Question: Pretend that you are ready to buy a new computer for personal use. First, take a look at ads from various magazines and newspapers and list terms you don't quite understand. Look up these terms and give a brief written explanation. Decide what factors are important in your decision, as to which computer to buy, and list them. After you select the system you would like to buy, identify which terms refer to hardware and which refer to software and the pros and cons of the system you have selected.

Response

I do not believe this would be very fair for me, since I have been building computers for quite some time now. However, there are still a few terms I am unfamiliar with. I believe each person (that has a price limit) looks for different qualities in a PC. Since I no longer game on my PC, the graphics card, which is usually the priciest piece of hardware, would not necessarily need to be top of the line. If I were to build a PC, I would focus on the processor first, then build around the processor, starting with the cooling, motherboard, then RAM sticks, and storage.

Assuming I am unaware of how to build a PC, and decided to go the route of buying one fully built, the first place I would look is Costco (I buy everything from Costco). The PC's I chose from Costco.com are very similar to homemade built PC's. I selected 4 different PC's to compare and began looking at the processors. Two of them had Intel i7's (one 9700F and the other 9700K), one an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, and the other an Intel i9 9900K. One of my biggest weakness in selecting a processor is understanding what the number of cores represents. Starting with the i9-9900K, it has an 8-core processor. After doing some searching, I came across a page that helped identify what exactly the function of the core is. The core is also known as the "brain" of the PC. However, its not exactly. Its considered more of the "brawn". In comparison to a car, the core would be the engine. The stronger the core, the stronger the engine. Up until 2005, most processors were built as single-core processors. However, clock speed was greatly limited. Due to this, multi-core processors became increasingly popular, as each core is able to process information, either separately, or in parallel to each other.

After learning all of this, I began to think, so more cores = better? Often times, yes. Multi-threading is the ability of a software or OS to utilize multiple cores for processing (keep in mind, very rarely, but not ALL applications support this). However, as technology advances, more and more applications support multi-threading. So, knowing that most software has the multi-threading ability, it is safe to say that a processor with a higher number of cores would be beneficial for me (depending on what exactly you plan to do with your PC).

Moving on to software, which is the collection of code that runs off of the hardware, the next big thing I would look for is the OS. I grew up with Windows, so I am generally a Windows user. I typically always go for the latest version, so I would choose to run Windows 10. Additionally, I would look for an anti virus software that is sufficient in protecting my investment. I have been using McAfee and Norton for a while, so those would be the two that I would look for. However, after doing some research, I learned that Total AV is a newer and more suggested anti virus program based off of January 2020 ratings.

At the end of the day, the system I have chosen, which I believe would be best suited for my needs, offers a strong liquid cooled 8-core processor, plenty of RAM (64 DDR4 GB), and Windows 10. I believe the only downside to buying this rig would be the overkill in graphics, as it features the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, that holds 11 GB of memory. That is an extremely large amount of overkill for someone who does not plan to game or do any type of video editing. Additionally, the other downside to this rig would be the price, which is around $2,800.00. The video card alone bumps this price up a good $1,000.00, so it would be in my best interest to continue looking for another build.

reply to to the above respone cannot be simply an agreement; you must add to the posting with any missing information by giving your opinion/in-put