CNET desktop buying guide
Find the desktop specs that are just right
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The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Find the specs that are just right
Like most consumers, you probably have an idea of how much you want to spend on a desktop. But how do you ensure that you get exactly what you need? The different shapes and sizes, the wide range of configurations, and the seemingly constant arrival of new and faster technology all make for a difficult decision. To help you find the right mix, we've outlined the four basic types of PC user.
User types: General purpose user | Power user | Home theater enthusiast | Home office worker
General purpose user
These days, $500 to $1,500 will net you a desktop with a dual-core CPU and enough power to run productivity apps, view and edit vacation photos, manage MP3s and videos, and even play many of today's games--the core activities most common to families, students, and the general purpose PC user. At $1,000 and up, you should easily be able to perform those tasks. Spend around $500, and in most cases you'll still be able to run common tasks without delay, although 3D gaming becomes a stretch. You will definitely find a dual-core chip in a $500 PC (you should insist on a dual-core chip these days, unless your budget keeps you under the $500 mark), but Vista could still give you trouble. Be sure the PC is equipped with at least 1GB of memory, and it's a good bet that you'll be able to smoothly run Vista. Add in a 128MB graphics card, and you'll get the Aero effects with little to no performance loss.If you're leaning towards Apple, you should keep in mind that Apple's OS X operating system is due for an update in October. We recommend waiting until then to purchase a new Mac, so you don't have to worry about updating the operating system yourself later on. We also wouldn't be surprised if Apple came out with a new desktop between now and then. We can't say what it might look like, but any Mac Mini or iMac will get the job done for most of today's day-to-day users. We have no reason to doubt that Apple will continue to offer relatively affordable, capable home systems.
Key features:
| AMD Athlon 64 X2, or Intel Core 2 Duo processor |
| 1GB of DDR2 memory |
| 250GB to 500GB hard drive |
| 128MB, DirectX 9-capable graphics card from ATI or Nvidia |
| DVD burner |
| 17- to 19-inch LCD |
| 2-piece or 2.1 speaker set |
| Windows Vista Home Premium or Apple OS X Leopard (when it becomes available) |
| Apple iLife or Microsoft Works Suite 2006 (students might want full-blown Office 2007 or iWork '06) |
Power user
It's easy for the price to get out of hand with a power PC. Take, for instance, any of these quad-core PCs. If you shop around, you should be able to find a more than adequate gaming or digital design box for between $2,500 and $3,500. Look for an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM.You'll also need a large, fast hard drive--perhaps two or more if you plan to transfer and edit movie files--and of course, a DVD burner or, if you have an HD display, a Blu-ray or HD DVD drive. If your goal is digital design, Apple's Mac Pro continues to shine in this arena. We still won't recommend an Apple for gaming, though, so if that's your aim, it's Windows for you.The graphics card issue is a bit stickier. Right now, we recommend either of Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX or 8800 GTS cards, or one of ATI's newer Radeon HD 2900 XT cards. Each shows promise in current generation games. Which one will be better for next-gen DirectX 10 games we can't say, because the games with which to properly test them aren't here yet. If gaming is your chief concern and you can put off your purchase for a little while, you might wait until the shooter Crysis comes out (allegedly this September). That game represents the next leap forward in PC 3D graphics, and while it won't be the only game that matters, most performance junkies will rely on it to determine which graphics card is the most advanced.
