Help with buying a computer please?

Question

What are decent numbers for a proccessor speed, system bus, hard drive, RAM, and others?
I want to buy a computer, and i need to know a few things so i don't waste my money. I just use the computer for basic web-surfing and use of a couple other programs. my current computer hold 240.0 MB of RAM, and runs programs just fine. I can't tell what my proccessor speed is though because I'm running windows ME and can't find it in my 'computer> properties' like suggested.
I need to know:

How much RAM should I look for? a lot of computers within my budget have 512, is that good?

What proccessor speed should i get? is 1.8GHz good?

System Bus numbers? is 1600MHz good?

Cache Memory? what's the difference between level 1 and 2? and is 256kb's reliable?

The hard drive size for the computers in my price range are 120GB, is this too low for what i want?

Like I said, I only really surf the net, and have a couple games and graphic software installed, along with a camera and a couple mp3 players i have used on here. I know it's a lot of info, so thank you in advance!

Answer 1

ok you only want the system to surf the net, i pressume you will at some point want to watch video files?
so you want a system with a minimum 512MB 333mhz or faster (higher numbered) DDR or DDRII RAM(Minimum).
processor speed of 1.8GHz (1800Mhz) is a little slow but will work adequetly (i built a system for a neighbour with similer requirements to yours)
as much cach level 1 and level 2 as possible (the higher the number the better)

for your needs as a beginer 120GB (unformatted) 111GB approx (formatted) should be a good starting point, however make sure the hard drive RPM is above 7200RPM and if the system has SATA capability even if the system has no sata drive installed will enable you to upgrade to larger hard drives (although you can upgrade your primary drive) SATA transfers faster than PATA/UDMA/IDE drives of the same size and RPM.

if you can make sure the System has seagate brand hard drive(s) as this brand is the most reliable you can get.
you should also check the systems PSU (Power Supply Unit) as most budget systems come with only around a 350 to 400W this will in the short term be ok your system may (if you get the right PSU) work faster and with a greater level of system stability with a much larger PSU for example in my primary system i have a 650W PSU but then i'm running 7 internal hard drives, 1 DVD burner, floppy multiple PCI cards, AGP graphics card, AMD Sempron 3400 CPU.

your current system at 240MB? that sounds a little problem? as memory is normaly in multiples such as 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1024MB (1GB), and buffered or unbuffered you should never mix buffered and unbuffered in the same system or your system will become unstable.
remember when you get your new system you should be able to install the old hard drive in the new system for ease of accessing your old personal data.

if you were local to me i could possibly provide better assistance such as either browsing the stores with you or buying the components and assembling the system yourself.
remember that if you do build a new computer and scrap your old one you can get away with using your old software, some of your old hardware such as your display panel keyboard and mouse etc.
the only think you would realy need to buy would be new main board, CPU, RAM, and possibly a new hard drive. you then just scrap your old system components. which means if money is tight why buy a complete new system if you only need the new components, by buying and building selectively you can get more for your money effectively. however unless you know what you are doing you could fry the componets as they are electostaticaly sensetive, so you need to ground yourself with a wrist strap or other device when building your system remeber to ground to any properly earthed such as a cable connected to bare copper on a central heating system or other similar instalation.

Answer 2

Okay please listen to me I consulted for Gateway systems for a year in 2000, you need to ask yurself what do you want out of the computer. from what I read, it sounds as if you want a decent machine that you can use on the internet and play music to, and have basic programs on..pretty much a typical 20 something computer. do not listen to the techno geeks that give you all this zillion point information about windows vista blah blah blah It won't be used for three years anyway. If you want a great computer for around $800 +/- 200 then go to www.compucare.com. in seattle, computer capital of the us all the shops buy their hardware from this store with the exception of this store www.hdnw.com. As far as processors. Stick with AMD because their cheap, can run vista and fast. Memory at the above place is cheap 512 should go to 1GB if you can afford it. if not add it later, these machines are very easy to put the chip into. Don't be afraid, when it comes time I'll walk you through it. lastly If you used more than 160GB of a Harddrive and you an average person, Make that 100GB, I'll eat my shoe. I have two pcs one with 200GB and a 60 GB and a laptop with 100GB, I have over 350 burned cds and run 2 companies...etc and don't use over 54GB ever and I Game too, I just delete when I'm done.
if any of this sounds confusing forget it all and buy and Imac by apple, but please ignor the $3000 price tag, it will be outdated in 6 months, I get a new computer ever 9-12 months and have for ten years.

