Computer Myths and Overkill

[AkG]

I can honestly see your POV. For the most part I agree with the underlying idea of dont over-spec the rig (most do it to screw the person over) BUT under-specing it is just as bad. It will cost the person more in the long rung.

IF you had stopped at saying hard drives dont need SATA 3...sure. I would agree. But saying that SSD's dont benefit just shows your bias and / or ignorance of the technology. Sorry to be harsh, but that is the simple truth.

As others have stated multi-core does matter. Most games can handle two threads these days (or more depending on the game). With a dual core...that leaves ZERO cores for the OS. The OS has many...many threads that need cycles too. If there is nothing left for the OS...it will rob from the "game" cores. This will bottleneck your rig. Is it a huge bottleneck if you are running a cheap GPU (as per point 4)?...not really. Cheap rigs are cheap. BUT in this day and age a good quad core doesnt cost that much more than a dual. Why cut this corner?

Cheap boards are cheap because they use cheap parts. They fail faster and usually are more issue prone than mid grade boards. Once again I would have agreed if you had said $100 - $150 vs $300 as there is a point of diminishing returns...but the cheap crappiest boards are the ones I see fail most often. This is 60 bucks that is not worth shaving UNLESS the rig is for short term increment use which will be replaced in 3 years. Most people dont upgrade their CPU, so the whole will it be around in 3 years argument does not apply. Most people upgrade a system, not a cpu or mobo. Hell its only recently average joes have caught on to upgrading the storage device! Its better to build ONE durable rig that has a lower chance of failing than taking advantage of RMA and building it TWICE.

As for point 1, I can see your POV but disagree. Z77 adds RST and SATA 3. Plop a small SSD in there (for RST, or mid grade SSD for true cross over) and watch a dog slow rig turn into a near enthusiast grade rig. On tight budgets its a nice upgrade a year down the line....and unlike us enthusiasts most people DO NOT upgrade every other year or even 3 years. Its more like 3 -5. IF peeps can spend 1bill next year and extend the life of their rig for two years or more it just makes sense. You are not doing them any favours by under-specing their build.

[BFighter]

You don't need a Ferrari. You can't drive at top speed anywhere, right?

Then why do people have supercars and why do people want to own one?

[Ibrihim]

Originally Posted by Bond007

Overall I agree, but some of what you have said does need to be taken with a grain of salt. Of course most of us don't NEED the computers we have, but we want them. While I follow computer technology and enjoy it, I know I don't need high end parts (though I would love to have them). I shop bang for buck and don't upgrade often. My x3 710, entry level motherboard and gtx 460 (that I bought a year later) have been going strong for over 3 years, and while I have been tempted to upgrade a few times I still don't feel I have to.

I agree that sometimes the suggestions given are not always what I would do, but people are entitled to different opinions. In your case you built a rig that I think is very good for its purpose. However, if you knew that person would have more disposable income in a few months that they wouldn't mind spending on an upgrade you could have considered doing it differently (like not getting a graphics card initially and investing in a more feature rich motherboard, a faster processor or a nicer case). And while I agree none of of those more expensive components are required, they can be useful or just nice to look at. A Z77 motherboard is not required if you don't plan on OCing or getting a K series CPU, but again if there is a chance you may want to venture in OCing, then its nice to have that ability without upgrading the motherboard. I run 4gb ram in my computers and it is enough, but given the price difference from 4 to 8gb ram is now only $15 CDN or so I have a hard time telling anyone to get 4gb. Does it make your computer futureproof, NO, but it very well could help it out in the long run.

In many ways your argument can be pictured as a car. Your implying everyone should drive a yaris or a civic, and that its a waste to get corvette, or a BMW. It may be a waste to some people, but it may be worth every penny to others.

Like I said earlier, I don't disagree with your comments, but they really need to be put in context.

A yes on the memory. When I thought 4 against 8 it gave me another £10 towards graphics. Cannot argue with the car analogy and have you noticed how much cheap cars reliability and resale value have improved. Economic pressure is making manufacturers in general chase every dollar or yen. Chinese computer websites are big on budget and at least the test graphs are readable.

Originally Posted by AkG

I can honestly see your POV. For the most part I agree with the underlying idea of dont over-spec the rig (most do it to screw the person over) BUT under-specing it is just as bad. It will cost the person more in the long rung.

