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Making Sense of CPU and GPU Model Numbers?
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?"
Anything moderately current will do anything you want. It doesn't really matter what you choose. So set yourself a budget and buy something that fits within that. It will probably do fine.
Even if you know nothing about computers you go look at benchmarks at anandtech and find the one with the biggest bar on the graph that you can reasonably afford.
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Clear as mud. Thanks for your help!
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A Core i5 750 costs more than any current AMD desktop processor, so that makes no sense. I can get a quad-core Athlon II for half the price of an i5 750. Sure, it's slower, but it's not slow. Also, it drops straight into my old AM2 motherboard (with a quick BIOS upgrade). Try doing that with Intel.
Remember that this shit completely changes every few years. I used to build PCs for myself and my school as a kid (386/486), then couldn't affort to for a few years, then had to start reading PC magazines when it finally came time to afford a new PC (Pentium 2/AMD equiv). Fast-forward a few years to my next major upgrade, and I'm reading Wikipedia instead of the mags, but I'm still pig-ignorant of the latest tech until I've figured out whether AGP is still current (nope) and which of DDR2/3 will be needed, how many cores are worthwhile, etc etc etc.
Maybe it's easier for those who do hardware support or deal with servers (I mostly deal with routers/switches/firewalls), but I get completely left behind if I ignore the PC components market for more than a few months.
The Core i5-750 is only $200. If you're not willing to spend $200 on your CPU, you have no business building a PC instead of buying one.
$200 is too much for a CPU. Unless you're eager to waste money to get more power than you can possibly use, $100 gets you everything you need.
The Core i5-750 is only $200. If you're not willing to spend $200 on your CPU, you have no business building a PC instead of buying one.
B.S.
What the point of wasting $200 on CPU when you can get for >$100 a CPU which performs in real world >5-10% slower?? And most applications (even games) are pretty happy even with half/quarter of the performance???
I'm not per se against the Intel CPUs. Some of their CPUs are cheaper and faster than the AMD ones. But for whatever reason, at least in Europe, the MBs for Intel CPUs are on average 10-25% more expensive than those for AMD CPUs. And upgrade-ability of the AMD systems is magnitudes better: one can get cheap CPU today and upgrade it few years later.
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AMD capable motherboards tend to be a lot cheaper, that can easily save you enough money on a highly capable gaming system to replace the HD with an SSD, and that will have far more influence on game performance then the Intel chip will. In gaming, AMD performs a lot better. Always make sure to read the entire review of a CPU for the stats that are relevant to you. For instance, if you once in a blue moon use Office and never use a database on your PC, what do you care about how fast/slow your CPU is at them?
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Perhaps the point of his question to slashdot....you know, a technical news/information site, with a technically savvy audience...is to get an answer, not to get excoriated for having the question?
You know, your point "3. Research what components will achieve the expected result."
I think his question is valid - it used to be a fairly simple task to equate processor speed with power, to come up with a reasonable expectation of performance for a task. But to everyone (except, apparently, you), it perhaps isn't intuitive that a quad core at a lower speed will or won't perform better than a duo core at a higher speed. (Answer: sometimes it will perform better, sometimes it won't. How is he supposed to know, oh swami of computer tech?)
So you could offer actual advice or click through to the next news article, instead of bitching that someone asked a very valid question.
-Styopa
But if you're looking at the long term, wouldn't it make even more sense to buy a processor at the optimal price point rather than a high-end one? In a couple of months, there'll be cheaper processors that are just as fast as the i7-860.
It's sillier than you realise. Now we can't even RTFA, as it just forwards you straight to pricewatch shopping. What a waste of screenspace ... this is one article Slashdot should just retroactively shitcan (or at least edit out the misleading link).
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