Answer 3

What you have described is an excellent setup for tasks such as listening to MP3s, and surfing the web. 1.8Ghz, and 512mb of RAM is more than sufficient. If you're playing your games on your current system with only 240mb of RAM, I can safely assume they aren't very taxing on your computer's resources. So the computer that is "Within your budget" is great, and will easily perform to your liking. And if you were able to save a few bucks, you could even tone down your hard drive. These guys above me saying "120gb's is the smallest you can get" are just plain wrong.
Example: Let's say your operating system, and all of your programs took up 12gb of space ( A very safe assumption) and you had the rest for mp3's. And saying the average song is about 4mb, that would be roughly 27,600+ songs. Now, I don't know about you, but I would never be able to listen to that much music. If you want 120gb, then by all means, do it. But 80, or even a 60gb hard drive would be just fine. Good luck!

Answer 4

First I would recommend you buy a laptop. It is very convenient. You can use it in your living room, bedroom or carry it to the office. The specifications you have shown above for surfing the net, playing games and music are okay. The newer computers (laptops) in the market are very fast, bigger memory. I recommend the following:
1. Intel Centrino Duo
2. Speed 1.6 GHz and above
3. 1GB RAM (Random Access Memory)
4. 120 GB HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
5. True Brite Screen Display is the in thing now
6. They all come with:
a) DVD writer (combo drive)
b) 56K Modem and other features

Microsoft is releasing the new software to replace Windows XP at the end of this month (November 30, 2006). You will need to buy this new software with your new computer.

Answer 5

You can locate your cpu speed by right clicking 'my computer' and selecting properties, even in ME.

On to the question.

The first reply you got suggested waiting for windows vista which is longhorn by a new name. I've used every windows OS as they were produced and I've learned a valuable lesson. Wait about a year after a new one comes out so that all the bugs that it has will be discovered by the users who BUY NEW NOW. Then there will be a service pack for you containing all of microshafts fixes for the entire year. So, instead of you calling microshaft over and over you let the rabbits who buy first do it for you. XP is tried, tested and works just fine for now.

I built my friend a 3.0 ghz system with 1gig of ddr system ram and a 300 gig sata drive with dvd/rw drive and all the fixins for $400 bucks.

Best bet, buy custom. Research. You get top of the line when you do that instead of the bottom of the cracker barrel that eMachines and Gateway or Dell ship out with their systems.

On laptops, they are good, portable and expensive. Also, you cannot upgrade much on a lappy unless you send it in or unless you build them (most people don't)

Hope that helps a little

Answer 6

512 or 1024 MB of RAM
roughly a 3 GHz processor
120 MB hard drive is about the smallest you can get away with
DVD burner

look at the dell website for starters then try to beat that elsewhere

Answer 7

512 MB

2.8-3.0

120-150 The smallest you can get

DVD Rom

You can also get Windows Vista Free if you buy a new computer.

Look in sources for more info

Answer 8

I'm not a computer hardware expert, but I can tell you from experience that HP and e-machine computers have worked well for me. I don't think that I ever had to get a computer that's either of those brands repaired (I did have to get the power supply fan replaced one time, though - that was an inexpensive procedure).

Answer 9

I bought mine on ebay- a new Dell with full warenty for 1/2 their web price.

Answer 10

well my first advice is wait just a lil bit longer for a computer..becuz windows vista is plannin to come out next year around january...so think about wether you want to get XP....or wait and see if you can get WINDOWS VISTA.....but for what you would use your computer for..the specs you gave seem good