Tip of the Day: Why buy two when you only need one?

Hubby talked about this when someone asked him about tips for buying a new computer. One of the questions asked that he had to answer was, in my opinion, worth sharing in this blog.

His friend asked whether it was worth buying the new 'Core Duo' Processors from Intel. Hubby's answer goes something like this:

Core Duo is another name for 'two processors in one package'. Sounds good, doesn't it? Not really - because you don't actually need 2 processors to do regular computer stuff. If what you do is essentially Office stuff, email, Surf the Internet, listen to music, watch videos, keep contacts and documents, you haven't even begun to saturate the capacity one processor can provide. Why buy a two-in-one, which is more expensive? It's just a marketing tactic to lift margins up - for Intel, not for us customers. For the record - AMD does the same thing too. These people need to make money, so they bend the rules a bit.

Instead of buying Core Duo, consider buying more RAM. Reason being is - if you check your Task Manager (ctrl + alt + del) you'll find an item 'Commit Charge' - which basically tells you how much memory is being used (including virtual memory). These days, most people will install software, and some software wants to start with windows, even though you don't use them all the time. So, just booting up windows will eat up close to 200 MB of RAM. If you start using other applications, your RAM (if 256MB) will be close to full - and that's the main reason your PC slows down, not to mention any spyware - related activities.

So, if you don't know what to do (there is a workaround to this problem, but quite lengthy) spend more on RAM - 512 MB is usually enough to future-proof your PC against bloated applications. Also, get a faster Hard Disk - look for 7,200 rpm hard disks with 8MB cache, most manufacturers like Seagate, Western Digital and Maxtor sell these parts. Transfer rates are important too, so pick a HDD with Serial ATA connections.

Conclusion: So you see that buying PCs isn't just buying processors, it's about buying the whole system. A fast processor can't get anything done if other parts slow it down. Instead, buy a fast single core processor (for Intel PCs - 3 Ghz, AMD PCs - 2GHz and above) and carefully select other parts according to the advice above.

Oh, and another thing - If you can afford a core duo processor, opt instead to buy a 64 bit processor (i.e AMD Athlon 64, or any Intel EMT 64) because when the shift by applications and OS to 64 bit completes, you can still use your processor. (Windows 64 bit is still in beta, I think).

Wow, this is a long post - thank hubby for this. Catch you later. Ciao.

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Tags: mom, tips, computer, AMD, Intel, 64 bit, HDD, RAM