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Rather than try to compete with the up-to-the-minute product information on Web sites or the encyclopedic brilliance of Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs, the authors of TechTV's Upgrading Your PC fill a separate niche. They explain to their readers, in an eminently readable and clear fashion, how to think about upgrading their Intel-compatible personal computers and then set about doing it. For starters, they acknowledge that upgrading isn't always the best thing to do with an elderly machine (the most cost-effective thing, they note, is often retirement and replacement). Continuing on the assumption that you want to improve some aspect of your machine, they provide the information you need to choose and install an after-market part. In their coverage of graphics cards, for example, the authors provide lots of technology-specific information (about the different kinds of AGP ports, among other things) while leaving recommendations of specific products to other publications. It's a winning strategy, and they apply it to CPUs, motherboard chipsets, and other upgradeable system pieces.
On top of that kind of coverage, the authors provide general technical advice that will come in handy regardless of the product you're installing. In the section on sound cards, they note that if you have sound circuitry on your motherboard and want to upgrade it, you're not out of luck: most BIOSes let you disable the built-in sound card so you can put in a replacement. In their chapter on RAM, they explain how to make sure you order the right thing from your supplier. Throughout, they frequently make reference to diagnostic utilities and other helpful software on the Internet. Even the photographs, which traditionally are a weak point of hardware books, are clear and generally helpful. This is a quality hardware book. --David Wall
TechTV's Upgrading Your PC, Second Edition
by Mark Edward Soper - List Price: $24.99 , Price: $17.49 You Save: $7.50 (30%) Paperback: 840 pages; Dimensions (in inches): 1.38 x 9.18 x 7.32; Publisher: TechTV (New Riders); 2nd edition (July 9, 2003)
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