Ok, so I went ahead and purchased a new computer from Dell. I’m confident that I could build my own computer to my own likings, but lets face it… I’m lazy. I dont want to go to 3 different sites and scour for the best price on one piece of hardware. Dell is the largest manufacturer of retail computers and the big bad giant. But who cares, they have solid products and great deals. I like ‘em.
What I cant stand about my computer now is that it’s so freaking slow. (It’s almost 8 years old.) So, I need a good processor and lots of ram. The latest craze in processors is dual and quad cores. It’s like having two processors running simultaneously to produce better results. They aren’t the best for gam3rs, but are good for multitasking. The same goes for more ram. I’ve seen reviews that 512MB or ram is the ideal for any task, and more ram has no effect. But if you’re running more than one program, you need it.
I first did some research on what’s hip these days in products and went to Tom’s Hardware Guides. What I like about them is that they have tons of benchmark charts that compare brands and models. Overall, they said that AMD dual cores are better than Intels in terms of speed and power consumption. However, Dell doesn’t sell AMD chips, so I’m at a loss there. I’m not going to have the best chip on the market, but as we know something newer and better comes out all the time. What can you do? Overall, here’s what I went with from Dell.
Pentium D 940 (3.2GHz, 800FSB)
2 GB Dual Channel DDRS SDRAM
256MB nVidia GeForce 6800
2 19″ Ultrasharp Flat Panels
Like I said, I dont play computer games, but I still wanted a video card that would hold up for awhile. High Definition video, like h.264, is becoming more predominant and it helps to have a better video card for running smoothly. Dell just happened to have a deal on flat panels, so I got a 19 incher. I got an 80GB hard drive too, but that’s not really important since you can get better deals from Best Buy. I hear there is some special new hard drives in testing now. But I dont think they are going to be anything revolutionary. I also didn’t get any special audio card or speakers. I think my old ones do a good job, and I dont want to disurb the neighborhood.
And that’s that. Hopefully, I’ll get it this quicker than my Hershey T-shirts. I plan on reinstalling XP to get rid of any third party software that Dell may think I’ll need. I remember my freshman year when friends where getting the first 1GHz processors and the difference was distinctly noticeable. So, I cant wait for my 3.2GHz upgrade.
...