The ABCs of buying PCs
Numerous specs and standards can confuse PC purchasers
By Doug Harper -- Industrial Distribution, 8/1/1998
As distributors place more and more emphasis on technology, the good news is that a virtual torrent of "new and improved" computers is arriving in the marketplace almost daily. The bad news is that this plethora of goodies presents a bewildering array of choices, technical standards and specifications that are sometimes confusing to even the most computer literate distributor.In an effort to penetrate some of the "technobabble" that accompanies much of the sales hype, the following may be helpful:
Fishing for chips. Since Intel started the "Chip Of The Month Club" by introducing new microprocessors virtually every few months, it is difficult to say precisely what the "best" combination of price and performance is in a microchip. The quandary is further compounded by the Intel clones produced by Cyrix and AMD. But for most software applications in the foreseeable future, a microprocessor that operates at speeds upward of 200 MHz and is MMX compatible should suffice.
Ramming into the future. A corollary of "You can't be too rich or too thin" is that your computer can't have too much random access memory (RAM). Adding RAM to your computer is still the least expensive way of optimizing the performances of your software applications. And now that RAM costs only a few dollars per megabyte, 32 megabytes is considered minimal, while 64 megabytes is better, although 128 megs is even better, while 256 megabytes...you get the idea.
Hard drives are easy. Veteran microcomputer users like to impress their friends by telling them how a 100 megabyte hard drive at one time cost $1,000, or $10 a megabyte. Today the price of hard drives has fallen to less than half a cent per megabyte. As a result, any computer purchased should have a hard drive with a capacity of at least three to five gigabytes.
Monitoring the situation. Although monitor manufacturers are now required to advertise only the "viewable" portion of a cathode ray tube display, some salespeople still claim that a 17-inch monitor displays a diagonal 17-inch picture. In truth, most 17-inch monitors have a viewable area of slightly more than 15 inches, while the viewable portion of a 15-inch monitor can be as little as half-an-inch larger than a 13-inch monitor, despite costing at least $100 more.
Another area of confusion is the "dot pitch" of monitors. The dot pitch -- the width of the dot that comprises a pixel -- is the most important determinant of the sharpness of the screen image. A dot pitch of more than .28 is considered unacceptable for most applications. In this case, the lower the number the better.
Modems on the march. While many computers are still being sold with 33.6K baud modems, 56K baud modems have become the de facto standard, at least for the next several nanoseconds until an even faster modem is developed. If you are purchasing a laptop with an internal modem, it's particularly important to insist that it contain a 56K modem that complies with or is software upgradeable to the new V.90 standard.
Spinning CDs. While there are still a few CD-ROM drives around that operate at 10-12X speed, the newest models are capable of 32X and higher. A CD-ROM drive of at least 20X is considered the bare minimum today. In addition, digital video disk (DVD) players are becoming quite common and are a desirable alternative to CD-ROM if offered as an option.
Besides being compatible with CD-ROM disks, a DVD disk has a capacity of nearly five gigabytes of data per side (compared to 600 megabytes for a CD) and is capable of playing DVD movies which are becoming more plentiful.
Purchasing notebook computers requires a special caveat. Upgrading notebook system components, while becoming slightly easier, is still vastly more difficult and expensive than upgrading desktops. Consequently, it makes sense to purchase a notebook with the largest hard drive, the fastest CD-ROM, and the largest amount of RAM you can afford. Economizing on a laptop's components today will require you to spend a lot more tomorrow, should you decide to upgrade it.
You don't have to spend anything to send your comments to: dharper@interport.net.
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