How to Buy the Xmas PC

David Dorn shows you where to put your money and what to buy for Xmas 2001 in the way of a new PC

If you've read yesterday's salutary tale of how we managed to save £400 on a new PC, you'll know that there are certain areas of your prospective purchase that we here at PPC think you should never skimp on. In this article, I'll show you the best places to put your money in a new PC, and give you my top ten tips on what to look for.

First up - the Operating System

Windows XP. That's it. Don't go for bargain boxes with Windows Me or 98SE - or anything else for that matter. XP is fast, and as far from the crash-prone brain-dead Windows Me as you can get. Whether it's Home Edition or Professional, get Windows XP - you may want to change from its "new" look to a "classic" Windows look (first thing I did!), but consider no other.

RAM - a PC's Life Blood

RAM's cheap these days - incredibly so. Find out the maximum your new motherboard will take, and get it filled. There's no point in messing about. Even at relatively expensive prices, you can stick a full Gigabyte of RAM in your machine in two 512MB sticks for under a hundred quid, so don't stint. Even if you're being very cautious with the pennies, don't accept less that 256MB. While Windows XP will run perfectly well with that 256MB, you'll find it loves more RAM (same applies to any operating system, really, with the proviso that Win Me and 98 can only really handle 512MB). If it comes down to a choice between RAM and more processor power, go for the RAM, every time!

Disk Space

Like RAM, disk space is amazingly cheap these days - but don't get too carried away, 'cos it's only going to get cheaper. What you want is fast, responsive and capacious storage. A 40GB hard disk is today's starting point - and it's a good 'un, but just because you can get bigger ones doesn't mean you have to - and here's why:

If you're thinking about having loads of hard disk space for video applications, bear in mind that it's best to have your video subsystem running on a very fast drive on a very fast bus. My own preference would be to add a Firewire drive externally, starting at 80Gigabytes, as opposed to sticking an 80Gig internal into the mix straight up. So that 40GB unit that's in the machine might be just the ticket.

Just get the fastest you can - a 7200 RPM job, for preference.

Removable Storage

One way or another, you need a CD burner. They're no longer a luxury. It doesn't have to be the very latest 24x16x48 either (that's 24x write, 16x re-write and 48x read), because for most jobs, you'll be dependent on the speed of your IDE bus, and once you get to 12x write speeds, things happen so quickly that anything faster is simply gilding the lily. You do, though, need at least CD-R and preferably RW. Why? To make much more permanent copies and archives of your photos from your Digital Camera. That's the beauty - and downfall - of digital imaging. You don't need to print, but you still need to store, and writing the files to a CD is just about the best way you can do it.

So, a burner is an absolute necessity. Make sure you get one.

Monitor

Yes, you'll need one! I hear a load of rubbish these days from people spouting on about how you should buy an LCD monitor. Why? The affordable ones are still around the £300 mark, and they're only 15 inch and limited to 1024x768 resolution. On the other hand, you can pick a 17" CRT monitor up for £150 or so, and get a higher resolution and, if you can be bothered to calibrate it, better colour rendition. As ever, get the biggest you can comfortably accommodate on your desk - and if that's a 22" 1900x1440 capable beast, go for it. A good monitor will last you years and years, and will put far less strain on your eyes.

If you really must have an LCD jobbie, then fine, but make it a 17" if your wallet will stretch that far. While I really do like the 15" units, I find 1024x768 far too limiting a desktop resolution.

Graphics card

Power is cheap, but too much power is wasteful. If you've opted for a monitor that will only give you 1024x768 (and LCD to boot) than a 64MB nVidia Titanium based card is way over the top for the bit that actually shows the pictures! It will hardly ever be running at more than 10% of its capabilities. Better to opt for a 32MB GeForce 2 MX400 based card (or similar) at a quarter of the price, and know that you'll be using 50% of its capabilities most of the time!

If you're a gamer, though, you'll want to team a Titanium up with a good 19" or 20" monitor and blitz those pixels.

Processor

Look where this comes on the list - nearly at the bottom! Don't be bamboozled by clock speeds and such. Honestly, once you get past 1GHz, you'll be hard pushed to spot much of a speed difference between processors, if the rest of the machine conforms to what I've written thus far. So, if the choice comes down to a 1.7GHz vs a 2GHz P4, and there's three or four hundred quid in it, get the 1.7GHz! And it really doesn't matter whether you go for AMD or Intel (but don't stray outside those two names), as long as you don't get fooled by AMD's new nomenclature for its 'XP' class processors. My own preference is for Intel, but don't let that put you off an AMD - we've got plenty of team members that love their AMD equipped machines.

Either way, RAM and disk space take precedence over processor any time.

Input

Keyboards and mice. Treat the supplied ones as freebies, spares, backups. Check out the 'name' units and get yourself a nice, solid keyboard and a top quality mouse. Don't stint here - your fingers and hands will be making lots of pressing a sliding movements over the keyboard and mouse's lifetime, so you want smooth, reliable and comfortable ones.

If your new PC comes with Logitech or Microsoft keyboards, great. If not, put one or other on your Christmas list!

The rest

Scanners and printers are something I'll cover in another article - so here are my top ten tips for buying your new PC

1. Get Windows XP on it - nothing else will do
2. Max the motherboard out with RAM
3. Specify the fastest hard disk you can at 40GB or better
4. You need a CD burner at 12x or better
5. Avoid ZIP drives and other strange formats - they're not big enough to be useful
6. Get the biggest monitor your desk space will allow
7. Don't be seduced by LCD just yet, especially if you're a gamer or into Video
8. Do make sure there are plenty of USB ports on the PC - one at the front is nice, but two at the front and two at the back would be better.
9. Don't get hung up on processor speeds - concentrate on the RAM
10. Always, always, always get the store to price match - haggle like mad!

Remember, shop like a pro, and you'll get a better deal.

 

David Dorn