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From: Rob on 12 Mar 2010 17:38
10 Things You Must Know When Buying a Desktop
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360970,00.asp
03.10.10

Decisions, decisions. Unless you're in the top 1% of money earners,
purchasing a desktop is something you take more seriously than, say,
buying groceries. Whether you're buying for your business or for your
personal use, there are many things to consider in choosing a desktop
PC. Still, there are some common factors you should keep in mind,
regardless of what kind of desktop you are searching for. We give you 10
tips for zeroing in on the best desktop you can get for your needs.

1. Think long-term. Avoid single-core entry-level desktops and nettops
unless you are buying a PC only as an Internet access point and for the
simplest of tasks. Better outfitted, dual-core PCs don't cost much more
and will have a longer life cycle.

2. Expandability for later. For low-end desktop PCs, look for a PCI
Express x16 slot, which will let you add a graphics card later on.

3. Memory is cheap. Except for a budget PC purchase, get at least 4GB of
RAM.

4. Quad-core processors are cheap, too. Unless you are running
intensive, threaded applications, however, you won't notice much, if
any, difference between quad- and dual-core processors.

5. Keep it quiet. When buying a small-form-factor PC for the living
room, pay careful attention to the number of cooling fans it has.
Nothing ruins movie night like an annoying, loud fan cycling on and off.

6. Is an all-in-one PC for you? An all-in-one PC is a space saver, but
you're likely to outgrow the components before the monitor to which
they're married.

7. Good enough graphics for gaming. Don't feel the need to buy a
multi-GPU SLI or CrossFire setup on your gaming PC; a single,
high-powered graphics card will suffice for most gamers.

8. Hard drive size matters. If you have lots of large media files�MP3s,
photos, and especially videos�spring for a large hard drive or two,
500GB or more.

9. Save energy, save money. Energy efficiency becomes more important for
businesses buying not one but dozens or hundreds of PCs.

10. Back it up. Buy an external hard drive to back up your data.
From: Rod Speed on 13 Mar 2010 15:45
Rob wrote

> 10 Things You Must Know When Buying a Desktop

These arent must knows.

> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360970,00.asp
> 03.10.10

> Decisions, decisions. Unless you're in the top 1% of money earners,
> purchasing a desktop is something you take more seriously than, say,
> buying groceries. Whether you're buying for your business or for your
> personal use, there are many things to consider in choosing a desktop
> PC. Still, there are some common factors you should keep in mind,
> regardless of what kind of desktop you are searching for. We give you
> 10 tips for zeroing in on the best desktop you can get for your needs.

No you dont.

> 1. Think long-term. Avoid single-core entry-level desktops and nettops unless you are buying a PC only as an Internet
> access point and for the simplest of tasks.

That is just plain wrong. Plenty of us did a hell of a lot more than that on single core systems.

> Better outfitted, dual-core PCs don't cost
> much more and will have a longer life cycle.

Wrong.

> 2. Expandability for later. For low-end desktop PCs, look for a PCI
> Express x16 slot, which will let you add a graphics card later on.

Most wont want to add a graphics card later on.

> 3. Memory is cheap. Except for a budget PC purchase, get at least 4GB of RAM.

Even that is overstated.

> 4. Quad-core processors are cheap, too. Unless you are running
> intensive, threaded applications, however, you won't notice much, if any, difference between quad- and dual-core
> processors.

And you wont with dual core over single core either.

> 5. Keep it quiet. When buying a small-form-factor PC for the living room,

Most dont.

> pay careful attention to the number of cooling fans it has. Nothing ruins movie night like an annoying, loud fan
> cycling on and off.

> 6. Is an all-in-one PC for you? An all-in-one PC is a space saver, but you're likely to outgrow the components before
> the monitor to which they're married.

That is very arguable indeed.

> 7. Good enough graphics for gaming.

Most arent into gaming on their PC.

> Don't feel the need to buy a multi-GPU SLI or CrossFire setup on your gaming PC; a single, high-powered graphics card
> will suffice for most gamers.

And most use dedicated games consoles instead.

> 8. Hard drive size matters.

Depends entirely on what you use the PC for.

> If you have lots of large media files� MP3s, photos, and especially videos

Most dont.

> �spring for a large hard drive or two, 500GB or more.

Makes absolutely no sense to have two.

> 9. Save energy, save money. Energy efficiency becomes more important
> for businesses buying not one but dozens or hundreds of PCs.

Nope.

> 10. Back it up. Buy an external hard drive to back up your data.


From: John Tserkezis on 13 Mar 2010 18:07
On 14/03/2010 7:45 AM, Rod Speed wrote:

>> 2. Expandability for later. For low-end desktop PCs, look for a PCI
>> Express x16 slot, which will let you add a graphics card later on.
> Most wont want to add a graphics card later on.

Most demand more memory, citing their box is too slow.

>> 3. Memory is cheap. Except for a budget PC purchase, get at least 4GB of RAM.
> Even that is overstated.

Too bad the user will want more, because "their mate" told them memory
makes their box run faster.
So far, I haven't been able to convince the users that their six
instances of excel, two of word, another four of IE, and perhaps a few
other apps might have something to do with how slow their four-year-old
box is running. Not to mention all that crudware they've loaded.

But no, more memory will fix everything.

>> 6. Is an all-in-one PC for you? An all-in-one PC is a space saver, but
>> you're likely to outgrow the components before the monitor to which
>> they're married.
> That is very arguable indeed.

Rarely met anyone who cared. I used to make sure the motherboard was
upgradeable, but found lots of those boxes in their original state,
being turfed for entire new ones.
Except perhaps for the odd hdd upgrade.

The only thing it has going for it, is when they've talked you into a
memory upgrade and you have to find that now very rare ram type on ebay.
Because it's been superseded two times over since then.

>> 8. Hard drive size matters.
> Depends entirely on what you use the PC for.

>> If you have lots of large media files� MP3s, photos, and especially videos
> Most dont.

Fair, but more do all the time.

>> �spring for a large hard drive or two, 500GB or more.
> Makes absolutely no sense to have two.

It does when when the upgrading tech is too lazy to rebuild a system,
when adding a second drive is much easier (and cheaper).

Nor when I still get the justification that "if the C: drive fails, you
don't have to rebuild your entire system, just the OS and apps".

Because second drives, phyisical or logical, are somehow magically
immune to failures.

And no, I never have, don't and never will subscribe to your "hard
drives hardly ever fail" philosophy Rod.

>> 9. Save energy, save money. Energy efficiency becomes more important
>> for businesses buying not one but dozens or hundreds of PCs.
> Nope.

But it serves a purpose: It gives the loony greenie wannabees a warm
and fuzzy feeling inside. Even if the loons complain about leaving
their boxes on over the weekend (~64 hours or so) for a forced time
consuming update. Even though these loons work for a company who makes
power stations.
And yes, they're too loony to see the irony in that.

>> 10. Back it up. Buy an external hard drive to back up your data.

This is one area that no-one is really spending any effort on. Or ever
has in any case.

Anything less than a fully-automated backup doesn't count for much.
Telling users to back up their data doesn't help, they do for a month,
get sick of it, and just give up.

Not that I care about other's data, it's just that I don't want to hear
their whining about how they've lost everything, and expect me to
magically recover all their files even though the drive has failed, or
the data's corrupted, or they've deleted it, or "their mate" tried to
fix it and instead stuffed it properly.

And especially how they're experts and tell me how I can recover it.

How about that. I've agreed with most of what you've said.
I know, I know, I'm on my way back to the loony bin now...
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