How do you buy a computer anymore?!

[J842P]

This is exactly my point. What is a 'beefy' CPU? How can you tell without reading a paper about it?

I got my first custom built machine back in 1999, and back then, CPU speed was what you cared about, but there was still the choice between AMD and Intel. Graphics cards were confusing, and I believe there was more choice back then. We've settled on OpenGL and DirectX compatibility now, but back then, you had 3DFx, and some games just didn't run nicely on certain graphics cards.

Nowadays, I'm not sure what I want from a CPU. Programmers do well with lots of symmetric multiprocessing, because compiling is pretty easy to parallelise. Gaming? Not so sure these days (they parallelise trivially on the GPU, not so sure for the CPU). How much cache? Games, as I understand, are pushed towards cache optimisation. Compilers? Not so sure these days (certainly not the ones I've tried writing).

What is a spacious SSD? adjectives and computers isn't helpful.

Enough to fit your OS and all your applications is what I'd go for. You want that big porky hard drive for stuff like video, but that can run happily off a slower HDD, since you only need so much data throughput for watching video.

Oh, get a big hard drive! Wait, is that 1 TB or 4 TBs?

Again, for video, I'm happy enough not caring and pushing that all onto an external hard-drive, which I can swap for something better if I ever need something better. I've got a 2TB one right now, 40% full.

Remember, this is for a gaming rig.

An SSD can make your gaming experience a lot nicer, *vastly* reducing loading times. You can get a 500gig SSD nowadays for under $200. That might be sufficient if it is a dedicated gaming rig. Heck, you could probably go way down depending on the games you want to play. Like you say, if you want to store a bunch of media, you can get an external. A terabyte HDD for a pittance if you ever need to.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Actually, as a programmer I think it's as easier decision--beefy CPU (I always aim for the point just below where the price/performance curve shoots up), lots of RAM (it's been a long time since I didn't max what the machine can hold), spacious SSD. Video doesn't matter unless you're writing video stuff.

This is exactly my point. What is a 'beefy' CPU? How can you tell without reading a paper about it? What is a spacious SSD? adjectives and computers isn't helpful.

Oh, get a big hard drive! Wait, is that 1 TB or 4 TBs?

Get a beefy CPU! They make those out of cows now?

Any ole video card will do. ????

If you're not playing games, yes, you don't need anything fancy unless you want to support a lot of monitors. (You have to go reasonably high end to support the three screens I'm running.)

As for the HD--it comes down to what you want to store. Again, no games or other bulky data and 1TB is spacious.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

An SSD can make your gaming experience a lot nicer, *vastly* reducing loading times. You can get a 500gig SSD nowadays for under $200. That might be sufficient if it is a dedicated gaming rig. Heck, you could probably go way down depending on the games you want to play. Like you say, if you want to store a bunch of media, you can get an external. A terabyte HDD for a pittance if you ever need to.

Yup. When SSDs were more expensive I was almost always the first one of the group to zone because my system has a SSD and lots of RAM. (I didn't buy the stuff for gaming, but programmers beef up their boxes for work, other than the video they make good gaming machines. And vice versa--my last three laptops have actually been gaming rigs with the lowest video option.)

 

[Phil Scott]

An SSD can make your gaming experience a lot nicer, *vastly* reducing loading times. You can get a 500gig SSD nowadays for under $200. That might be sufficient if it is a dedicated gaming rig. Heck, you could probably go way down depending on the games you want to play. Like you say, if you want to store a bunch of media, you can get an external. A terabyte HDD for a pittance if you ever need to.

Yup. When SSDs were more expensive I was almost always the first one of the group to zone because my system has a SSD and lots of RAM. (I didn't buy the stuff for gaming, but programmers beef up their boxes for work, other than the video they make good gaming machines. And vice versa--my last three laptops have actually been gaming rigs with the lowest video option.)

You should get into deep learning or any other field that gives you an excuse to buy the muttonist GPU on the market.

 

[DolphinDynasty]

Actually, as a programmer I think it's as easier decision--beefy CPU (I always aim for the point just below where the price/performance curve shoots up), lots of RAM (it's been a long time since I didn't max what the machine can hold), spacious SSD. Video doesn't matter unless you're writing video stuff.

This is exactly my point. What is a 'beefy' CPU? How can you tell without reading a paper about it? What is a spacious SSD? adjectives and computers isn't helpful.

Oh, get a big hard drive! Wait, is that 1 TB or 4 TBs?

Get a beefy CPU! They make those out of cows now?

Any ole video card will do. ????

Most people really do not need above 2.3 GHz in processor, or more than 256G in storage on HD and can go with fusion or ATA, or higher than 8G in RAM. A "Beefy" cpu would run above 3.5 Ghz with an additional boost above 4.1 Ghz is what my estimate would be. Most users do not max out their processor if all they o is internet, school webpages, writing apps and minor photo edits, streaming films and vids, stuff like that.

But if you're gaming and running a TV off of the machine too, that is a different story. Look into above a 2.7Ghz in processor, higher than 8 GB in RAM, and storage is up to if you are storing these games or just running them in stream, doing other work on it or downloading pics, films, music, books.

But like I said if you can provide info on types of games, and whatever else you do with the machine, like do you run other software and what kinds, for what purpose, it'd help.

Without that it leaves out info to see how much of a processor, RAM, and storage you'll need, let alone if you need a graphics processor separate to the main CPU that has its own RAM.

It's just difficult to help somebody figure tech out without enough info is all, but I am trying.

Most friends I have that are serious gamers tend to go either desktop with "beefy" cpu and ram above the numbers I mentioned, or alienware with beefy processor and ram.

 

[Phil Scott]

Got my computer today, and it was pretty straightforward. The shop says they reckon their software builds on Linux, so they were happy for me to run Linux, and got recommended to just buy a Dell XPS. I'm looking forward to seeing how the machine performs with its half terabyte SSD. Core i7, with four CPUs that go up to 3.5GHz.

Only concern is that the CPU has a bug, that corrupts memory after a certain sequence of instructions, which are in fact triggered by the compiler of one of my favourite languages.

 

[rousseau]

Makes it harder to make decisions, makes it easier to make good decisions if you have patience, focus, and work ethic.

I have none of those things. Nor do I see any of them as in particularly virtuous.

Remember, hard work usually pays off over time, but laziness always pays off right now.

Your modesty is inspiring.

I'm not trying to espouse those things as particularly virtuous, just making the point that most people's shitty decisions are usually a direct result of not putting in the time and energy to think about what they're doing. They'd rather make an easy choice and deal with the consequences than work harder and make a good choice.

Put another way, if you want to make good decisions, yes there is way too much information, but that's not a bad thing if you're not too lazy to parse through it and reach the correct conclusion. The alternative is that you have no information and no feasible way to make a good decision.