What To Look For When Buying Your First Computer
Sunday, February 5, 2012, 2:00 AM | 1 Comment
When you go into an electronic store where computers are sold, you hear a lot of terminology about components that go inside the computer. The important thing is “what are you going to use it for?” If your primary goal is to use it for playing games, you ought to buy a computer that has lots of memory, disk storage, high speed processor and more.
Generally, anything you want to buy for the game computer must contain ultra high memory, disk space, processor and high speed Internet access in case you want to play games with other folks in the world. One of the best in gaming computers is one known as Alienware.
Terminology
To understand today’s terminology, we should go back to how it all started. A couple of years ago, I posted articles titled
When you click on the above link, you would find basic definition of lots of terms that are used today.
When you go inside a computer store, the salesperson will bombard you with some technical jargon that sounds mambo jumbo to a newbie. Get familiarized with this mambo jumbo so you can make better decision to buy the computer you want or rather you need.
The salesperson will try to sell you one of the highest end of computers stocked in store regardless whether you need the most powerful computer or not.
Buy what you need
However, you should buy what you need on the basis of four things:
software, speed, system memory, and hard disk.
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Software Requirements
Before you make up your mind, you ought to know and understand what applications you would be running on the computer. There are two types of computers with two different types of software (Operating System) in the market: Apple and Windows operated computers.
Apple, Inc. provides both hardware and software whereas in the Windows world, hardware and software come from different vendors. Windows software is developed by MicroSoft.
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Processor Speed
The brain of the computer is known as Central Processor Unit (CPU), processor for short. Any new computer that you may buy has enough processor speed for all your needs.
Generally, when you compare two computers, the one with more speed carries more price. You may or may not need the extra speed.
If you don’t, you will save some money by buying the one with lesser speed. It will still be more than adequate for what you use it for.
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Temp Memory aka System Memory
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Permanent Memory aka Hard Disk
The hard disk drive is used as storage for Operating System software and other files on your computer. It basically uses electromagnetic technology, so when you turn off the computer, the information stays on it. Your files are safe. They don’t get erased.
The more space you have on the hard disk, the more content it will be able to contain. The hard disk on some desktops and laptops come with one Tera Bytes. That’s 1,000 times one Giga Bytes. You can store many of your favorite movies and TV shows quite easily on it.
Memory is of two kinds: Temporary and permanent. Temporary memory is located on the motherboard with the Central Processor Unit (CPU – the brain of the computer).
Information (program and data) is loaded from the hard disk (permanent memory) into the temp memory and instructions are executed by the CPU which stops working when power is turned off and so does the temp memory.
When the power is turned on, info is loaded into temp memory and CPU starts executed instructions what the application was developed for.
Most desktop PCs and notebook computers will have at least a few gigabytes (GB) of RAM installed. Adding memory may help boost your computer’s performance. With more system memory, the CPU does not have to go back and forth to the hard disk frequently.
In a Nutshell
Some experts say the amount of memory on the motherboard is more important than the speed of the processor which should come as 2GHz or more. The more memory, the better performance of the computer.
One Response to “What To Look For When Buying Your First Computer”
By to get six pack abs on Feb 5, 2012, 12:17 pm | Reply
Hi There Doablefinance,
Thanks for that, It’s happened to all of us, I’m sure. You are surfing the net and maybe listening to music when all of a sudden…you click the close button on the upper right corner and it freezes. Then you don’t know if you should wait until it’s done or bash the monitor with the keyboard. Eventually, you get fed up and hit “ctrl+alt+delete” only to get an error. Okay! That’s it! I’m turning it off!
I look forward to your next post
Madge Ellison