Your computer's processor is the "brain" of the system, the part that handles all the normal day-to-day workload of the system. It works in cycles, where it takes in information and performs calculations, and then passes that information on to other parts of the system. There's only so much it can do in one cycle. So what people used to do was to increase the number of cycles per second in order to get more work out of the processor. This is the clock frequency - the MHz or GHz rating you see beside processors. Generally, the higher the clock frequency, the faster the computer would be.scotty73 wrote:It's old and out dated anyway but i just dont know what to buy and dont have much to spend anyway we been looking at base units up to about £100 but i dont even know wtf dual or quad core means... well i have a rough idea but i'd rather someone explain it.
But there are limitations to this - too high a clock rate and the system becomes horribly unstable. The way forward would be to get more than one processor - so that the computer really could do more than one thing at a time. For years, dual-processor or quad-processor systems were massively expensive and incredibly difficult to program for. Then Intel came along with a technology called "hyperthreading", or "HT", which basically makes one processor work as though it has two processing cores on board, which meant a more efficient use of the processing core.
This was the cheapest and therefore most common way of having multi-core computing, until the miniaturization process (making the processor's components (individual transistors, etc) smaller) got to the point where it was possible to put more than one processing core into a single processing unit. This is the dawn of multi-core computing. Basically, a dual-core processor is like having two identical processors working side-by-side. A quad-core processor is like having four identical processors working together.
Intel's fastest processors at the moment are the Core i7, which are available in 4-core or 6-core versions. These are really expensive chips, and chances are, unless you're working on very large databases or are a serious, serious gamer, you won't need that level of performance.
Their mid-range processors are the Core i5 series. You can get these in dual-core or quad-core versions. These are great all-round processors. My own system is based around the Core i5 quad-core.
The entry-level processors are the Core i3 series, which are all dual-core units. These are the sorts of things you would be best aiming for if you mostly just surf the web and use Office occasionally. They have decent gaming performance, but that's not what they're geared towards.
So that's processors covered.
As for what kind of system you want to get, well it depends on what it's to be used for. Don't buy any system labelled as a "budget system" by its manufacturer because I can guarantee they've used cheap sh*t parts and then overcharged you for them anyway.
£100 isn't much to go on, unfortunately. If you can push the boat out a little farther, this is a decent system:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-DC7800-TOW ... 2a21f5b633
If you need to stick to your £100 budget tightly (and I totally understand) then this is a good machine too:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/POWERFUL-HP-D ... 3f1415e869
Hope that helps
