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Why do people feel the need to offer bad advice on upgrades?

easyrider

easyrider

easyrider

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Its beyond me reading some of the advice given to people upgrading for the first time after a time out of the technology game.


All they want to do is upgrade and get the best they can for the money they have.


In one thread someone has offered the OP advice to spend 70 odd quid on a dual core AMD chip on the basis that it "might" unlock to 4 cores.:eek:

What's the sense in that...?

New games and windows 7 really need a quad these days...The OP had the funds for a quad and yet a low end dual was suggested.

Is it me or are people letting brand loyalty dictate their supposedly expert advice?

This is very dangerous and not fair on people who just want advice on what to buy for their hard earned cash.

My view is if you want to join in and offer advice for people then genuinely think before you post. Its not fair on people.
 
There's usually enough people here to stamp all over dodgey advice but some genuinely believe things that are not true, On top of that there is just No telling some people.
 
Several links would be good.

I'd hazard a guess that people are offering "bad advice" mainly because they disagree with you, and you're the one judging their advice. Healthy dose of ignorance on top too.

I feel that anyone who takes the general consensus of a forum as the sole indication of what they should buy deserves everything they get. It's not difficult to check a few reviews for whatever it is you're looking at buying, and it doesn't take very long with wikipedia to work out what the review is going on about. Besides, learning from your mistakes is part of the fun.

My first build was m-atx solely for the purposes of making overclocking it more difficult, coming from no knowledge of how to overclock beyond "hotter is bad" and "smaller is hotter". I learnt a lot, have some hardware from it, sold other bits, moved to atx and am gearing up to make the mistake of watercooling mini-itx in the near future. The learning curve is the reason why this hobby is interesting,
 
I agree, but there is plenty of advice available online to cross ref and see whats best value for money for performance etc - I wish someone would make a thread of best cpus/gfx/mem/motherboards in diff brackets for value/expense etc like listing them in price ranges lol - would have to be extremely bored to do that and know ur stuff though, I dont have them skills :p then again that would prob just open up a arguement ppl disagreeing whats better than what lol.

Nvidia or ATI - Xbox 360 or PS3! the age old arguements! haha, nah but on a serious note I get what you are saying.
 
There is a lot of bad advice around and although people should not offer it, it is often the result of hearsay on their part, a friend of a friend did this etc. It is part of the myths of overclocking, getting performance for next to nothing, and largely unnecessary nowadays. I can personally recall wrapping processor pins with wire to unlock the clocks on early athlons and using silver paint to make tracks. I only had one processor fail spectacularly. Now most processors are clockable and there is usually no hassle in getting 10-25% extra oomph. I think that the manufacturers expect this and may even factor this into their pricing. I would not recommend buying based on a potential software unlock being possible, but some obviously do and some other people will take this advice.
My advice is lots of research and factor in all the probabilities and expect it to fail at the end of the day, decide the consequences, and make your purchase based on this. If you take the gamble and win, the very best of luck to you. You could save a few quid.

andy.
 
easyrider said:
In one thread someone has offered the OP advice to spend 70 odd quid on a dual core AMD chip on the basis that it "might" unlock to 4 cores.:eek:

What's the sense in that...?

New games and windows 7 really need a quad these days...The OP had the funds for a quad and yet a low end dual was suggested.
Click to expand...

Most things are just starting to need a quad, and getting a dual that may unlock is not a bad idea. If you find one from a good batch then you've saved some decent money
 
rypt said:
Most things are just starting to need a quad, and getting a dual that may unlock is not a bad idea. If you find one from a good batch then you've saved some decent money
Click to expand...
I have to agree. But it is also down to how the advice is given though.

a) "Get a Athlon X2/Phenom II X2 and unlock them to Quad"
vs
b) "Get a Athlon X2/Phenom II X2 and try to unlock them to Quad. But be warned! Unlocking is not 100% chance of success, so there are risk of extra cores won't get unlocked".
 
^^ so very true!

How many people have mates who are uninformaed and put the wrong opinion forward. Despite evidence that they are wrong, they are too pig headed (Or suffer from little man syndrome) to the point where you cnnot be bothered to argue with them so go around spouting their (wrong) 'advice'.

Same thing here.
 
