The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Oh good lord! Ford, Chevy, Ford, Chevy. That's all this is. If you're gonna buy a ford, enjoy it! If you're gonna buy a Chevrolet, enjoy it!

 

There are several limitations to that analogy. I dislike it being used.
There are discrete performance issues at stake here, measurable differences in entirely quantitative terms. Several of the differences that set car brands apart are qualitative - looks, perceived build quality, physical features and so on. In the PC world, the faster the CPU the better, no questions asked, but in the car world, there isn't much call for 500mph capable products is there?

 

People are hell bent on a products name. Not everyone, but a lot exist. Heck, I'm kind of one of them! $ony will probably never receive another cent from me. I am aware of people that prefer AMD, despite the benchmark claims.

For an ultimate enthusiast, yes. The faster the better. Hope they have a lot of money, because they're gonna spend it on bleeding edge technology. Myself, I try to find a happy medium. At present anyway. Fact of the matter is, I consider myself an enthusiast. I'm just so broke, my diet mainly consists of Ramen noodles LOL!

I don't deny Intel's obvious first place trophy. There's an abundant amount of information showing Intel being generally better. A fair amount of their processors anyhow.

Perhaps steve has views against intel, like I do against $ony.

 

Perhaps, but I haven't seen as much antitrust out of Intel in the last few years, so I'm curious to know why.
I have plenty of prejudices of companies I won't buy from, but AMD aren't one of them.

 

The performance isn't better but the hype sure is!

 

I know you obviously post this to wind us up, but out of curiosity, do you actually believe that?

 

I've told you before I have an i5 2450m and a friend has the i7 2600 and I'm sorry I'm NOT impressed AT ALL and yes I'm serious, the Intel's aren't as good as the hype period and I will get better performance for the money out of a 8 core AMD than what you claim to be faster 4 cores, not fast enough I think. I bought into your hype and got the i5 notebook and totally wish I would have gone a different route.

You can buy the hype but I'm not.

 

Thing is I tried a Turion X2 laptop once, it wasn't fast at all, so why should Bulldozer be any better?

That's the same logic. Feel free to say what you like, but it is just (somewhat clouded) opinion, and speaks starkly against hard evidence.
Hype is people anticipating something being great. Benchmark results are hard evidence.

 

My Turion X2 (OLD) isn't much less than this i5 crap I have now. Yes the i5 has a little on my very old Turion but that isn't saying much in my opinion. It does not speak against hard evidence as I've tested them and the performance just isn't there.

Again I bought your nonsense and Russ did too, he too wasn't real thrilled with his Intel either, but not again!

Benchmarks, what a joke you can have them, they mean nothing unless we are to have benchmark wars. Real world then we can talk, you can have your fantasy world, I live in the real world.

 

We don't ignore facts for delusions and tell every one they're in a fantasy land for knowing how to read...

 

Sure you do, I've done real application testing on same based systems and not fantasy benchmarks, there is a big difference in the real world from your benchmark sites. Again bechmarks really mean little to nothing. Throw heavy programs in the mix and then see what happens.

Sorry guys but things just don't add up like the hype says, at least what I've tested doesn't. So I'm not going to bite on that one again for some time now I'll take multiple core brute force over a over rated super core.

If you love Apple and Intel knock yourselves out, I'm not buying it this year.

 

Most laptops I've come across(AMD and Intel), feel slow. I imagine they'd be much faster with an SSD though Hard drives are an obvious bottle neck in a laptop. Although Ram is usually a problem too. I don't think I've ever handled a laptop with more than 2Gb. And at least 2 of them were windows 7.

 

RAM isn't an issue especially with mine since I upgraded it but you did hit the nail on the head one of the biggest bottle necks is the HDD even after I added the SSD. That is why I need to get a hybrid 750GB which should take away some of the lag I experience. Both the original RAM and my HDD that came with the notebook are not the best, just cheapness really. Upgrading the RAM to 8GB of quality memory really helped but one more slow link to take care of, with the SSD and a Hybrid I should fly much better. I would like to get 16GB but the price is steep so that will wait. The MB of my notebook is a business class board so that isn't the, or shouldn't be the, problem. The hybrids in that size run north of $150 to around $200 depending so it may be a month or so before I pull the trigger but that is the plan.

 

I would think an SSD, would be better than a hybrid :S

 

I would be using both, my notebook has TWO SATA bays so right now I have the 60GB SSD as the boot drive and the WD 640GB as the working drive. I have two RAM bays too.

 

Wow! That's an impressive laptop! But I generally don't look into them much. They're not really practical for me. Though I've pretty much always wanted one...
Perhaps one day.

 

Your right they are not practical for everyday use although I have a friend that does just that, but I wouldn't. I use it for travel or when I have to help someone at their home or business, but using a real computer most of the time at home. It sure is nice to have on the go and I've even used it at friends as a media player hooking up my 500GB external music drive to it and connecting to their surround sound systems. Just the other night we jammed to old school AC/DC which that friends loves it was sweet.

 

Ah yes. If I made house calls when repairing peoples computers, a laptop would be a must! But people know that I don't do that. They bring me their tower/laptop. If they don't, they pay the repair shop a heap of money LOL! I generally do it for 5 - $10(often for free). I don't like charging more, because I don't feel my worth(I guess). I acknowledge my technical know how, but I still have a lack of confidence. Chemical/hormonal imbalance I suppose Plus I'm incredibly uncomfortable in other peoples homes. I have a nasty social anxiety. :S

 

It can be difficult especially when they sit over your shoulder and ask tons of questions that even if you explain them to them they won't understand anyway. Which also slows down the process of getting them fixed, but these days a lot of people don't want to pull their gear apart and bring it to your place. I do push for that and charge less if they do as I can multitask and everything goes much smoother of course. For close friends and family I don't charge, only for customers or friends of friends.

I do have a friend that tries to fix his friends PC's, sometimes he can do but normally he calls me and I give him phone support or if it gets to tough for him he'll just drop it off in which he'll pay me, phone support seems to be free though.