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Specifying the computer you want can seen like a complete minefield, with no end of options, and conflicting choices from differing manufacturers. This short guide is designed to explain the major choices when choosing what goes in your custom built PC, without being over technical or trying to sell you the most expensive machine.
Before we discuss the major areas or processor type and speed, and memory etc, there are a few key points to bear in mind.
Most expensive isn't necessarily best
In many places you will find that our recommendation is that the highest price option does not represent highest value for money for most customers, and that a 'midway' option is better value and more appropriate. The manufacturers (particularly in the case of graphics cards and processors) know that there is a hardcore group of keen enthusiasts (often games players) who will pay a massive premium for the very latest and fastest, and so new items are always priced disproportionately highly. A good way to get very close to the best is to choose the option one down from the fastest.
Check the 'standard' items as well as the headlines
There's a number if technical items to consider in a PC to consider as well as the 'headline items' like processor and hard drive size. Hard drives for example are available in two types – conventional or 'parallel' drives, and the newer 'Serial ATA' or 'SATA'. SATA drives are typically faster, and will become the standard over the next year or so. All the drives we supply are the newer SATA type.
Secondly processors are available in two types – 'retail' and 'OEM'. Put simply, the OEM part is supplied to the manufacturer (us) as just the raw chip, whereas retail parts are supplied with a matching cooling fan and heat sink approved by the chip manufacturer. The retail part is typically a few pounds more expensive, but gives the reassurance that there will be no issues with overheating as the heat sink and fan are specifically matched to the particular chip. We use only the more reliable retail parts.
There's no such thing as future proof
Customers are often concerned to buy a machine they see as 'future proof'. Whilst it if often sensible to ensure the machine you buy can be upgraded in the future, buying the best available now, thinking that it will last longer, is often a false economy. The industry moves so fast that it usually makes sense to buy midrange at any particular time, then upgrade more frequently. There are some basic things to ensure your machine includes, these include:
- the use of standard memory that can be upgraded (all ours use standard high speed chips, with upgrades available either from us or online direct from the memory manufacturers)
– The use of the newer SATA type of hard drive (all ours use the newer type).
– an internal expansion slot for a better graphics card (all our system have the latest PCI Express graphics slot)
- spare power supply cables. If you want to add an additional hard drive, or maybe another optical drive like a DVD writer at a later date, then additional spare power leads inside the PC will be required. All our systems have at least one spare internal power lead.
A balanced approach works best
Best performance in a computer is obtained by balancing the major components together, rather than choosing the best available. Your budget should be spread to enable a decent amount of memory,and the appropriate graphics card, as well as a fast processor. Detailed advise is contained below.
The Individual Key Components in your PC
Processor
The processor is the 'brain' of your PC and essentially performs fast calculations taking data from the memory (RAM) and then writing results back to the RAM and to other devices like the video card.
There are two main manufacturers of processors, Intel and AMD. Both have two mainstream ranges, one broadly aimed at 'value' applications, one one at higher value applications. Within these ranges a selection of speeds are available. All processors are compatible with Windows software, so there real issue in selecting the right one is really an issue of speed vs cost. The most common question asked is 'do I choose Intel or AMD?'. Each company now has approximately 50% market share, although Intel has traditionally been the dominant company, and the first choice of business users. Our particular preference is AMD processors, as we feel they offer better value for money.
Our advice: AMD offers best value for money, choose a mid range chip for best value.
Memory
Memory is where the processor draws its instructions from, and so it holds the programs currently running and the data required for them. If all the memory is currently in use, then the system is forced to draw instructions from the relatively slower hard drive. Memory thus has an often understated influence on the speed of an overall system, and in general £30 spent on extra memory will have a far greater impact on processor speed than £30 spent on the next processor speed up the range.
With memory prices at an all-time low, it makes sense for all machine to have at least 512M bytes of memory in any machine, and 1024M bytes (1G byte) is strongly recommended for all but basic applications. Conversely, except in very specialist applications, and more than 2G bytes of memory is likely to be wasted in normal use.
Our advice: For all but basic applications, 1G byte is the optimal amount of memory for your PC.
Hard Drive
Its a popular misconception that the size of the hard drive has an influence on your PC – it doesn't, unless it is more than 95% full in which case your machine will begin to slow down as it hunts for free space. With the smallest hard disks now 80G bytes, lack of space on even the smallest drive like this is unlikely to be an issue, unless you are a heavy music downloader or process lots of digital photos. Having said this, larger hard drives are proportionately very inexpensive, with twice the base size (160G bytes) available for only around £15 more, or an almost limitless 250G byte size for around a £40 premium on the base size.
Our advice: An upgrade to 160G is a very cheap option, 250G is still good value.
Video Card
The video card provides the output to your monitor, but also provides some of the processing of the picture to be displayed, taking the load off the main processor in the PC. For mainstream applications (basically anything other than fast video games) a basic card will be sufficient, but for games players the sky is the limit. We have a complete range of cards available from the two main manufacturers, ATI (with their Radeon range) and Nvidia (with the Geforce range).
All our PCs have a basic video card built into the ma inboard of the computer, which is disabled if an alternative card is fitted. This 'integrated' video card (Geforce 6100 for AMD based machines, Radeon Xpress for Intel) offers performance that would have been top of the range for an external card even just a year or so ago, and this is a good value option for non games fanatics.
Our advice: Integrated video is a value option, while for games players Geforce 6600 is good value
Software
The vast majority of users will want to use Microsoft Windows software. The only version that is now supported by Microsoft is 'XP' – all others are now obsolete and you may have problems getting the appropriate security updates and drivers is you re-use an old version.
The purchase of Windows XP is optional on our systems, as some customers (particularly business and educational users) may have special deals to buy Windows already negotiated either direct with Microsoft or with other suppliers.
Other users are welcome to purchase a computer without Windows and install their own copy, but we would strongly advise against using pirate or borrowed copies. Aside for the legal position, even a 'borrowed' copy on Windows will not work, as Microsoft's new activation features only allow each serial number to be used once. Pirate copies will also not work with Microsoft security updates, which will quickly leave your machineto virus attacks and leave anything on your machine (including email addresses, personal documents and passwords) potentiallyto hackers.
If you purchase Windows from us, at our specially subsidized price, you have the option to have us install it on your machine, and load all drivers and other necessary software for you. We also (unlike some larger suppliers) still supply you with the original Microsoft disc in case you need to re-install in the future.
Our advice: Choose Windows as an option- and save yourself money and hassle!
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