Computer
Reviews
(Where else to look for suggestions and help about computer hardware.)
c't
Generally, I suggest checking the German PC magazine c't
for reviews. It's so good, it's worth to read a machine-translation, if
you don't know German. They are hardware cracks. They really like to do this
stuff and to do it right. They are independant. And it shows.
E.g. when there were all the talk about the Pentium CPU ID a few years ago, I was sure that, if it's crackable, they'd crack it. Of course, they did, within days, and were the first world-wide to do so :).
That's just one typical example. Also, reviewers are not scared to make very uncommon statements, if they think they are right.
Online
While you can sometimes get good info from online hardware review sites like Ars Technica
, AnandTech
and Tom's Hardware
, take all you read there with a grain of salt.
It looks like these sites are ran by computer enthusiasts like you and me.
Their topics are close to what their breed is interested in, but that's about
it for the advantages. They severely lack background knowledge, don't have
time to do a really thorough review, and they need to lend the hardware from
the manufacturers. Often, their info comes from there, too. This means, unfortunately,
that they are (most of the time) brain-washed by all the hype the companies
generate. So, unlike what you might think at first, they are not really independant
in their reviews.
Budget strategy
(It's not a review, but fits well with my recommondations here.)
As for how much money to spend for a PC, assume that you will replace half the components of the PC after a year. Better buy the budget components and replace some of them later instead of going for the top model and trying to live with it for 3 years. Your top model will be a budget one in half a year (or earlier) and it will be completely outdated in 2 years.
This is not true for the parts which you can usually see. It is OK to invest into a good monitor, for example. It might outlive 2 PCs.
HID
(HID = Human-Interface Device)
Mouse
I love my little Logitech Cordless Mouse. I don't know, if it's still being
manufactured, but I got it with the original Logitech Cordless Desktop. (See
below for the keyboard.)
It uses radio technology, which means that you don't have to care about transmission
of data: no cables or anything in your way. Make sure to place the reciever
well and replace the batteries every 1-2 months (at least in my case), that's
all.
Unfortunately, it's not optical. Logitech now has optical cordless mice, but I don't know, if they have the same form.
And I love the form. Not only is it visually about as elegant as a mouse
can get. It also lies perfectly in my hand. I like to have my hand-ball rest
on the surface (e.g. desk) and move the mouse only with my fingers without
moving the rest of the hand. Letting the whole hand rest on the mouse and
moving the arm is too slow, too imprecise and too stressing over long times
IMO. Many mice are too large to do this comfortably and to still have freedom
to move the mouse. But this mouse has the perfect size for this (and my hand).
Keyboard
The Logitech keyboard was bad. You can throw them away after a few drops
of water got between the keys. Since I drink a lot, I destroyed 2 of them
this way within months. Note that they cost about 50$ (100DM).
I now use standard Sigma keyboards, available in Germany at Kaufhof. They
cost only about 15$ (35DM), but they are comfortable (for me). And they are
very resistant: If you react quickly, the electronic survives pouring
a whole glass of orange juice all over the keyboard (!). Of course, the mechanic
starts to clog then, so I have to replace them eventually. They are still
the best I found. I almost buy them in six-packs :).
RAM
Get as much memory as you can get hold of. Up to a certain (high) limit,
it is the cheapest way to improve your computer's performance noticably for
normal desktop usage. Buy so much memory that the machine never needs to "swap"
(virtual memory pushed out to the harddisk). The actual amount depends
on your OS and applications, but today's (as of 2001-10-14) minimum should
be 256MB.
Recently, I bought 1GB of very cheap RAM - and regretted it.
The uncertainty you endure when you get random errors cannot be outweighted by the small amount of cash you save.
Next time, I will listen to the c't and buy RAM with a brand-name, namely
Infineon (which the c't found to be best). It costs twice as much, but reliability
is worth it. Better 0.5GB good RAM than 1GB BadRAM.
And no, you cannot reliably check your RAM after you bought it. The manufacturer
did check it already (hopefully!). The errors are usually very obscure.
With RAM being so cheap now, you can start moving other jobs of the harddisk - e.g. the directory for temp files - to a ramdisk.
Mainboard
This is similar to RAM: Mainboards fulfill many functions and are central and critical parts of the machine. Don't save 20 bucks here.
In fact, my recent Via KT133A mainboard seems to be the cause for lots of problems with my PC.
Soundcard
SB Live!
I never used this card (luckily), but it seems to be complete crap.
It seems to flood the PCI bus and use lots of evil PCI tricks, violating the spec, to get / deliver its data,
stomping on everything else on its way, most notably the disk controller.
I blame the famous VIA southbridge dataloss bug on it.
See also the several-day headache it caused for ESR and 2 experienced hardware-builders.
Stay away from these cards.
SoundBlaster 16
I used this card for years and it served me well.
Unfortunately, it was ISA, so I had to throw it out.
Terratec DMX XFire 1024
That's the card I use at the moment.
Audio quality seems to be good.
If you use Linux, use the ALSA drivers, not the ones in the 2.2 kernel.
Digital
If anybody knows an affortable and lossless solution (not raw SPDIF) to get digital sound data out of the PC and to convert it to analog in a HiFi component, please tell me.
Echo Gina24 looks interesting, yet a bit overkill and proprietary.
AES/EBU might be an interesting standard.
Ideally, the DAC would speak 100BaseT Ethernet :-).
Audio
If you care about music at all and have enough money, forget about PC loudspeakers.
Use an external HiFi-amphiler
and HiFi-loudspeakers.
Loudspeakers
My local HiFi store sold me System Audio 1050s, and I didn't regret that
investion. They are no good for basses, though
(which I can't push anyway because of my neighbors).
CD
I sincerely believe that a CD-ROM drive (which is good at reading audio)
in a PC together with cdparanoid (a Unix app) and the above setup can beat
extremely expensive (1000$+) HiFi-CD-players in quality (not to mention comfort,
if you like PCs).
That is, as long as the music industry doesn't mess with the CD, for "copy-protection".
But then, everything is lost anyway and HiFi-players will probably suffer,
too. :-( Bastards.