffice.org)

Floppy Drive: Most computers no longer include a floppy drive. This is perfectly fine, unless there is a need for one. Purchase a USB flash drive at least 256MB in size to counteract not having a floppy drive. 256MB flash drives can hold about 150 floppies worth of information anyway.

The following items are only of concern if the user is building the own system:

Power Supply- Look for an unit from a well known maker like Antec or FCP. The power supply is rated in watts, and should be rated for 450W for most systems. High-end configurations will want to opt for more powerful PSUs. Generally a 500W PSU will run around $70.

Case- The options for a case are vast and numerous. Look for cases with 120mn fans and good airflow. Ask around to find what other users like in cases. Generally a good case will run from $50-125.

Thermal Compound: Make sure you pick up some to use on your CPU. One example is Arctic Silver 5. It should not cost more than $7, and it works much better than the thermal pad on the bottom of your CPU. If you buy an OEM (not-retail CPU) this compound will be required.


Laptops have a few quirks of their own lets cover them:

Screen- Screen sizes vary widely and are offered in standard and widescreen models. The best advice I can give here, so look at laptops in person and find a screen that you like. Since you will be looking it, find one whose colours match your taste (some brands are brighter than others) and a size that is acceptable. The larger the screen, the shorter the battery life in general terms.

Battery- Most laptops will run from a battery for 2-3 hours. If your work requires extended time away from a power source- find a model that allows 2 batteries to be used in the system or the same time, or purchase and carry extra batteries.

Weight- Pick-up the notebook, ask the salesperson to disconnect it from the security so you can lift it up. Generally most users are comfortable with an unit between 6-8 pounds.

CPU- Make sure you buy a notebook with either a Pentium M/Core Duo or Athlon64 CPU. Avoid Celerons in notebooks as the battery leaves much to be desired.

Wow..... this should be stickied.

Thanks man.

It was written for a local TV station website. We have a tax-free shopping weekend this weekend. Building is not for everyone. Most people (people don't that enlighten themselves on this board) don't have a clue how to build one.

But yeah... point taken

Awesome guide for first timers - should be stickied.

Once again, great job Shadowduck!

Recommending SATA of PATA is fine, but your supporting reasons are all false. A better, more honest reason to recommend a SATA drive is because PATA will eventually be phased out, so you could say "buy a SATA drive because it is the way of the future."

I have a hard time believing Windows XP Pro is absolutely necessary on most college campuses (wasn't necessary for my undergrad, and its not necessary for my grad school either). Judging by the amount of Dell systems being sold with XP Home, I'm sure most campuses allow students to use XP Home on their dorm room computers. What if a student uses a Linux distro or worse, a Mac? Must they use XP Pro as well? Can one not use M$ Windows 2000 or a 9x OS instead of XP? Do you see the bias in your recommendation yet? If anything, if a student were forced to use only XP Professional, the campus MUST make provisions for the purchase of this OS through the university. There, the student can get a license for as little as $20, making it much more economical for a person just buy a computer with XP Home, and then buy an XP pro license from his/her college book store for next to nothing, rather than paying a $140 upcharge for XP Pro from Dell.

On the power supply paragraph, you list "FCP" as a good PSU maker. You sure you didn't mean FSP?

A gig of ram is still a waste of money for most people. i'd say the current low end needs 512 MB ram, mid range 1 gig, and your high end at 2 gigs of ram. Setting a 1 GB standard for all new computers is a little overkill.

All new laptops that use Celerons use the Celeron M, which is on a performance parity with a Pentium M, unlike its rival the Sempron, which sucks balls. A bit of clarification on why a Celeron M is not as good in a laptop may not hurt. A specific suggestion would be to replace "performance" with "decreased battery life".


On the whole though, I'd give it a 9 out of 10. It is a really great article for the casual computer buyer. Excellent job shadowduck!

Thanks for the input Joe. I will make the adjustments on the Celeron M as you note. I didn't know there you could get a Sempron in a notebook, but that cannot perform well at all. I will also make the adjustments on the hard drive.

