Buying A New Pc

PC BUYING GUIDE

I have noticed that many people are asking for opinions and help when buying a new PC .
Since I work in a PC shop and make PC configurations all day long for various tastes and needs, I thought to share with everybody here some of my experience in this area . As I am not a Linux expert and can't provide a lot of help concerning Linux , I want to give back to the comunity that helped me to get going with SuSE, whatever I can .

I will split this in several steps :

1.First of all , when you decide to buy a new PC you should have a pretty good idea about what you want to do with it . This is necessary because you don't want to spend money on features you may never use . Look into your wallet and establish the budget you're going to use (be realistic and don't ask for a high-end gaming PC within 500$) Try to separate the costs of the PC from the cost of the monitor . If the monitor is one of your primary concerns, ( and it should because that's what you'll be staring at when operating the PC ) choose it carefully to accomplish what you want it to ( photo editing , games , playing video )
2.Start choosing the components of the PC from your favorite shop ( online or not ) . The motherboard is critical and try to choose one that has the features you need and has already undergone several revisions . ( Rev. 1.0 boards usually tend to have some quirks ) When buying online it's difficult to check this however . Don't get happy over unknown hardware brands that offer low price because the low price is usually reflected in poorly engineered and manufactured components . Another good rule is to stick to tried and true chipsets and brands if you want to have a carefree experience with your PC later on . This is especially advised when you decide to run Linux on it . Poke around the web to see if the components you chose are Linux friendly . Don't underestimate the case and the PSU of your future PC. A good case will provide good ventilation with little noise and a good PSU will feed your components with nice clean power .
3.Once you have all your components in your possession it's time to assemble them . You can ask someone that knows how to do it or if you're handy and enjoy fiddling, take out the manuals from the component's boxes and get to work (the satisfaction is guaranteed if you assemble it yourself) . Take your time and double check what you have done .
4.When you have the PC up and running properly it would be a good idea to check the motherboard's manufacturer website for BIOS updates. Those may bring new options and iron out some faults . Another thing worth doing is to check for firmware upgrades for your optical drive . Those updates usually improve reading/writing and bring support for even more or newer optical media .

Since we are talking about Linux here, you should keep an eye on the hardware compatibility and support for this OS . Intel provides good support as well as nVidia . Bleeding edge, recently released technologies may give you headaches with Linux so be carefull what you chose .
I hope that I covered the basics but if anyone feels I overlooked something, feel free to point it out and I will add it to this guide .

Have fun .

What are some of the motherboards and towers you would recommend for web design

What are some of the motherboards and towers you would recommend for web design
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It may be better to first choose your processor family then look for a compatible motherboard. By processor family I'm referring to Intel Xeon, Core Duo (Conroe) or perhaps AMD Opteron Series or X2 dual core processors.

Do you think you may need two separate CPUs or perhaps a dual core or maybe just a single core processor? A dually may work best for a server. For simply designing web pages an inexpensive single core may work quite well. Do you multi-task? Do more than just design? Games? Word processing?

Lots of questions but it will be far easier to provide assistance if we know everything you plan on using your new PC for.

As far as I know there is no hardware specifically designed for web design like there is for 3d modeling and rendering where a specially built video card ( nVidia Quadro for example ) is required for best results . Video editing also has special needs and video editing cards ( Matrox ) are required . So, as mg37221 said, you should first choose a CPU brand you like ( AMD or Intel ) and starting from there we could help you choose the other components. And of course if you want to use the PC for other things except web design, let us know what are those other things . You need to help us help you

Cheers .

For web design, IMO, all you need is a computer that can run Linux, an internet connection, and an O'Reilly reference book. From there, code it all by hand in XHTML+CSS, XML, PHP, ASP, or whatever your preferred language is. There are plenty of Linux programs available for creating web pages (I like Bluefish, other people like Quanta, etc.)

~~ Andrew D.

Along these same lines, I'm currently shopping around for pc components for my parent's new computer. The one component I'm truly having a difficult time is choosing a gfx card. I've always been a fan of Nvidia, and I already know about the nightmare issues that arise from ati's linux drivers So, I was wondering if anyone could recomend any low-mid priced pci x16 nvidia cards--or, for that matter, which ones to stay away from.

Many thanks in advance.

Along these same lines, I'm currently shopping around for pc components for my parent's new computer. The one component I'm truly having a difficult time is choosing a gfx card. I've always been a fan of Nvidia, and I already know about the nightmare issues that arise from ati's linux drivers So, I was wondering if anyone could recomend any low-mid priced pci x16 nvidia cards--or, for that matter, which ones to stay away from.

Many thanks in advance.


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I like nVidia myself and for the same reason... difficult ATI-Linux drivers. Take a look at eVGA's 7600GT. It's very reasonably priced, performs quite nicely and seems to work well in MSI motherboards, something MSI nVidia cards don't do very well.

You may even be able to find an older 6600GT or virtually any flavor 6800 (non LE), assuming your folks aren't avid gamers, price/performance should do very nicely.

I have different advice for Non-Gaming users wanting to run linux.

The cheap onboard video chipsets on the Intel Chipset motherboards all have open source drivers meaning that they have full support under any modern linux distribution.

This is especially important for people who want to use linux but don't know how or care to handle installing proprietary modules.

These may not have the raw horse power of the nvidia/ati cards but they should work perfectly on a default install so are best for parents/grandparents/young children/my girlfriend.

-Ted

Thanks for the advice, guys. I've heard of a lot of problems associated with the 7600 and 7900 chips. That may just have been the reviewer's experiences I happened to read. I know a lot of times the ram one chooses can have a seriously adverse affect to the gfx card. And no, my parents aren't avid gamers (as I am ) I had my eye on a 6200tc top. Any opinions?

I'm not too thrilled about the idea of onboard video, and I'm not a huge fan of intel chipsets. I'm buying an amd system, and I've already picked out and purchased all the parts with the one sole exception of the video card.

Thanks for the advice, guys. I've heard of a lot of problems associated with the 7600 and 7900 chips. That may just have been the reviewer's experiences I happened to read. I know a lot of times the ram one chooses can have a seriously adverse affect to the gfx card. And no, my parents aren't avid gamers (as I am ) I had my eye on a 6200tc top. Any opinions? [/b]

Well, any x200 series video card is going to have half (or maybe a quarter) of the pixel shaders that a x800 has, and is gonna have a lower clock speed and data transfer rate.

So... just don't play Oblivion or F.E.A.R. or Prey on it, and you'll be fine.