Building the Perfect PC, Second Edition

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 422 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
• Edition: 2nd Edition December 22, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596526865
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596526863
• Book Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.9 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 2.2 pounds

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Building The Perfect PC (Paperback) There are very few folks who know their subject as well as Robert Bruce Thompson. He has been keeping a web-log for several years now where he discusses many subjects, especially about is daily adventures with building computers, managing a home-network and diagnosing problems with them. Probably the single biggest reason that many people don't put together their own systems is the simple lack of knowledge on how to do it. This book provides a great introduction on how to do it. The best reason to do it for yourself is then you will have the piece of mind that you have quality parts in your system. Picking good hard drives, video cards, motherboards, means you are less likely to have a computer failure. Cheap parts are the major reason large corp. retailers put out a lot bad systems... they got some parts that were cheap, but that fail a lot. Thus, causing their customers a lot of headaches. Sure, you might get a dirt-cheap computer system, but you get what you pay for. The other best reason to build a system on your own is that you will learn something in the process. If you can build your own system you will start to be able to do your own tech support. You won't have to wait to get your system fixed: you'll have the knowledge to do it yourself. Better than the simple list of hardware (which since this is a physical book will be out of date very soon after publication) is the discussion on how to do it. The questions you need to ask yourself before picking hardware, etc. What do you want to do with the system? Do you want to play high-power games? Maybe you just want to surf the web and do some light word processing. The system can then be customized for you and you don't get one-size fits all system from some corp. retail giant. And don't forget about his web site. He keeps updated lists of recommended hardware on it, as well as details as to his adventures of computer-problem land. A lot of tips can be picked up there. A good way to keep abreast of the authors thoughts and opinions as to the state of the industry. Anything by Thompson is worthwhile. Comment | | (Report this)