hardware specifications

[Jmax66]

Help I am in over my head.
I have been given the task of buying a number of new computer systems for my work and I could really do with some recommendations, as it has been a number of years since l last purchased a PC problem. (Money is not so much of a problem)
I need a number of hardware specifications for a

a secretary (nothing Hi-tec)
students in the university library (on a net work)
a research physicist (lots of Memory and processor power)

Thanks for any help you can give.

[saphalline]

The "secretary system" should be low in power, relatively speaking. I'd say a Celeron 800MHz+ processor, 128MB of PC100 or PC133 SDRAM, 20GB hard drive, regular old CD-ROM drive (and/or a CD-RW drive if not on a network - 16x10x32x minimum), at least 3 PCI slots, onboard sound & video (with cheap speakers if any), scroll mouse (necessary productivity upgrade for secretaries!), ergonomic keyboard (those curvy ones), 17" or bigger monitor. If on a network, will also need a NIC or built-in LAN capabilities. Front mounted USB ports are also nice.

For student/library computers, nothing nearly that powerful is needed, but you may want it in the future. Celeron 600MHz+, 64MB or 128MB of PC100 or PC133 SDRAM, 10GB to 20GB hard drive, regular CD-ROM drive, at least 3 PCI slots, onboard sound & video (ditto on the speakers), standard mouse (scroll mouse if you want to splurge), standard keyboard, 15" monitor minimum but 17" is nicer. You'll definitely want a NIC or built-in LAN capabilities on this one for the network.

The research physicist system is a bit trickier, depending on the software being used. If it's Windows-based (I doubt it), then any Pentium4 or AthlonXP system with at least 512MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive should do. For workstation-class performance, a dual-processor arangement is necessary, using either two Xeons or two AthlonMP's, at least 1GB of registered and/or ECC RAM, some type of RAID hard drive array, and a hardware overlay type of professional graphics card (ATI's FireGL2 or 3 brand or NVidia's Quadro3 or 4 brand). Either way, a 17" LCD monitor would be a nice minimum. Maybe some others will have more ideas for you in this area.

Of course, these are just my opinions but should be pretty close to what others will tell you.

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Windows 95: A 32-bit extension of a 16-bit overlay for an 8-bit OS that was originally designed for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit company that can't produce 1 bit of good software!