You will have many factors to consider when deciding on which computer equipment to buy. The bewildering amount of choices can seem overwhelming. This guide will help you compare computer equipment features, and help you to examine and sift through many of the basic items before you buy a new computer. If it be a desktop PC, laptop, discount/surplus computer, a refurbished computer or a computer accessory, this quick guide will help you to get the most for your money.

With today's computer equipment almost any of them will adequately handle what most people need to buy a new computer for; word processing, basic office, internet surfing and email. Which you can buy for about $1000. or less! But if you are into digital videos, photo editing, music, or manage a large database you will need more than the basic Desktop PC or Laptop. This higher end computer will cost you around $1500-$2000.

(CPU) Processors:
There is always a lot of change in the computer market, but no matter what the upgrades there is always two basic choices to be made when purchasing computer equipment:
1) brand 2) speed. To buy a new computer that handles standard office and Internet tasks any processor will work.

Need more 'power' in your computer equipment? Then the Intel Pentium4 or the AMD Athlon XP (great for graphics and photos which use a lot of memory space) are for you.

If you buy a new computer one or two levels from the top you will only lose about five percent per tier performance but you can save a couple hundred dollars!

(RAM) Memory:
Memory is most important because optimum running of your computer equipment is dependent on enough RAM. The minimum amount should be 256MB, for better performance you should get 512MB. If it is affordable to buy a new computer with more, you should. It's worth it because you can keep more applications open and it will easily handle memory hogs like Photoshop and music applications!

Monitors:
When buying your computer equipment look for a monitor that is at least 17" with a resolution of 1280 by 1024 pixels. A Desktop PC with a 19-inch monitor gives you 20 % more screen area. If you can spend $300-$450 on a monitor when you buy a new computer you might want to get a 15" LCD because it has the same viewable area as the 17" CRT and takes up much less space.

Hard Drives (storage):
Most hard drives in today market will provide more than enough storage. The basic computer equipment comes with 40GB or larger, which is plenty for most tasks. But for working with graphics, video, music, or large databases 80GB should be the minimum you settle for. 7200-rpm drives give better performance. But for the best performance get a computer with 8MB of cache.

Warranty and Tech Support:
A one-year warranty on most computer equipment is plenty, because most problems seem to happen in the first year. If you want you can get an extended two to three year warranty for around $150. to $200. As of this writing, if you buy a Dell you can get priority call routing to tech support for a year for only $39.