Part one
Personal computers have now become not just used for computation but also, a source of entertainment inform of PC games. The personal computing industry is now in growing at unprecedented levels regarding the hardware and software components. Hardware and software sales are up, and the challenge that computer consumers face now is identifying the computer model they need that will fit their requirements. Especially for the hardware components, the users will need to consider their hardware choice combination than include, graphics card, processors, storage, memory and power consumption. To do this, computer users will require determining whether the product they choose will offer stability and necessary safety to their files as they play their games. The personal computers they choose must be capable of providing high specifications that can manage visuals and resolutions of their favorite game. In this first part of the paper, the aim will be to analyze the available hardware components in the market that can provide personal computer users with superior experiences in basic computational work as well as in gaming.
This guide is meant to make the building of personal computing easier by balancing the processing ability, power consumption, and gaming resolutions. The aim is to provide high performance, reliable and high quality personal computing platform while working at lowering the costs. It does not compromise on aspect but just a smart choice of each component. The recommended parts include
Processor: Recommended processor is Intel Core i5-6600K. It costs around $ 254 on Newegg online platform. The processor is reasonably priced with a good overclockable time. Normally for the purposes of gaming, GPU is more needed than CPU in its intensity. It can handle the demands of CPU tasks such as running as in Dolphin GameCube emulators. It can also be a good choice in for normal computational usages. The alternative to this processor is Skylake i5-6600K, which enables more support in faster storage needs.
The recommended motherboard is Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, which is priced at $155. It is available on Newegg online store. This motherboard combines high-end boards necessary for gaming and personal computational at relatively lower prices. It offers great potential for overclocking and has easy to use and powerful UEFI BIOS. ASUS 170 Pro Gaming motherboard has M.2 port which can support X4 speed in addition to two PCIe x6 lanes that support dual GPU setup. The motherboard is more futuristic with two USB 3.1 ports which are ideal for connecting other peripheral devices.
The recommended memory is Crucial Ballististix Sports DDR4 2400. This has an equivalent of 8GB and is available for $ 44 at Amazon platform. This memory option is fast and cheap. It can also be used to fit air coolers easier. RAM speeds mostly affect other PC computational tasks as opposed to affecting gaming performance. It does not slow gaming speeds. The student needs to upgrade the current memory he is using. Upgrading RAM storage space is always better than acquiring faster RAM. Any RAM above 1600MHz only makes a less meaningful difference in gaming but can be significantly better in performance for normal computational needs like using Adobe programs.
The recommended Graphic card is MSI GTX 970 4G. It is priced at $330 on Amazon online store. It can deliver speeds of 1080p, 60 fps in gaming. It provides the best value for price and performance needs in the market and it is highly overclockable. The Card can be run at resolutions which are in compliance with the memory issues of a computer in which it is installed on. Though it is not capable of spotting issues that may arise from its memory management, ultimately it does an excellent job in providing computer users with video gaming framework for high-quality resolutions and quality. The alternative to this card is Radeon R9 390 which offers larger storage of 8GB of GDDR5. This may be useful for games which require larger memories.
The recommended power supply option is Corsair CX600M 600 watt and Bronze. It is priced at $ 60 at Newegg online store. Computer graphic cards have become power efficient; however when the graphics card and the CPU are overclocked power of 400 watts may be required. Thus, a power supply rated 600 watts may be the solution to cater for the power which may be lost. This power supply that includes an 80 bronze rating is ultimately 82% efficient. This makes it a viable option for use with the graphics card as well as personal computational needs which may not consume as much power. This power option is reliable and modular hence making them easier to build personal computing experience. It ensures that computer users have fewer power cables to work with.
