How to Buy a Desktop PC
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PC in 2008 and Beyond
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How to Buy a Desktop PC
With so many factors to consider, deciding which desktop PC to buy can be a real challenge. From components to software to accessories, new PCs offer a bewildering array of choices. Here's some help from the collective knowledge of our editors and Test Center analysts.
With so many factors to consider, deciding which desktop PC to buy can be a real challenge. From components to software to accessories, new PCs offer a bewildering array of choices, and, for some folks, sifting through the large number of options can be daunting. At PC World, we test dozens of new desktop PCs every year. What follows is the collective knowledge of our editors and Test Center analysts
The Big Picture
The vast majority of people buy a PC to browse the Web, check and send e-mail, and perform word processing or spreadsheet work. Today, even the least-expensive, lowest-of-the-low-end system can perform any of those jobs admirably; $1000 or less will buy a machine that suits most people's needs. See our Top Value Business Desktop PCs chart for our current picks.
Most vendors let you customize and upgrade base-model PCs with a mind-boggling selection of features. Need extra storage? Pick a larger hard drive. Want extra memory? Load up with 4GB of RAM. Ready to burn Blu-ray Discs or watch HD DVD movies? Choose an optical drive that supports your desired format.
We recommend that you take your time and select only what you need today, based on the following guidelines. If your budget allows, buy what you anticipate needing within the next year.
If you're a more demanding user who wants to edit digital video or manage a large database, however, you may need more than the basics. You're better off looking at systems that start in the $1500 to $2000 range. For high-end needs, check out our Top 5 Power Desktop PCs chart.
The gaming-PC market is also growing. Gamers are among the few groups of people who are willing to spend more than $3000 on a computer to ensure that they get the maximum possible performance. Such PCs usually feature overclocked CPUs and dual-graphics-card setups. Originally this market was covered only by small niche companies that produced high-end machines targeted specifically at the gaming sector; in recent times, however, sales of such systems have increased dramatically, and larger companies are beginning to mount an assault on the market. See our Top 5 Gaming PCs chart for more.
The Specs Explained
The Processor
If you plan to use your PC for standard office productivity and basic Internet tasks, most any processor will do. But if you want more power, an Intel Core 2 Duo chip is probably your best bet over an AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor. Both are dual-core processors, which will allow for faster multitasking and speedier performance on certain kinds of graphics and video applications, but Intel has wrested the edge in performance back from AMD. To save a couple hundred dollars, buy one or two levels down from the top--you're unlikely to lose more than 5 to 10 percent per tier in performance.
For maximum performance when multitasking or when using demanding, multithreaded applications, you may wish to investigate quad-core CPUs such as the 3-GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor QX6850, or the dual-core 2.93-GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800; both processors are popular in high-performance gaming machines and power PCs.
For anyone playing games or manipulating audio or video on a regular basis, having four cores can potentially deliver benefits. We qualify that statement because, aside from a few forthcoming games such as Unreal Tournament 2007, the list of optimized applications is short, dominated by expensive offerings such as the latest versions of Adobe's Premiere Pro and Encore DVD, Autodesk's 3D StudioMax, and Steinberg's Cubase 4.
Nevertheless, additional multithreaded software titles are on the way, and eventually every activity that can benefit from multiple-core processing will do so. Intel's current quad-core desktop chips work quite nicely in any LGA775-socket-based motherboard, so you can upgrade at any time. Unfortunately, AMD has been mum on its plans for supporting socket AM2 (the current AMD motherboard socket for its DDR2-based processors) with single-die, quad-core CPUs.
What AMD has announced and shipped is a quasi-quad-core product known as Quad FX, which is really two dual-core Athlon 64 X2 CPUs on a dual AMD socket 1207 motherboard using a slightly revamped nVidia nForce 680a chip. In our previous tests, a machine with the Quad FX generally fared no better than a similarly configured PC using AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62. See "AMD Releases Its 4x4 Platform, New FX CPUs" for more details.