Making Sense of CPU and GPU Model Numbers?

Posted by kdawson on Monday March 8, 2010 @10:20PM from the drowning-in-a-sea-of-specs dept.

b4dc0d3r writes "How do you make sense of the various model numbers or naming schemes for CPUs, graphics cards, and the related chipsets? All I want is something that will run Oblivion and output full 1080 video to a TV. Last time I built my own computer I just went to Pricewatch, made a few easy choices, and everything came to my door. Do I really have to research the differences among Core i5, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium D, Sempron, Athlon, Phenom ...? And that's just the processor. Is there a reference somewhere? In short, how do you buy a computer these days?"

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Re:Steps... by cbope · 2010-03-09 02:36 · Score: 0, Flamebait

So, blame the marketing people at Intel / AMD/ATI and NVIDIA. They are at fault for creating the ridiculous naming schemes we have today.
I never said the question wasn't valid, I simply meant it's something that belongs in a help forum somewhere, not on slashdot. Last time I checked, slashdot was a news site, not a help forum.
Go ahead, mod me down for this, but I find it funny that initially my post was modded +5 insightful, but after a couple negative posts it dropped down 2 points.