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

[NathanE]

If the E6300 was overclocked to 3.0-3.2GHz and the Q6600 similar, I'd say it wouldn't offer much unless you do a lot of encoding, rendering etc.

A ~3GHz (overclocked) Core 2 Duo (of any variety including the Pentium branded ones) are perfectly fast enough for most stuff.

It wasn't OC'd. Dual core just wasn't enough anyway to maintain smooth operation of a VM or two and multiple instances of Visual Studio.

Plus the E6300 really struggled to play H.264, especially if other stuff was running in the background (which is always the case on my PC!)

 

[easyrider]

It wasn't OC'd. Dual core just wasn't enough anyway to maintain smooth operation of a VM or two and multiple instances of Visual Studio.

Plus the E6300 really struggled to play H.264, especially if other stuff was running in the background (which is always the case on my PC!)

I now know why you have 8GB ram

 

[SlugForAButt]

It wasn't OC'd. Dual core just wasn't enough anyway to maintain smooth operation of a VM or two and multiple instances of Visual Studio.

Plus the E6300 really struggled to play H.264, especially if other stuff was running in the background (which is always the case on my PC!)

Not exactly normal needs then?

 

[Phoenixdancer]

Lol, ok - I retract my "You Win" statement.

Dell is pretty aweful for desktops if you want crazy things like quality components and upgradability.

If someone asks me advice about getting a new PC. I first explain to them about PC building and give them an idea what they can get for their money. I then usually send them here, and if they don't want to build it then I recommend them some decent pre-built PCs, OCUK shop is high on the list. If the person is a friend or family member I will spec them up a system and help them build it.

Just palming them off to dell is a cop out.

Well i ask them if they would like a pre-built with full warrenty or a home build by myself.

Most of the time people would rather the simple way of haveing it deliverd to there doorstep within a week with warrenty that will fix it if it dies....

Dell are crap when you go mad with upgrades but if you buy there stock stystems you cant go wrong (if you purchase there extended warrenty)

 

[Parsley]

Well i ask them if they would like a pre-built with full warrenty or a home build by myself.

Most of the time people would rather the simple way of haveing it deliverd to there doorstep within a week with warrenty that will fix it if it dies....

Dell are crap when you go mad with upgrades but if you buy there stock stystems you cant go wrong (if you purchase there extended warrenty)

I'm with you on this. If the person is a very basic user who doesn't go far beyond web browsing and office apps then Dell are fine.

My nan has a dell computer and it's completely bog standard but it is all she needs and she has piece of mind that if it ever breaks she doesn't have to attempt to understand fixing it and can just phone up Dell to complain at them. From what she has said they have treated her very well.

When I am around I can do it for her but I'm very rarely at home nowadays, if I was she would have a simple computer I put together myself.

The printer they provided with her current pc was absolute tripe though!

 

[PhoenixUK]

It wasn't OC'd. Dual core just wasn't enough anyway to maintain smooth operation of a VM or two and multiple instances of Visual Studio.

Plus the E6300 really struggled to play H.264, especially if other stuff was running in the background (which is always the case on my PC!)

Then a similar step on the AMD side would be going from AM2+ dual core to phenomII quad for barely 60-70quid upgrade and another 70 for extra 40gb of ram. But no, easyrider will advise to "get rid of the slow amd" and splash 500 on new i7 setup because phenoms are too slow and "it's at the same price point".
And since Q6600 is slower than phenoms II it makes it totally useless and uncapable of running anything by his opinion so you should upgrade to i7 with 12gb of ram instead just because you can afford it : ) - and I'm sure you can.

 

[SlugForAButt]

Then a similar step on the AMD side would be going from AM2+ dual core to phenomII quad for barely 60-70quid upgrade and another 70 for extra 40gb of ram. But no, easyrider will advise to "get rid of the slow amd" and splash 500 on new i7 setup because phenoms are too slow and "it's at the same price point".
And since Q6600 is slower than phenoms II it makes it totally useless and uncapable of running anything by his opinion so you should upgrade to i7 with 12gb of ram instead just because you can afford it : ) - and I'm sure you can.

Noticed this too Phoenix...

 

[PhillyDee]

Dell are OK for companies...home user?

Where's the loo!

They do have their place.

Laptops - go Dell.

Destops, I explain that if they want the cheapest bog standard poor pc, then go to Dell.

 

[C64]

All people should do is give advice on the best performance and quality they can get for their specified budget.

Telling someone to get (abc) because it offers as good as performance as (xyz) but not guaranteed to do so, or be as of the same quality is bad advice.

