Desktop PC Buying Guide: Choosing the Right Desktop PC

16.03.10

Presented with so many possibilities, you need to narrow the field by considering what you want to use your new desktop for. Are you an avid photographer looking for a speedy but cost-effective platform for editing high-resolution photos? If so, you'll benefit from buying a machine with extra RAM and a discrete graphics card. If you've acquired an extensive media collection, and want an inexpensive and compact way to pipe it to your HDTV, a compact PC tailored toward media sharing and playback may be your best bet.

Whatever your needs, you can find a desktop configuration to fit the bill.

Desktops fall into three major categories, each with its own range of price and performance: compact PCs, all-in-one PCs, and classic tower PCs (which we subdivide into budget, mainstream, and performance categories). Each style of machine has different strengths and weaknesses, and choosing the one that's best for you depends largely on how you plan to use it.

Source: Washington Post