Key features:
| Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, E6750, or E6850; Core 2 Quad Q6600 or Q6700, Core 2 Extreme QX6700, QX6800 or QX6850 |
| 2GB to 4GB of 800MHz or 1,066MHz DDR2 memory |
| 500GB to 1TB 7,200rpm hard drive(s) |
| 512MB ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, 768MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, 640MB or 320MB GeForce 8800 GTS |
| Blu-ray, HD DVD, or DVD+/-RW drive |
| 19- to 21-inch LCD |
| Digital 5.1 speakers |
| Windows Vista Ultimate or Home Premium |
| Microsoft Office 2007, DVD-authoring program |
Home theater enthusiast
Media Center functionality is built into Windows Ultimate and Home Premium, so you could make the argument that a home-theater PC doesn't need its own category anymore. Of course, you'd be wrong. We never really bought into the idea of putting a standard tower desktop in the living room, which is why we're glad we're to see so many ultra-small-form-factor designs such as Apple's Mac Mini and Shuttle's XPC X200M . You don't need all the power of a traditional desktop to simply watch downloaded movies and listen to music, as long as you can output video and audio from your PC to your TV and your audio receiver, you're all set.If you demand high video quality, you might sacrifice some of that caability if you opt for a lower-end system. As an alternative, you can get a larger A/V component-style case with a full-fledged video card in it to help with the video processing. We've had mixed experiences with Windows Vista's new CableCard support. If you're set on compressing all of your home theater hardware into one box, it might be the solution you're looking for (just don't do it in New York City yet), but otherwise it's probably easier to just stick with your cable box.
Another question to ask yourself with a media PC: do you want to use your TV as your primary display? Flipping through your recorded TV shows via Media Center is easy to do on your TV, but simple PC tasks, such as writing e-mail and browsing the Web, aren't ideal with the 10-foot interface of sitting on your couch and squinting at small text and icons. This is why we think that wireless networking and smaller, cheaper PCs have helped the media PC come a long way. By minimizing the cables and their own footprint, these less offensive computers make it easy to justify owning two PCs: one that's hooked up to the TV and a more traditional system that sits on your desk. The desk-bound PC can even store the bulk of your media files if your smaller system doesn't have a large enough hard drive. You can also look for a Windows Home Server for centralized file storage for every PC in your home when they come out later this year.
Key features:
| Intel Core or Core 2 Duo or Athlon 64 X2 CPU (quiet and cool operation is more important than raw power) |
| 1GB to 2GB of RAM |
| 500GB or more hard drive space (or Windows Home Server, in a few months) |
| 256MB or better graphics card from ATI or Nvidia |
| Analog or CableCard tuner (optional) |
| Blu-ray, HD DVD or combo optical drive |
| 21-inch or larger LCD or a direct connection to your home-theater display |
| Wireless keyboard and mouse and Media Center remote |
| Front Row, Windows Vista Ultimate or Home Premium, or other media management/DVR software |
Home office worker
Graphics are less of a concern for most businesses, unless you run a design shop. At minimum, you'll want a system with enough power (read: dual-core CPU) for multitasking your daily office chores. The money you save on the graphics you can put toward a larger flat-panel display and a better warranty. Vista complicates matters a little. Microsoft recommends at least 512MB of system memory and a DirectX 9-capable graphics card, and it ups the specs to 1GB of RAM and at least 128MB of independent video memory for Vista Home Premium with Aero. Of course, an iMac will get the job done, too, though at a higher price than your typical business PC--and again, you'll want to wait for October and Apple's new Leopard OS before purchasing a new Mac.Key features:
| Midrange AMD Athlon 64 X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo processor |
| 1GB of DDR memory |
| 250GB or 300GB hard drive |
| DVD burner |
| 128MB ATI or Nvidia graphics card |
| 19- or 21-inch LCD |
| Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, or Mac OS X |
| Microsoft Office XP or Works Suite 2006, or Apple iWork '06 |
Choose a desktop case: big or small
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Choose a case: big or small
The variety in desktop shape and size has only gotten broader. Traditional towers are still popular because they offer the most room for expansion. But space-saving, small-form-factor PCs have grown even smaller in the last year. Living room-friendly, AV component-style cases are still around to some degree, although we're not sure for how much longer, and thanks to Apple, the all-in-one PC remains healthy.
