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So you want to buy a new computer and you think "This time I'll do the smart thing, I'll use the Web to find out what I want, and then just search for the best price for that system!" So you go out onto the Web, search through articles, sales pitches and misinformation and finally come to the conclusion that you are ... confused?
The problem? It used to be bad enough buying a Mac when there was only one producer, Apple, with all its similarly configured but oh so subtlety different models. Now we have almost a dozen different companies to choose from, and the differences between them aren't just subtle, they're obscure! The solution? Radically cut down the number of models you are looking at by grouping the models into different classes, and then choosing the class of computer that suit your needs. That's what I will attempt to do in these articles. The first thing to do is define what you want your computer to do. In the following sections I have defined a common computer task, and the type of computer that best fits that task, and what to look for when selecting computers in this section. This week I will deal with the Power User. High powered, computationally intensive tasks, such as graphics manipulation or scientific/engineering type work. These people set their computers a task to do, and come back in an hour to see how it is going. Their computers have a high degree of automation to allow them to leave their computers working away in the unattended mayhem of the office overnight. These people can probably program Apple scripts in their sleep. They want a computer that excels at floating point arithmetic, and are prepared to pay for the best as the savings in time more then make up for the extra cost. The computers of these people seldom have a couple of spare instruction cycles to rub together. If you are in this category you want the latest greatest, most powerful computer you can get, and you probably don't need me to tell you so. At the moment this means getting computers with 604 processors, at the fastest speeds possible. Lots of RAM and high level 2 caches are essential. If the program you want to run can support multiple processors, you will notice significant speed increases by using them. In order of priority, power users (and most other people) should judge computers by the following characteristics.
The copyright of the article What to look for when buying a computer.: Part 1, the power user in Macintosh/Apple News is owned by Jude Coughlin. Permission to republish What to look for when buying a computer.: Part 1, the power user in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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