Handy guideline to buy a computer for non-experts

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When it comes to buying a computer and you step in the huge amount of options out there, it seems like a very difficult thing to do, and indeed it is. Even for experts it is a pain to make a wise choice. However, in this article, I will give you a little bit of context on the main components that need to be seen and narrow those option based on your needs.

When I was a teenager I used to hear people using the term ‘CPU’ to refer to the whole tower for desktop computers, and rapidly adopted the same term when talking about it. It was just until I got into college that I realised that CPU stands for Central Processing Unit and that this is the main component of the computer. So, this is the main component to study. The processor or CPU, is the brain of your device, its responsibility is to perform calculations and communicate information across your device. But what exactly is that? To exemplify, let’s suppose you just started your laptop and you want to open your Browser. When you click on your Browser a signal is sent and 3 things happen underneath:

Your CPU fetch that signal and the information
Processes the information received, in this case, open Browser
Execute the task needed. In this case, it has to find in your memory the application and render it to the monitor

As it is the brain, it cannot handle anything without the rest of the pieces. It is analogous to our brains. Our brains send signals to our hands to move them. The same happens in a computer, it’s the one that delegates what to do and the one that accesses information. Now that we know what a processor is, let’s now talk about its characteristics. There are two major manufacturers of computer processors, Intel® and AMD®. Each of them has 3 types of processors: Budget, mid-range or mainstream and high-end. Being budget the cheapest of the three. The main characteristics of a processor are:

Cores

Think about it as physical subprocessors inside the processor. They can be Dual-core (2), Quad-core (4), Hexa-core (6), Octa-core (8) or Deca-core (10). So if you have a Dual-core it means you have one chip with two processors attached to it.
Threads

Some processors employ a technology called multithreading. Think about it as non-physical subprocessors inside a processor. They are not attached to the chip but one subprocessor can become into two just virtually. So if you have a computer dual-core, with multithreading you will end up with 4 threads (2 cores and 4 threads). We will see this in practice, don’t worry : )
Generation

This is important since it tells us the year a processor was released. A processor from 2015 with better characteristics than 2018 not necessarily is better.
Clock speed

This is the speed at which a processor handles instructions per second.

At the end of this article, I will post some links you can use to compare processors and other resources you can use to have a look.

The second component to have a look at is the RAM which stands for Random Access Memory. It is a volatile memory(meaning that it is only available when your laptop is running, as soon as you shut it down it’s cleaned up). This memory is important because is the one that manages all the applications and processes your computer is running while you are using it. Your computer needs memory to open your Browser, Powerpoint, Spotify and so on; so, when you open each of them the responsible to handle all the stuff underneath is the RAM. In the market you can find RAMs up to 32Gb and gamers usually make it up to 64 or even more. For us, starting from 4Gb until 16Gb is enough. Now that you know what is it for, if you usually use your computer for browsing the Internet and writing some docs a 4Gb RAM is a good choice, personally would recommend going straight to 8Gb since the price doesn’t increase here.

Finally, the storage. There are two types of this one. HDD or Hard Drive Disk and SDD or Solid-State drive. The main difference between the two: SSD is way faster than HDD. As its name says, HDD uses a disk to read and write information whereas SSD doesn’t. 2021 laptops and computers come with SSD but if you are after a second-hand device you should probably have a look a this before buying. There is one more that is becoming more popular call NVMe and stands for Non-volatile Memory Express and is way faster than SSD. So if you are buying and you see the storage is NVMe and it fits your budget, go for it, if not, then go for SSD. HDD is not an option anymore for today’s computers. Try to find an SSD that suits your budget.

Here is a list of resources you can reach if you are interested in learning more: