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Shashi Aggarwal recommended:
> Since you say you are techno novice, the first thing you should do is come
> to speed on certain things. 2 sites I would suggest are:
> 1) www.cnet.com; click on Hardware reviews and just follow links as needed
> 2) www.zdnet.com; click on Reviews and follow links as needed.
Ah! Good idea. One more site to check is Ars Technica, at
www.arstechnica.com . They in turn will lead you to places like
AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, and HardOCP. One of the nice
things about Ars Technica is that in addition to some pretty reliable
hardware reviews and a forum full of uber-geeks to guide you out
of trouble they offer three suggested recipes for building a fast,
reliable box--a budget model, the hot rod, and an all-out dual-
processor speed demon. The suggestions are updated reasonably
often, and thus far they have always resulted in a problem-free
machine, even when I put them together. They tend to be aimed
at gamers, but that means only that you may want a video board
optimized for 2D graphics rather than 3D animation. Definitely
worth looking at.
Two iterations of the budget box thus far have proved to be a lot
more machine than you can get from Dell, Gateway, or the like for
anything near the money, without locking you (me!) into a proprietary
system that will be hard to upgrade. Building one is even a fairly
pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, if you don't mind fiddling
with a screwdriver.
Owen Davies
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