There’s no question that personal computers were built with baseline functionality- all of them can process documents, and to a certain extent, play multimedia and display the same. However, there are significant difference when we think of specific needs of users of personal computers.
A case in point would be the difference between the usage and needs of a professional personal computer gamer and a student. Though there are blurry marks between the two types of individuals, there are none when we think of their personal computers.
What does a student need a computer for in the first place? Let us try to discuss what kinds of activities that a university student would engage in, so that we can tie that up with the kinds of functionality later. A student would be doing a lot of typing- this is a given. Depending on what he or she is taking up in the university, more or less the computer would be used often as a typewriter, and of course, for printing.
If the student is in architecture and engineering, there are specific needs, but the computing power remains the same more or less. Often, the student would have thousands of saved files on his or her personal computer, and maybe some software like electronic encyclopedias installed. With this in mind, we are simply talking about space.
Now, if we are talking about space, then we are talking about hard disk space here- the lowest is 80, then there are those that reach 300 now. So that’s fixed- how about computing power? A student will not need a computer with extreme computing power or clocked speeds exceed 1.5 GHz- what would be the point? For video cards, it is the same- a regular video card with 512 MB will do. If the student plays some games, that baseline is also sufficient for playing. However, as for the gamer, it is another whole different thing.
A gamer would be using the personal computer in two ways- for work and for leisure. The leisure part would be the one that would tax the computer most, because it would be running algorithmic engines non-stop, playing multimedia and receiving input from the user at the same time.
A gamer’s personal computer would need a lot more space than just 300 gigabytes. More likely, if the hefty versions of solid state hard disks are unavailable or just plain too expensive, the gamer would need to install at least two hard disks, to receive and retain the memory load of the games themselves. Some games take up more than five gigabytes of hard disk space- and of course, during play time, they consume virtual memory as you play along.
A gamer’s personal computer also needs a lot of computing power- the processor should be built like the Intel Skulltrail to work the environment, more or less. Otherwise, a fuller gaming experience would not result at all. These are the big difference between computers of the two types of people.