Buying A Computer

1
Buying A Computer

• Information you need to know when purchasing a
  computer.

2
We are going to talk about

• Setting how much money you want to spend...
• Research...
• Learn about Computer Technology...
• What to shop for...

3
Setting A Cost

• Choose how much money you think you should spend
  on a computer.
• Realize that you may spend more or less than that
  amount.
• Now that the cost is set lets do research.

4
Research

• If you dont know much about computer hardware
  its a good idea to find someone that does.
• You could take a class.
• You will find lots of information on the
  Internet. See handout for web sites.
• Cost Most everyone charges a different price
  for each computer item.

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Computer Technology

• Everyone refers to computer technology as
  computer hardware.
• The main components of a computer are
• Chassis, Motherboard, Central Processor Unit
  (CPU), Memory, Drives, Video Card, Keyboard,
  Mouse, and Monitor.
• These are the minimum required components of a
  computer.

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Computer Chassis

• The computer chassis, normally called the case,
  holds the motherboard, memory, CPU, expansion
  cards, and drives.

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Motherboards

• A motherboard is where all the computer
  components plug into.

The motherboard is placed inside a computer case
first before adding any components. This is a
Slot 1 ATX motherboard.
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The features to a motherboard...
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Central Processing Unit

• The Central Processing Unit or CPU is what does
  all the thinking in the computer.
• Companies that make the most purchased processors
  are Intel and AMD.
• The slowest processor to consider would be an
  Intel Celeron 400Mhz and AMD K6-2 400Mhz with
  speeds up to an Intel Pentium III 866Mhz and AMD
  Athlon 1.1Ghz.

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Available Processors

• INTEL
• Pentium (slowest)
• 50-266Mhz
• 66Mhz Bus
• Pentium II
• 233-450Mhz
• 100Mhz Bus
• Celeron
• 366-533Mhz
• 66Mhz Bus
• Pentium III (fastest)
• 450-866Mhz
• 100-133Mhz Bus

• AMD
• K6-2 (slowest)
• 300-550Mhz
• 66-100Mhz Bus
• K6-3
• 400-450Mhz
• 100Mhz Bus
• Athlon (fastest)
• 500-1.1Ghz
• 200Mhz Bus

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Memory Chips

• Memory can be purchased in sizes ranging from 32
  to 256 Megabyte chips.
• Right now memory is the cheapest it has been in
  about a year.
• Memory comes in what is called DIMMs.

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Hard Drives

• Hard Drives Are drives with the ability to
  store more information than any other type of
  drive.
• These drives arent removable like floppy disks.
• Hard Drives come in a variety of choiceswhich
  are...

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• IDE or SCSI
• IDE is what most computers found today use
  because it is inexpensive.
• SCSI is faster but much more expensive.
• Sizes
• 3.5 inch drives are the most common size found.
• 5.25 inch drives are available.
• Popular brands are Maxtor, Western Digital,
  Fujitsu, and Seagate.

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Floppy Drives

• Drives that read the small 3.5 inch disks.
• The floppy drive is slowly being replaced by the
  Iomega Zip Drives and by the LS-120 Floppy Drive.
  However, the LS-120 has had little success in
  the market.

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Iomega Zip Drives

• About the same size as standard 3.5 inch disks.
• 100 MB Zip Disks hold the equivalent of 70
  standard floppy disks.
• 250 MB Zip Disks hold the equivalent of 173
  floppy drives.
• Zip drives operate at a much
  faster speed than the 3.5
  inch floppy drive.

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CD-ROM Drives

• CD-ROM drives are measured by the number of
  kilobytes per second and by the speed at which is
  spins the disks.
• These drives are designated with the spin speed.
  Such as a Toshiba 32X CD-ROM drive.
• How do you determine if a CD-ROM drive is a good
  one?

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What makes aCD-ROM drive good?

• Look on the back of the box for its
  specifications.
• The only way to know if a drive is good is to
  choose the one with the highest transfer rate.
• The transfer rate is measured in kilobytes per
  second.

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CD-RW Drives

• CD-RW stands for compact disk - rewritable.
• The great thing about CD-RW drives is the fact
  that you can make your own music CDs and back up
  large amounts of data.
• One CD can hold the same amount of data that 451
  floppy disks hold.
• And you can fit more than just 12 or 13 songs on
  them.

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What to look for ina CD-RW drive?

• Again, check the kilobytes per second transfer
  rate for reading and writing data. The higher
  the better.
• The fastest readily available drive is 12x write,
  4x Re-Write, and 32x Read.
• The best CD-RW
  is by Plextor.

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DVD Drives

• Choose a DVD-ROM drive with the highest transfer
  rate for DVD-ROM data and for CD-ROM data. For
  example
• Maximum transfer rate of 10.8MB/second (8X) for
  DVD-ROM data and 6,000KB/second (40X) for CD-ROM
  data.
• Something else to
  consider as well is
  what kind of disks
  can it read...

