Alex wants to build his own computer. Leo says that building his own PC is a good exercise and he'll learn a lot about how a PC works. He won't save any money doing so, though. And if there's something wrong, there's no one place to call. He'll have dozens of different parts and the manufacturers will just pass the buck. So he'd end up being his own support.
Frank says that editing his videos is taking forever to render, so he's looking at a new Dell XPS computer. Will it matter? Leo says absolutely. More RAM will also help. A graphics card with a good GPU helps as well. The GPU is always the bottle neck and these days, modern computer software tries to harness the graphics processor to handle all the heavy lifting.
Frank should check out PCPerspectives for the best combination for video editing. The GTX750 is what they recommend.
Reed wants a gaming computer and he wants to know if he should buy one or build one. Leo says that it used to save a lot of money to build one. That's not true as much now, as there's no overall warranty or tech support that can help if the computer doesn't work. Reed would be his own tech support. And with various part manufacturers, nobody takes responsibility for issues.
Jack wants to build his first computer and he has a budget of about $800. He needs a good gaming quality video card. Leo says that learning how a computer works is a great reason to build one. Leo recommends going to PC Perspectives and check out their hardware leaderboard. Leo says that the AMD XFX video card is the best in that price range.
JR has been a Linux guy for about 20 years exclusively. He's building a new computer with a fixed budget. Leo recommends going to PC Perspective's website and on the menu bar they have the HWLeaderboard. The Hardware Leaderboard lays out price ranges for building your own PC and what components you should get.
If he sticks with Linux, the issue will be drivers. The good news is that Steam is using Linux for their Steam Machines and as such, Linux support is growing.
