Desktop PCs

What to look for when buying a Desktop PC

So you're looking at buying a Desktop PC. A desktop PC is a personal computer that is intended for regular use at a single location as opposed to a mobile laptop or notebook computer. Today the phrase usually indicates a particular style of computer case.

A desktop PC can range from around $300 to over $3000. An average desktop PC will cost less than $1000 and the average desktop PC bundled with an LCD monitor around $1500. Some common desktop PC brands are Dell, LG, Acer, Lenovo, HP, Intel, ASUS and AMD.

Key factors to consider when purchasing a desktop PC are installed RAM, hard drive capacity and processor speed. The installed RAM can range from at least 512 MB to over 2.5 GB. Hard drive capacity can range from at least 40 GB to 300 GB with the average hard drive size 200 GB. Processor speed can range from 1 GHz to 3.0GHz with the average processor speed being 2.0 GHz.

Other factors to consider are processor type, chipset, optical drive, form factor and OS certified. Processor types include Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core i7, Intel Pentium 4, Intel Pentium, Intel Celeron, Intel Core 2 Quad, Intel Atom, Intel Pentium D and AMD Athlon. Common chipsets are Intel G45 Express, Intel G31, Intel X58 Express, Intel X58 and NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI. Some common optical drives include DVD+/-RW Dual Layer, DVD+/-RW, DVD-RW, DVD+/-RW Dual Layer / DVD-RAM, DVD-RW Dual Layer and Blu-Ray ROM. Form factors can be desktop, tower or micro tower and common desktop operating systems are Microsoft Windows Vista or Microsoft Windows XP.