Generally we have the following guidelines and recommendations:
Processors
Consider the Pentium III at a 650 Mhz or above level, an AMD Athelon processor at 800 Mhz or above, or a Celeron processor at 600 Mhz or above. For multi-processor server boxes for your servers (NT, Novell) run Pentium IIIs at 800 Mhz or above, and look for versions with larger cache. For servers providing services to more than 5-10 users, we recommend going with a SCSI I/O system, for small servers, EIDE/ATA is fine.
If you think that you will be running Windows NT on your desktop, you should consider purchasing a Pentium III processor-based PC.
For desktop PCs, running Windows 95, 98, or NT; we recommend the Pentium III processor at a speed of at least 600 Mhz. The current top of the line is the1.3 Ghz processor.
The Pentium III 700/750 Mhz processor is sitting in the "sweet spot" of the performance/cost curve. For top of the line single user performance, a Pentium III or Athelon (900 - 1.3GHz) is top of the line and can be had for less than $2800.
Please consider the following when purchasing a Pentium vs Celeron vs Athelon based PC:
It's probably better to spend $ on more memory and get a lower speed cpu.
The Celeron processors provide good performance at an excellent price point for most basic PC work (word processing, spreadsheets, Internet browsing). Look at 600 Mhz and up speed Celerons.
The Pentium III and Athelon (make sure it is the newer enhanced versions) provide excellent high computing power performance at good prices. Various models are available ranging from 550 Mhz to 1.3 Ghz.
Memory
Purchase at least 128 Mb of RAM for any computer (high end computing needs on an NT 4 or NT 2000 PC will run better with 256 Mb).
With Windows 95, we have noticed that 24 Mb + provides much improved performance. We recommend 32 - 64 Mb minimum for Windows 95/98; and 64 - 96 Mb minimum for Windows NT workstations. For Windows NT servers we recommend lots!!!! of memory -- databases seem to thrive on the increased memory and perform better and are more reliable (192 Mb for 10-25 users, 256 - 512 Mb for 25-50 users).
Windows 95 seems to do a much better job with system resources than the old Dos/Windows 3x -- the problem has not gone away entirely - but you can reliably run a couple of programs with no problem. For Dos/Windows users, we recommend not running more than 2 big programs at a time and rebooting the machine at least once during the day to get a fresh memory load, as "memory leakage" still seems to occur.
There are some critical updates to the Windows 95 operating system - we have had good results - increased reliability and improved performance by installing Service Pack 1 for Windows 95 and the Kernal Update (free downloads from the Microsoft web site) all of this is automatically included in the OSR 2 release of Windows 95. For Windows 98, you should be running Release 2. for NT 4, we recommend running at Service Pack 5 or above.
Disk Storage Space
Disk drive prices have come down so much in the past three years, we think 10 - 20 Gb drives are the reasonable selection, given the growing size of software programs and available downloads, etc. This will become more critical as graphics, sound, and video files become more common. These files are much larger than the typical word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation files.
For people dealing with these type of large files, we like removeable media solutions -- the Zip drive (100/250 Mb), the Jaz drive (1- 2 Gb), and optical disks (230 Mb - 2.6 Gb per cartridge). These devices offer fast access, long term storage, and cost effectiveness for storing Mb - Gbs of data.
We recommend EIDE (ATA-66 or 100) for single user workstations or small servers on a tight budget. For larger servers, SCSI is still the way to go (Ultra Wide is the fastest).
For large application critical servers, we recommend using hardware RAID with removeable drives.
Monitors
For servers - 14" monitors are fine.
For infrequent users, we recommend 15 " monitors.
For frequent users -> 17, 19, or 21" monitors are what you want - Windows types of operating systems make good use of the larger screens and you are able to run at higher resolutions - getting more windows and more information on the screen or better quality displays for video clips and high quality images. Prices for 19" monitors have fallen to between $550 and $850. Excellent 21" monitors previously available for more than $2000, are now around $750 - 1050. We are partial to the Viewsonic, Sony, and NEC lines.
