Know Yourself
Jun 11 '00
No advice is better for the person buying their first computer. You need to know yourself, and more importantly, your needs before you buy a machine. If you don't take the time to analyze your needs, and then get the right size machine, you may end up buying too much machine for your needs, or even worse, not enough power for your needs. Therefore, before you even look at adds, determine what kind of user you are.
Give me a break. I am a first time user, how am I supposed to do that when I buy my first machine?
Fortunately there are general classes of users. By seeing a description of the general uses, you will know what class you fit in. I will also make appropriate machine recommendations for you based on the class of user you are.
Low end needs You are using a computer for the first time. You may bring some spread sheets and word processing documents home from the office, you occassionally write letters, and want to surf the web. Almost any machine over 450MHz or so will meet your needs, but the best bang for the buck comes from the Intel Celeron II's. Get a 533a Celeron and you will be happy. Also, look for original Athlon prices to fall now that Thunderbird has been released. 10GB or so of disk will be sufficient, 128MB of RAM, and an older video card such as the TNT2 or Voodoo 3 2000 are good choice. Looks at choices like the Gateway Astro PC or if you don't need Windows compatibility, the iMac.
Mid Range You are buying your first computer, but aside from the above uses, you want to play computer games, or maybe do some low end database work. Here, you are talking an Intel Pentium III around 600 MHz or so, and possibly overclocked. A good alternative would be an Athlon 600 or so. However, be prepared to work a little harder to overclock an Athlon. You will probably want to get a Geforce or a Geforce 2 video card for this machine, a 7200 RPM hard drive, and a minimum of 128MB of RAM. (See my building a computer for gamers review ) Either have a local computer shop build it, or build it yourself.
High End You are a programmer, engineer, or hard core gamer. You need the most powerful system you can afford. Think Pentium III 700 over clocked to 900+ MHz, or Athlon 850. 256MB of RAM. IDE RAID becomes a way to double the throughput of your hard drives, or possibly go with SCSI. ( See my building a computer for over $2000 review ). Build it youself.
Summary Know your needs before you even look at a computer. Doing so can save you a lot of money and grief in the long run. Once you have accessed what type of user you are, investigate further. Several of my reviews will give you the basic education you need to make an informed decision.
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Member: Steve Larrison
Location: Scottsdale, Az. USA
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Beer, the answer to, and the cause of all life's problems.
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