Before we talk about what *we* would like to get in a computer, let’s ask sdrealtor on what he wants.
sdrealtor, it would help if you start by describing what you have already.
1. Processor, memory size, harddrive size.
2. What’s going to be the purpose of this machine? Are you using it for work, sharing with the kids, gaming, surfing porn, etc?
Computers are a lot like cars. It’s a depreciating asset, only much worse. So… I would not go overkill on one unless you absolutely need to (IE you write software, or plan to use it for major kickass engineering development….)
On the other hand, if you’re looking for an excuse to buy something new, that’s ok too. But if you really are just having a bad crappy computer, I’m pretty sure you can get by if you just redo your O/S slip in a new hard drive and start over. Every computer ends up getting screwed up at some point or the other.
I’ll be happy to help you for free, since all the help you helped me if you aren’t in a hurry.
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All this about solid state drives, lots of memory, etc… Is only really necessary IF you are running the latest and greatest AND if you plan on tapping out your computer with extreme uses. For most everyday use (most everyone) that is not necessary…
Unless you are going to building Android O/S or extreme gaming, you probably don’t need a lot of this stuff..
I am running a quad core i7 on a laptop with two solid state drives more and 8GB of ram only because if I don’t building Android O/S ICS from a clean start would take me 2 hours instead of 45 minutes…And when I do that all cores are at 95% utilitization and I really can’t do anything else when it’s doing it’s work… I doubt most people find a need to do this so I don’t think most people need a core i7 or corei5 for that matter.
I also have the MacMini server edition with the quad core i7…And let me tell you, it’s a dog of a machine running linux and trying to do the same task versus using a normal PC with a core i7. I’m not sure what the difference is, except I only have 4GB of ram instead of 8 in there….And a major pain in the butt to dual or triple boot. A lot has to do with the stupid EFI/MBR hybrid partitioning scheme….