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• You want to make sure that your DVD-ROM drive is
  compatible with any disk out their and hopefully
  in the future too. For example the Creative Lab
  PC-DVD 8X Drive has these specifications
• Supports DVD-ROM, DVD-R, CD-Audio, CD-I, CD
  Extra, CD-ROM, CD-ROM/XA, Photo CD, CD-R, CD-RW,
  Video CD, DVD-Video, and Digital Audio Extraction
  
• Where to view the drive online
• http//www.americas.creative.com/pc-dvd/encore-8x/

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Video Card

• Think of a video card as the
  same thing as the tuner in
  your TV set.
• All it does is puts a picture
  up on the monitor.
• Video cards range from standard 2D card for word
  processing to 2D-3D cards for word processing and
  for playing games.

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Keyboard

• Everyone knows what a keyboard is.
• There are different styles of keyboards
• Standard keyboard with 102 keys, like the one in
  front of you.
• Ergonomic keyboards are bent
  down the middle of the keyboard
  which makes your wrists rest in
  the proper place.

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Mouse

• Mice come in many different forms
• Different button configurations
• One, two, and three buttons, and sometimes more.
• Scroll Wheel for scrolling around a window
  easier.
• And recently they dont have
  the ball anymore. They incorporate
  a laser.

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Monitor

• The monitor is a TV, but with out the tuner.
• Monitors can show a much MUCH finer picture than
  any TV.
• CRTs are much cheaper than Flat Panel Monitors by
  at least ½.

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Monitor Types

• Monitors range in types
• CRT and Flat Panel
• CRT is like the monitors in front of you.
• Flat Panel monitors are laptop screens made for
  desktop computers.
• Common Sizes
• 15, 17, 19, and 21inches.
• Two advantages to Flat Panel Monitors.
• First, these screens are much MUCH better for
  your eyes. Less glare makes it easier to read
  and less light intensity comes from these
  screens.
• Second, they are about a quarter as deep as CRT
  monitors.

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Now that you know something about hardwarelets
talk about what you need.
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What specifications should I get?

• It depends on what you want to do with it
• Play games?
• Browse the Internet?
• Word Processes?
• Design Software?
• Or all of thee above?

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Specifications You Should Get

• Since computer technology grows fast it is best
  to buy as much technology as you can. Meaning
  get the fastest and the most computer you can
  afford.
• Or, you could just buy what you need or even a
  little more than you need.
• Lets start with the computer gaming
  specifications.

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Gaming!

• If your someone that loves games then you will
  want to buy as much computer technology as you
  can.
• Purchase the fastest CPU, a large amount of
  memory, lots of hard drive space, and the best
  video card you
  can afford.

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• Processor for Gaming
• If your low on cash choose either an Intel
  Celeron at a speed of at least 500Mhz or faster
  or an AMD K6-2 500Mhz or faster.
• Is Intel or AMD better? Between these two the
  AMD is still better because the K6-2 processor
  can have a bus speed of up to 100Mhz where the
  Celeron is as high as 66Mhz. The faster the
  better.
• Price AMD K6-2 500Mhz - 45 and the Intel
  Celeron 500Mhz sells for about 82. AMD is half
  the price!
• If you can afford it get an AMD Athlon 500Mhz or
  faster. If your prefer Intel then choose the
  Pentium III 600Mhz or faster.
• Why choose the AMD Athlon?
• Faster Bus Speed Bus speed on the Athlon is up
  to 200Mhz where the Pentium III is as high as
  133Mhz. This means BETTER game play.
• Price The AMD Athlon 600Mhz CPU is only 170
  compared to Intels Pentium III at 270. Save a
  hundred dollars and get a much faster CPU. And
  in turn, it will be a longer period of time
  before you have to upgrade.

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• Processors Continued
• When you go out to shop for computers you will
  hear some people says that AMD isnt a good
  processor and vice versa about the Intel line of
  processors.
• BOTH are very good processors.
• Choose the one that gives you the most Megahertz
  per dollar.

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• Memory for Gaming
• The more memory the better.
• I recommend at least 128 Megabytes (MB) of memory
  if not 256 to keep up with the game industry.
• When shopping for this most places call it RAM or
  DIMM chips.
• Memory comes in different speeds
• 100Mhz and 133Mhz (currently)
• 100Mhz are called PC100 DIMMs
• 133Mhz are called PC133 DIMMs
• Price
• 64 MB 60 (as of March 2000 www.pricewatch.com)
• 128 MB 100 (as of March 2000 www.pricewatch.com)
• 256 MB 200 (as of March 2000 www.pricewatch.com)

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• Hard Drives for Gaming
• It is a good idea to have two hard drives.
• First, it improves performance for Windows when
  everything isnt installed on the same drive with
  Windows.
• Second, you dont loose your saved games.
• If you decide to stick with one hard drive get at
  least 20 Gigabyte hard drive. Games take up a
  lot of space.
• If you decide to go with two hard drives get one
  in the 8 to 10 Gigabyte range for the main hard
  drive and 10 to 20 Gigabyte hard drive for games.
• The main drive is usually where Windows and other
  applications like your word processor are
  installed.
• The second hard drive you can just install games
  and other miscellaneous files for the games such
  as patches or updates.

