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homeowner
Citizen
Username: Nancys60
Post Number: 61
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 3, 2006 - 12:38 pm: | 
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Since advice on the board is not to buy up, cause up will be so much cheaper shortly, what are the specs I should look for:
-Chip--brand, capacity
-RAM
-MB
Etc.
I'm looking desktop with flat screen, thinking Dell at this point |
wnb
Citizen
Username: Wnb
Post Number: 333
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Friday, March 3, 2006 - 1:15 pm: |
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At work we have gone with Dells for all corporate laptops and desktops. We used to use IBM. The difference is tangible. As a result of my experience I would never spend my own hard owned money on a Dell, I find them to be cheaply constructed.
The old IBMs were real workhorses and much beloved. Sadly, IBM sold off their PC business to some Chinese company. No idea what direction quality has gone on the new units as a result.
Personally just as I will never again buy a new vehicle, I will probably also never buy a brand new computer. But that's just me.
I would think if I were in your shoes I'd find a good used pre-China IBM machine that has a minimum 1GHz processor, probably stick with a Pentium as I've never been too sure of those Celerons. I would not go less than 1GB of RAM. Whatever the box could take in terms of memory, I would max it out. Only you can determine the HD space you need. Suffice to say whatever capacity you buy, you will find a use for. BUT 9 times out of 10 you should take whatever that capacity is and figure you need to buy TWO of them. Make one an external drive at least the same capacity, maybe even double. Get a copy of Norton Ghost and back up the entire machine quarterly if not monthly. Critical files copy over manually on a daily or weekly basis.
Either that or I'd try to find a good used Mac to similar specs.
I always thought the HP/Compaqs were kind of flaky in that they have specialized versions of Windows that run on their hardware or something -- maybe they're not doing this any more, but back when I had a Compaq that was always kind of a pain.
My impression of Gateways has also been cheaply constructed, but it is not based on a wide experience with them.
There's a multitude of others, I personally wouldn't consider. To me I'd either buy an IBM or a Mac to the above specs.
Finally, in buying the used computer, I would probably go ahead and purchase a new replacement internal HD. So I would look to get a bargain on a used machine that had no HD or a small one, as I'd chuck that or use it for some non-critical secondary purpose (NOT the backups I mentioned!).
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 12727
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 3, 2006 - 1:48 pm: |
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I'm reading lots of great things about AMD. You basically get more for less.
Get at between 512 and 1024 MB of RAM.
Seriously consider a Mac. I believe you get your money's worth. There's the mac mini, which is good if you already have a monitor, and the imac, which is an all-in-one model. I have a fairly recent imac.
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Case
Citizen
Username: Case
Post Number: 1205
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Friday, March 3, 2006 - 1:52 pm: |
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Dell's E510 isn't a bad near-term computer. If you'd like to stretch the investment out past the Vista rollout, a low-end XPS will do nicely. |
TarPit Coder
Citizen
Username: Tarpitcoder
Post Number: 60
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 3, 2006 - 2:30 pm: |
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I've always found that multiprocessors (even low end) are great in the office if your doing serious stuff.
The good news is you can get an Athlon 64 X2 dualcore for a good price. With the two processors you can load up one processor flat out doing huge calculations and the system is still responsive for doing stuff like responding to emails, surfing, other typical stuff.
You get a similar effect with a CPU with HT (Hyperthreading technology) on the Pentium 4. However for office work you really should try for an Athlon 64 as it is a much better all-round performer. If it was a laptop the Intel Pentium M is a good bet.
If you want reliabilty stay away from Pentium 4's as all of them except the very latest 65 nanometer chips get *really* hot and heat is bad.
The new Macs with Core Duo CPU's offer very respectable performance for the cost and if needed apps are available for them I would seriously consider them if possible.
So in Short:
PC:
Athlon 64 X2 if possible
Intel Core Duo or Pentium M
Athlon 64
Pentium 4 with HT (But will get really hot and possibly be quite noisy).
Dual-Core P4 - Ever seen The China Syndrome?
Mac:
Anything with the Intel core-duo.
--Tarp
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