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Using your personal computer |
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Hilton Head Island Computer Club |
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Two New Computers |
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At the October board meeting, I requested approval to buy two computers to replace two we are currently using. The general idea was to buy two but keep all, so that we will have six PCs to use at the center. I originally asked only for the computers but the group thought we should buy two LCD monitors. This article is to discuss what I thought would be the proper parts in the computers and what I actually bought. To start with, I decided to buy one with a processor from Intel and the other with an AMD processor. They should be similar in performance and not necessarily the top processor from either vendor, but the best on the pricing curve. For Intel, I selected a Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz Prescott with 1Mb Cache and 800 MHz FSB. For AMD it was the Athlon 64 3200+ in socket 754. The AMD part number indicates that they think it will work as good as Intel 3.2 GHz or better. You will have an opportunity to see for yourself. For sometime now, AMD processors have come in what was called socket A which was a 462 pin package. This processor is in a 754 pin package. AMD’s top processor is in a 939 pin package. Intel Pentium 4 is in a 478 pin package, but they now have a more advanced processor in a 775 pin package. Can you imagine the density of that type of packaging? Deciding on the processor is not nearly as difficult as selecting the proper motherboard. Some of the features I was looking for are SATA hard drive controller, DDR 400 RAM memory capability, sound, gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0. I actually found all the above for both processors on Gigabyte boards. The next key item on the motherboard is who provided the chipset. In the case of the Intel processor board built by Gigabyte it was an Intel chipset. Intel is the only major manufacturer of chipsets in the USA. For the AMD board, NVIDIA was the chipset manufacturer and that company has great strength in chip design. NVIDIA and ATI are the companies locked in a fight for the top position in the video card market. Next was to decide on a case with a power supply. Generally I look for the proper size power supply and only then worry about the color so that all items will match. For this item I selected a 450 W power supply and it came in a tower case. Everything in a new computer today is running as fast as they can make it and they need adequate power and enough fan power to keep it cool. Of course, with fan power comes noise but the motherboard has the ability to change the fans’ speed according to how much power the CPU is using. All together there are two chassis, a processor and the power supply fans. A tower case is big but leaves a lot of room for expansion. These cases have the hot new thing with one side a window to see the parts inside. Although one of the motherboards has an on board video driver, I elected to buy similar video cards for each computer since I was looking to have a digital input for the LCD monitors. If you use a CRT monitor, the input signal goes to the 15 pin high density VGA connector. The video adapter needs to convert from digital to analog for the CRT. All LCD monitors have a VGA connector but, because it uses digital data for displaying the information, it needs to be converted from analog back to digital. You always lose accuracy every time you do this type of conversion. The digital connector is called DVI and both the LCD monitors and the video cards have DVI connectors on them. And, to my surprise you can set it up to drive a LCD and a CRT monitor at the same time and actually put different information on each screen. Windows XP has the ability to use dual monitors. I have run across a motherboard that had two onboard VGA connectors and |
