Solid State Drives

If you are getting a new computer, getting a solid state (aka flash memory) drive is a great option. These drives do not use mechanical movements, and operate more like system memory (they don’t move). This means a much more reliable hard drive that could last a long time. Plus, they are way faster.

What does it do?

Let’s say you click your mouse on a desktop icon to open an application. What’s really happening? You click, which sends an electrical signal from the mouse through a wire to either a USB or PS/2 port on your motherboard. The signal is then sent along the motherboard and to your CPU, which does some calculations and comes up with a response to your click. That response is sent through another electrical signal along the motherboard until it gets to your Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which is on your video card. The GPU decides how to take that response and turn it into something visual to show you, and sends that change to your monitor, which refreshes, and voila!

I know that sounded like a mouthful, so I’ll lay it out simply. Your video card is responsible for taking the calculations that your computer does, and turning them into visuals on a monitor for you.

A little history

Video cards didn’t always exist. It used to be that the CPU (Central Processing Unit) would do all the calculations, but as computers got to be more sophisticated, manufacturers found they needed more power dedicated to video. This is how “GPU”s (Graphics Processing Unit) were invented. Today, there are two manufacturers that control the market, ATI and Nvidia. Most of the time it doesn’t matter which brand you pick, as long as you get a good deal. You can use the tomshardware.com video charts to find out what cards are top performers in your price range. There are also third party manufacturers that take the GPUs that ATI and Nvidia make, and factory overclock them. For example, an ATI Radeon X800 is a video card made by ATI. A third party company like XFX might take the GPU on that Radeon X800 card and overclock it a bit, put it a XFX GPU Cooler on it, and dub it the XFX Radeon X800. It’s always nice to buy these third party cards, because they are usually the same price, they are factory overclocked, and they look cooler.

Types of video cards

Before you buy a video card, you have to figure out what type your motherboard supports. Many motherboards come with integrated video, especially the lower end ones by OEM Manufacturers (Dell, eMachine, Gateway, etc). Almost all motherboards now come with expansion slots though, and this is where you’d put your graphics card. Some common types of expansion slots are: PCI, AGP, PCI-X and PCI-Express.

Once you figure out what type you need, you can choose one in your price range. Newegg.com is a great place to buy one.

Whats makes a particular video card better than another?

Video cards consist of a printed circuit board (the card) holding a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), dedicated video memory, a GPU cooler/fan, and some other random electrical stuff like capacitors and resisters. The GPU is the most important part, but there are only a few specs overall to worry about.

Core Clock – How many cycles per second your GPU can process. The more the better.

Memory Size – How much dedicated memory your video card has on it, get at least 256mb these days, but 512 should be standard.

Memory Interface – Usually 128-bit or 256-bit. Higher is better.

Memory Type – Anything from DDR to GDDR5. Any GDDR type of memory should be fine but GDDR5 is the best at the moment.

Memory Clock – How many cycles per second your memory can handle.

As long as you use tomshardware’s guides you won’t really need to look at any of these things, except memory size which is pretty important. You’ll also notice that the GPU clock and memory clock will be higher on 3rd party cards than on the factory ATI and GeForce ones. Also, the cooling might be more innovative.

SLI and Crossfire

Both Nvidia and ATI have technologies that allow you to have put multiple video cards on one motherboard, which gives you added performance. Logically, you would think that you would get 2x the performance because you have twice as many cards, but in reality it ends up being 1.5x the performance.  Therefore most of the time it’s not worth it to shell out for two cards, just get a top of the line card instead.

Double GPU Cards

Some video cards come with two GPU’s on one card. This is more of a prestige thing than performance, it’s just so you can say you have it, kind of like having a nitrogen powered  CPU cooler. I’d rather have Crossfire or SLI than a double GPU card, just because you get twice as much memory and therefore better performance.

Last but not least

You can buy the most expensive video card, but if you have a monitor that uses VGA instead of HDMI or DVI, you wasted your money. Using the most expensive video card in a low resolution is like using a Ferrari in a 25 mile per hour zone. Also, make sure you get the most up to date drivers, get them from your manufacturer’s website (don’t use the CD that came with the card). You can also try the third party drivers and forceware on guru3d.com. They work great.

