hi jim
welcome to the thread. i hope they're saying nice things about us over there on the drbob thread. <g3>
regarding your general question, nemer recently posted to shootie ( #reply-15533521 ) along the lines of what to look for in a new pc if you're somewhere between the novice and intermediate skill level.
esteban and i posted back and forth a time or two regarding name brand boxmakers, and my personal attraction to dell is noted in this post #reply-15534116 .
operating system choice is an entirely new area of personal opinion. <g3> i dual boot win98se and win2000pro and like them both. if i had to live with just one, i'd say goodbye to win98. this is due in large to w2k's stability (i think i hear the word robustness used a lot by the experts). threadster ed forrest, however, is a staunch supporter of winme, and he makes great points for the os. there'll be a learning curve with win2000, and possibly some compatibility issues. factory-installed w2k, however, will leap-frog you past a lot of that chaos.
for sure, whatever system you decide upon, make sure it has at least 128mb of ram. that is so becoming the norm today, and the performance difference between 128mb and less mem is pretty noticeable.
without getting too scientific (or searching manufacturer's prices), off the top i'd say 600-900mhz cpu will take you where you want to go quite adequately. gigantic hard drives seem to be in fashion nowadays, and as you know the storage is cheap. i have 13gb from the factory (dell, btw <g>) and another 15gb 2nd drive recently installed. i don't even use one third of the 13gb for my operating systems, but i use almost all of the 15gb for multiple backup images.
plenty of other members with plenty of other opinions and noteworthy advice for you. i just wanted to start you off with some food for thought.
:)
mark |
