8GB of RAM... really? Someone told me they wanted this as the minimum amount of memory in their new computer. A few notes on what computer companies think you need and what you really need. Memory is good. The more the better. 8GB of RAM, however, is way more than the average user needs. 2GB may even be high for the "average" user. When I define the "average" user, I am defining the average Joe whom sits at home and surfs the Internet, maybe watches a movie, and occasionally does some work with Microsoft Word. Now lets break it down. Video games are about the highest CPU and memory usage you can put your computer, a benchmark if you will as to what your computer can handle. The only exception would be 3D rendering (which is based strongly on your graphics card), software development tools (Visual Studio) which rely on an under-laying framework, and servers that undergo loads of stress. Chances are, you will not be multitasking to this extent... ever.
On to processors. Quad Core Processors such as the Phenoms, Core 2 Quad, and i7 processors are fast and powerful. But are they necessary? They have shown a fairly nice gain in performance over the older Dual Core processors when it comes to multitasking and gaming. So what is Joe Average missing? Currently, there are no games that can utilize all four cores. Secondly, there is no software besides server and rendering software that can utilize all four cores.
My point is, Joe Average will be paying a price way beyond what he needs to for hardware he most likely cannot use to its fullest extent. He would be much better off with a low end Quad Core or High end Dual Core with 2 to 4 GB of memory and a decent graphics card.
My Computer:
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2.5GHz
-2GB G.Skill PC6400 @ 5-5-5-15
-Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256 bit GDDR4
-Seagate ATA100 300GB HDD
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