I hope you learned a little bit about video cards, if you have any further questions feel free to post them in the comment boxes below…

CCleaner is a great application for cleaning up your computer if it’s running slow. You can get it by going to our downloads section. After you install it watch the video below and you’ll find out how to use it.

When is it a good idea to make your own computer?
You can’t beat Dell or other OEM manufacturers when it comes to cheap computers. They buy parts by the thousands and get huge discounts, so they can do that and there’s no point in trying to beat them there. Once you get into the $800 price range and above though, it becomes apparent when you look at sites like newegg.com that you could make a better system with the same amount of money. It’s also a great idea to custom build if you are already have an elderly computer and just want to get a new one, but don’t want to pay for a new monitor, keyboard, peripherals, or software. The other obvious situation is if you need something unique, like 16 terabytes of data, RAID, or you just want an extremely high performance system.

What are the advantages?

1. -You can get factory-overclocked parts which are faster than their OEM counterparts.
2. -You get lots of free bundled stuff with almost every part (like games, peripherals, cables, cool boxes, toolkits, etc)
3. -You get a warranty with every part, some even come with lifetime warranties. This is better than having a one or two year warranty with Dell or Apple because you can just replace that one part instead of not having your whole computer for the 2-8 weeks it takes them to send you a new one.
4. -You can choose which brands you want to use for parts, which can have a huge effect on the overall performance and reliability of your system. For example, lots of Toshiba and Sony computers come with Hitachi Deskstar hard drives (aka “Deathstar”), which are pretty much the worst hard drives in existence. Instead of buying a computer with a time bomb in it, you can choose to buy a Western Digital or a Seagate drive.
5. -All OEM systems are fairly balanced systems, but some people need a lot of something and less of something else. For example if you are a recording engineer, you need a lot of ram and a great sound card, but having a quality video card isn’t so important. Why pay more for something you don’t need?
6. -Making your own system (carefully and slowly) allows you to understand what’s going on in there, and therefore when things go wrong (it’s gonna happen eventually…) you might just be able to fix it yourself, instead of paying professional techs to do it.
7. -You can save money!

How to pick parts, and save money!

I used to keep up with all the new video cards and CPU lines coming out, what their specs were, and all that jazz. Then I realized…this stuff is taking up too much space in my brain. Every week companies come out with new parts, don’t bother keeping up with it. Instead, go to tomshardware.com and look at the charts for the part you want. It will show you the best to worst parts, and from there you can find what the best part is for your price range. Then go online and find the best deal for that part. You might have to wait a few days but chances are you can find a great deal on it. Here’s a few more tricks you might find useful:

• -Wait to buy your parts right after a new product line comes out. For example right when Intel comes out with it’s newest CPU line, all of the Core i5 and i7 parts will plummet in price. The part you couldn’t afford a week ago is now just right.
• -Use the “Best ______ for the price” articles on tomshardware.com and anandtech.com to find the best deals
• -Don’t buy into the hype. For example, lots of power supplies will say “SLI Certified” or “Crossfire Certified”. What does that really mean? It means that because they got a certification, they can add $10 to the price. Just go buy another power supply with the same specs from a reliable manufacturer (really important for PSU’s). Another example is RAM. Getting huge heatsink fans that look great is cool, but if you aren’t overclocking just buy ValueRAM.
• -Buy parts from other venders. If you want a video card, buy it from XFX, Asus, or BFG, instead of straight from Nvidia or ATI. The only difference between an XFX GeForce 6600 and an Nvidia GeForce 6600 is a different design of the circuit board (maybe colored in black instead of green), and the XFX version will be factory-overclocked. You get added performance for free.

What are the disadvantages?

Support. You can’t just call up a support line and have them guide you through it. However, videos on YouTube titled “How to put a new ________ in your computer” are fairly common now, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble. Every part even comes with instructions on how to install it. In the case of most parts you just have to snap it into the slot. The most difficult parts to set up are the motherboard, CPU, and the little annoying case wires that plug into your motherboard. As long as you take your time and don’t jam anything in too hard or force anything you should be fine.

The drivers don’t come pre-installed. However all the parts come with CD’s with the drivers on them. You should always ALWAYS go to the manufacturer’s website and download the newest drivers, make sure you select the right operating system. It helps to do this on another computer and put them on a flash drive or CD before you install the operating system because you won’t have an ethernet driver and won’t be able to access the internet to get the drivers on the fresh install.

