Experiences with non-techies

[kaiju_wars]

So my boss (who also happens to be a friend) wants me to build two PCs for his kids to be able to do some PC gaming.  Here's the thing, he needed all new peripherals.  Monitors, mice, keyboards, OS, speakers, etc, besides just the parts for these builds.  He also wanted it for both, all together, under $1000. 

That's not the hard part, I'm just giving some backstory.  So I got on PC Part Picker to show him some builds we could do to get things working.  Plus, I had some spare parts lying around knocking about $200 off one of the builds.  Anyways, his son was more into AAA titles, so I gave him a dedicated GPU, while his daughter is more into "Minecraft" and "Who's your Daddy?" so I went with an APU for her.  

He's one of those people who buy into the hype and after I show him the builds:

"But I thought gaming PCs needed like 8 core cpus and had to have super big GPUs."

I had to explain for about 10 minutes how this wasn't so...

[Fgtfv567]

11 hours ago, DirtyDane said:

 

personally i wont be buying a mac anytime soon. but i wont argue that they arent bad devices, they build some well made stuff over there at apple land sometimes. but heres my thing, am i the only one who thinks that the strap for the apple whatch makes it look like a kids toy almost?

 

37 minutes ago, kaiju_wars said:

So my boss (who also happens to be a friend) wants me to build two PCs for his kids to be able to do some PC gaming.  Here's the thing, he needed all new peripherals.  Monitors, mice, keyboards, OS, speakers, etc, besides just the parts for these builds.  He also wanted it for both, all together, under $1000. 

That's not the hard part, I'm just giving some backstory.  So I got on PC Part Picker to show him some builds we could do to get things working.  Plus, I had some spare parts lying around knocking about $200 off one of the builds.  Anyways, his son was more into AAA titles, so I gave him a dedicated GPU, while his daughter is more into "Minecraft" and "Who's your Daddy?" so I went with an APU for her.  

He's one of those people who buy into the hype and after I show him the builds:

"But I thought gaming PCs needed like 8 core cpus and had to have super big GPUs."

I had to explain for about 10 minutes how this wasn't so...

Thank god you were able to knock off 200 bucks. 500 bucks for JUST the parts is a stretch. You probably used an A8 or A10 for the daughter's, but what's in the son's?

[kaiju_wars]

23 minutes ago, Fgtfv567 said:

 

Thank god you were able to knock off 200 bucks. 500 bucks for JUST the parts is a stretch. You probably used an A8 or A10 for the daughter's, but what's in the son's?

Oh, that's including peripherals.  (I was able to dig some good deals) But about $900 for both computers (includes everything) 
You are correct on the daughter's (A10-7870K)

For the son:

an 860K, 8GB of single channel RAM (so they can upgrade later), a R7 370, MSI A68HM-Grenade MOBO, EVGA 500B PSU.  I had a spare case, 120GB SSD, and 500GB HDD, and a spare copy of Windows 10 lying around, so I gave them to him for the build.  

 

[DirtyDane]

3 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I wish there was... I wish there was  But if you listen closely they use the same error sound over and over but pitch shifted, so even if you made all these popups and sounds play to the right "beat", it wouldn't sound anything like this unfortunately.

 

Also, @DirtyDane I'm pretty sure it was XP in the "classic" theme and not 2000 since it briefly flashes the welcome screen at least once.

i know but windows 2000 is more fun

[Fgtfv567]

2 hours ago, kaiju_wars said:

Oh, that's including peripherals.  (I was able to dig some good deals) But about $900 for both computers (includes everything) 
You are correct on the daughter's (A10-7870K)

For the son:

an 860K, 8GB of single channel RAM (so they can upgrade later), a R7 370, MSI A68HM-Grenade MOBO, EVGA 500B PSU.  I had a spare case, 120GB SSD, and 500GB HDD, and a spare copy of Windows 10 lying around, so I gave them to him for the build.  

 

Good build mate

[kaiju_wars]

1 minute ago, Fgtfv567 said:

Good build mate

Thanks man. 

[Belgarathian]

14 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

ok ... not sure what you're saying here.

