Andy's Hardware & Software How To

Buying a New Computer

Today we are going to start with computer hardware. The question that people ask of me the most often is: I want to buy a new computer, what sort of laptop or desktop is best?

• Answer:
• Most likely the lowest price and highest performance are what is wanted.
• For a laptop to have equal performace as a desktop and be modern it would have to cost about $1,700 USD
• What does equal performance to a modern desktop mean?
  • I am going to go with AMD to make things easier to understand.
  • It needs:
  • • An NVIDIA RTX Graphics Card.
    • At least 4 Cores in the CPU
    • CPU Speed of 3.2 GHz or more
    • A Storage Slot for NVMe M.2 SSD
    • Everything else is most likely industry standards, and bells and whistles
• A good Laptop must have at least these 3 features (and not be HP):
• • At least 4 Cores in the CPU
  • CPU Speed of 3.2 GHz or more
  • A Storage Slot for NVMe M.2 SSD
• Here is a laptop with lowest performance comprimise I would make (before stepping down to a chromebook).
• Lenovo V15 G2 Laptop, 15.6" FHD Display, AMD Ryzen 5 5500U -m $570 USD
• For a desktop I would not recomend buying a computer all at once, unless you are filling an office space with a group of workstations for employees, and you have an IT Department who is managing the office computers.
• Why not buy a complete destop?
• • The computer will not have standard replacable components, if you want to repair or upgrade.
  • There will most likely be substandard components lurking inside.
  • Sales jargon will hype it up to be more than what it is.
  • Sales jargon will offiscate and confuse the substandard components, and hype up the propritary parts the you will be stuck with.
• So, lets look at what a modern Desktop PC consists of, and how to buy it as a kit:
• 
• We are only going to be looking at the computer box, and nothing outside of the box, for this article.
• Let's find out what it would take to build lowest cost high performance machine.
• Starting with the CPU, each component will give clues as to what the next components need to be.
• We will build an AMD based machine, because it is very confusing to build an Intel based machine.
• • AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Matisse (Zen 2) 6-Core 3.6 GHz (4.2 GHz Max Boost) Socket AM4 - Memory type: DDR4 3200
  • $90 USD
  • ASRock B550M Phantom Gaming 4 AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
  • • Features
    • M.2 Socket (M Key type 2280)
    • 4 DDR4 Memory Slots
    • Onboard Audio
    • PCI Express 4.0 x 16 slot
    • AM4 CPU Socket
    • Form Factor: Micro ATX
  • $87 USD
  • Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3600 Memory
  • • 3200 number can be higher, but not lower. Lower number slows the CPU, higher number has no effect
    • Using dual channel memory increases speed dramaticly
  • $58 USD
  • MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3050 8GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 Video Card
  • $220 USD
  • Timetec 1TB 3D NAND NVMe Gen3x4 PCIe M.2 2280 Internal Solid State Drive
  • $37 USD
  • DIYPC DIY-F2-W White SPCC Micro ATX Mini Tower Computer Case
  • $38 USD
  • Thermaltake Smart Series 700W ATX12V
  • Must be at least 700W, and ATX form factor
  • $55 USD
  • Total Required components: $585 USD
  • Optional
    • (Software) Operating System
      • Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 64-bit, DVD - OEM: $160 USD
      • Linux Mint 21: $0.00 USD
    • Seagate FireCuda 4TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HDD Bare Drive: $70 USD
    • Don't try to go cheaper than this, on a hard drive. They will send a used POS, and claim it is new.
    • Fenvi FV-AXE3000 Wi-Fi 6E AX210 PCIe Network Card Bluetooth 5.2: $32 USD
  • Total options: $262 USD + Total with all options: $847 USD
• The prices I found for these computers and parts where from NewEgg on June 29, 2023
• Assembling this desktop computer is pretty straight forward and safe.
• If you have not updated a computer since befor 2021, the peformance of this machine will be beyond imagination.