Power is the name of the game in home computing these days. Graphics-sharpening, memory-swapping, nanosecond-shaving power. And, while the power of your computer may not seem to be important for your education and training applications, the reality is that you'll need to have an adequate machine to run any kind of current software.

"Games are the most power-demanding pieces of software around," says Jerret Bartley, manager of the computer division at Advance Electronics. He says that while there's no real changes in the applications for home computers over the past year, some of the add-ons and peripherals have taken on lives of their own. "Some of the changes, like playing DVD movies on your home computer, are great innovations," Bartley notes. "But there's no question that CD burners are the most important development for the average consumer." Making your own CDs with a burner has become the same as using a floppy disk. It may very well be that 3 1/2 inch disks will soon go the way of that ancient format, the 5 1/4 disk, that was used during the last century.

Alan Castell, retail sales and product manager at Mind Computers, says that an advancement that is just as important is the gig processor. "Intel already has an 800 processor, so we're not far off now," he explains. "What this means to the average consumer is that the speed of personal machines has been increasing dramatically."

Castell says that being able to access memory more efficiently is the key to a powerful machine. It can fetch information back and forth quickly, making the computer appear "smarter." In fact, some of the games on the market now can't be played on your "old" Pentium II with a "puny" 1 or 2 or 5 Meg video card. "The Quake III Arena needs a minimum Pentium 233 MX processor, 64 MB of RAM, 8 MB of video, 70 MB of room on your hard drive and at least a quad-CD ROM," says Bartley. Castell says that the typical computer bought today is a P3-500, with about 128 MB of RAM. "It has tons of power, and this configuration is becoming standard," he says. "And it's available for under $2,000."