My rules for buying a new computer for genealogy

In my recent poston buying a new computer I talked about some of the factors that gointo choosing a system for home (or small business) use. Here are myrules or at least the ones I have adapted over the years in purchasingdozens of computers:

Rule No. 1: Always buy the fastest computer you can reasonably afford.

This is a pretty simple rule. Various computer systems are rated by thespeed of the processor and the speed the information is moved internally(Bus Speed). Usually, within a short time a new processor isintroduced, there are a number of independent organizations who rate thespeed and compare the new processor to previous models. You can make apretty good guess as to how fast the computer is going to operate by thespeed marks. There is one catch, you cannot compare two differentprocessors on speed alone. For example, you cannot compare an AMD chipwith an Intel chip. To this end, there are also speed tests using commonsoftware, such as the time it takes to open a certain file in Photoshopor some other program. After careful research, you can get a good ideaof the speed comparisons of the various computer chips currentlyavailable. If you are so inclined, you can look at a CPU Benchmark testat PassMark Software. This is not an endorsement and yes, I know there are a dozen (probably more) different tests out there.

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