As for the XP Pro thing, I used to work for Dell and we requested requirments from around 100 colleges before a big tax-free weekend event we did in North Carolina. Around 85 of them strongly recommended XP Pro and around 60 required it or OS X in order to use their network. Linux was supported also. Of the 60 that "require" it, I am not sure of how many would actively enforce it, but I know of at least 2 that did and blocked any PC running XP Home from accessing the network.

For hard drives: Since spinning metal is still much slower than moving electrons around, curent hard drives are limited in their performance by how fast they spin, not by their interface. Be sure to get at least a 7200rpm drive; faster ones are typically substantially more expensive and may run hot, but do make a difference. But don't worry about a 1.5 Gb/s vs 3.0 Gb/s SATA interface -- there won't be a speed difference, and the two versions will work with each other, so you don't need to buy the same SATA type as your motherboard.

For thermal compound: It's bad to use too much thermal compound -- use an amount the size of an uncooked grain of rice. Many heat sinks come with thermal compound/pad pre-applied; don't add any more in this case.

Now if only the preapplied TIM didn't suck so bad. I ALWAYS wipe off the preapplied crap and use AS5. I also use a lot more than an uncooked grain of rice, because in order to apply it properly, you have to use more. Of course more does not mean the entire tube, but I use enough to cover the base of the heatsink completely once it's spread around, but not so much that I can see the layer of paste I just applied when looking at the HSF base edge on.

RAID: No, it's not for bugs! Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Drives is just a hard disk setup where you group 2 or more *identical* drives using a special controller in order to provide more speed, more data security, or both. RAID comes in numbered versions; RAID 1 is the perhaps the most common and uses 2 drives in a "mirror" setup, where all data is stored identically on *both* first and second drives. Since all data is copied on both drives, even if one of the drives suddenly breaks, all your data is still safe and accessible! RAID 1 also speeds up the transfer of data to the computer (read access) because one drive can send some of the data while the other is sending the rest. On the other hand, RAID 1 takes 2 drives to store just 1 drive's worth of data, so it is twice as expensive. Other RAID versions, such as RAID 5, are more cost-efficient, but typically require 3 or more hard drives.
Note: Setting up any RAID version introduces complications and is not for beginners. Also, extra drives require extra power, extra room in the case, and perhaps extra cooling, so double-check those aspects of your setup.

Wow. That mandate is just bizarre. I'm glad I didn't attend one of those schools. Perhaps the XP Pro thing is about the added networking features of Pro? I can't really see how XP Pro is all that much more secure over XP Home when it comes to such things as viruses and spyware. Thanks for the info though! [/quote]

I agree, but I think it may be too complicated for the intended audience.

That's true for older CPUs without the big metal heat spreader covering the die. Fortunately for lazy folks like me, for modern Celerons,P4s,A64s, etc, Arctic Silver says this:

(http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm)
No muss, no spreading needed, just smush by installing the HS.

(http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm)
No muss, no spreading needed, just smush by installing the HS.

I tried using the method I posted above, and the method posted at the arctic silver website. I my temp was ~3C lower with my method than with Arctic Silver's own preffered method. If the average user doesn't want to use my method, that's fine, i'm just saying I have found from personal experience that one will get lower temps applying it like I described above.

Nice Thread. But Way too long. People are gona just skip everything because they hardly understand.

Also, I think you should post the best bang for the computer builds like the sticky in graphic card section.

like

Low-end ($700)

ahtlon 3k+
w/e mobo
7600gt
and so on

Mid range ($1400)

conroe E6300
w/e mobo
7900gt
and so on

High end ($2000+)

E6600/X2 5k+
w/e mobo
x1900xt
and so on

They can be all from newegg or somethin.

how do you make this a sticky?? lol

Yes, in looking in more detail at the Arctic Silver text, their main objective is to prevent air bubbles, and they have developed their method with that and less-experienced users in mind.