Unless the person has made it clear they are looking to save money of course.

 

[yslen]

I imagine the default standpoint of anyone asking for advice is that they want to save money. If they have a fixed amount of money that they HAVE to spend on PC hardware, what the heck do they need advice for? Just buy the fastest and most expensive hardware your budget will cover, anyone who can find this forum will be able to find comparison charts to tell them what the fastest is, and it's a darn sight faster than waiting for us to bicker over it for a few days.

The advice people really need is about whether certain hardware can cope with their demands, whether or not the charts are exaggerating the differences (e.g. forced CPU bottlenecks on gaming benchmarks), and whether they will really lose anything by tryingto save money.

Anyone can throw money at a problem, and those coming here to ask whether or not they should when they have the money already earmarked is just looking for justification on their desire to spend - I'm sure they could figure out how to blow all their cash on the most expensive stuff by themselves.

There is nothing wrong with letting someone know they're planning to spend far more than they need to for their intended use for the PC. It's going to be outdated in a few years anyway, so why waste the cash if they don't have to. If they WANT to, that's fine, but unless they actually state "I have £XXX and it has to be spend on PC hardware, no exceptions" I will continue to assume people would rather save money than needlessly throw it away on performance they'll never see a benefit from.

p.s. Having said all that, got to say I'm impressed with how on-topic and above-the-belt this debate has remained. Try discussing something similar on other boards and see how long before someone resorts to childish insults.

 

[Paracelsus]

Got to agree on the irony of saying games need quads, do they? I'm still running a 2.2ghz Athlon X2 and am not CPU-bound in MW2, Bioshock 2, Crysis, STALKER, AvP3 at 1920x1200....sure I am CPU-bound in HL2 but the framerate is already significantly higher than playable...I would not recommend a quad core to any gamer unless they had enough money left over from a good graphics card because the money is best directed there first...not just for value for money but for FPS.

Yes they do. And there are countless benchmarks to prove it.

That's at medium quality and IIRC Far Cry 2 is properly mutlithreaded...it would look different on high quality or a different game.

How about this one...no tangible benefit to any new cpu

Or this, arguably the best looking game on pc, 60fps on an old E5300

I suppose you could say that's just an average, and during intensive scenes it might drop to below playable - but I still think that would be down to the GPU, not CPU, in my experience.

Fair enough, if the OP has loads of money, of course recommend an i7, but if there is a moderate budget, CPU cores/speed would come after GPU speed and having an SSD for me. For a gamer of course, not someone using properly threaded apps who would see a significant difference with a high end quad.

You mentioned false economy, but top end hardware itself is a false economy unless you *need* it as the price is not in proportion to performance.

 

[C64]

I imagine the default standpoint of anyone asking for advice is that they want to save money. If they have a fixed amount of money that they HAVE to spend on PC hardware, what the heck do they need advice for? Just buy the fastest and most expensive hardware your budget will cover, anyone who can find this forum will be able to find comparison charts to tell them what the fastest is, and it's a darn sight faster than waiting for us to bicker over it for a few days.

The advice people really need is about whether certain hardware can cope with their demands, whether or not the charts are exaggerating the differences (e.g. forced CPU bottlenecks on gaming benchmarks), and whether they will really lose anything by tryingto save money.

Anyone can throw money at a problem, and those coming here to ask whether or not they should when they have the money already earmarked is just looking for justification on their desire to spend - I'm sure they could figure out how to blow all their cash on the most expensive stuff by themselves.

There is nothing wrong with letting someone know they're planning to spend far more than they need to for their intended use for the PC. It's going to be outdated in a few years anyway, so why waste the cash if they don't have to. If they WANT to, that's fine, but unless they actually state "I have £XXX and it has to be spend on PC hardware, no exceptions" I will continue to assume people would rather save money than needlessly throw it away on performance they'll never see a benefit from.

p.s. Having said all that, got to say I'm impressed with how on-topic and above-the-belt this debate has remained. Try discussing something similar on other boards and see how long before someone resorts to childish insults.

My point is you can advise to save money by getting A instead of B whilst ignoring the fact that B whilst being more expensive comes with a 5 year warranty and is of much better quality and reliability compared to A.So it's not so black and white it's very much a balance.

I was more talking about things like power supplies monitors hard drives gpus etc rather than cpus.
I'd never tell someone to get a graphics card with a worse cooler and worse warranty and non existent RMA for the sake of saving £10-£20.
That is an example of bad advice for the sake of saving money.

