Buying/Building your own PC.

Ryan Allen

Price

$500 or less $1000-$2000 $2000+

Mobility Desktop

Ability to expand. Affordable

Laptop Mobile More Costly Small with less

space taken.

Name Brand Dell

America’s Computer Affordable

HP/Compaq Sony Vaio Toshiba Apple Alienware Falcon eMachines

Operating Systems

Linux Microsoft Windows Apple Leopard

Processors Intel

Xeon Centrino Core 2 Extreme Core 2 Duo

AMD Athlon 64 Athlon 64 X2 Sempron

Monitor

17”+ LCD Widescreen Flat Panel Widescreen Digital Flat Panel Ultrasharp Widescreen Digital Flat Planel

Memory

Help improve multi-tasking, speed up gaming, and take your PC’s performance even higher with increased RAM. 256 MB - 4GB Single or Dual Channel DDR or SD RAM 667MHz – 4DIMMs

Hard Drive Capacity

More space means more room for your memories – keep your pictures, music, videos, and more on one hard drive. 60GB’s-5TB’s SATA or IDE High RPM Also maybe a Recovery Disk

Optical Drives

CD-ROM Read only Memory

DVD-ROM Read only CD’s and DVD’s

DVD+/-RW Drive Rewritable

Suggested to buy two optical drives.

Video Card

Higher Performace wideo cards can speed up your whole PC and make viewing pictures, videos and games more enjoyable. NVIDIA or ATI PCI Express (fast) AGP (Acceptable) SLI (Gamer Status)

Sound Card

Motherboard based is acceptable. Usually with a high powered sound

card it is recommended you have a powerful speakers.

Printers Inkjet

More common Cartridges are less expensive Cartridge change more often

Laser More Expense especially the color ones. More Business oriented Faster prints Cartridges need changing less.

Mice and Keyboards

Mouse Optical or Laser Wireless or Wired

Keyboard Wireless or Wired Gamer Keys Fast Keys Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard