For some people, a computer that is pre built isn’t the answer to what they want or need. A graphic designer will require something that takes into account computer parts that are heavily geared toward graphic design, such as a more full featured graphics card and a vast amount of RAM, while the games tester may want something that will offer a powerful 3 dimensional card and a far more powerful audio setup.

This means that using a service such as the popular companies to build your computer may cost a great deal more for your PC. Building your own computer keeps your costs down and improves the odds that you get something which is built to your specifications and has the operating system that you want, rather than the one which is auto-installed onto their brand of computer.

Building a computer from scratch is among the most interesting and unique hobbies that you can take up. It has the added benefit of getting you precisely what you want from your computer and offering you the chance to customize every aspect of the process.

Most computers that you will buy offer you a minimal amount of things like RAM, hard drive space and DVD or CD Roms. Building your own PC or custom computer will net you the exact items that you want and need and get you the precise operating system that you want. It is probably the best way to give you the most bang for your computing dollar.

Computer parts are relatively low cost these days. In fact, if you know where to look, you may be able to get a great many of them donated to you by companies who are trying to find green or eco friendly ways of disposing of their older computers. Most of them are really not terribly outdated or otherwise in bad shape. Most of the computer parts that you may need can realistically be gleaned from other, or older computers.

This is particularly true if you receive them from companies who try to keep state of the art computers with them at all times. Generally what is donated will be easy to use and the computer parts, hardware, and other components will still be very viable so far as what is commonplace for use, since larger companies tend to replace their computers about every year.

For those who want their computer parts to be literally state of the art, the best place to get them will be at some of the discounted supply parts stores online. Purchasing your computer parts hardware online nets you a much better price, and the ability to put together your own custom machine for your use.

Building a computer from older computer parts may also be done for others. A great way to assure that an older family member has a computer is to solicit donations of outmoded computers and then use those computer parts hardware to rebuild other PC’s which are donated to older residents in your community or given to underprivileged children.

This not only helps the residents in question, but also assists companies in making sure that their older computers are put to good use rather than to become part of a landfill.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Computer-Parts&id=5085803

1. Pick a good CPU for gaming. High end doesn’t always mean better performance in terms of you noticing it. When it comes to gaming, video card requirements increase much faster than CPU requirements. Many companies will try to offer CPUs and claim things such as “ultimate performance,” but in reality if you look at gaming performance benchmarks from different websites, it only performs slightly better than low-end CPU (generally only a performance boost of about 1-3 frames per second). Put more money toward a good video card and quality system memory. (And if you overclock using the stock cooler, try to keep the CPU temperatures under 70 C.)

2. Pick a video card that gives good performance for the money and avoid SLI or CrossFire. If one card gets very laggy performance in a game, two cards won’t do much better and you will just be wasting money. In most benchmarks, SLI and CrossFire will only give you about a 20% performance boost (SLI and CrossFire = twice the cost, twice the energy usage). Another thing you will notice is that when a new GPU series comes out, it is generally much faster than an SLI or CrossFire setup or the previous series of GPUs.

3. Avoid getting the top of the line video card — they are always outrageously expensive while only benchmarking slightly higher. For example, at the time of release, the Nvidia GTX 280 was nearly twice the cost of the GTX 260 while only being 7% faster (the proof is here). The GTX 260 can be safely overclocked by up to 25% with very little change in GPU temperature (you can go higher if you alter the video BIOS to increase the GPU voltage).

4. Pick memory that overclocks well (you can get a idea of the overclocking ability of the memory by reading product reviews). Memory that is able to handle around a 15-20% overclock will give you a lot of head room when working with the memory dividers as you increase the CPU clock speed (in case you are planning on overclocking your CPU).

5. Don’t skimp on the motherboard. Cheap motherboards don’t overclock well and, in many cases, they won’t even offer you enough overclocking options to get a stable overclock out of your system. While it is good to avoid cheap motherboards, there is no need to go for super high end $300 boards because they generally don’t overclock much better than the mid-range motherboards (and, even then, the CPU and memory will reach their max overclock before a mid-range motherboard becomes unstable).

