ET Best Black Friday Desktop Deals

However, you can also roughly gauge the performance of the CPU based on its name. Both AMD and Intel use numeric identifiers in the names of their processors that make it easy to identify their age and relative performance. For example, let’s compare Intel’s Core i7 7700 with the company’s Core i7 8700 and Core i7 9700 processors. The first part of the product name, “Core i7,” designates the product line that the part belongs to, whereas the first digit in the four-number sequence identifies the processor’s generation. Knowing this, we can conclude that the Core i7 8700 is newer and more modern than the Core i7 7700, and the Core i7 9700 is the newest of these three products.

This also holds true for AMD’s products, with AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700x being older than the Ryzen 7 2700x and Ryzen 7 3700x. It should be noted, however, that AMD and Intel processors cannot be directly compared in this way.

Other parts, such as RAM and storage devices, are also important features to consider and also play a role in the system’s overall performance. For RAM, in general, more is better. When it comes to storage devices, the most important factor to determine is what type of storage device is used. HDDs offer a lot of storage space, but are relatively slow compared with SSDs, which typically offer significantly less storage space. Due to their faster performance, however, SSDs tend to make systems feel faster and more responsive, and as such it’s often better to have an SSD than an HDD, and the best solution is typically to have one of each.

The processor, RAM, and storage devices all have a significant impact on the price of the system, and as such it’s often necessary to balance performance among these parts to achieve the best possible configuration. Systems that are oriented towards gamers also come with graphics cards and will also have a strong impact on price. It should be noted, however, that some parts such as RAM are easily upgradable. Adding more RAM to a computer is often no more difficult than plugging in a USB port, and it’s also usually fairly inexpensive to perform this upgrade yourself. Adding an extra storage device is also relatively simple. Upgrading the processor, however, is typically more difficult and more expensive, which gives all the more reason why you should pay the most attention to this part when purchasing a desktop.

Top PC Makers to Consider

There are numerous companies that produce desktop computers today, far more than we could possibly cover here, but a few of the more notable companies include Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. These four companies represent the bulk of computer sales worldwide in terms of volume. Among these four, Acer tends to offer the best performance relative to how much you pay. HP systems are also budget-oriented. Dell and Lenovo tend to target the business sector of the market more than the consumer market. While both also produce consumer-oriented products, they tend to focus on producing higher quality products than Acer and HP that also raises their price tag.

This list is in no way inclusive of all worthwhile desktop manufacturers with other key notable companies including Apple, Asus, Corsair, CyberPowerPC, Gigabyte, iBuyPower, and MSI. Although it would take too long to discuss each of these companies individually, just know that desktop computers from any of these companies will typically be researchable with most of them being of decent quality.

Featured Desktops this Week

Dell’s XPS 8930 desktop comes with an Intel Core i7-8700 processor with six CPU cores that can operate at clock speeds as high as 4.6GHz. The system also comes with 16GB of DDR4 memory, and it should perform exceptionally well for those that like to multitask. You can get this system marked down from $999.99 to just $699.99 from Dell with promo code AFF300XPS.