IF you had stopped at saying hard drives dont need SATA 3...sure. I would agree. But saying that SSD's dont benefit just shows your bias and / or ignorance of the technology. Sorry to be harsh, but that is the simple truth.

As others have stated multi-core does matter. Most games can handle two threads these days (or more depending on the game). With a dual core...that leaves ZERO cores for the OS. The OS has many...many threads that need cycles too. If there is nothing left for the OS...it will rob from the "game" cores. This will bottleneck your rig. Is it a huge bottleneck if you are running a cheap GPU (as per point 4)?...not really. Cheap rigs are cheap. BUT in this day and age a good quad core doesnt cost that much more than a dual. Why cut this corner?

Cheap boards are cheap because they use cheap parts. They fail faster and usually are more issue prone than mid grade boards. Once again I would have agreed if you had said $100 - $150 vs $300 as there is a point of diminishing returns...but the cheap crappiest boards are the ones I see fail most often. This is 60 bucks that is not worth shaving UNLESS the rig is for short term increment use which will be replaced in 3 years. Most people dont upgrade their CPU, so the whole will it be around in 3 years argument does not apply. Most people upgrade a system, not a cpu or mobo. Hell its only recently average joes have caught on to upgrading the storage device! Its better to build ONE durable rig that has a lower chance of failing than taking advantage of RMA and building it TWICE.

As for point 1, I can see your POV but disagree. Z77 adds RST and SATA 3. Plop a small SSD in there (for RST, or mid grade SSD for true cross over) and watch a dog slow rig turn into a near enthusiast grade rig. On tight budgets its a nice upgrade a year down the line....and unlike us enthusiasts most people DO NOT upgrade every other year or even 3 years. Its more like 3 -5. IF peeps can spend 1bill next year and extend the life of their rig for two years or more it just makes sense. You are not doing them any favours by under-specing their build.

Thank you. on the ssd all I can say is in booting up, the web,and command and conquer 3 I cannot see the difference. I am sure I could measure one,but for average use perhaps you can see it . Here a quad core from Intel starts at £131 pentium dual £43.

Originally Posted by BFighter

You don't need a Ferrari. You can't drive at top speed anywhere, right?

Then why do people have supercars and why do people want to own one?

I do not know, but if you have one you don't want and you are E.U based I can be there in 12 hrs

[AkG]

For low end builds you might want to start considering AMD. On low end builds they offer a good bang for the buck that is usually better than Intel. Yes Intel > AMD for performance, but there is a point of diminishing returns for avg joes...and even four 'fake' cores are better than two 'real' cores....'specially when comping and contrasting w/ Intel Pentinum line (those are dogs). For most uber budget builds AMDs integrated gpu is more than good enough for basic games. Not great...but good enough. This leaves room for a better mobo in the budget...or even (my personal calling card) a SSD. A SSD + AMD > Vraptor + Intel i3

YMMV

[botat29]

You see an increase of FPS of 20% in Skyrim with a 6 cores i7-3930k compare to a i7-2600k, Planetside 2 run way smoother too. so new games will use more and more cores.

[Dzzope]

Originally Posted by Ibrihim

On point 5 I feel toms hardware have it right when they recommend a Pentium G860 over the AMD 3 core for gaming. I agree 4 cores is best and above all I agree it depends on the game.
On usb and sata I can only defer to your vision and sense of time.
Yes dual core may be obsolete in 2 or 3 years so I've lost £40 but I can enter the world of the latest wonder socket. Be fair -when you bought your i7 it alone it was about twice the cost of the above entire rig.

The intel have been far better per core for quite a long time now, I was thinking more to compare apple to apple in that an x3 will beat a x2 with the same tech and clocks.

Yes my rig cost allot, about £700 for the board memory chip case and PSU with a 560ti(upgraded since) BUT I've had a super fast computer for 5 - 7 years instead of a budget basement build thats going last for 2 may be 3 and be slow the whole time.

It could be like my friend that has a Q6600 thats lasted him 5 years already and he has no problem running it for another 5 as long as the pace of change stays as it has the last few years.
(though he would probably save more with a more efficient chip for that long in power alone)

Value does not always equal cheap

I have an i7 950, which was much more expensive than the current i7 3770k(or the 2600k) but even so it's better value than the build your making.. Granted that there is no budget for more so you couldn't put more in if you wanted but to say that any kind of future proofing is pointless is not true.

