This is the continuation of the ''Guidelines for a Good Assembled PC'' posted earlier in this section - split into parts- due to the restriction in number of words in a review.
Soundcards : If You are a person who enjoys a good movie, mainly for the music and for the background scores, are a music lover, and/or want quality in the sound that u here, and not mere jarring “quantity” of sound- then I would Strongly recommend that u get a good sound card also along with your PC. The sound card can be even a 4.1 or 2.1 channel sound card, for a relatively good output, or could be as good as an excellent 7.1 channel sound card, supporting Dolby and THX surround sounds, with added options. One could also look for a good mother board which has a good sound processor inbuilt into it, instead of separately getting a sound card, through, personally I prefer getting the sound card separately.
Motherboard: The Mother Board (Mobo) is one of the most important components, and should not only be ideal to support and integrate without problems, your other component choices, but, it should also provide any additional features that u desire. In My case, I dint want to spend extra on a stand alone Sound Card hence was looking for a mother board, which had a good On-Board sound processor. Moreover, I wanted a motherboard which had a lot of USB Ports Support –as most devices of today (add on, most hot swappable), run on USB. Also I wanted a motherboard which had fire-ware ports too and also had a good number of PCI Express Slots (Normal PCI and AGP devices are now moving on to become PCI Express Devices – faster!)
as a special case , I also wanted a mother board that would provide me dual gigabit LAN support as I have to be part of two networks – one of my Broadband ISP and other of my home 2-PC’s Network.
Monitor: I am a person who spends almost 15 to 18 hours a day in front of the computer. Through it is said without doubt that Normal Cathode-ray Monitors, are the best for providing High quality images, for our enjoyment, the fact that they emit large amounts of very harmful radiations, which disturb our eyes, are also Undeniable. Even the use of filter screens in front of normal cathode-ray monitors, is not completely effective against these radiations. So, I would recommend the use of LCD-TFT monitors, which in spite of producing a small reduction in quality of Higher end images, are very “eye-friendly” and don’t disturb the eyes, or don’t cause as much strain, when a person works on the computer at a stretch, even for hours together.
I personally thought of going for a good 17” LCD TFT Monitor.
Cabinet: Most people neglect the choice of cabinets totally and attempt to foolishly reduce initial costs of the PC, by getting a cheap cabinet. This is very wrong, as the cabinet is very important for the pc’s proper functioning and also the healthy life of the pc. Saving a few hundreds of thousands of Rs, by compromising on the quality of the cabinet, could spell disaster, even in a short period of usage. If ur PC, is as I said above, using a high-end processor, and graphics card and sound card, u will definitely need a good cabinet, that can not only cool the components with Multiple Fans, it should also be able to dissipate heat from its entire surface. Also, the power supply of the cabinet, should be extremely good, and should not be a cheap one, leading to faulty functioning, which could cause your other valuable components to burn.
Drives: I would recommend that since most of the media today, comes in DVD’s and also the size of the files( even those used for backup) are larger, one should ideally go for a DVD-Writer Instead of going for a DVD-CD/Writer Combo Drive. It would also be ideal, to skip buying a Floppy Drive, as people have almost stopped using Floppies, due to their extreme unreliability in transport of data. Instead I would strongly recommend investing that amount, on a good Removable Storage(Thumb Drive) USB Pen Drive.
Keyboard, Mouse , Table and Chair: The Use of a Good Ergonomically designed Keyboard and mouse is very essential, long hours of working, can otherwise cause severe strain to our arm and shoulder muscles. Also, the use of correct posture, while working at the PC, which can be aided with the use of a good ergonomic and comfortable Computer Chair, is most Important. Also one should select a good and compact computer table, which can seat all of the computer components comfortably, without causing a clutter, and also conceal the wires. The table should also be comfortable and strong, and should not hinder with normal working of the pc.
Speakers and Add-on Hardware: I would recommend that the normal user of the PC, who would like very good quality sound, should ideally go for some really good speakers , if possible, good 7.1 surround speakers. But this depends entirely on the budget and tastes of the user. If u want a relatively good sound quality, but don’t want to spend on both a sound card and a good speaker-set, u could even get a speaker set which has an inbuilt amplifier in its main woofer console, thereby giving u an “ok” output, even without having a good sound card.
Talking about the other hardware, I feel that a good Microphone+Headset is very essential to the PC. I personally feel that a Desktop inkjet printer is very costly and totally useless, and rather prefer talking printouts for myself, on my college (or nearby DTP Center) Laser Printers (which come to only around 40 Paisa per page for me, including the cost of paper, whereas normal inkjet printers would work out to be pretty costly in comparison). But this is of course a very personal opinion, and I would say that generally, most users are comfortable getting a good printer, which can not only give clear and efficient printouts, but can also give good photo clarity outputs. One could also think about going for the new and improved printers, which have multiple functionalities, such as printing directly from USB drives or digi-cams, acting as Fax Machines, scanners etc.
Continued in the Next Part of this review - Guidelines for a Good Assembled PC III