Case types: Small form factor | All-in-one | Living room-friendly case | Midtower case | Full-tower case
Small form factor
The small-form-factor (SFF) case is in a bit of a transition phase right now, because the bread-box-size design we normally think of is starting to look clunky compared to even smaller case designs that have cropped up, including that of the Mac Mini, the Enano, and others. This doesn't mean that we expect the traditional SFF case to disappear, though. We've been surprised at the number of features desktop vendors have been able to cram into the ultra-SFF boxes, but what those ultrasmall cases can't accommodate is expansion cards. So for most gaming, digital video encoding, and other tasks normally aided by PCI and PCI Express cards, you'll need the bigger little box.
All-in-one
HP TouchSmart IQ770
Living room-friendly case
Your home theater looks like a cross between a sci-fi movie set and a Philippe Starck hotel lobby, so why destroy the vibe with a boxy desktop PC? A small percentage of dedicated Media Center PCs are built into low, wide cases, designed to fit in among the cable boxes, DVD players, and video game consoles in the typical home theater. Some call them "living room PCs," others "A/V-style" or "rack-mount systems," although very few are ever actually mounted in equipment racks, and you're likely to find extras such as LED displays and copious audio and video connections. A trade-off for some smaller models is half-height expansion card slots or no slots at all, limiting possible upgrades.
Midtower case
The box no longer has to be beige, but the basic design of the tried-and-true midtower case remains the same: several internal and external drive bays, PCI Express and regular PCI slots for expansion, and a long list of ports on the front and the back for connecting peripherals, such as digital cameras and printers. You'll still find the trusty midtower case under many desks.
Full-tower case
If you are a serious speed junkie, then this is your hot rod. The interior space allows for plenty of expansion room, with many internal and external bays for both optical drives and hard drives. It should also include an x16 PCI Express slot or two for high-end 3D gaming cards, as well as at least five PCI or x1 PCI Express slots.
Select the desktop processor and memory
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Select the processor and memory
Desktops' specs and prices vary widely, from budget boxes for basic tasks such as word processing and e-mailing to performance PCs for playing the latest 3D games or editing digital video. The speed and the type of processor and memory you choose will play a large role in determining overall system performance. Here, we'll help you navigate the many choices you have in this area.
Processor
The brains of any PC is the CPU, or central processing unit. It is the single most important component of a desktop PC. Generally speaking, the faster the processor speed the better your performance, but once you really start to look into the complex world of CPUs, you'll realize that determining which CPU is the best for you is a little more complicated than merely counting gigahertz. For one, of the two major PC chip players, AMD and Intel, AMD's chips feature lower clock speeds than similarly performing Intel chips. And secondly, most new mainstream and high-end PCs come with dual-core or increasingly quad-core chips in them, meaning multiple processing brains on one physical piece of silicon.If that seems like more CPU than you need, don't worry, dual-core PCs are still affordable, and they're becoming the norm. eMachines' $500 T5230 is a dual-core system, and we've seen plenty of others in the same price range. And it's a good thing, too, because dual-core chips are good at multitasking, processing digital media, and taking care of all the other modern tasks for which we use computers. And Windows Vista benefits particularly from a dual-core chip, as it's been written specifically with them in mind.
Right now, the superior chip technology comes from Intel, in the form of its new Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. Thanks to recent price cuts, AMD's competing Athlon 64 X2 chips also offer strong performance for the dollar. In PCs under $1,000, as long as you have a Core 2 Duo or an Athlon 64 X2, that's about all you need to look for. Any more expensive than that and in most cases you're going to want to go with an Intel processor.
For more information on AMD's and Intel's processors, see our CPU roadmap story.
