So you want a new computer...
So you want a new computer...
You're here because you want a new computer, eh? Well, depending on your needs there's a couple factors to take into consideration. After all, you need to get your money's worth, and get a computer that will meet your needs.
- Intro
- Your Needs
- Brand
- Parts
- Building
- Research
- Apple/Macs
- Linux
Your Needs
The important thing is to focus on your needs. Yes a certain laptop may work out great for your friend, but if you intend to do something specific and the laptop they got isn't for that, it's likely that you won't enjoy it. While it's okay to listen to suggestions from your friends, you should really only take into consideration the ones that have actual reasons and backing other than "it's what I have so it's good because I have it".
- What is your budget?
How much you have to spend on your new computer makes the biggest difference in what options you have open. A very low powered netbook can be as low as $350 and a high powered desktop can be $2000 and upwards. Remember to also include the currency you will be using and country you are buying in. GBAtemp is an international site and not everyone will be spending US dollars. We'll also be giving recommendations from online sites, as the selection from regular stores will be too limited to give good advice (different physical stores carry different stock too), so if you're not looking to buy online the info we give will be more general.
- What will you do with the computer?
Thankfully most computers are fast enough to do basic tasks without issues nowadays, such as editing text documents and slideshows and browsing the internet. The main concern is tasks that not everybody does.- Do you do any gaming, and if so, which specific games?
- Do you do any 3D modeling?
- Do you do HD video editing?
- Do you record/edit music?
- Are there any other rare/specific tasks you intend to do?
- Portability
Do you need to be portable? Laptops and mobile devices are weaker and less able to be upgraded than desktops, in addition to being more expensive. While the idea of a laptop is often tempting, if all you're going to do is plug it in on a desk and never move it, a desktop would be better. On the other hand, there's plenty of situations where you could need a laptop, and then other things come into play, such as the screen size and how much the unit weighs, as well as the fact that laptops run into cooling issues far more often (especially when talking gaming laptops) and they're limited to battery life when portable (often trimmed down to 2 hours or less when gaming).
Brand
I'll put this bluntly. Brand does not matter the way most people would like you to believe it does. People tend to put too much emphasis on the brand of a computer, while brand is often nothing more than the logo on the case, which might not even be the actual company that assembled it!
Brand tends to be blamed for the below three things...
In short, you should base your judgment of a machine on the machine itself, not solely the brand name on the case.
Brand tends to be blamed for the below three things...
- How well the computer runs.
Dell and HP and Lenovo and other companies don't "build" machines as much as they "assemble" them. They take core parts (like the processor / ram / graphics card / harddrive) from other companies that make them, put it all together (with their own cases and accessories) and sell the completed package to you. If you ever take a computer apart, you'll notice that the company names on the parts vary widely. There's a few companies that make RAM, a few that make processors, a few that make harddrives, and so on and so forth.
So, for example, there's nothing that makes an HP processor better than a Dell processor... because there's no such thing! Neither Dell nor HP make processors, they buy and use processors from other companies (such as AMD) that make them. This means that Dell and HP can both be using the same processors in their machines (or two different HP models can be using two totally different processors).
So if you want a faster computer, you should make sure to pick one with the right parts, and maintain it properly.
- How well the computer is physically built.
It's important to focus on more than the tech specs! If you've gone out and noticed one line of laptops with certain specs and another with the same but a higher price, it's often the build quality. It's cheap to slap a laptop into a plastic case, but it costs money to engineer and build a thick metal shell that'll protect the laptop.
You get what you pay for. If you buy a company's lowest-end model and find that the case is made out of cheap plastic, it's because you paid for cheap plastic. If you buy a higher-end model and get a sturdy metal case, that's because some of the extra price went towards a metal case. You'll pay more for a computer that's built with better parts and more care, because it costs more for the better parts and it costs more to have workers spend more time on it.
Every computer manufacturer makes multiple lines of computers, and generally the "it fell apart" complaints are from people that bought the cheapest one. When you're looking at a computer, the naming scheme usually goes (Brand) (Line) (Model), so for something like "Dell Inspiron 1764" you know that it's the Inspiron line.
It should be noted that some "brands" are not brands at all, but actually sub-lines. This usually happens when one computer company buys another. As an example, Dell bought Alienware and now Alienware machines are the high-end Dell gaming ones.
So if you want a sturdy computer, don't buy the cheapest models.
- Tech support and warranty.
As said above, you get what you pay for. The standard tech support is often the people who don't speak your language and are just reading troubleshooting steps off of some paper because they are cheap to hire.
If you buy the better warranty/support package, then you're often paying for the better support staff. You have a better chance of getting somebody that knows what they're talking about and who can speak your native language, because they cost more to hire.
Don't discount the warranty's coverage though! It may not be as much of an issue for desktops and computer parts, but the warranty can be a very important thing on a laptop. Check to see what's actually covered by the warranty, as "accidental damage" is usually an addon or bought with a separate warranty.
So if you want better tech support, you should get the upgraded warranty/support.
In short, you should base your judgment of a machine on the machine itself, not solely the brand name on the case.
Parts
It's important to know in general which parts of a computer matter to which types of use. For example is the GPU or CPU more important in video editing? Will more RAM help browsing speeds? How much does the GPU matter in gaming?
Unfortunately most people don't know which specs actually matter for which situations, and this problem is often made worse by companies attempting to sell computers with beefed up specs in the wrong areas in order to make a profit, so this section will be a little wordy.
Unfortunately most people don't know which specs actually matter for which situations, and this problem is often made worse by companies attempting to sell computers with beefed up specs in the wrong areas in order to make a profit, so this section will be a little wordy.
- CPU / Processor
Despite what people may say, the processor no longer controls everything in the computer, so if you're just surfing the net, doing homework, and checking your mail, it barely matters and you can skip down to the next part.
Even if you're playing games and such, depending on what you do you may not need an especially powerful processor. Now, if you're doing something like 3D modeling/rendering and lots of video conversion and filter application yes, you'll want a really powerful processor, but not everything has high needs, so it depends on the things you want to do.
There is a drawback to having a really powerful processor, though. The faster a processor is clocked (more Ghz), the more power it draws and the more heat it produces. In desktops this is rarely an issue, but it's a huge concern in laptops. If you're choosing laptops don't immediately go for one with a really high-clocked processor if you're not going to use it, as that's just a bigger drain on the battery and more heat produced. If you do need the CPU power and have a way to deal with the heat then go for it, but with a laptop overkill is bad.
As for picking a processor, more cores does not instantly make a better CPU, and despite what many people believe ghz is not a measurement of speed, so don't instantly choose based on those. Instead look up benchmarks of processors to see which ones are more powerful than others.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
This is a site with benchmarks of modern high-end processors. Do note that these are "synthetic" benchmarks, meaning they're lab performance tests, not tests of real-world tasks. They should not be trusted as absolute when there's minor differences between products, but they are still a good overall view of which processors are better than others. These tests use all the cores of a processor, so your performance may vary depending on the programs you run, as most still do not use multiple cores efficiently.
- RAM / Memory
Most computers come with enough RAM for basic tasks such as browsing the internet and editing documents, so if you don't intend to do anything special you can skip this section as well.
This is the "working space" of your computer. This is where programs and files that are in use reside, so the more you have the more programs you can run at once, and the bigger the projects you can work on. More RAM does not instantly mean more speed! The problem with having a small amount of RAM is if your computer needs more memory than you can fit in RAM. When that situation happens, the computer does what's known as "paging", where it writes stuff in RAM to the hard drive, to make room, then reads it back when needed... the problem is that the standard hard drive is a LOT slower than RAM, so this process takes a while. Think of this like your brain doing a math problem. If it's small you can do it in your head, but if it's too large for you to process all at once then you need to write it down and read it back as you're doing it, which is a lot slower. This is what's responsible for the sudden periods of slowdown people may experience when working with large projects or having multiple programs open at once.