Yup I almost hopped on the take-a-chance dual core unlocking bandwagon but decided to get something that had already been proven to unlock. Also it's a tri-core so worst case scenario I'm still better off than a dual core.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
I have to agree. But it is also down to how the advice is given though.

a) "Get a Athlon X2/Phenom II X2 and unlock them to Quad"
vs
b) "Get a Athlon X2/Phenom II X2 and try to unlock them to Quad. But be warned! Unlocking is not 100% chance of success, so there are risk of extra cores won't get unlocked".
Click to expand...

The 1st one assumes the person is not a dunderhead, and will go read up about the unlocking and the fact that it is not 100% guaranteed.
I personally have no problem with either.
 
Because people mostly like the sound of their own voice and is invariable and generally clueless? I have about three people on these forums I mail directly for hardware advice as their experience has proven invaluable at times. The rest of the time I consult 1000's about 1000's of benchmarks.
 
rypt said:
The 1st one assumes the person is not a dunderhead, and will go read up about the unlocking and the fact that it is not 100% guaranteed.
I personally have no problem with either.
Click to expand...
I know. But I just think sometimes it's better to state the obvious than just assume whoever's reading would already know about things such as unlocking cores. I mean there are quite a few guides for unlocking cores haven't exactly mentioned that being able to unlock the extra cores or not are down to luck.
 
easyrider said:
Its beyond me reading some of the advice given to people upgrading for the first time after a time out of the technology game.


All they want to do is upgrade and get the best they can for the money they have.


In one thread someone has offered the OP advice to spend 70 odd quid on a dual core AMD chip on the basis that it "might" unlock to 4 cores.:eek:

What's the sense in that...?

New games and windows 7 really need a quad these days...The OP had the funds for a quad and yet a low end dual was suggested.

Is it me or are people letting brand loyalty dictate their supposedly expert advice?

This is very dangerous and not fair on people who just want advice on what to buy for their hard earned cash.

My view is if you want to join in and offer advice for people then genuinely think before you post. Its not fair on people.
Click to expand...

#blushes#
he talking about advice i was even :P
 
Easy, while I agree with you to a degree, I don't agree about Games Windows 7 requiring a quad these days.

Some people don't play the latest shooters with heavy system requirements.

Also, dual cores like the I3's (like I have) and I5's are pretty good for even intensive games.

My other half was running an X2 3800 for Star Trek online, which for the most part ran well, though ever so slightly slow on ground missions and fleet actions - I am sure a more recent dual core Athlon II would suffice for games like that.

I did upgrade it to an X3 Athlon II though as it cost the same as the duals. And I was delighted to find out that the fourth core is unlockable, meaning that should this machine ever show signs of slowing, I have an extra core and overclocking to play with, likely giving it longer usage.

I agree people shouldn't blindly just send people the AMD route stating cores can be unlocked, as it's not a definite thing. Also some people require the extra power afforded by the Core I(X) processors, and AMD fans should refrain form simply suggesting the P2 Blacks for heavier users, simply because it's AMD.

Like the GPU section, there is so little balance between the two sides of this debate. Each company and product has it's place, and should be suggested in line with requirements. Never going to happen though, is it?
 
easyrider said:
Its beyond me reading some of the advice given to people upgrading for the first time after a time out of the technology game.


All they want to do is upgrade and get the best they can for the money they have.


In one thread someone has offered the OP advice to spend 70 odd quid on a dual core AMD chip on the basis that it "might" unlock to 4 cores.:eek:

What's the sense in that...?

New games and windows 7 really need a quad these days...The OP had the funds for a quad and yet a low end dual was suggested.

Is it me or are people letting brand loyalty dictate their supposedly expert advice?

This is very dangerous and not fair on people who just want advice on what to buy for their hard earned cash.

My view is if you want to join in and offer advice for people then genuinely think before you post. Its not fair on people.
Click to expand...

In most cases, people do recommend the same parts as they own. So if somebody owns 5850 (like me), he will try to recommend this GPU to everybody, no matter what budget they have or what they will need their GPU for (like I do). This is caused by cognitive dissonance and is very common in people's behaviour.
 
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Well I've not been posting for long obviously but the few times I've given advice I try to make it as fair an unbiased as possible and I'd never suggest dual or tri cores on the basis of a possible unlock.
 
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