PROCESSOR | DESKTOP TYPE | PROS AND CONS |
| AMD Athlon 64 | Budget or mainstream | You might still find some of these single core chips in lower-end PCs. They were solid performers in their day but have since been outpaced in price and performance by other CPUs from both AMD and Intel. We wouldn't suggest paying more than $500 for a PC with one of these chips in it. |
| AMD Athlon 64 FX | Performance | AMD's high-end dual-core line had its performance crown taken away by Intel's Core 2 Duo CPUs. Even after AMD fired back by reducing prices, the FX series still couldn't compete with Intel in price/performance. They're plenty fast, and if you purchase a PC with one today, it will last you for a long time, but you should see PCs with faster Intel Core 2 Duo chips for less. |
| AMD Athlon 64 X2 | Budget to performance | Like the Athlon 64 FX chips, this former mainstream dual-core CPU of choice has been overtaken by Intel's Core 2 Duo chips. You can get them for a steal now, though, which helps keep them on the market. |
| AMD Quad FX | Performance | Not an actual processor per se but a pair of dual-core Athlon 64 FX-70 series chips on a specialized motherboard. Similar to Apple's approach of marrying two dual-core Xeon chips inside its quad-core Mac Pro. It's found on only the most high-end of desktops and is a precursor to more advanced quad-core chips yet to come (and software that can take advantage of four processing cores). Not recommend due to cost and complicated setup. |
| AMD Sempron | Budget | We still see these single-core budget chips in sub-$500 desktops, but we expect that as supplies dwindle, they won't last long in the market. After recent price cuts, AMD's dual-core, 64-bit Athlon 64 X2 CPUs should be widely available in sub-$1,000 PCs, with the single-core Athlon 64 taking over the extreme low-end, rendering the Sempron obsolete. |
| Apple PowerPC G5 | Mac Mini, iMac, and Power Mac | You won't find Apple's PowerPC G5 chip in any desktop purchased directly from Apple, but you might still find a G5-based Mac from other retailers. They're fast enough for day-to-day use, but we wouldn't recommend paying a lot for one, since the new Macs with Intel's Core and Core 2 Duo CPUs are faster. |
| Intel Celeron D | Budget | Like AMD's Sempron chips, we expect that Intel's Celerons will slowly disappear from the market, although they might linger in extremely low-end PCs. Intel's Core 2 Duo chips have come on strong in a broad swath of the mainstream, and Intel has said that it will transition the Pentium name on lower-end chips. While Intel hasn't officially issued Celeron's demise, the superior Pentium D or even Pentium 4 CPUs have become so affordable, that it would be hard to justify paying for a Celeron-based PC. |
| Intel Core | Budget or mainstream | While Intel Core is mostly a laptop chip, it achieved widespread desktop use, thanks to Apple's iMac and Mac Mini. Available in single-core (Core Solo) and dual-core (Core Duo) versions, these power-efficient, fast CPUs are solid performers, especially for small-form-factor desktop designs. We expect that they might not last on the market too long as Intel has updated its notebook chips to Core 2 Duo. You will probably still find it in Macs and a handful of Windows-based desktops, and as long as the price has been reasonably reduced, you should get fast, extended use from a PC with one of these chips in it. |
| Intel Core 2 Duo | Budget to performance | Intel's flagship line of CPUs are fast, power efficient, and affordable. We've seen them in budget PCs that cost less than $1,000, as well as in high-end gaming boxes upward of $6,000. These chips are dual-core, 64-bit powerhouses that will run current apps with no problem, and they're poised to run Vista smoothly, as well. The Core 2 Duo is our current favorite CPU on the market. |
| Intel Core 2 Quad | Performance | You might not need a PC with such a pricey chip now, but our testing found that for applications and scenarios that will put it to the test, Intel's new quad-core chip will give you an absolute boost in performance. |
| Intel Pentium D | Budget or mainstream | These mainstream dual-core chips were never well loved due to their lack of performance compared to AMD's Athlon 64 X2 chips, as well as their ridiculous heat output and power demands. They're fast enough for most day-to-day computing tasks, and you should find them in lower-end PCs. Just be sure to check that there's no similar deal on a comparable Athlon 64 X2-based PC. |
Memory
The amount and type of memory you choose goes a long way toward dictating your system's level of overall performance. Microsoft recommends a minimum of 512MB to run Windows Vista, but we think doubling that amount is well worth the added expense. Memory isn't nearly as expensive as it once was, which makes going with at least 1GB the right decision for most PC buyers.Written in one of two ways, memory speed is referred to by the speed in which it communicates with the CPU (400MHz, for example) or by its data bandwidth (3.2GB per second or PC3200).
