EPTThere are actually a few things I would like you to read before starting to read this, because you can't be a hardware nerd if you don't know what the hardware you're dealing with is!
A basic definition list from my SC2 Computers thread:
+ Show Spoiler [Basic Hardware Rundown] +
CPU/Proc/Processor/Core = Central Processing Unit- It is what makes your computer work. It does most of the work. Probably the most important part of your computer. Produced by Intel and AMD.
Mobo = Motherboard- It is the backbone of your computer. Everything is attached to it, and it supports all of your components. Produced by the Taiwanese
OS = Operating System- It is the interface of your computer. Without it allows you to tell your hardware what to do. Many types, most common are Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
RAM/memory = Random Access Memory- It is what stores what your computer is currently running. Whenever you close an application (or more accurately end a process) the RAM that was allocated for that application is cleared. It is also cleared every single time you turn off your computer.
GPU/graphics card/card = Graphics Processing Unit- The secondary processing unit. It helps the CPU process the graphics and when you're playing a game, it is the GPU that is drawing those frames. It can be either integrated or dedicated. Integrated GPUs have no RAM for themselves and have to use System RAM while dedicated GPUs have their own banks of RAM that they access. As such, integrated GPUs are much weaker than dedicated GPUs.
HDD/HD = Hard Disk Drive- The permanent storage location. Unlike RAM, the information on the HDD is never cleared unless you clear it yourself. It uses disks called 'platters' to store information. The less platters there are, the faster the drive can access information because the HDD utilizes moving parts.
SSD/solid state = Solid State Drive- Newer form of memory storage. Like the HDD it is permanent storage, but unlike the HDD it doesn't use platters or moving parts. As such it is extremely fast when accessing data which allows you to open applications quickly.
PSU/power supply = Power Supply Unit- Device that supplies power to your computer. Comes with different rails of different voltages.
OCing = Overclocking- The act of pushing a part's performance past its designed usage. Most common to overclock CPU, GPU, and RAM to get higher speeds and better performance.
Xfire = ATi CrossFire- Using two ATi Graphics cards in tandem to gain extra performance. Two ATi graphics cards can be 'combined' to give the user better performance. There are limitations to CrossFire, and usually CrossFire works with two of the same cards for best performance. However it is possible to CrossFire different GPUs.
SLi = Nvidia SLi- Nvidia version of CrossFire. Same idea, except the GPUs must be the same.
FPS = Frames Per Second- Self explanatory name! It's how many frames your GPU can draw in a second at a given resolution. The higher the number, the smoother the 'motion' in the game will look. All games are actually just like slideshows with insane amounts of slides changed insanely quickly. The higher the resolution, the more your GPU has to draw, so that is why higher resolutions require better GPUs!
After reading that you should be fine for most benchmarks and hardware reviews. This guide after all, is not about teaching you everything about computers. I’ll leave that to others, though if you want to learn some specifics, check out the “Choose your Platform” Spoiler here.
If there is something I failed to cover from the above and you want me to try to explain it, feel free to post in this thread.
Before I mention anything else, I want to state that the only way to compare computer hardware is by the use of benchmarks. There really is no other option.
1. Getting Your Information
There is a lot of information on the web about computers, and there are some bad sources out there that I won’t bother mention. Most of the time, said sites release their information in the form of a benchmark and a review. A benchmark is essentially them using the product themselves and posting the result, and as such, they generally consist of raw information like numbers. The review is the part where the reviewer gives his own opinion on the product which is sometimes reliable, and other times not. A review will generally contain benchmarks that support the opinion of the reviewer with evidence.
The review is where we run into problems. The review is not unbiased raw information that you process by yourself, it’s what has been processed by the brainpower of the person who constructed the review. I could look at the same benchmarks and come to a drastically different conclusion than someone else.
When you are not familiar with the computer terms that the raw benchmarks may throw at you, the reviews look like a summary of the benchmarks, and in essence they are a summary. However, that summary is not unbiased. The purpose of this part of the guide is to make sure that you will process that information by YOURSELF, and not leave it up to the opinion of the reviewer.
+ Show Spoiler [Hardware Sites] +
The order list of sites is listed in my preference. My favorite site will be at the top, and my least favorite (or least used) will be on the bottom. Note that this does not include every site out there. I use these sites
http://anandtech.com/
http://legitreviews.com/
http://jonnyguru.com/
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/
http://www.guru3d.com/
My top 5 are as follows. In no particular order, except AnandTech.
AnandTech is my favorite and most often checked because not only does he do awesome hardware reviews, he has the most background information on the products themselves. You could walk into an AnandTech article not knowing what a GTX 480 is, and come out with a fully formed and well researched opinion (as long if you discard the bias, which I add is present in every single review). The one area where AnandTech can sometimes lack is in their GPU test suite, however I have not run into this problem recently. It is also very diverse, and offers an amazing amount of articles that explain new ideas and products (recently with SandForce, AnandTech has concentrated on SSDs), not just review.
