| Now of course you don't have to buy any of the
optional items listed below, but your computer will be seriously under
utilized if you don't have them. Basically they just make life a lot
easier, and a lot more fun.
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3.5" Floppy Drive
It doesn't really matter what floppy drive you get. They are used so
little these days. I recommend buying a used one if you are buying it
individually. The other suggestion on this I might make would be to get
a Superdisk drive. These drives fit a 3.5" bay and they will accept
Superdisks or regular floppy disks. They don't however accept the
popular Zip disks.
Ready to Install a Floppy Drive?
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CD ROM / DVD ROM Drive
- CD ROM vs. DVD ROM Drive.
- Unless you really like watching movies on a 17" Monitor
there is no real need to get a DVD ROM drive at this time. Now
if you are buying a CD ROM anyway its not much more to get a DVD
ROM drive.
- Speed
- The faster the better. But after you get over about 24x CD ROM
speed it doesn't make much difference. DVD ROM speeds are around
the 6x or 8x mark now.
- Brand
- Buy a brand that you know well, but don't pay a lot extra for
the brand. You can buy brand name DVD ROM drives and CD ROM
drives for at or near the same price as no name or generic brand
drives.
Ready to Install A CD ROM or DVD ROM?
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Sound Card
- Brand
- Sound Blaster from Creative Labs has long been the leader in
sound card industry. Yamaha also makes excellent sound cards,
and there are a few others.
- Compatibility
- It must be Sound Blaster 16 Compatible or better.
- Features
- The new Sound Blaster Lives can do 4 Channel Surround Sound
which is quite nice for games and multimedia on the PC. Other
sound cards can do the full 5.1 Dolby Digital but they are quite
expensive and again, unless you like watching movies on a
17" screen?
- Use
- Games? or Music? Sound Blaster would probably be the best
brand for games but Yamaha would probably be the best for music.
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Speakers
- Powered
- The must be powered if want to use the Sound Blaster Live.
- Brand
- Better brands typically perform better. Some brands match
those that are in the stereo speaker industry.
- Surround Sound / Digital Sound Sound
- 5 speakers and a subwoofer for Digital sound and 4 speakers
and a sub for surround sound.
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Modem
- See other high speed options first.
- 57.6Kbps
- The only speed of modem you should buy.
- Winmodems vs. Non Winmodems
- Don't buy winmodems if you can help it. The often don't work
and they use the processor power to run the modem rather than
having a chip on the modem. External modems aren't winmodems,
and most higher end modems aren't winmodems. Multiwave
sells Smartlink brand modems which are suppose to be real
modems.
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