Inside a PC
Dec 21st, 2007 by Admin
Motherboard: The motherboard is truly the most essential part of the computer, and the most difficult to replace, with basically everything slotting into the motherboard. There are two main types of motherboards, corresponding to the two main types of processors- AMD and Intel based boards. Obviously, the type of processor you buy and the kind of motherboard has to correspond, so make sure that is the case. In addition, make sure you have the correct socket type for the processor(number of pins), which will be designated with a notation like LGA or AM2.
What ram you can use is also somewhat dependent on the motherboard type, with ram coming in three main flavors – DDR (184 pin), DDR2 (240 pin), and DDR3. Again, be sure that the type of ram you buy is compatible with your motherboard.
Video cards also fit into the motherboard, and come in two varieties – AGP and PCI-Express. Virtually all motherboard you buy today will only have PCI-express slots, but if you have an older AGP video card that you want to put into your new computer, then an AGP board may still be what you want to buy. If you think you might be looking to upgrade your computer in the future, you may want to look into buying a SLI or Crossfire enabled motherboard, which allows you to harness the power of two video cards simultaneously.
Motherboards generally run from $40-$250 dollars depending on how much you want in terms of expansion slots, and the brand of the motherboard. Major motherboard brands are Gigabyte, Asus, and Intel.
RAM(memory): RAM is where your computer puts files that it’s currently using, while the harddrive is where your computer stores saved and currently unused applications. If you’re running a game, as much as possible of the game will be loaded into RAM. Usually, upgrading the RAM is the cheapest way to get a bit more out of your computer. As mentioned above, RAM comes in three varieties, 184 pin DDR, 240 pin DDR2, and 240 pin DDR3. DDR2 is by far the most popular variety currently, and runs about ~20-40dollars a gigabyte. DDR1 is the previous generation, and actually sells for quite a bit more – 40 or 50 dollars a gig. DDR3 is still a very new standard, and probably won’t be mainstream for at least another couple years, and sells for about 150 dollars a gigabyte.
Other than speed and type, the other main factor when looking at ram is the speed, which usually runs somewhere between 266 to 1066mhz. The faster the speed, the faster your computer can add and remove programs from the RAM. However, your motherboard also has a maximum speed it can support, so there’s no use in buying ram that’s faster than your motherboards limit.
Major brands of RAM are G-Skill, Corsair, Patriot, A-data, Kingston, Crucial, PQI, and Wintec. In general, Patriot and Kingston are seen as the highest quality ram, while G-Skill, A-data, PQI and Wintec are budget memory. Corsair is a fairly cheap midrange brand, and is what I use for most of the computers I build.
If you’re running Windows Vista, you need at least 1 GB of RAM, though 2 GB is preferred, while Windows XP can run fairly well on 512 MB, though 2 GB is still a bonus for gaming.
Processor(CPU): The processor is one of the key parts to computers performance, making virtually all of the calculation required to run the computer. There are really only two manufacturers for desktop processors: AMD and Intel. Intel is the larger of the two companies, with approximately 60-70% market share, while AMD is the newer underdog. Both are relatively equal for midrange chips, though Intel is slightly ahead on the very high end, having produced the only Quad Core chips currently on the market, while AMD is set to release theirs first quarter 2008. AMD chips only work with AMD compatible boards, and Intel chips only work with Intel boards.
Both manufacturers produce single and dual core processors, with single core chips having one processor, and dual core having what is essentially two processors on a single chip. These dual core chips make true multitasking much easier and come standard on most computers these days.
Another thing to keep in mind when buying a processor is whether or not it comes with a heatsink. OEM processors are usually cheaper, but a lot of times it might be more expensive when you factor in the cost of a separate heatsink or fan.
If you’re computer is just going to be used for simple word processing and/or surfing the web, you’re honestly probably better off just buying the cheapest processor you can find, an AMD 3000+ or something of that nature. It’ll be more than enough for basic tasks, and only run you about 30dollars. If you’re a gamer, or you do any sort of heavy video editing, compiling, or any other processor intensive tasks, you’re probably want to get the fastest processor you can afford.
Video Card: While in the past video cards were really only necessary for gamers and graphics editors, these days unless your needs don’t extend beyond basic word processing and web surfing and you don’t want to run Vista, then a video card is a must. To run the Aero skin on Windows Vista, your computer must have a video card with at least 32MB of dedicated video memory.
Most motherboards come with an onboard video card, however those share memory with the general computer, which is significantly slower than using dedicated memory as most real video cards do. There are two main formats video cards, AGP and PCI-express (PCI-E.) Most modern day computers come with PCI express slot(s), but some still have legacy support for the older AGP format. Some higher end motherboards have two PCI-express slots, which is designed for Crossfire or SLI technology. This allows you to put one video card in one slot and an identical one in the other, and the computer will harness both in order to provide almost double the performance. This makes it cheaper to upgrade, because you can buy a high end video card and then later, when you wish to upgrade simply add another video card of the same model, which will now be significantly cheaper.
There are two main manufactures of video cards, ATI (owned by AMD) and Nvidia, who produces roughly comparable video cards. Video cards in general come with somewhere between 64MB and 768 MB of dedicated video ram. While more ram is generally better, a high end model with 256MB of video ram may perform better than a lower end model with 512MB of ram. There’s no easy way of explaining how to tell which video card is superior, so your best bet is usually to Google the names of the video cards for benchmarks. Video cards range in price from $40 dollars to upwards of $500.