Once you get everything in and installed, there really isn’t any other disadvantage that comes to mind.

Where to start, What brands to use

The first thing you want to do is pick a CPU (use tomshardware charts). It doesn’t matter if you get Intel or AMD, however if you want to run OS X on VMWare you should get an Intel CPU. Once you’ve picked a CPU you can find a motherboard that has a socket for that CPU. The motherboard you choose will have a certain video card slot (PCI-Express, AGP, PCI or On-Board), which will determine what kind of video card you can get. The motherboard will also support certain types of RAM, it’s obviously a good idea to get the fastest ram that it supports, but that’s not always necessary. Most motherboards support Serial ATA (SATA) and Parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives, but SATA is the standard now so get a SATA Hard Drive. You can choose a SATA or PATA CD Drive. Get any other peripherals you need like sound cards. Although there may be great deals on lots of separate sites for certain parts, I have found that you can save money ordering everything from one site because you tax and shipping. And just one quick word of advice, don’t ship UPS. Get FedEx. I’ve had UPS lose my computer, and you just don’t want to deal with that, even if newegg is great about accommodating you.

Where to buy

http://www.newegg.com

http://www.tigerdirect.com

http://www.directron.com

http://www.mwave.com

Best Brands by Part

CPU – Intel or AMD

Motherboard – Asus, MSI, DFI

Video Card – BFG, Asus, MSI, eVGA, XFX, ATI, Nvidia

Memory – Corsair (love their valueRAM), Kingston, OCZ

Hard Drive – Western Digital, Seagate

Power Supply – Rosewill, OCZ, Corsair, BFG, Thermaltake, Antec, PC Power

CD Drive – Lite-On (Doesn’t really matter, get something cheap)

Cases – Thermaltake, CoolerMaster, Antec, Lian Li, Rosewill

Hope that helps. On one last note…when you put your CPU in your motherboard match the gold triangle on the CPU with the one on the motherboard…I messed that up once when I was 15 and had 5 bent pins on my CPU…it still worked after I unbent them but don’t make the same mistake I did. Also read my other article about Retail vs OEM parts.

A bit of history

First of all many people misunderstand what the differences are between the two. When you buy a PC you either get an AMD or Intel processor, and that defines what all the other parts must be (motherboard –> memory, video card, etc). It used to be that Apple made its own processors (PowerPC), however now they have switched over to Intel. That’s why you can run bootcamp and use Windows on a Mac, because there is no difference hardware-wise between a PC and a Mac. Just to be complete, you could run Mac OSX on a PC too with VMWare or other virtual environments. Again, there is no difference hardware-wise between a Mac and PC.

What’s the difference?

The difference comes in the Operating System that is installed on your system. OS X ($49) vs Windows 7 ($129+). Of course these would come pre-installed on any respective new system you buy. You may be wondering, if they have the same hardware, then why does a mac cost so much more than a PC? The answer is great marketing. Mac is sheik, it’s fashionable, people think that they don’t get viruses. This is kind of true, but mostly that’s a result of the fact that Mac only has 6.4% market share. If you were a hacker why would you bother making a virus for mac? In every hacking competition (these do exist) Mac is always out first, with Windows falling after that, and Linux hacked last.

As someone who greatly admires well designed user interfaces, I must say that Apple has done a magnificent job creating OS X. It is ridiculously intuitive and laps even Windows 7 in it’s ease of use. However, anyone who is more than a basic user will find working on a mac less efficient. The lack of 3rd party and open-source software is a huge issue for Mac. The idea of using a Mac for my computer engineering projects is silly. Many people make the case that Mac is better for media, but what’s on Mac that isn’t on PC? The whole Adobe Creative Suite is on both, and what else do you need? The only thing that I can think of is Final Cut Pro which is better than Sony Vegas. Other than that, there are 10+ programs on PC for every Mac program in a given profession.

The other argument people make is this: A PC costs the same amount because you have to buy Antivirus and Security software. The best antivirus solutions are free, try AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials. They kick ass. See our downloads section for more useful software.

What it comes down to is this. If you have the extra money to shell out for a Mac, and you are a basic user that goes on the web and you do text editing, then go for it. Otherwise, save your cash and buy a more powerful PC.

