Mar 24, 2002 01:53 AM
2226 Views
(Updated Mar 24, 2002 02:14 AM)
This is an age old question that comes up whenever someone wants to buy a PC. My personal preferences have always been for assembled computers but that need not work for everyone. So I thought we might as well discuss what the pros and cons are and for whom we should advice assembled ones and for whom branded ones.
If you are an experienced user, who knows what he is looking for and knows quite a bit about CPUs, motherboards, RAM and other peripherals, then an assembled PC would probably give you best bang for your buck. Assembled PCs have been given a bad name because of the fly by night operators who sell a few PCs and disappear. They do not care what the configuration is and what parts will not gel. These PCs will keep crashing for no reason and individual components are all OK. So do NOT select such an assembler.
Before you place your order with a reliable assembler, decide what you want regarding the following categories:
CPU.Intel Or AMD. If Intel.Celeron or P4? If AMD.Duron or Athlon?
Motherboard. Your motherboard should be compatible with your CPU and RAM. This choice should be made after reading motherboard reviews in magazines as well as tech sites online.
RAM. If buying a P4, do not go for the SD-RAM that most people supply.even many of the branded ones. SD-RAM is much slower and in effect you are smothering the power of the P4 by giving it slower RAM. p4 has a FSB of 400MHz and SD-RAM of only 133, so you are slowing it down. RDRAM is faster but is quite expensive. You can safely go in for the next best alternative DDR-SDRAM. 266 MHZ.
Display. Most motherboards have onboard display as well as sound. If you are happy with this.OK but these are not top of the class solutions. If you are into gaming, you should definitely go in for a dedicated display card. Which one you buy depends on your budget. The latest nVidia GeForce4 is the very est but it will cost more than your entire computer so you better think about that. The lowest end here will be the nVidia TNT2 cards. Higher are the GeForce2 and GeForce3.
Sound solutions. As mentioned, if you need you can go in for a better sound card and speaker set. Creative has a number of solutions for all budgets. Of course you can save money and stick to onboard sound.
Other peripherals. A CD-Writer is a must in these days of data overflow. You can back up all your data, make VCDs, Audio CDs and more with these.
Look for extras that you may want n your config like a TV Tuner card to see TV, video and capture video, scanner, printer as well as gaming devices and joysticks. In these days of cable internet, a network card might be of use too.
All in all.If you can decide on all these things and can verify that you got what you asked for and no cheap substitutes, then go in for an assembled PC. Or else ring up one of the Branded PC sellers.
Trust me!
Dr. Bijlani
Webmaster,
https://mcug.n3.net
