PCs With Personality

Personality Profiles: Pick the Right PC

Doubtless, you already know what you want to be able to do with you next home PC. But what configuration will do the best job for you--both today and a year or two down the road?

Here's a checklist of recommended specifications for four common types of home PC: gaming, video and image editing, music and movies, and basic productivity. Treat these specs as reference guidelines when you shop for your next PC. And don't forget to take future uses into account--you might live for gaming today, but in a couple of years, additions to the family may turn you into a budding videographer.

Depending on how generous your budget is, you may have to make some compromises between your lust for the latest and greatest technology and the cold reality of how much money you can afford to spend.

Finding Corners to Cut

Where should you look for places to cut? The monitor makes a good starting point: Picking a smaller screen can save you substantial money, as can sticking with a CRT rather than upgrading to an oh-so-desirable LCD flat-panel. Downgrading your processor to a model that's a step or two lower than the fastest CPU available is another relatively painless way to save a couple of hundred dollars.

Also, do you really need 5.1 surround-sound speakers with a subwoofer the size of a big dog? And how large a hard drive do you require? You won't want to undertake even general-purpose computing (surfing the Web and using office productivity applications) with less than 20GB, but anything over 80GB is probably overkill.

Where you shouldn't compromise is on service (see our story, " You Call This Service?"). If your PC has a one-year warranty and the vendor offers a three-year upgrade, paying the difference is almost always worthwhile. (That piece of advice doesn't necessarily hold for the separate warranty upgrades offered by retail stores, however.)