Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
The best integrated audio—such as that on motherboards that use Intel
and NVIDIA chipsets—is good enough for almost anyone. Integrated LAN
adapters are more than good enough for nearly any desktop system.
Bang for the Buck
To find the sweet spot, just compare
the price of a component to its per-
formance or capacity. For example,
if one processor costs $175 and the
next model up is 10% faster, it should
cost at most 10% more. If it costs
more than that, you've reached the
wrong part of the price/performance
curve, and you'll be paying a premi-
um for little additional performance.
Similarly, before you buy a hard
drive, divide the price by the capacity.
At the low end, you may find that a
small hard drive costs more per giga-
byte than a larger drive. At the high
end, a very large drive probably costs
significantly more per gigabyte than
a medium-capacity model. The sweet
spot is in the middle, where the cost
per gigabyte is lowest. Make sure,
though, that you compare apples to
apples. Don't compare a quad-core
or six-core processor to a dual-core
processor, for example, or a 7,200
RPM hard drive to an SSD model.
The advantages of integrated components are threefold: cost, reliability,
and compatibility. A motherboard with integrated components costs
little or no more than a motherboard without such components, which
can save you $100 or more by eliminating the cost of inexpensive stand-
alone equivalents. Because they are built into the motherboard, integrat-
ed components are usually more reliable than standalone components.
Finally, because the motherboard maker has complete control over the
hardware and drivers, integrated components usually cause fewer com-
patibility issues and device conflicts.
• Buying at the “sweet spot” is almost always the best decision. The sweet
spot is the level at which the price/performance ratio is minimized—that
is, where you get the most bang for your buck. For example, Intel sells a
broad range of desktop processors, from $50 dual-core Celerons to $1,000
six-core Core i7 processors. Dual-core Celeron processors are cheap, but
slow. Six-core Core i7 processors are fast, but hideously expensive. There
must be a happy medium. The sweet spot for processors is around $175
(give or take $25) for a retail-boxed CPU. If you spend much less, you get
less performance per dollar spent. If you spend much more, you get only
a slight performance increase. This sweet spot has stayed the same for
years. The same $175 buys you a faster processor every time Intel cuts
prices, but that $175 processor has always been the bang-for-the-buck
leader.
•
It's almost always worth paying more for better quality and reliability. If
the specs for two components look very similar but one sells for less than
the other, it's a safe bet that someone cut corners to reduce the price of
the cheaper component. The cheaper component may use inferior ma-
terials, have shoddy build quality or poor quality control, or the manu-
facturer may provide terrible tech support or a very short warranty. If it's
cheaper, there's a reason for it. Count on it. The best way to avoid the trap
of poor-quality components is to be willing to pay a bit more for qual-
ity. The price difference between a mediocre product and a top-quality
one can be surprisingly small. Throughout this topic, we recommend only
high-quality products. That's not to say that products we don't list are bad,
but those we do recommend are good.
Of course, all of that assumes that
you care about bang for the buck.
If you have the budget and perfor-
mance is more important to you
than cost, by all means buy the
$1,000 processor. You'll have the fast-
est system possible, which for a lot of
people is no small thing.
• Brand names really do mean something, but not all brands are good ones.
Brand names imply certain performance and quality characteristics, and
most manufacturers take pains to establish and maintain those links in
consumers' minds. Different brand names are often associated with differ-
ent quality and/or performance levels in a good/better/best hierarchy, in
the same way that General Motors sells its inexpensive models as Chevro-
lets and its expensive models as Cadillacs.
For example, ViewSonic makes several lines of LCD displays, including its
high-end Pro Series, its midrange Graphics Series, and its entry-level Value
Series. ViewSonic also maintains a separate brand name for its cheapest