For the most part, you'll find two different types of memory in new systems: DDR SDRAM and DDR2 SDRAM. Older AMD Athlon-based systems support only DDR (without tweaking), generally running 400MHz. You might see some configurations with 333MHz memory, but they're likely bottom-of-the-barrel systems. All current Intel CPU-supporting chipsets, as well as the Socket AM2 chipsets for AMD's chips, support more-advanced DDR2 memory, which can run at 533MHz, 667MHz, or higher. You can also find brand new DDR3 on the market, but it's so new that it's exceedingly expensive right now. We don't expect you will want to consider DDR3 if you're buying a new PC this year.
Our views on desktop video graphics
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Our views on video
When deciding on the graphics subsystem, you'll come to a fork in the road. One path leads to integrated graphics, which come as a chip on your computer's motherboard that shares the system's main memory. If you have at least 1GB of main memory, an integrated video chip won't siphon enough of it for video purposes to really slow things down. For basic computing tasks, such as working on e-mail, browsing the Web, and giving the occasional photo slide show, at least in Windows XP, you can get away with integrated graphics. If your video needs go beyond the basics, however, or if you have designs on Windows Vista and its Aero effects, you'll be best served by choosing a dedicated graphics card with its own graphics memory. Gamers, digital media creators, home-theater-PC fans, and anyone who wants to use more than two monitors will all benefit from adding a discrete graphics card.
If you're upgrading an older system, there's a chance that adding a card means buying one to fit in an old AGP slot. The newer PCI Express graphics card standard has been around for three years now, and you'll likely find PCI Express rather than AGP in any new purchase since the summer of 2004. Card vendors ATI (recently purchased by CPU vendor AMD) and Nvidia still make AGP versions of some of their graphics cards, but the vast majority of new 3D cards require a PCI Express slot. PCI Express 2.0 will offer double the bandwidth and is expected to make its debut later this year when Intel releases its Bearlake chipset.
Make sure you buy a card that matches your expansion slot type. Graphics cards based on ATI or Nvidia technology can cost anywhere from $50 to $800 depending on the features and the amount of memory. 128MB of dedicated memory should be enough for the basics; gamers can find cards ranging from 256MB to 1GB of memory, depending on how much they want to spend.
Particularly rabid gamers have another option: using two graphics cards. Both ATI and Nvidia's graphics chips have technology that lets you use two 3D cards in one system if your motherboard has two x16 PCI Express slots. The performance increase of using two cards varies from game to game. With some titles you'll see an 80 percent boost, and with others you might not get any at all. Both vendors outline the specifics of their technologies--ATI's is called CrossFire, Nvidia's is SLI--on their Web sites. Using two cards is a costly option that sacrifices expandability, so it doesn't make sense unless you're really focused on PC gaming.
Options: Integrated graphics | Discrete graphics | Home theater video
Integrated graphics
Integrated graphics chips will suffice for basic computing tasks. If you aren't a gamer or a creative professional and you are looking for a computer for e-mailing friends and family, surfing the Web, and creating the occasional Word doc, you need not pony up for a dedicated graphics card. Below are some of the current types of integrated graphics chips you'll find in lower end PCs.| ATI Radeon Xpress 200 |
| ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 |
| ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 |
| ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 |
| Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 |
| Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 |
| Nvidia GeForce 6150 |
| Nvidia GeForce 6100 |
Discrete graphics
For the consumer graphics market, two companies maintain an overwhelming share of the market: ATI and Nvidia. Each company has offerings for every segment of the graphics market. You'll find plenty of older cards still available at retail, some of which might even be good deals if the price is right. Below is a list of the most recent chip releases from ATI and Nvidia.BUDGET | MIDRANGE | PERFORMANCE |
| ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro | ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro | ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT |
| ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT | ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT | Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS |
| Nvidia GeForce 8300 GS | Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT | Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX |
| Nvidia GeForce 8300 GT | Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT | Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra |
| Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS | Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS |
Home theater video
A video card may benefit your PC-based, video-watching habit by improving the image quality a bit, but the real bonus of integrating your PC into your home-entertainment stack occurs when you use it as a digital video recorder and an all-around universal entertainment center. Thanks to Windows Vista's built in Media Center software (in Home Premium and Ultimate, at least), the gradual addition of HDMI output to video cards, PC compatible Blu-ray and HD DVD drives, and PC-based CableCard, your PC can now perform almost every home entertainment task as well as a tower of traditional home theater components. Just know that it's not cheap, and you sometimes have to work for it.The biggest trouble spot right now is PC-based CableCard. CableCard-equipped PCs can decrypt a digital cable signal, which is a major step up from the old analog TV tuner cards. But because CableCard will let you only receive a signal, not transmit one, you still can't use interactive menus or select Pay-Per-View programs. We've also had difficulty getting them to work--at least in New York. We expect we'll still see analog TV tuners for a while as well, because, unlike CableCard, you can add a standard TV tuner card to any PC with an available PCI slot. CableCard requires a complicated certification process that's only available to complete PCs sold from the traditional system vendors.
