New Computer - Suggested Specs

[BetteTheRed]

Well, my 10 year old iMac died this week (final autopsy faulted cat hair, but it was also...old), and will have to be replaced with something. You see, I was using its 27" screen as my main 'television'; just not the same on my little laptop.

I'm getting a bit loathe to chuck such huge amounts of bucks at Apple just to make sure that the colours I'm looking at are perfect. However, I do have an innate fussiness about colour veracity and quality that I can't seem to overcome.

So I think I'm looking at a Windows desktop, ensuring it has the highest end graphics card and then buying a large (ish - 27" is big enough for my little den and my poor old eyes), good quality monitor/TV to go with. Any tech types want to weigh in with suggestions?

 

[Mendalla]

Exactly what are your primary uses?

A machine used simply for email, surfing, and social media needs less horsepower and storage than one used for photo/video editing or graphics work. Streaming video like Netflix mostly needs a fast connection and half-decent graphics so really no special requirements there. If you're running a business or keep lots of photos and video on it, you'll want lots of file storage so get a 1TB or larger hard drive (unless you plan to store files on a cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox). Serious gaming requires the most horsepower but I can't picture you playing Call of Duty or Age of Empires for hours on end (correct me if I'm wrong on that count, though).

Once you know what you want, that dictates the rest of the specs.

Minimum recommended for Windows 10 (the version you'll likely get though if you hunt around you can probably still find Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 boxes around) is pretty slim: 1Ghz processor, 2GB RAM. There should really not be anything on the market today with specs that low, though. Most start around 3Ghz for the processor and 8GB of RAM with a 1 TB drive and that's enough for basic home use.

If you have no special requirements, you could start with something like this HP (doesn't have to be this model, but look at the tech specs):

http://h20386.www2.hp.com/CanadaStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=N0A60AA&opt=ABL&sel=DTP#specs

It has a free PCIe slot for your graphics card upgrade, too.

If you were a hardcore gamer or doing photo or video editing, then you'd want to go higher, an i7 processor or similar and more RAM with a really good graphics card and a nice fat hard drive, maybe 2TB or some kind of multidrive "array" (geek stuff, most people don't need it)

The 27" monitor is a good idea. We're starting to use them at work for people with visual difficulties or a need for more screen real estate.

If you don't need a ton of storage and want something that will boot up quickly, you could opt for an SSD instead of a traditional hard drive. These use a cluster of flash memory similar to what's in a USB key instead of magnetic platters to store data. They are faster than old style hard drives but more expensive per gigabyte and there are questions about longterm reliability so they are best for someone who uses a cloud for file storage or is willing and able to back up frequently.

 

[Mendalla]

The short version: Any decent PC on the market will do the job if you're just surfing, streaming, and doing social media. It is when you get into things like photo editing, gaming, or running your business on it that you need to be more nitpicky on the specs.

One thing to consider is warranty/service plan. PCs for home use are generally 1 year. If this machine is going to be important to you past that first year, see what's on offer as far as extended service plans, which may also give you some additional coverage in the warranty period.

 

[BetteTheRed]

And it is the quality of graphics card plus the type/quality of monitor/screen that I choose that will make my colour experience the best compared to a mac?

 

[Mendalla]

Exactly. I'm going to ask my son about the card because, as a gamer, he tends to pay more attention to these things than I do. The out of the box graphics chips on most PCs are good enough for me. Even at work, the only machine that gets a custom graphics card is the marketing coordinator/graphic artist.

 

[Carolla]

see - this is one of the things I love about this community .... so much expertise shared so willingly when one just asks. Just wanted to share that ... back to your technical discussions!