As for the above I'd like some hardcore evidence of a quad say the q6600 or q9550 gaming performance clocked to it's limit compared to say a wolfdale clocked to it's limit before being sure about all this quads are better on the new games debate.

You can pick up a wolfdale capable of 4ghz for £60-£70 a q6600 95w solid at 3.6ghz will probably cost you £80 or more still imo
so I wouldn't mind seeing a bad company 2 (new game) comparison between the two on those clocks before making up my mind.

 

[Kaizer]

Got to agree on the irony of saying games need quads, do they? I'm still running a 2.2ghz Athlon X2 and am not CPU-bound in MW2, Bioshock 2, Crysis, STALKER, AvP3 at 1920x1200...

Obviously you have yet to play a little game on PC called Bad Company 2. Quad cores have massive FPS gains over duals in that game.

 

[Pneumonic]

Snip...

I would stop feeding the troll...

If you have read any of Easyrider's posts over the last few months then you will see they are designed to incite! He would have an excellent career in politics if he wanted it as he is very good at showing 1/2 truths and mis-information.. selected bench marks and 'costings' etc...

I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue against the i7 being the top dog in multi-tasked apps, but unless and individual is going to see the benefits of that, if they are a standard 'gamer' then you have a choice between i5 or 955/965BE at the 'high' end. Arguably i5 is a dead and pointless socket AM3 isnt..

I am really looking forward to the end of April and the X6 1075T (3ghz, hex-core, 3.4ghz 'turbo', 125W TDP, AM3) should prove a real challenger to the i7 in multi-tasking and sneaked onto a US e-tailor webbie at sub £200

 

[yslen]

My point is you can advise to save money by getting A instead of B whilst ignoring the fact that B whilst being more expensive comes with a 5 year warranty and is of much better quality and reliability compared to A.So it's not so black and white it's very much a balance.

I was more talking about things like power supplies monitors hard drives gpus etc rather than cpus.
I'd never tell someone to get a graphics card with a worse cooler and worse warranty and non existent RMA for the sake of saving £10-£20.
That is an example of bad advice for the sake of saving money.

I agree with you 100% there, it's very important to look at quality/support etc when making purchasing decisions.

For my first build I spent extra on the motherboard, psu and case compared to my other components to make sure I got stuff that would last. By contrast I went for a cheap (£39) CPU. I got solid 60fps in all my games, exactly as I would have with a similarly priced system with a more powerful processor. The difference is, I'm still using the same motherboard (it's AM2+, so works great with the latest AMD offerings, and it has 16x16 crossfire support), the same PSU (which is still under warranty) and the same case (which proved an excellent choice for keeping stuff cool).

If I'd gone with the advice I received at the time (not on this forum, a different one that shall remain anonymous) I'd have ended up with a lower quality case and a much cheaper motherboard to allow for a more powerful CPU in the same budget. This would have meant I'd have had to get a new board when I upgraded my CPU last summer, which would have meant another cheap board and less to spend on the CPU...

Fortunately for me, a friend of mine asked what I'd use the machine for, and when I told him "photo editing, recording and editing audio and gaming" he rightly told me a cheap AMD dual core was fine. And it was. And it meant all the components that will last in my PC (PSU, case, to some extent motherboard and ram) are still great quality today, and upgrading last year was much cheaper than it could have been.

 

[yslen]

Obviously you have yet to play a little game on PC called Bad Company 2. Quad cores have massive FPS gains over duals in that game.

But are they useful gains?

I'd be very surprised if they are. Either the game is CPU limited by having a huge amount of graphics horsepower onboard, in which case we're beyond 60fps anyway OR the CPU limit has been forced by lowering the resolution for the test, which is something that's never going to be done in reality.

I'm yet to see a game which is CPU limited under 60fps, aside from the stupidity that is GTA IV. Of course, it could just mean Bad Company 2 (which I freely admit I have not played and never will) is just another bad console port, in terms of how it runs.

 

[NathanE]

Then a similar step on the AMD side would be going from AM2+ dual core to phenomII quad for barely 60-70quid upgrade and another 70 for extra 40gb of ram. But no, easyrider will advise to "get rid of the slow amd" and splash 500 on new i7 setup because phenoms are too slow and "it's at the same price point".
And since Q6600 is slower than phenoms II it makes it totally useless and uncapable of running anything by his opinion so you should upgrade to i7 with 12gb of ram instead just because you can afford it : ) - and I'm sure you can.

