How to Build the Fastest Internet Surfing PC

By Stephen Lilley

If you're spending hundreds of dollars to build a personal computer with the sole intention of browsing the Internet, you want to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck. Internet surfing only requires three basic things from your computer--a moderately fast processor, a decent amount of RAM and a high speed modem or network card. By making sure you've got these three bases covered you can build a machine that will allow you to surf the 'net at lightning speed.

Buy a fast computer processor. Your processor is the component of your computer that allows software to operate. Certain programs require faster processors than others. For a standard web browser to run efficiently you should have no less than a 1GHz processor.

Buy RAM. While Internet browsing is not the most resource-heavy task you can do on your computer, you still need to make sure you have a decent amount of RAM to access web pages. Certain web pages may have videos or other objects that require more from your computer than the average web page. Anything over 1GB of internal RAM will more than suffice if all you are doing is browsing the web.

Buy a high speed modem or network card. These devices allow you to connect to the Internet at high speeds. With a high speed modem or network card and a high speed Internet service provider you could potentially download files and access web pages at speeds of more than 1MB per second.

Consider leaving Windows behind and installing the Linux operating system on your computer (see Resources). Linux is a lightweight operating system that doesn't require a lot of system resources to run. The resources freed up by using Linux will go to improving the efficiency at which your Internet browser can run, and will therefore make your Internet surfing experience faster.

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