LegitReviews is a site that I love for the sheer amount of reviews and diversity of reviews. However, it definitely does not have the massive amount of background information that AnandTech generally offers. There is also a good amount of hardware news below the featured reviews.
Jonnyguru is the site that has the least to do with all of the others, and they are the best at what they do. It’s not updated nearly as often as the others, but what they do have are huge amounts of PSU reviews, which other sites do not offer as much of. They fill a very nice niche.
TomsHardware needs no introduction. It covers just about everything, but does not post as many reviews as the others. However, it does have benchmark tools, though the gaming benchmarks are sparse at best. There is also a lot of news on the site, and like with AnandTech, there is a lot of background information given on the product, though I believe AnandTech is better with explaining and spreading information. TomsHardware also has a ‘Build your Own’ section for PCs on a certain budget, though I have to say I’m not much of a fan.
Guru3D is the most biased of the 5 sites mentioned, but where Guru3D excels is in GPU benchmarks. Throw out all of the opinions that the review gives you, and bathe in the sheer amount of information that they give you in their benchmarks. They easily have the most complete GPU benchmarks of any site in my opinion.
Other sites include, but are not limited to:
http://hexus.net
http://bit-tech.net
http://hardwarecanucks.com
http://pcper.com
http://overclockersclub.com
http://hardocp.com
All of them have their own merits, and I like to check them once in a while. Hardwarecanucks has an interesting bar on the right that shows you a bunch of reviews that have been done by other sites. If for nothing else, go there for that.
Hexus has some interesting reviews and comparisons like their Crossfire 5850 vs GTX 480 and the SLi GTX 470, and a colossal news section, which can be interesting.
Bit-tech does a bunch of game reviews, which I am not as interested in. However, they tend to have the least biased reviews in my experience, so take that for what you will.
Pcper really doesn’t excel at anything, imho.
Overclockersclub is a hit and miss. Their graphs are confusing, and they don’t provide system draw, noise, or heat sections on their GPU reviews, which I believe to be absolute terrible. However, they do have a plethora of benchmarks (though they are horribly organized). They rival Guru3D, but Guru3D has better presentation, which makes me lean towards Guru3D.
HardOCP is a site that I have recently come upon, and I don’t really see much bad from it, but their benchmarks do seem to be a bit sparse.
Conclusion
If I were to check any of the sites, I would check my top 5 (obv). AnandTech, TomsHardware, and Guru3D are probably the 3 I would check over all others.
The sites are there for your convenience, and while you can read your reviews, I urge you to make your decision yourself! Now, how do you make your decision?
2. Formulating your Opinion
+ Show Spoiler [Opinions, Opinions!] +
Interpretting Benchmarks Correctly
Before you make any opinions at all, you should definitely know how to read benchmarks. For GPUs, you don’t want to be impressed by a HD 5770 playing Crysis at 60FPS at full settings at 1280x1024 when you have a 1920x1200 monitor! Always, always make sure you are looking at benchmarks that are relevant to your situation! A lot of information is good, but a lot of that information will be useless to you! If you’re just building a gaming rig, you probably don’t care about how fast a CPU can encode video!
And with benchmarks, always read more than 2-3 if you want a good opinion of the product. It’s good to have a larger base of information to make your decision off of. Check 4-5 benchmarks if you can, and see if you can find any inconsistencies and then make sure you understand why those occur.
Concepts
I have repeatedly said ‘base your decisions off of benchmarks, not the reviews!’, but before you go around making your own opinions, I want to introduce to you some concepts that you can use to judge the hardware.
1. Absolute Performance: Absolute performance simply answers the question ‘How does this card perform?” Nothing else. It’s just the data on the hardware itself without taking into consider any other factors. Just what the hardware itself is capable of.
2. Relative Performance: Relative performance answers the question ‘What about vs THAT?” Relative performance involves the comparison of the cards, and most educated readers care more about relative than about absolute. An example would be comparing an ATi HD 5870 to a Nvidia Geforce GTX 295 and a Nvidia Geforce GTX 480.
3. Performance/Price: Obviously, this is how much performance you get on the dollar. First you need the price of the card, which most benchmarks will not provide (or when they do they will be inaccurate). To find prices, use Newegg if you are American, and if you are not, use your equivalent. If a HD 5850 gets 50FPS in game 1 and retails at $300, you get .167, if a GTX 470 gets 60 FPS in game 1 and retails at $350, you get .1714. Higher is better!
4. Performance/Watt: Same as Performance/Price except instead of measuring against price, it measures against the power draw of the card itself.
5. Features: Features are huge. A card that costs more than a card at the same price, but offers more useful features might be a much better buy! A good example would be the case of the HD 5770 vs the HD 4870 at launch. The HD 5770 offered DX11, and Eyefinity over the HD 4870, but cost as much as $20 more for the same/less performance.
