There’s no question that personal computers were built with baseline functionality- all of them can process documents, and to a certain extent, play multimedia and display the same. However, there are significant difference when we think of specific needs of users of personal computers.

A case in point would be the difference between the usage and needs of a professional personal computer gamer and a student. Though there are blurry marks between the two types of individuals, there are none when we think of their personal computers.

Why exactly does a student need a PC anyway? Take into consideration the various activities that your average college student would be doing, so you can easily get how PC functionality matters. For sure, a student needs to be typing and printing a lot of reports, essays, and assignments. More often than not, a PC for a university student is more like a typewriter or word processor.

If the course of the student is in the range of engineering or architecture, the computing power of the PC can be the same, but there are some specific changes. For example, he or she is likely to have hundreds to thousands of files to save, so a huge hard disk space is needed.

With regards to the size of the hard drive, at the very least an 80 GB drive would do for the college student, while some may need space as large as 300 GB. After considering the memory of the PC, then you should now think about the computing power, and that depends on the type of processor you get. A processor with speeds like 1.5 GHz and a 512 MB video card would suffice for the student. If you are thinking about these specs for a gamer, however, then there are some changes.

A gamer would be using the personal computer in two ways- for work and for leisure. The leisure part would be the one that would tax the computer most, because it would be running algorithmic engines non-stop, playing multimedia and receiving input from the user at the same time.

A gamer’s personal computer would need a lot more space than just 300 gigabytes. More likely, if the hefty versions of solid state hard disks are unavailable or just plain too expensive, the gamer would need to install at least two hard disks, to receive and retain the memory load of the games themselves. Some games take up more than five gigabytes of hard disk space- and of course, during play time, they consume virtual memory as you play along.

When thinking about a processor that is powerful enough for the gamer, the basics simply would not do. Intel Skulltrail is one that is highly recommended for these purposes.

Tags: Technology

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