The other thing to think about is HDCP compliance. In order to play protected HD content from your PC, every link in the PC video-processing chain needs to adhere to the HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) standard. Usually if there's a problem it's in your display, but you should also make sure that any standalone video card you purchase is HDCP-compliant (usually written on the box). All of ATI's and Nvidia's new graphics cards (the Radeon 2000's and the GeForce 8000's, respectively) meet this requirement, so as long as you stay current, you shouldn't have a problem.
Find the desktop drives you need to succeed
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Find the drives you need to succeed
First, decide how big and fast a hard drive (or drives) you need. For example, if you plan to work with large video files as you make your way to Hollywood, spend the extra money on a large drive or two. Filmmakers will also want to be sure to invest in a DVD-recordable drive, and music downloaders will definitely want to include a CD burner.
Options: Hard drives | Optical drives | Blu-ray and HD DVD: The new optical generation
Hard drives
Hard drive
Most performance systems we've seen come with two or more Serial ATA hard drives. With multiple drives, many power users will use a RAID 0 configuration. RAID 0 (redundant array of independent disks), also called data striping, doesn't actually offer any redundancy, but it improves performance by distributing data across both drives. The PC sees the drives as one drive and can break apart portions of a file and distribute the parts to the different drives, which speeds the reading and writing process. A RAID 1 configuration, or disk mirroring, is less popular in desktops, although Dell offers it in its desktops the form of its DataSafe feature. RAID 1 doesn't offer a performance boost, but it gives you peace of mind by copying your data to both drives simultaneously so that if one of the drives fails, your work won't be lost.
Optical drives
Optical drive
Blu-ray and HD DVD: The new optical generation
Blu-ray and HD-DVD are primarily referred to in terms of set-top boxes for watching prerecorded video discs (the PlayStation 3 game console also sports a Blu-ray drive), but both formats are also available to PC users, and have some promising potential as storage mediums.Sony's Blu-ray drives are capable of storing 25GB of data (or 50GB on dual-layer discs). HD DVD was developed by Toshiba, and its discs store 15GB of data (30GB on dual-layer discs). By comparison, a typical single-layer DVD is 4.7GB. We're also starting to see combination drives that incorporate both Blu-ray and HD DVD capabilities.
Blank media is expensive, around $15 per disc, and burning speeds are stuck at 2X for the current generation, so it may be some time before one of these two competing formats becomes a clear winner in the public eye. Prices will drop eventually, but for now, expect to pay a hefty premium for adding one of these drives to your system--an IDE Blu-ray burner can cost upward of $750.
Connect your digital devices to your desktop
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Connect your digital devices
Desktop cases serve up a number of ports on the back panel for connecting the system's peripherals, such as a monitor, speakers, a keyboard, and a mouse. There are also ports for using printers young and old and others for hooking up any number of digital devices, including digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 players, and handhelds.