This was an especially big problem with older computers because companies would sell them with just barely enough RAM to function, then after you use it for a bit it'd go all slow on you, and they'd expect you to come back and pay them to "fix" it... however this deceptive practice has all but died nowadays, and modern computers come with enough RAM for the standard tasks they're expected to do.
Some things will need an abnormally-large amount of RAM, however, so it's best to take your goals into consideration when determining how much RAM you need.
- GPU / Graphics Card / Video Card
This only matters if you're going to be gaming or doing something that uses the graphics card. If you're not, then you don't need a separate one (a motherboard's onboard will do) and you can skip this section. If you're unsure, just ask us.
There is a down side to having a dedicated graphics/video card in a laptop, though. The extra parts mean more weight, more drain on the battery, and more heat is produced. While some laptops have a way to mitigate the power and heat issues (by turning off the GPU when it's not needed and using integrated graphics) these tend to be the more expensive laptops, and if you're not going to have a need for a dedicated video/graphics card at all then there's no sense in getting a laptop with one.
Now, the video card's power basically determines how well modern/3D video games will run and the quality settings that can be used. Please note that most flash games do not fall into this category as they use a different type of rendering.
While you can usually buy a desktop and then buy a better video card for it later, laptops do not have this capability, and you're almost always stuck with what it came with, so if you're looking to get a laptop with a gaming graphics card you need to make the right choice the first time.
When you are going to pick out a video card you need to be VERY careful with the model number.
- The first number is the series. That shows how old it is.
Generally you want something from the latest 2-3 series.
- The second number shows how powerful it is within that series (what it's meant for).
(The third number does to an extent as well).
So for example an HD 5450 is newer, but weaker, than an HD 4790.
Check these two links for more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_graphics_processing_units[/quote]
The best way to check how well a card will perform versus other cards is to look up benchmarks of the card in question. This is where sites run the card on certain games, measure how well it performs numerically, and then compare it to other cards. Simply googling for a benchmark of the card you're looking at should return results on how well it performs in games. Take note of two things.
- Some benchmarks are done with benchmarking software instead of games.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
These are known as "synthetic" benchmarks and while they do measure a card's computational power, the results don't always match up to how well games will run. It's better to look at actual game benchmarks than synthetic ones if you're unsure.
- Laptop/notebook graphics are different models than desktop cards, so for example a desktop HD 4850 is more powerful than a laptop one. This is done so laptop cards can save on battery power. Laptop models usually have "mobility" or "M" in the name. As it's harder to find benchmarks for laptop cards (are they're often not replaceable) a good resource for an overview of laptop graphics cards is here.
- The first number is the series. That shows how old it is.
- HDD / SSD / Hard Drive
This is where files are stored, so in general the only thing an average person will worry about is the size. To give you an idea of how much space you'll want...
- You can generally fit ~150 songs in a single GB.
- Movies can take up varying amounts of space, from half a GB to 5 or more.
- Games vary, but modern ones usually require a few GB each.
- Pictures generally take up very little spare, comparatively.
On the other hand instead of a standard hard drive you might consider an SSD. SSDs load things much faster, but are more expensive than normal drives for less space, so they're not always an option. Some people will install the operating system on the SSD and then get a second normal hard drive for almost everything else, so their system is more responsive, but most users will find the costs too much for the benefit (at least until prices drop a lot).
You might also consider RAID, which is using more than one hard drive in tandem to increase speed or create backups/redundancy up-to-the-second (or add fault tolerance, or all of these). RAID has it's downsides though, you can read some more here, and it's rarely an option in laptops.
- PSU / Power Supply
This is really only a concern if you intend to upgrade the computer later, and only applies to desktops.
The Power Supply Unit (PSU) is the brick-shaped thing in the corner of your computer case the power plug plugs into. It's job is converting the AC power from your home electricity plug into DC power that the computer parts use. That's not a clean-cut process, however, and power supplies are only rated to do a certain amount of total power, measured in Watts, like 300W for a normal PC supply, to 500W or even 750W or more for a gaming power supply.
Power supplies can only convert a certain amount of power at once, the more expensive ones can convert more. Desktops not built for gaming usually come with weak power supplies because that's all they need, and going over the rated wattage of your power supply is a very bad idea, as it can cause permanently KILL parts inside your computer, so if you're adding new parts into your computer, make sure your power supply can handle it. If you're going to buy a computer with the intent of upgrading it later be prepared to buy a new PSU for it as well.
If you're going to be building a computer yourself, it may be hard to determine what power supply you need... thankfully there's a couple of calculators out there, ranging from very simple, through detailed listings.
Building
This section only applies if you intend to build your own computer, if you want to buy a pre-built one skip this post.
You can't just slap any old computer parts together... different parts depend on other parts to interact, and certain parts will only fit with other parts. The motherboard is often seen as the "main" part of a computer because it's the part that all the other parts connect to (either directly or indirectly), so what connectors and aspects it has will determine what other parts you can use.
You can't just slap any old computer parts together... different parts depend on other parts to interact, and certain parts will only fit with other parts. The motherboard is often seen as the "main" part of a computer because it's the part that all the other parts connect to (either directly or indirectly), so what connectors and aspects it has will determine what other parts you can use.
- Socket/Slot Type (e.g. LGA 1156)
This needs to match what the CPU uses/supports. This is the connector type that the motherboard and CPU/Processor use.
- Front-Side Bus (FSB) Speed (e.g. 1333MHz)
If listed, the CPU's FSB should be at one of these speeds. Do NOT confuse this with the CPU's own frequency (GHz)!
- RAM/Memory Type (e.g. DDR3 DIMM, DDR2 SO-DIMM)
This is the type of RAM you need.
- Supported RAM/Memory Speeds (such as 1866mhz)
This shows the RAM speed/frequency the motherboard will use. If the RAM is higher than this it'll lower it's speed to match, and if you mis-match RAM speeds the faster sticks will slow down to the speed of the slower ones, so don't waste money.
- Expansion Slots (e.g. PCI-Ex16, PCI)
The number and type of expansion slots the motherboard has determines how many addon cards you can use, and which types. Most commonly PCI-Ex16 (16-lane PCI-Express) is what's used for graphics cards, while PCI is used for things like wireless cards, sound cards, things like that.
- Form-Factor (e.g. ATX)
The physical size/dimensions and (to some extent) layout that the motherboard follows. This will partly determine the size/type of case you need, as cases will match a specific form-factor as well, and you need a larger case to hold bigger and more powerful parts. This will also determine what kind of power supply you get, as they have a part in these standards.
- Onboard Devices (e.g. Integrated Video or Audio)
Many motherboards nowadays have onboard devices, for example most motherboards have a built-in sound card, so you don't need to buy one. Do note that the built-in video of motherboards is often not suitable for gaming, and if you have an addon card for something then the built-in version on the motherboard will simply be disabled.
- Drive Connectors (e.g. ATA, SATA)
This is the type of connection that your harddrives and optical (CD/DVD) drives use, so it needs to match the type they are.
Research
You can't tell the build quality of a machine from just the specs, and many places don't list all the specs or features. In addition some computer lines can have issues stemming from design, while others may have nice features you'd like that aren't explicitly advertised.
For these reasons and more, it's heavily suggested that when you find a machine that you like, you do some research on it. This can often be as simple as searching the internet or youtube for reviews of the machine, and watching a few.
Don't take everything they say as truth, however! People often misdiagnose computer problems, and will happily blame the brand or model for an issue that has nothing to do with the build (and is sometimes the user's fault entirely). If you check out comments on a review you'll often find people pointing out inaccuracies or requesting more info about a certain part of the review, so set some time aside and check out the general response to see how decent a review is.
For these reasons and more, it's heavily suggested that when you find a machine that you like, you do some research on it. This can often be as simple as searching the internet or youtube for reviews of the machine, and watching a few.