I couldn't be bothered to get a new PC. Whenever I format it takes like a month, even 2 months, to get everything reinstalled again. Seriously.

I would rather keep Vista on here for another year or two than upgrade to W7 simply because I don't want to format. In fact, I might even skip over W7 and wait for W8.

This Q6600 and 8GB RAM is plenty for what I need right now. It's great IMO that I was able to upgrade 3 year old motherboard and get another couple years life out of it. One less PC in a landfill somewhere I guess...

 

[PhoenixUK]

double post. delete this one : ).

 

[PhoenixUK]

My point is you can advise to save money by getting A instead of B whilst ignoring the fact that B whilst being more expensive comes with a 5 year warranty and is of much better quality and reliability compared to A.So it's not so black and white it's very much a balance.

I was more talking about things like power supplies monitors hard drives gpus etc rather than cpus.
I'd never tell someone to get a graphics card with a worse cooler and worse warranty and non existent RMA for the sake of saving £10-£20.
That is an example of bad advice for the sake of saving money.

As for the above I'd like some hardcore evidence of a quad say the q6600 or q9550 gaming performance clocked to it's limit compared to say a wolfdale clocked to it's limit before being sure about all this quads are better on the new games debate.

You can pick up a wolfdale capable of 4ghz for £60-£70 a q6600 95w solid at 3.6ghz will probably cost you £80 or more still imo
so I wouldn't mind seeing a bad company 2 (new game) comparison between the two on those clocks before making up my mind.

Well at 10-20quid difference this is a much easier choice, especially when you only upgrade CPU and the fact that you probably had a dual conroe already. As much as I believe a quad will bring extra FPS in BC2, I doubt that any 3.6-3.8ghz+ wolfdale or pII x2 will struggle in it either seeing at some reviews guys pulling off 70-100fps with athlonII quad clocked to 3ghz, looks like the engine is pretty decent now, could test myself if I had a decent gpu ; ).

he is very good at showing 1/2 truths and mis-information.. selected bench marks and 'costings' etc...

I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue against the i7 being the top dog in multi-tasked apps, but unless and individual is going to see the benefits of that, if they are a standard 'gamer' then you have a choice between i5 or 955/965BE at the 'high' end. Arguably i5 is a dead and pointless socket AM3 isnt..

I am really looking forward to the end of April and the X6 1075T (3ghz, hex-core, 3.4ghz 'turbo', 125W TDP, AM3) should prove a real challenger to the i7 in multi-tasking and sneaked onto a US e-tailor webbie at sub £200

Well said, exactly my observation.

I agree with you 100% there, it's very important to look at quality/support etc when making purchasing decisions.

For my first build I spent extra on the motherboard, psu and case compared to my other components to make sure I got stuff that would last. By contrast I went for a cheap (£39) CPU. I got solid 60fps in all my games, exactly as I would have with a similarly priced system with a more powerful processor. The difference is, I'm still using the same motherboard (it's AM2+, so works great with the latest AMD offerings, and it has 16x16 crossfire support), the same PSU (which is still under warranty) and the same case (which proved an excellent choice for keeping stuff cool).

If I'd gone with the advice I received at the time (not on this forum, a different one that shall remain anonymous) I'd have ended up with a lower quality case and a much cheaper motherboard to allow for a more powerful CPU in the same budget. This would have meant I'd have had to get a new board when I upgraded my CPU last summer, which would have meant another cheap board and less to spend on the CPU...

Fortunately for me, a friend of mine asked what I'd use the machine for, and when I told him "photo editing, recording and editing audio and gaming" he rightly told me a cheap AMD dual core was fine. And it was. And it meant all the components that will last in my PC (PSU, case, to some extent motherboard and ram) are still great quality today, and upgrading last year was much cheaper than it could have been.

That's what I was advising lately, I'm sure that most here, apart from the hardcore eyefinity 3x24" or 24" 32xSAF 16xSFAA maniacs, or the ones that do video editing as their job, 8hrs a day, will be happy with cheap tri-core like 435, cheap quad like the 620 or even dual like the 555BE.
And then with all that cash you've saved, as soon as you feel the need for more power you can grab the newest CPU up to date without paying anything extra.

 

[AHarvey]

Obviously you have yet to play a little game on PC called Bad Company 2. Quad cores have massive FPS gains over duals in that game.

I've just finished playing BC2 on my AMD x2 4400+, 2 gig ram and 7800gtx gfx card. Medium-high settings at 1600 res it played fine.

Although AvP can struggle on occasion and Bioshock 2 also runs fine.