Computer sales have surged over the past month due to many people having to work and take classes from home. What I have noticed over the years is that many people have no clue what their doing when purchasing a laptop or desktop. The average person will not know specs such as processor, ram, hard drive, or graphics. Most people merely pick their devices based on looks and price.
After reading this article you will know a little more than the average person does when it comes to purchasing technology.
What You Need To Know Before You Purchase
Before making a computer purchase its best to know exactly what the device will be used for. For example if your looking to do some school work you will need word processing programs, web browsing and possibly a printer to print your assignments. By knowing this information you know you will need USB ports on the device, as well as something that's compatible with Microsoft Office. I would also recommend looking up the system requirements for what ever software you plan on installing and running on the device before you purchase.
Understanding Processors
Computers are like cars in a way. They are not all made with the same speed and power hence why some are as cheap as $200 and some can run you $2000. The more horsepower the higher the price tag. Another thing most people dont know is that there are mainly two companies providing this processing power and their names are Intel and AMD. We will dive into the differences between the two companies in a later article. Both companies produce these processors in tiers for example Intel makes the Pentium (Core 2 Duo) which is a base model then they follow that with the Core i3, i5, i7, and i9. They higher the number the more power similar to car engines with V4, V6, V8 and V12 and so on.
How Much Ram Do I Need?
As mentioned before its best to google the system requirements for whatever programs you plan to install. If I google the requirements for the software zoom this is what I find:
Processor and RAM requirements
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Single Core 1Ghz or Higher | Dual Core 2Ghz or Higher (i3/i5/i7 or AMD equivalent) |
| RAM | N/A | 4Gb |
This tells me that I can run this on just about any processor with 4GB of ram. If I also plan to run this software alongside others while multitasking then I would want to make sure I have more ram to do so and you can do the same process to find out how much ram you truly need.
There are more specs we could look at as well before purchasing but these are the most important for most computer task. If your into video editing, music, or photo editing I would also recommend looking at the graphics or GPU in the computer in addition.
I hope this helps someone thats out there looking and dont know where to begin. If you find this read helpful be sure to share it on your social media pages.
---DMV Computerman