The recommended primary storage is Samsung 840 EVO 500GB, which is priced at $115 ON Amazon. It is a fast and affordable option for internal storage of files and games. It will provide an efficient way for internal transfer and storage of files and games. The current memory capacity is sufficient but not as fast and secure as the one provided by the recommended component. The recommended secondary storage is 2TB WD2003FZEX, which was developed by Western Digital. It is priced on Amazon at $125. This optional additional is needed as a backup storage area for personal files such as class notes, personal photos, music, and movies. The Western Digital Black is the recommended option because of it fast capabilities as compared to WD Green drive. It can also be used to store games whose load times do not matter.
The recommended CPU cooler is the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, which is priced at $ 30 on Newegg. It is easier to install and provides better performances in cooling heaving overclocks of the CPU. The recommended Disc drive component is Asus 24x DVD-RW. IT IS PRICED AT $23 on Amazon. The Monitor and the Casing are sufficient for use under the current structure. AOC E207SWN 19.5’ which is LED with as resolution of 1600x900 is large enough to allow fast response and make gaming resolution to be high. It is enough to give efficient color reproduction from wide viewing angles. The monitor should have a refresh rate that is about 120-144HZ. The recommended casing is Phanteks Enthoo Pro, which has a 200mm front pre-mounted fan and a 140mm rear fan. This case has ample space to handle all the graphic cards and CPU coolers. It is available at Prime online shop at a total cost $100. For the peripherals, a normal Acer Mouse, Dell Keyboard and trackball will be sufficient for gaming and personal computations.
The recommended operating system which is composed is Microsoft’s Windows 10. It is available at Amazon for $ 90. It is more stable and has demonstrated performance improvements as compared to Windows 7 though it leaves a similar user experience as Windows 7. Windows 10 has improved the performance of games with an improved graphic programming interface that harnesses DirectX 12 power. The combination of the recommended hardware components and software makes it possible to build a personal computing experience that is important for gaming and personal computing experiences.
Part Two
In this part of the assignment, the aim will describe how to set up dual booting of a computer so that both Ubuntu and Windows can run together. While dual booting offers the benefits of better performance for the native operating system, it is not recommended as it can strain the performance of the computer. The recommended option is installing one operating system such as Ubuntu as the native OS and then virtualizing the other operating system.
Before the process of setting up the dual booting capability of the computer, backup of all the files in the computer to be worked on is recommended to an external disk. This is because dual-boot installations manipulate the hard drive which may be corrupted in the process. For this step, external hard drive that was acquired in part one is useful. It is also important to have windows recovery partition on the hard drive. In modern computing, the recovery partition is usually created and hidden by computer manufacturers. It stores disk recovery information and has a utility that one can burn on a CD. This is for the purposes of an eventuality of computer crash during the dual installation of the operating system.
While doing the actual installations, the Windows Operating System is installed first before Ubuntu is installed. This is because the windows bootloader tends to be particular and hence overwrites the whole hard drive. This causes the entire data in the hard drive to be wiped out. During the installation of windows, a partitioning of the hard drive is recommended so that some space is left for Ubuntu this makes it unnecessary to resize NTFS partition later. However, if Windows is already installed, the partition in which it occupies need to be shrunk so that a space and a partition for Ubuntu is created.
When Windows 10 is already installed in the computer, there is need to disable fast startup before shutting down the computer. This is done when the computer user is an administrator. Fast Startup is done so that Ubuntu installer will detect the presence of Windows on the boot partition and this may cause failures when installation is taking place for Ubuntu. The Fast Startup enables the bootloader to restore the computer system to the initial state it was before shutdown. This is done by opening the control panel from desktop windows then open power options. On the option of choosing the behavior of the power button the check box, which allows turning on fast startup, is selected. This option disables the Fast Startup option.
The next step involves setting up partitions on the hard drive so that Ubuntu does not overwrite Windows operating system. Four partitions are created, these include boot partition. When Windows 10 is already the native operating system, this is already created. The second partition is Windows partition which already exists when Windows is preinstalled. However, it needs to be resized so that it creates room for Ubuntu partition. Ubuntu requires 5GB while 64 bit Windows 10 requires 20GB. The third partition is the Linux partition which should be at least 5GB. The last partition is Optional and is known as the Linux-swap partition. It should be half the size of the ram this means a computer of 8GB should have this partition at 4GB or greater than that.
