Desktop dilemmas: Guide to desktop PCs

Stability of driver images

If a company buys 200 PCs now, 200 PCs next year, and 200 the year after that, can the vendor guarantee that the SOE they built now will still work on a PC the company buys in two years time?

This is one of the toughest questions that vendors have to answer. In most cases vendors will guarantee that their images will work for at least 12 months from when the product is launched.

In many cases vendors will not be able to source some of the components that you have been using for the last two years.

Components such as graphics cards tend to have short product life cycles, which means that it may be difficult for the vendor to find them after more than a year, unless new products are backward compatible with the older drivers.

If you can forecast how many PCs you may need in the future, the vendor may put aside some extra PCs. This way when you need additional PCs, your vendor will be able to give you the exact PC you initially purchased from them.

Keeping all this in mind, we requested some basic corporate PCs from the major brand-name vendors, including Acer, Apple, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. All these vendors except HP were able to send in PCs to meet our deadline. Apple was not able to send in one of the new G4-based iMacs, but sent two older G3-based iMacs, which will still be in circulation for the foreseeable future.

CPUs

Besides the Apple iMacs, all the PCs that we tested were equipped with Intel processors. We received mostly Intel Pentium 4 based PCs and one Intel Celeron machine.

Generally speaking, the P4 processors are designed for business users while Celeron processors are intended for home users. However, this distinction is far from clear-cut, and Celeron processors are also used for low-cost corporate desktops.

However, for long-term contracts, we don't think a Celeron based machine will be able to stay the distance with a Pentium-based machine because the Celeron has a much shorter shelf life.

RAM

Three out of the four PCs were equipped with SDRAM while the Acer was equipped with DDR-RAM, which uses double the data rate of SDRAM. Three of the PCs had 256MB of RAM and one had 128MB, which we feel is the minimum for a desktop PC running Windows 2000 or XP.

Graphics Subsystem

Even without worrying about games, the graphics subsystem can increase the overall performance of your PC. Three out of the four PCs that we tested used AGP cards while Compaq went for a motherboard with an integrated graphics subsystem. Integrated solutions are less expensive, however they lack in performance.

I/O Ports

Like with many notebooks these days we are seeing more and more PCs sport additional USB ports rather than legacy ports. You can however buy adapters that will let you plug your old legacy equipment into your new PC.

What to look for when buying a corporate PC

We weighted the following criteria to evaluate the suitability of each PC for corporate use.

• Cost--30 percent.

• Ongoing service and support--20 percent.

• Performance--22.5 percent: Processor speed as well as the amount of RAM and the graphics subsystem play an important role in the overall performance of your PC.

• Monitor--12.5 percent: Look at the overall display quality including evenness of illumination, clarity, and colours and resolutions supported.

• Workmanship and design 7.5 percent: Look at ergonomics, robustness and durability as well as expandability.

• Multimedia--5 percent: Look at the audio chip that's been used as well as the sound quality and volume of the speakers. Look at the type and number of I/O ports.

• Mouse and Keyboard--2.5 percent: Look for good feedback, support, and colour differentiation in your keyboard. With the mouse look at the general ergonomics as well as the button size, travel, and feedback.

The April 2002 issue of ZDNet Australia's Technology & Business Magazine contains reviews of desktop PCs, including Editor's Choice Awards for the best products. For subscription information, visit Technology & Business.