Ask a Geeky Girl: Computer Questions Answered in Plain English

Yesterday, my friend Mary posted about her recent laptop buying experience. Mary’s pretty savvy when it comes to technology, but she was finding all of her choices to be completely overwhelming. She wanted someone to tell her, in plain english, what the difference is between an i7 processor and an AMD Turion II. She wanted to know if 6GB of RAM was something that she really needed or if she was just going to be throwing her money away.

Luckily for Mary, she had me to ask these questions (that doesn’t sound egotistical at all). A lot of people have to muddle through all of this on their own. Which is why I decided to bring back a blog feature that I attempted to start up and then promptly abandoned: Ask a Geeky Girl. Send me your questions and I’ll do my best to answer them, in plain English. Try to make your questions somewhat broad, so they’d be useful to anyone who happened to stumble along to them. But, even if they’re pretty specific, I’ll try to answer them in a way that imparts a little generalized technology knowledge. I’ll post my answers on Mondays. And, if I don’t get enough questions, I’ll make some up.

For today, I’ll give you a little bit of what I told Mary.

Hope’s Guide to Purchasing a Computer (The Processor and RAM Edition)

First of all, you have to decide what you’re going to use your computer for and about how long you’re going to keep it. Computing has made incredible advances in the past 5 years. If you’re the type of person who is only going to be typing up Word documents, reading emails and checking Facebook – you probably don’t need the absolute latest and greatest. On the other hand, if you’re the type of person who keeps a computer for 6 years, you actually want to splurge on this computer. Because it’s probably going to be around for a very long time. Your future self will thank you for not getting the cheapest (i.e. slowest) model. If you’re doing high-end video editing or processing hundreds of RAW photo files, you’ll probably want to get the best computer that you can afford. If this is the case, I would suggest talking to someone in your industry to see what they’re using. Or, you could always send in a question.

Do you want an AMD processor or an Intel processor? That’s a bit of a trick question. AMD and Intel are two different companies that both make processors. It’s a bit like asking if you want to drink Coke or Pepsi when you’re really only interested in calories and not in taste. Some people do care about AMD vs. Intel. But, if you don’t know the difference between the two, I can pretty much tell you that you don’t care.

Processor speed isn’t going to matter as much as how much RAM you have. How much RAM is not enough and how much is overkill? Standards are always changing, but as of right now this very moment sitting in my kitchen drinking tea, 2 GB of RAM is pretty much the bare minimum for what’s going to keep your computer humming along at a decent speed. Go with more if you can. I would consider 4GB or RAM to be a good amount these days. And, if possible, buy a computer that has some open slots so that you can add in RAM later. Sometimes, you might have to pay a little extra to have this option. It’s worth it. Two years from now, when your computer is starting to feel a little sluggish, you can add in some more RAM and it will be like you gave yourself a little upgrade.

So, there’s a little taste of my computer-y knowledge. I’ll try and post a little bit every Monday. Let me know if you have any questions of your own. Or if you think I’m full of it. 😉