The process of now installing Ubuntu is as follows; insert the Ubuntu image either on the hard disk or on the CD and boot your Computer. Select boot from external hard drive/CD and proceed with the installation until carefully following all the steps including choosing the partitions. Creating dual environment operating systems on a computer is certainly a remarkable adventure but risks the computer user’s data.
Part Three
This part of the assignment will entail a detailed analysis of the internal hard disks series that are manufactured by Western Digital. The discussion will entail comparison of their features, their recommended application areas as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each of the discussed series model.
WD Blue 4TB Model WD40EZRZ
It has a throughput of 12 percent and a performance gain of 26-48%. It is built using a 3.5-inch form which limits its use to desktop only. It can sustain a speed of 120MB/s. It brings noticeable improvement that allows faster applications’ of load, improved responsiveness, and the operating systems can boot faster. The hard disk model consumes 5.3 voltages while the idle consumption of the disk is 3.4 volts (Yu and others, 67, 2006). This disk can operate in an environment having temperatures that range between 0-80. It uses advanced algorithms in tracking data usage and prioritizes the statics for better performance. It can be acquired online at a value of $ 180 at Amazon (Amazon.com, 2016).
WD Blue SSHD 4TB model WD40E31X
This drive was particularly designed for gamers as well as content creators. It increases the performance of workstations. It is built using a 3.5-inch form which limits its use to desktop only. It can sustain a speed of 150MB/s. It’s certainly not the fastest hard drive in the market however because of the use of NAND and flash SSD technology it brings noticeable improvement that allows faster applications’ of load, improved responsiveness and the operating systems can boot faster. The hard disk model consumes 5.3 voltages while the idle consumption of the disk is 3.4 volts. This disk can operate in an environment having temperatures that range between 0-60. It uses advanced algorithms in tracking data usage and prioritizes the statics for better performance. Using it, one can optimize applications. In Australia this, model can be acquired online through Negwat and retails for $ 175 with free shipping (Amazon.com, 2016).
WD Black 4TB Model WD4003FZEX
The hard drive boasts of a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, it also has a cache interface of 64MB. This disk is built to be spread in 5 800GB platters. It has a controller update thus improving its capacity (Yu and others, 67, 2006). The use of Dynamic Cache Technology makes it to have improved performance. It also uses caching algorithms thus optimizing cache reads and writes allocations. This makes the hard drive to automatically allow allocation of cache for read and writes of data reducing data congestion. This model goes for a street value of $ 280 (Amazon.com, 2016). It can also be acquired online for a price of $ 300 including shipping on Amazon. Its speed capacity is 7,200RPM and is suitable for people needing high speeds in gaming
WD Re Model WD400FYYZ
It is currently the highest capacity SATA hard drive. It gives the highest performance, especially for critical business applications. It can deliver a transfer speed of 6 GB/s and sustained data rates of 171MB/s (Yu and others, 67, 2006). The hard disc can have a dual processor speed hence maximizing performance. It has enhanced RAFT which can monitor both linear as well as rotational vibration. It can be acquired for $ 220 at Amazon in addition to street values of $200. It is highly reliable and affordable (Amazon.com, 2016).
Bibliography
Amazon.com. (2016). Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more. [online] Available at: http://amazon.com [Accessed 7 May 2016].
Yu, H., Sahoo, R.K., Howson, C., Almasi, G., Castaňos, J.G., Gupta, M., Moreira, J.E., Parker, J.J., Engelsiepen, T.E., Ross, R.B. and Thakur, R., 2006, February. High performance file I/O for the Blue Gene/L supercomputer. In High-Performance Computer Architecture, 2006. The Twelfth International Symposium on (pp. 187-196). IEEE.