There is always a sweet point where the tech will last and the cost isn't too high. It's finding what that point is for each individual that I try to achieve.


P.S. you point on motherboards. yes you could spend £230 on a z77 board.. alternatively you could spend £80 and have mostly the same features.

[Ibrihim]

Originally Posted by AkG

For low end builds you might want to start considering AMD. On low end builds they offer a good bang for the buck that is usually better than Intel. Yes Intel > AMD for performance, but there is a point of diminishing returns for avg joes...and even four 'fake' cores are better than two 'real' cores....'specially when comping and contrasting w/ Intel Pentinum line (those are dogs). For most uber budget builds AMDs integrated gpu is more than good enough for basic games. Not great...but good enough. This leaves room for a better mobo in the budget...or even (my personal calling card) a SSD. A SSD + AMD > Vraptor + Intel i3


YMMV

100% amd fur htpc and Truly budget gaming pc. I think their integrated gpu is so far ahead of Intel at every pricepoint. But if you want to have a bit extra with a discrete graphics card I will stick to Intel.

Originally Posted by Dzzope

The intel have been far better per core for quite a long time now, I was thinking more to compare apple to apple in that an x3 will beat a x2 with the same tech and clocks.

Yes my rig cost allot BUT I've had a super fast computer for 5 - 7 years instead of a budget basement build thats going lasted for 2 may be 3 and be slow the whole time.

It could be like my friend that has a Q6600 thats lasted him 5 years already and he has no problem running it for another 5 as long as the pace of change stays as it has the last few years.
(though he would probably save more with a more efficient chip for that long in power alone)

Value does not always equal cheap

I have an i7 950, which was much more expensive than the current i7 3770k(or the 2600k) but even so it's better value than the build your making.. Granted that there is no budget for more so you couldn't put more in if you wanted but to say that any kind of future proofing is pointless is not true.

There is always a sweet point where the tech will last and the cost isn't too high. It's finding what that point is for each individual that I try to achieve.


P.S. you point on motherboards. yes you could spend £230 on a z77 board.. alternatively you could spend £80 and have mostly the same features.

Thanks and given the money yes yes yes. I posted my rig,My offspring who all live within a mile of me have self built an i7 860 on I think a £150 skt 1366 for about 3yrs, 2x G840 H61,an e8400 P68 (?) and 3 other 775s. Graphics 8800gt x2' gtx 260 x2 and 3 x gtx460. All have ssds +h/drve. SSDs sata2 and 3 some are "fast" some are "slow" various chips -indexlink and others I would have to look up.My daughter is a mac. We all love nice kit !

Originally Posted by botat29

You see an increase of FPS of 20% in Skyrim with a 6 cores i7-3930k compare to a i7-2600k, Planetside 2 run way smoother too. so new games will use more and more cores.

I do like it but its a Ferrari in a forum about a Honda civic

[AkG]

To use the tortured car analogy....you are not talking about "Honda Civic" cars here. You are talking about....IDK....a modern day version of a 1970s Pinto or Yugo...maybe a car that is made in China to chinese 'standards'. A Honda civic is good, solid and reliable. The bottom of the barrel mobos are not. Cheap caps, cheap materials, corners are cut to keep cost down...ie all round cheap. Do your customers a favour and bump up a level on the mobo. Spend the extra 30 or 40 pounds. Even if you dont boost the CPU....boost the mobo. That is the main area you are off in. Everything else....is debatable. :)

[botat29]

Originally Posted by Ibrihim

I do like it but its a Ferrari in a forum about a Honda civic

You can troll us as much as you want but I will not downgrade to a Lada to please you. In 2013 we already have few games that benefit from mores cores, I mention 2 that I personally see a huge difference. So it's not overkill and Myths. And I will not comment on SSD, you are 2 or 3 years too late, everyone on this forum know the benefit of SSD over mecanical.

[maverick_brent]

last year i bought a 2500k and a maximus iv extreme....did i need it...ABSOLUTLY NOT...but my argument was like what bond said.....if i can at once afford the ferrari i want and look at, im gonna get it...screw the civic....and i actually couldnt be happier...its rock solid, and i have zero concerns with it...running at 4.5ghz all day long with zero issues...buy what you think is the best...i always bought bang for buck, never really did spoil myself till now.