Obviously you should combine them, unless you really only care about one. If a piece of hardware performs at the level that you want it to (Absolute Performance) take a look at its competition and see if they sport better features, are cheaper, or less loud etc. Never get stuck on just numbers, make sure that you can relate those numbers to each other!
A good example of a card that excels in all 5 departments would be the HD 5850. In Absolute performance, it is a star, and performs beautifully. In Relative performance, it performed above its ‘equivalent’, the GTX 285 at every mark. In price and watts, it also performed admirably, and it also had all the perks of the new ATI GPUs. It’s a great buy in all the 5 senses.
Now, lets take a look at the GTX 470. Its absolute performance is awesome. Better than the HD 5850 in just about everything. However, in its pricing, it suffers a bit because it ends up costing a bit more than its worth, and its power consumption is just downright atrocious. It also makes a huge amount of noise, and its features are not as complete as that of the HD 5850.
3. Finding Those Deals!
Now that you generally have an idea of how to compare different pieces of hardware, how do you know prices and find the best deals?
+ Show Spoiler [Good Vendors] +
http://newegg.com
http://microcenter.com
http://tigerdirect.com
http://frys.com
These are the four I would regularly check. They all have newsletter options which will alert you of deals, and I highly recommend that you subscribe to their newsletters. Especially Frys and Newegg since they send out some very very nice deals every once in a while.
Newegg is a very obvious name here. Newegg has everything you could possibly want. It has tons of options, combo deals, a good reputation, low prices, and a very complete set of products.
Microcenter is kinda odd in that you actually have to go to the stores themselves in order to get the deal. However, the deals are definitely worth going for, since Microcenter often offers amazing deals on CPUs. At one point, they were selling i7 920s at $170 while other e-tailers like Newegg were selling them for $290!
Tigerdirect is probably the least notable imho. Still some good deals on the newsletters to check out though!
Frys.com has some amazing deals as well. Check http://frys-electronics-ads.com/ds/top_deals regularly and you will often see great deals on CPU-Mobo combos. Amazing stuff!
From blabber
On April 22 2010 15:35 blabber wrote:
Concerning getting best deals, it would be a good idea to check slickdeals often for deals on parts. Also know which vendors get you no tax. For example, for California residents, there will be tax added onto the price when buying from Newegg, but NO tax when buying from Tigerdirect/CompUSA/Circuit City. When buying such expensive items, the 8 or so percent WILL add up.
Also make sure to use Bing Cashback whenever you can. You'll get at least some percent off your purchase. On Tigerdirect, sometimes they will up the cashback to 15% (so often times when buying an expensive part, with 15% cashback, no tax and free shipping, prices on Tigerdirect can be much better than those on Newegg)
Also occasionally zipzoomfly.com will have decent deals (I'm using the term decent very loosely here because overall their prices aren't that competitive). I have bought from them with no problem before so they are legit. But typically I stick to Newegg and Tigerdirect.
Concerning getting best deals, it would be a good idea to check slickdeals often for deals on parts. Also know which vendors get you no tax. For example, for California residents, there will be tax added onto the price when buying from Newegg, but NO tax when buying from Tigerdirect/CompUSA/Circuit City. When buying such expensive items, the 8 or so percent WILL add up.
Also make sure to use Bing Cashback whenever you can. You'll get at least some percent off your purchase. On Tigerdirect, sometimes they will up the cashback to 15% (so often times when buying an expensive part, with 15% cashback, no tax and free shipping, prices on Tigerdirect can be much better than those on Newegg)
Also occasionally zipzoomfly.com will have decent deals (I'm using the term decent very loosely here because overall their prices aren't that competitive). I have bought from them with no problem before so they are legit. But typically I stick to Newegg and Tigerdirect.
Hardware News!
+ Show Spoiler [Staying in the Know] +
Computer hardware advances quickly, and you don’t want to be left behind! Most of the computer hardware sites also have news zones, but I also like http://fudzilla.com. Generally, fudzilla posts stuff quickly, and has a lot of rumors (questionable ones at that!). Fudzilla usually gets most of the information more quickly than the other sites, but does not elaborate nearly as much. It just has quick summaries, and before I go to school I usually scroll down to get my fill of hardware news.
AnandTech also shines here. Anand does a great job with keeping his readers in the know. TomsHardware is also good for this (and a bunch of other misc stuff as well!). Most hardware sites have their news feeds so go check them out. Hexus as mentioned before has a formidable amount of news.
Supplemental Sources
+ Show Spoiler [Videos] +
There are also some YouTube channels that are fairly good with introducing products. I like checking out LinusTechTips and the parent channel, NCIXTechTips. He is knowledgeable, and posts a lot of useful videos!
3DGAMEMAN is good for his case reviews (again disregard his opinion, and take in the raw information he gives along with the images of the case!) He also does a great job of explaining some of the questions that users have.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCIXcom
http://www.youtube.com/user/3DGAMEMAN
heh, I was actually going to write a metal blog, but I guess this was more interesting.