Here’s two similarly priced computers:

Macbook Pro 13-inch

• 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x2GB
• 320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Backlit Keyboard (English) / User’s Guide

$1499

Dell Latitude E6150

But how do you know which solutions to choose? Free or paid? People naturally tend to think that if they pay for something, it should be better than it’s free counterpart. Most of the time this is true, however this is an exception. Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, and all the other major sellers provide Security Suites that bog down your computer with their extensive features that don’t work. They make your computer slow, and sometimes provide less than average protection.

So what’s the solution? Pick a free one. There’s really only 2 that are solid solutions. The older AVG free edition or the new and in our opinion superior Microsoft Security Essentials. They are both lightweight, and very dependable. We like MSE more because it has a super simple user interface, quick updates, and it doesn’t annoy you with popups like others do.

It’s always a good idea to have a second line of defense. We highly recommend MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. It finds a lot of the stuff that other scanners don’t, and best of all it’s free. Here’s a another option. Usually you don’t want to have two resident scanners operating at the same time, however we’ve found that using the paid version ($30 for lifetime subscription) of MBAM, which adds a resident scanner and ip blocking technology (very useful), doesn’t bog down your system and adds excellent protection. I’d like to see a virus get through the combination of MSE and MBAM Pro…

Good luck!

A Quick History Lesson

Back in the day personal computers were sold by only a few companies (Apple, IBM, etc). Very few people knew how to use computers, and only a hand full of them knew what was inside of one. Nobody upgraded or fixed their computer. If it broke they bought a new one. This meant that only computer makers needed the parts and there was no market for “Retail” parts. Computer Makers would simply get parts delivered in batches and put computers together in factories. These parts the computer makers had delivered in batches were called “OEM” parts. Then came the clones. Some cunning businessmen (Bill Gates was one of them) decided to sell their Operating Systems to other computer makers who used similar hardware, which marked the beginning of generic parts in computers. Part makers realized that people now had the knowledge and ability to make their own computers, and started making “Retail” Parts. Retail parts were sold in stores. They had shiny boxes instead of plain ones, manuals and software, and warranties. At this point end-users could buy retail parts, or buy computers already built with OEM parts inside them. However companies with leftover OEM parts now sell them to the public, and that is why you can choose between Retail and OEM.

Retail…

Advantages: Better warranty, comes with software, manual, nicer box, more reliable in terms of expected performance.

Disadvantages: Price

OEM…

Advantages: Price

Disadvantages: Weaker or no warranty, weaker or no customer support, ugly box, can be different than Retail part because companies can ask for “tweaks” from manufacturer, not good for novice computer builders

So basically to sum it all up…if you know what you are doing and want to save a few bucks, go with OEM. Otherwise stick with Retail.

If you have a different Anti-Virus solution and want to switch over to Microsoft Security Essentials, you should do the following:

1. Open up the Control Panel and go to Add/Remove Programs (in Windows 7 it’s “Uninstall a program”)
2. Select your current Anti-Virus and press the Uninstall/Change button.
3. Follow the prompts to completely uninstall it.
4. For added precaution, go to your current Anti-Virus’ company website and download their Removal Tool, and run it after step 3.
5. Restart your computer
6. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ to download MSE
7. When it’s done downloading open the install file and follow the prompts to install
8. Once it’s done installing restart your computer

How to Run a Virus Scan

1. Double-click the Microsoft Security Essentials icon on your desktop, or go to the Start Menu and press the Microsoft Security Essentials icon.
   



2. When the MSE window pops up, go to the Update tab at the top. Then press the Update button. This ensures that you have protection for the newest threats. This is a good habit to get into before scanning with any Anti-Malware application.
   
   



3. Once the updates are done, go back to the Home tab at the top of the window, and select the type of scan you wish to run. Quick scans are less thorough, however full scans can take more than an hour. If you want to scan a specific folder you can use a custom scan. Once you choose what kind of scan you want, press the Scan button.
   



4. You should try to leave your computer alone for a while while it scans, although using an Internet Browser or a Word Processor isn’t going to make your scan faulty. Once it is done scanning it will tell you if it has found malware. Remove the malware and restart your computer. DONE!