Back again...with broken promise...

I think I really cannot design a webpage again for my Microsoft Office FrontPage is corrupted. All right spare no time now...gonna to finish this "promise"!

I'll put it short and sweet ... too sweet also no good ... can get diabetes!

In PC world today, we carry different ranks, just like in police and military.

If you are using the newly-bought PC for office work or projects, you are ranked the mainstream user.

If you are playing, gamer of course!

Different ranks use different PC components.

Intel and AMD have designed 32-bits and 64-bits CPU. For 32-bits, it's mainly use for mainstream and some basic processing. While for 64-bits, it's used for gaming and high-memory usage applications such as Video Encoder/Decoder.

32-bits CPU--
Intel: mPGA (micro Pin Grid Array) 478 + 500 series LGA (Land Grid Array) 775, Celeron and Celeron D, plus Pentium M processors.
AMD: Athlon XP and Sempron

64-bits CPU--
Intel: 600 and 800 series CPU (LGA processors)
AMD: Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2

Note that when you buy these processors, remember the type of CPU socket your processor is using. Example, if buying LGA 775 500 series CPU, go buy a LGA 775 motherboard. This is very important as placing the worng CPU in a worng socket will damage the whole PC system.

As for graphics, it's somewhat similar to when you buy CPU. Graphic cards nowadays are using two different slots: AGP(Accelerated Graphic Port) 8x and PCI-express 16X.

AGP 8x is an old type slot for graphics but now is still famous. PCI-express 16X is a new slot and is used for gaming and graphic-intensive applications such as 3D modelling for movies.

Just when you thought that there is only discrete graphic cards, there is also onboard or integrated graphic chipsets such as Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 900/950 , Intel Extreme Graphic 2 or SIS ProSavage 3. Integrated graphic chipsets are mainly for mainstream user except people who are doing projects that are graphic-intensive. These can be purchased with motherboards (onboard). It's cheap and easily available.

Graphic cards are for gamers and people who are using graphic-intensive applications every now and then. Its core and memory speed are higher than that of integrated graphic chipsets that are using memory cards on the motherboards. With seperate memory and core, it will definitely provide a good graphic displayed on your monitor. But...beware that different graphic cards can support different resolution. Some may become overheat and the whole core becomes damaged.

With graphic card comes a partner called the monitor...LCD or CRT! They are the eyes of our PC system. Now, monitors come in all different dimensions: 15, 17, 19, 20 and even larger 21 inch. Different dimensions suit different user. 15 and 17 inch LCD/CRT monitors are suitable for mainstream user while the rest is for user that are making/using graphic-intensive applications such as movies or games like BattleField 2. All you need to remember: different monitors provide different resolutions.

Sound waves... do you know how sound waves are produced? Haha...sound card LAH! Sound cards are just like graphic cards. They are discrete. Some motherboard manufacturers are using onboard sound chipsets such as SoundMAX. Both produced very good sound, but for gamers and movie makers, they should go for discrete sound cards. I recommend Creative. Hay! That's the only MNC from Singapore. Popular sound card maker, according to some surveys. For non-gamers like me, save money! Go for integrated sound chipset!

Optical storage devices and Hard-disks are important components of PC. I can't really help you all to say how to select. It's your own choice. Higher speed in these components is good, especially the hard-disks. Higher capacity in hard-disks can allow you to store more applications, but remember more applications in one hard-disk can slow down booting. Hard-disks come in two: SATA and ATA. SATA provides a faster speed cache (transportation of information to-and-fro) than ATA. I recommend gamers and other big-project makers to use SATA hard-disks.

Anyway, I know that this post will make you even confused. You can ask any questions in the comment section. I'm really feeling a bit ill now... Maybe you may look at my PC specification below. I'm a mainstream user, seldom go for gaming for my monitor is falling apart now.

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 [mPGA 478] - 3.2GHz (800MHz)
Graphic card: Nvidia GeForce4 FX 5200 - 128MB [made by Inno3D]
Sound: SoundMAX Audio 4 - integrated
Motherboard: ASUS P4P800SE
Display: Philips 17inch CRT
Hard-disk: Maxtor 40GB - ATA100
Optical storage devices: Sony CD-reader (52x), Sony CD-R/RW (52x/24x/52x)