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• Video Card for Gaming
• Video Cards are also called graphic cards. These
  cards work in a 2D and 3D mode.
• They also have memory.
• They can range from 4 to 32 MB of memory.
• Right now there are two rival companies
• 3Dfx and NVidia
• 3Dfx puts out the Voodoo Series of video cards
• Voodoo 3000 or 3500
• Both are great cards but the 3500 also has a TV
  tuner to watch TV.
• This brand has the BEST compatibility with most
  programs.
• Comes with 16 MB of memory.
• NVidia puts out the TNT-2 video card
• TNT-2
• Great card too but has less compatibility with
  programs than the Voodoo series cards.
• However, with 32 MB of memory the TNT-2 can
  display more colors than the Voodoo cards. The
  more color the smoother the transition from like
  colors. But it is hard to tell the difference
  while playing the games.

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Other uses for the Gaming Specification...

• Software Development (large and small scale)
• Can easily be used for Home Use
• Server for home and/or Internet use.
• Web Development

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Home Use Specifications...

• What I mean by Home Use is running applications
  that you learn in this class such as Word and
  Excel. You may even play games but not games
  that require special hardware like we talked
  about before.
• This kind of computer isnt going to be nearly as
  expensive as a gaming computer. You dont have
  to buy the fastest processors or the best video
  cards out there.

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• Processor for Home Use
• If your low on cash choose either an Intel
  Celeron at a speed of at least 400Mhz or faster
  or an AMD K6-2 400Mhz or faster.
• Is Intel or AMD better? Between these two the
  AMD is still better because the K6-2 processor
  can have a bus speed of up to 100Mhz where the
  Celeron is as high as 66Mhz. The faster the
  better.
• Price AMD K6-2 500Mhz - 45 and the Intel
  Celeron 500Mhz sells for about 82. AMD is half
  the price!
• If you can afford it get an AMD Athlon 500Mhz or
  faster. If your prefer Intel then choose the
  Pentium III 600Mhz or faster.
• Why choose the AMD Athlon?
• Faster Bus Speed Bus speed on the Athlon is up
  to 200Mhz where the Pentium III is as high as
  133Mhz. This means it will be a longer time
  before you have to upgrade.
• Price The AMD Athlon 600Mhz CPU is only 170
  compared to Intels Pentium III at 270. Save a
  hundred dollars and get a much faster CPU. And
  in turn, it will be a longer period of time
  before you have to upgrade.

39

• Processors Continued
• When you go out to shop for computers you will
  hear some people says that AMD isnt a good
  processor and vice versa about the Intel line of
  processors.
• BOTH are very good processors.
• Choose the one that gives you the most Megahertz
  per dollar.

40

• Memory for Home Use
• The more memory the better.
• I recommend at least 64 Megabytes (MB) of memory
  if not 128.
• When shopping for this most places call it RAM or
  DIMM chips.
• Memory comes in different speeds
• 100Mhz and 133Mhz (currently)
• 100Mhz are called PC100 DIMMs
• 133Mhz are called PC133 DIMMs
• Price
• 64 MB 60 (as of March 2000 www.pricewatch.com)
• 128 MB 100 (as of March 2000 www.pricewatch.com)
• 256 MB 200 (as of March 2000 www.pricewatch.com)

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• Hard Drives for Home Use
• All you should need is a single hard drive but a
  large one. The minimum I recommend is 10
  Gigabyte (GB) but a good size to get is 20 GB.
• A 20 GB hard drive will last you longer because
  of the larger storage capacity. More room to add
  software.
• You wont have to purchase a second hard drive as
  soon as you would if you only purchase the 10 GB
  hard drive.
• Keep in mind that a 10 GB may be more than enough
  for some and not enough for others.

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• Video Card for Home Use
• They have memory that ranges from 2 to 32 MB.
• Some good brands are ATI, STB/3Dfx, Matrox, and
  Diamond.
• The great thing about ATI is that some of their
  video cards have built in TV tuners. Just attach
  a coax or TV antenna and watch TV right on your
  computer. You can even record movies or take
  pictures. For instance, hook up a video camera
  and take pictures of what ever you want.
• And one great thing about one of Matroxs video
  cards is its supports two monitors. Using two
  monitors at home can increase productivity
  because you can view twice the amount of
  information. However, this increases the cost of
  your computer system because you would have to
  purchase a second monitor.
• ATI and Matrox are know for their 2D video cards
  because of the great picture quality you get for
  Home Use applications.
• I recommend getting a video card with at least 8
  MB of ram.

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Why get 8 MB of ram?

• You should get at least 8 MB of ram on your video
  card because the more memory means you can have
  higher resolutions and high color displayed on
  the monitor. However, the monitor you purchase
  must be able to handle the higher resolution and
  color displayed from the video card.
• For example...

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640 x 480
800 x 600
The bigger the resolution the smaller everything
gets on the screen but the more you can fit on
the screen.
1024 x 768
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Other uses for the Home Use specification...

• Limited Gaming
• Internet Browsing
• Developing Software (small scale programs)
• Web Developing
• Server for a home.

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This Concludes the Presentation.

• Any Questions?