subject: Factors to Watch For When Shopping for a Desktop PC [print this page] Factors to Watch For When Shopping for a Desktop PC
Computers come in all shapes and sizes these days, gone are the days where your computer was a large machine often banished to a small room on its own or a study, these days computers are much more portable and even attractive to the point that people are now proud to display their computer in the home and even on the road as laptop computers are now incredibly small and light to make carrying them around effortless.
When buying a desktop PC though you'll find that no two computers are alike, sometimes there are slight differences that can make the PC good for one use, but poor for another. Generally people will aim to buy a 'middle of the road' or a 'one size fits all' solution which makes the computer good for general use. But when buying any computers you need to consider a number of features to make sure you know what to look for, much like buying a car.
The Processor
The processor is like the computer's brain, it controls everything about the computer and the tasks you'll be asking the computer to do. This varies in different models and will be one of the biggest factors for price, the faster the processor the quicker your computer will be. Processors can be replaced at a later date for upgraded ones but can be more difficult to get done right and there are other more cost effective means of getting extra horsepower out of your PC.
The Memory
Memory or RAM is the part of the computer that determines how many tasks you can have running at any one time, the more RAM you have will mean you can multitask as much as you like and will experience very little slow down. RAM is easy to add at a later date and one of the easiest PC upgrades that is cheap to carry out as well.
The Graphics
Depending on your needs you may find you either need the built in graphics capabilities already in your computer or a dedicated graphics card to handle more demanding video editing, photo manipulation and computer games. Video cards can be very expensive, some more than most complete PCs, so it is important to know what your needs are and know that you can swap your graphics card at a later date if you wish to keep your PC up to date with the latest graphics.
The Storage
The amount of storage space can also depend on your needs; you may be planning just to save some family photos and a few albums of music on your computer so storage space won't really be an issue. For people downloading movies, converting home movies into digital form and installing a lot of software it will be important to look at larger hard drive sizes or at the very least add more hard drives - internal or external at some point.
