Or, are you a newbie to the computer scene and want to make sure that you buy the right system? You've heard the horror-stories where people bought what they thought was the newest hardware and then realized that it has become obsolete in the time it took them to bring it home.
Do you want a computer just to play that newest game on the market, that is so good that it's caused several S&P 500 companies to file for chapter 11? Do you want to run rings around Bobby, that six year old kid from down the street, for fragging you fifty-five times in a row in Quake?
Whatever the reason for a new computer, deciding upon the right one can be a very stressful and arduous process. In this three part article, I'll try to take some of the uncertainty and doubt out of the process, and give a few recommendations on what computer I'd buy.
If I were to compare a computer to the human body, I'd have to say that the processor is the heart and the brain all rolled into one. It's the most important part of the computer, and the most important aspect to influence the speed of applications.
There's a lot of talk about new processors these days, and it seems like Intel is rolling them out at a breakneck pace. Words like "Pentium", "Pentium Pro", and "MMX" are being tossed around. Which should you buy?
My recommendation depends solely on the amount of money you want to spend on your new computer. First off, there are two "do not's" at the current time in the computer processor evolution. _DO NOT_ buy anything less than a Pentium processor. No matter how cheap a 486 system is now, you DO NOT WANT IT. Secondly, If I were you, I would not buy a Pentium that did not have MMX.
MMX is very new--in fact, it was released this month by Intel, and it promises to speed up various aspects of the computer. By providing dedicated chips for audio and video, MMX can triple game performance by taking the load off of the main processor. While there aren't many applications that support MMX at the moment, I believe that it will only be a matter of time before we see "MMX Only" products. Besides, an MMX computer should not cost much more than a regular Pentium--maybe one-hundred bucks at the most. Again: Do not buy a computer without MMX at this point.
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