Options: USB and FireWire | Audio and video ports | Getting online
USB and FireWire
Unless you're particularly attached to an ancient printer, you need not concern yourself with legacy ports, such as serial and parallel connections, though they are still being supported by the majority of today's motherboards. USB has replaced these slower ports for connecting printers and other devices, such as digital cameras, MP3 players, and handhelds. Many mice and keyboards also use a USB connection instead of the old PS/2 port. At 480Mbps, the newer USB 2.0 offers 40 times the speed of USB 1.1. With so many USB devices out there, we suggest you settle for a minimum of four USB 2.0 ports, and you shouldn't have to look too hard to find six or eight, with a couple of them conveniently located on the front panel.
Audio and video ports
Many systems have a blue VGA port that's integrated to the motherboard and accessible on the back panel for connecting the PC to a CRT monitor or an analog LCD. If the system has a graphics card, the card will offer this same port, while some graphics cards will also furnish you with a white DVI connection (possibly two) for digital LCDs. If you want to connect your PC to your TV, you'll need a system with an S-Video port, unless your TV has an HDMI input, in which case you can purchase a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. A few video cards also come with HDMI ports built in. This new standard hasn't really hit the desktop in great quantities yet, but we suspect that it's only a matter of time.
Getting online
For connecting to the Internet, it's simple. If you are stuck with dial-up service (or you just love to fax), you'll need a modem port. Sometimes referred to as an RJ-11 port, this is integrated to some motherboards and, at other times, provided by an expansion card. For broadband, you'll need an Ethernet port. More often than not, you'll find this integrated to the motherboard; if it's not, look for it as an option listed as a network interface card or NIC. Recently, we've seen some systems that contain an integrated wireless receiver. Although your desktop will still need at least one wire (the power cord), integrated wireless functionality means that you will be able to easily add your new PC to your wireless home network.Pick the right peripherals for your desktop
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Pick the right peripherals
Choosing how best to fill the inside of your PC's case is only half the battle. You'll also need to choose peripherals that complement the type of system you're assembling.
Peripherals: Monitor | Speakers | Keyboard/mouse | Printers
Monitor
The price of LCDs has dropped so low that we no longer recommend purchasing an old-school CRT monitor. For help deciding on which LCD to buy, read CNET's monitor buying guide.Speakers
Keyboard/mouse
The wireless revolution has spread to keyboards and mice. Now you can find wireless varieties of each, often powered by rechargeable batteries. Obviously, these devices will cut down on the dreaded mess of wires that can entangle your desktop, and they also give you more freedom of movement than their wired counterparts. We don't love the idea of wireless mice and keyboards in the living room, since with the right software and remote-control combination your entertainment commands should be simple. But even on your desktop, the fewer cables the better.For the latest in mice, keyboard, and joysticks, read CNET's input device roundup.
Printers
Many vendors offer a discount on a printer when you choose to bundle it with your PC, and in some cases, companies will throw one in for free. For help finding the right printer, visit CNET's printer buying guide.Protect your desktop
The CNET editors' guide to desktops clues you in to what you need to know, from finding the type of PC that fits your lifestyle to catching up on all of the latest trends.
Protect your investment
The industry-average desktop warranty lasts one year for both parts and labor. Not all one-year warranties are created equal, however. Some companies will dispatch a repair person to your home if a problem can't be fixed over the phone or online; others offer only depot service, which means you must drop it off at a local service center or ship it directly to the company itself. If the warranty offers the latter, be sure to find out who pays for shipping. Also, check whether you need to save the original boxes for shipping; some warranties require this.
Many companies will offer extensions up to three additional years for an added cost. Whether it's worth it to tack on another year or two depends on your comfort level with making repairs yourself (or letting a friend or relative inside the case) and how much you spent on the system. For an experienced user buying a budget system, an additional $149 for a second year of coverage probably isn't money well spent.
Many problems can be fixed simply by looking at the included manual or by skimming a company's online-support pages. In our reviews, we try to give you an idea of how extensive the help information is with both printed and online resources.
For more information on hardware warranties, please see CNET's quick guide to winning the warranty game.