Buying A Computer

People always seem to ask me advice about buying computers all the time. I just want to help all of you if needed in choosing your future purchase.

1. Have a budget. Its always good to know what you can afford. It also will help determine what you can get with your money. Its just a guideline, you might end up getting a computer that is much less or slightly more expensive.

2. Ask yourself what you plan on using the computer for. If you are just a casual user who uses your computer for the internet, watches youtube, creating word of excel documents, watching a movie - these tasks are very basic and any computer can handle these task. Or are you a gamer and playing the latest games?

3. Which stores to buy computers from? Well the most convenient places are big box stores, they maybe a bit more expensive but have a great return policy (please refer to the store), but the computers aren't that customizable. If you want a bit more competitive pricing and want a bit of customization, I recommend a smaller store such as canadacomputers and infonec (customer service isn't very great because people go into these stores knowing what they want instead of shopping around)

Now that you have answer these 3 questions, now we can get into the specs you see on flyers or online.

1. CPU - the brains of the computer and 2 main brands are intel and amd. At the time of writing this post, Intel has been the dominant player for the last couple of years and produced better products. AMD has a cheaper price point and have very similar performance. For casual users, can't go wrong with either. There are many grades of CPU just like cars, and you can tell from prices which ones are entry level and which ones are top of the line. If you are on a tight budget and a casual user, you can just get the cheapest computer and it will complete all normal tasks.

2. RAM - The more the better. Today the bare minimum is 4 GB of RAM.

3. Hard Disk space - 1 TB is the entry level requirement. This is where everything is stored, such as windows, your mp3s, your movies, your documents. Again, the larger the better

4. Video cards - well there are two kinds that comes with computers - dedicated and non dedicated. Whats the difference? for causual users, it is sufficient to use a dedicated video card. For more power users and programs such as games, require a non dedicated video card. It is like its own indepedant brain that processes what you see on the screen instead of sharing the processing power using the CPU to process video.

I would concluded these are the 4 most things to consider, but in the end, its what you can afford. You get what you pay for even without not knowing too much about computers. And just don't let the sales upsell you on any backup package or performance enhancement packages. And there are plenty of free software out there you can download for free such as anti virus and spyware. A little bit of reading and research can save you hundreds of dollars.

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