Things to know before buying a computer

RAM: the power to work quickly.

RAM (Random Access Memory) is the memory your computer uses to run software applications and store frequently accessed data. RAM is used for opening and working with files, running graphics, audio, video, and scientific applications. Adding RAM improves the performance of your entire experience! In addition, more RAM speeds up your computer when you have lots of applications open at the same time.

Modern computers use anywhere from 512MB to 8GB of RAM, and the average computer has about 1GB to 2GB of RAM.

Hard drive: room to work and play.

The hard drive is where your computer stores all your data when you’re not using it. The capacity of a hard drive, measured in gigabytes, or GB, tells you how much room you have to store your files and applications. A typical application today may take 10 to 50 megabytes (MB); photos may take up about 2-4MB each; graphics files can occupy more than 100MB; and video files are often many gigabytes in size.

The average hard drive capacity is 100 gigabytes for a brand new desktop computer, and the range runs as high as 160 gigabytes. The average capacity of a laptop ranges from 40 gigabytes to 60 gigabytes. Don't forget about external hard drives! (They're usually cheaper then installing extra hard drives from the manufacturer!)

Processor: the high-speed engine of your computer.

The processor is the brains of your computer. Every second, it completes the billions of calculations needed to perform every computing task. With many models, you can upgrade the processor to a faster speed. If you plan to do processor-intensive tasks such as video rendering, gaming, and working with large, multi-track audio files, a faster processor can improve the performance.

Graphics processor: your world in high resolution.

A graphics processor is simply a processor dedicated to turning huge amounts of data into graphics and video output. By taking this task away from the main processor, a graphics processor also makes the entire system faster and more responsive. For some computers you can add up to four separate graphics cards to power an array of displays simultaneously for visualization projects and large display walls.

Thanks to Apple, I found most of this info on their website :)