The Advantages of Building your own Gaming PC by Jordan Hall
As has already been established, custom gaming computer systems can offer wonderful performance numbers and sleek styling, but they can often be cost-prohibitive. Furthermore, even non-custom computer systems can represent more than you are looking to spend, and the component quality is not... If you know where to shop for your components, you stand to spend a great deal less money assembling your system than you would for a comparably-powered, pre-made computer gaming system. ... Once you determine your ideal storage device configuration (DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, hard drives, etc.), one of the...

How To Boost The Performance Of Your PC To Play Video Games by Gregg Hall
Many people these days use their computers for a variety of things, not just work or research but for fun as well. You know that you like to play computer games, but if you are going to play them you should consider getting the accessories to make your gaming experience better and increase the... The difference in the sound between average speakers that come with a computer and a set of more high performance gaming oriented speakers is night and day. ... A high quality speaker system with at least two speakers and a subwoofer are a must have for gaming.

A Comparison Of the Next Generation Gaming Consoles (Part 1) by Ron Swerdfiger
It’s been about 5 years since we have seen a new video game console. By spring of next year all three major companies will have released their new systems. At this point, both Sony and Microsoft have released the full specs of their systems, while information on the nintendo revolution... Under the hood Looks are nice, but what really counts is how the system will perform. ... Microsoft has developed an impressive system capable of amazing processing power never seen before in a home video game console.

Basic High Availability - An Introduction To RAID by Brian Stoffer
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (other definitions may vary). In practice it is two or more hard disk drives configured for use by a single computer system. The configuration varies by intended use, but the most common use for RAID arrays is for high-availability installations. ... This requires a minimum of four distinct hard drives, so the cost overhead is high, but this combines the high-availability benefits of mirroring and the high performance of striping into a highly available, high performance disk cluster.

An Introduction to RAID by Gary Hendricks
Capacity, reliability, and performance are important for file servers or other machines where you’re storing large or important files. Disk drives are vulnerable to failure, though, and when they do fail, data written since the last backup is lost. Disks have limitations on how fast they can go,... The resulting assembly gives you the low cost of disks manufactured in high volume plus good reliability and a multiplier on the performance of individual disks. ... RAID Level 1 In the same way that RAID 0 focuses solely on capacity and performance with no concession to reliability, RAID 1...

The Importance of Computer Security by Sergiu Marias
While running Windows and common applications, your computer is also silently operating a vast number of tasks, in the background and behind the scenes. These "invisible" tasks or processes often reduce the processing power of your computer consuming large amounts of memory. ... WinTasks 5.0 Professional provides you with a wealth of information and a powerful set of tools that will help you enhance the protection against system security threats while dramatically increasing computer performance.

Top 5 Performance Video Cards by Gary Hendricks
This is a short list of the meanest, fastest and most powerful 3D video cards on the market today. If you own one of them, well - lucky you! XFX GeForce 7800 GTX The XFX GeForce 7800 GTX video card comes with a PCI Express interface, 256MB DDR3 video memory and supports a maximum resolution of... For example, having a BFG GeForce 7800 GTX installed in a old AMD Duron or Intel Pentium Celeron system will definitely not give you the desired video performance you seek. ... Cheaper than many of the cards in this list, but still gives extremely good 3D performance.

What to Look for in a Video Card by John Gibb
The proper graphics card can help speed up almost any system by taking the responsibility of many visual functions, allowing the CPU to work more effectively in other areas. Let’s take a look at a few of the key features to look for in a graphics card. ... If your current video card is built into the motherboard, it is likely robbing the system of valuable memory because the system RAM is shared with it. ... If you’re just doing Excel spreadsheets you might not need to spend $500 on a video card, but if you have a 21” monitor and want to view that spreadsheet at 1600 x 1200 with a high...

AMD vs. Intel: Which Chip Offers More Bang for Your Buck in Gaming PCs? by Jordan Hall
Computer enthusiasts have long known of the ongoing rivalry between Intel, the processing giant, and Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD. Since the early nineties, Intel and AMD have vied for technical dominance in the computer hardware field and in relation to computer gaming. ... In conclusion to a comparison between AMD’s dual core Athlon FX-60 processor and Intel’s Pentium Extreme Edition, the reviewer writes, “With the exception of a few audio and video encoding benchmarks, the Athlon 64 FX-60 represents the new device to beat as far as performance goes, thanks to its two processing...

Why Would You Want To Buy a New Laptop or Notebook Computer? by Bonnie Archer
Maybe you say your laptop works fine when it comes to word processing and internet e-mail. But, wouldn't it be fun to expand your notebook computer and be able to create your own music CDs, home movie DVDs, maybe some digital photography, or even some serious gaming! ... Memory: Most notebook computers now offer DDR SDRAM memory and it will give you a lot higher bandwidth, which in turn gives you better total system performance. ... Operating System: The new Microsoft Windows XP® has improved stability for laptops as well as pcs and its newest features make for a more enjoyable...