Don't take everything they say as truth, however! People often misdiagnose computer problems, and will happily blame the brand or model for an issue that has nothing to do with the build (and is sometimes the user's fault entirely). If you check out comments on a review you'll often find people pointing out inaccuracies or requesting more info about a certain part of the review, so set some time aside and check out the general response to see how decent a review is.
Mac or PC?
A common question people have is if an Apple computer is right for them. Unfortunately most "common knowledge" about Macs is factually incorrect, especially as things have changed over the past few years. Nobody but you can decide whether a Mac is what you should get, so it's important to have a factual understanding of the differences.
If you're still undecided, then go to an Apple store (Apple's site has a store locator) and try out a Mac for a bit, see if you like it. They may use the same hardware as any other PCs, but the case and accessories are made by Apple, so they have their own look and feel, as well as quality level.
- First off, Macs use the same basic hardware as windows computers nowadays. They stopped using those "special" processors years ago. The two categories are pretty much equal as far as processing ability for a home user, and Macs can have dedicated graphics cards for playing modern games.
- An important thing to know is that macs don't come with Windows. They come with "OS X", major version 10 of Apple's Macintosh operating system. It's an operating system, so you'll still be able to get online and draw and stuff, but it's not Windows, so it runs different programs. Programs could possibly have a Mac and PC version (Photoshop, World of Warcraft, Firefox, and others do), but lots don't... and this includes most games! You can't run Ragnarok or Crysis natively on OS X for example, though for many Windows programs there's alternative methods to running them. You can certainly install windows on it (easily through bootcamp), but you'd need to buy a copy of windows for that.
There are plenty of programs for OS X, however, and you may find a few that you'll grow attached to quickly. For any program that doesn't have an OSX version, there's sure to be an OS X program that does the same thing. There is a lot more software for Windows, but nobody needs all 2 billion programs available for Windows. Or even all five thousands programs available for OS X. Most people use only 5-20 programs daily and most of those will work on both Windows and OS X or have similar alternatives available, so as long as you don't intend to game Windows-only games or use a specific brand-name program you'll be fine.
- You may hear that macs are immune to viruses. That is incorrect. There are certainly viruses and trojans for Macs, and you should keep safe browsing habits and security software on your Mac as well. Macs cannot be affected by windows viruses, but Windows programs running on your Mac (with bootcamp or WINE) can be infected by Windows viruses.
- Macs come with way better default software for doing home productions with (which may be your goal), but it's still not professional-level stuff. The million dollar pros that use Macs don't use Garageband, they use software that costs more than the machine itself. Macs have an image of being better for art, because they come with better default software (which appeals to amateurs), and because everybody says they're better for art (so everybody else hears it and repeats it). You can run Photoshop on a Mac or a PC with the exact same results. Please do not buy a Mac and expect it to magically turn you into an artist.
If you're still undecided, then go to an Apple store (Apple's site has a store locator) and try out a Mac for a bit, see if you like it. They may use the same hardware as any other PCs, but the case and accessories are made by Apple, so they have their own look and feel, as well as quality level.
Linux
If you're getting a new computer you may be considering using Linux instead of OS X or Windows. Unlike with OS X, there's no single "version" of Linux, and because of that no short explanation can suffice for the differences you may encounter.
This article attempts to break down the reasons a user may be looking into Linux and dispels common myths, but at the end of the day the operating system you use is up to you and your needs.
Distrowatch keeps track of the top Linux distributions in use, it's a good place to check what's out there, with screenshots as well.
If you're considering running Linux on your new machine, feel free to ask about it, and we'll try to help you come to a decision based on your own personal needs and wants.
This article attempts to break down the reasons a user may be looking into Linux and dispels common myths, but at the end of the day the operating system you use is up to you and your needs.
Distrowatch keeps track of the top Linux distributions in use, it's a good place to check what's out there, with screenshots as well.
If you're considering running Linux on your new machine, feel free to ask about it, and we'll try to help you come to a decision based on your own personal needs and wants.
Changelog
12/2/2012 - Added notes on portability to the needs section, trimmed up the GPU section a hell of a lot.
11/14/2012 - Created.
11/14/2012 - Created.