In short, a gaming PC with a mid-range CPU and a high-end video card will run modern games much better than a system with a high-end CPU and mid-range video card. Be sure to read reviews on all of the hardware and pick out parts that wont be a bottleneck for the other hardware in your system; the benchmarks at different sites will allow you to see which parts will be a bottleneck for your system.

source: http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2009/05/01/top-5-tips-for-building-a-gaming-pc-on-a-budget/

In today’s world most of the people are using computer in some form or other. You might not be using a PC or a laptop, but you might be using a microwave or a washing machine or at least a mobile phone which are all some sort of computer. So some basic knowledge of computer would be worth learning for everyone and if you have at least the basic knowledge the shopkeeper or the agent would not be able to fool you while purchasing such equipments.

Configuration

Equipments are known by its technical characteristics or features. When you go to a shop for purchasing a computer for your home, the shopkeeper would come up with a list of characteristics of a particular computer in terms of its capacity of its different parts. The price varies widely with change of these parameters. You would be confused and practically unable to select the correct machine for your requirement which would worth your money, if you do not have the basic idea about the different parts, its utility and its effect on the overall performance. So let us try to know some basic knowledge about your computer.

CPU – This is the brain of the computer. The speed of a CPU is measured in terms of Megahertz (MHz) or Gigahertz (GHz). Performance of your PC depends on the CPU speed, Motherboard and the amount of memory in the system. Although very high CPU intensive applications are used for research and scientific purposes, very low speed CPU can lower the performance of your graphic application like games and on line TV programs. It is also important to select a reputed brand for your CPU. The most popular CPU at present is Intel i series which are multi-core CPUs and currently Intel i7 (6 cores) series is the highest configuration available in the market. However for home PC you can go for an i3 series CPU.

Motherboard – Motherboard is the circuit board which connects all the components together including CPU and memory blocks. It is better to select a PC which is having the CPU and motherboard from the same manufacturer. Most popular brand is Intel.

Memory – Memory is the next most important thing of a computer. The amount of memory required for running of each application depends on its design. Generally graphic applications need more memory. If the computer finds that the memory available is less than the requirement to run a particular application, a portion of hard disk is used as the memory which reduces the performance of the application. Therefore it is recommended to go for at list 4 Gigabytes (GB) of memory for your computer.

Hard Disk – This is the place where you store all your data. Therefore it is advisable to have the maximum available capacity hard disk for your computer. Currently most suppliers are offering their computers with hard disk of capacity 360GB or more.

Key Board and Mouse – these are the two input devices which you would be using continuously. Therefore it is recommended to have good quality USB keyboard and mouse. Wireless keyboard and mouse are not required because ultimately you have to sit in front of your monitor.
Monitor – 15 to 19 inch TFT monitor is the best for home use. Although CRT monitors would be less costly it might create eye problem due to radiation and takes lot of spaces and generates more heat than that of TFT monitor.

CD/DVD Drive – Best option to have a DVD writer which would read as well as copy both CD and DVD. Other option is Combo drive which reads both CD and DVD but writes (Copies) only CD.

Network card or LAN card – Now a day a LAN card is must for every computer irrespective of whether you use it at home or at business place, because if you use internet, it might be required for connecting a broadband modem.

Operating System (OS) – Your computer is useless without operating system. For general user Windows operating system is best recommended. You might go for Windows vista Home edition or windows 7 home edition. Always ask for a genuine copy of the software including the original disk and license.

Antivirus Software – This is most important software you must purchase. Normally all supplier offer a computer with pre-installed copy of antivirus software with a free license for 1 year. If not provided by them, do not hesitate to buy a copy of that, because it is most important for the safety of your valuable data and your financial information which would be stored or used during a financial transaction on internet.

These are only some basic knowledge which would help you in selecting your Home Computer. If you like you might upgrade your knowledge on each and every components described above. Now the most important question you might be encountering while purchasing your computer. How do I know that the configuration they are telling is actually there in my computer? Well that is the most vital question and you have to check it personally. Go to the desktop of the computer you are offered and right-click on the My Computer icon and then select properties. It would show you the actual configuration of the computer. Hopefully you are now a more confident customer to step in a computer shop.

source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Home-Computer—The-Basic-Knowledge-You-Would-Require-While-Purchasing&id=4241091