 

Apple used to have PPC CPU before they switched to Intel, those PPC CPUs were easily able to keep up with newer Intel and AMD CPUs and architectures (like I said, my PPC Mac G4 @ 1.8Ghz with SDRAM had no problems keeping up with Pentium Ds with DDR). Apple switching to Intel then had to directly compete with the PC market (it's Intel architectures on "both sides" now). So what I meant was, it makes sense that older Macs with the same Intel CPU than PCs don't age as well as the PPC Macs.

 

The architecture and instruction set was different so it was kind of like comparing apples with oranges comparing the PPC CPU to the Intel C2D.

 

I'd hazard a guess why they switched and say it had something to do with one of the three following points, probably a combination:

1. IBM at the time was selling off it's hardware manufacturing divisions and switching to a service and software model
2. Intel offered a better value proposition
3. switching to Intel allowed software developers to more easily port their software and spend less to develop and maintain software on both Windows and Mac. In 2006 cross platform compatibility was a big issue - reducing this would help existing Mac users, but also reduce the barriers to entry for first time Mac users.

[matrix07012]

This might be enough for my browser tabs.

[BingoFishy]

9 minutes ago, matrix07012 said:

This might be enough for my browser tabs.

-snop-

I can't comprehend how this is even possible for them to make a mistake like that.

[pxnguinPr3]

My mum wanted a pc

I said I'd build he one and she wanted to help.

"ooh can i have that cpu"

"I like the look at that motherboard"

I WANT THEM BOTH!

 

Mum.. You cant... they arent compatable...

 

They are! Look they fit!

-Rams cpu into motherboard socket-

RIP motherboard and cpu.

[BingoFishy]

11 minutes ago, pxnguinPr3 said:

My mum wanted a pc

I said I'd build he one and she wanted to help.

"ooh can i have that cpu"

"I like the look at that motherboard"

I WANT THEM BOTH!

 

Mum.. You cant... they arent compatable...

 

They are! Look they fit!

-Rams cpu into motherboard socket-

RIP motherboard and cpu.

Wait. So she actually bought both?

[Dtech11]

My mum does this and then asks why her PC is slow

*btw that image was just from google images*

[bgibbz]

2 hours ago, Dtech11 said:

My mum does this and then asks why her PC is slow

*btw that image was just from google images*

lol same with my dad, he had roughly 200 or so tabs open across probably 20-30 different windows, and he was like "why is my computer so slow" all of the time

[bgibbz]

On May 13, 2016 at 9:29 AM, BingoFishy said:

Well... I've worked with them, and and they're good machines. But they don't age well, from what I can tell, older windows machines work better than older macs.

<snip>

Got to agree with you that they don't age well. I have a 2009 Mac and a 2005 gateway, and although the gateway was less then half the cost, it drastically outperforms the Mac now. I don't ever use either, but the gateway is still quite usable, the Mac is very slow and crashes often. Last item I used the Mac was to install El Capitan cause my friend convinced me to, ended up with a gray screen for over a week, I was convinced it was bricked until it suddenly started working again. Even now, it is unusable, programs take 20 min to load, logging in takes 10-15 min.  The gateway upgrade from xp to 7 to 10 over the years and it is now still usable. 

[BingoFishy]

25 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

Got to agree with you that they don't age well. I have a 2009 Mac and a 2005 gateway, and although the gateway was less then half the cost, it drastically outperforms the Mac now. I don't ever use either, but the gateway is still quite usable, the Mac is very slow and crashes often. Last item I used the Mac was to install El Capitan cause my friend convinced me to, ended up with a gray screen for over a week, I was convinced it was bricked until it suddenly started working again. Even now, it is unusable, programs take 20 min to load, logging in takes 10-15 min.  The gateway upgrade from xp to 7 to 10 over the years and it is now still usable. 

It seems like a lot of things from big companies (like Apple and Samsung phones) don't age particularly well. 

[Akolyte]

On 5/13/2016 at 7:14 AM, MDPS said:

Want to hear a joke?

 

Pre-Builts.

I actually don't think that's a joke.  

 

I built my PC and while I love building computers I probably won't build mine next time.  And here's why. 

 

I personally think that building your own computer is great for gaming and if your in a needy productivity situation, however 

On 5/12/2016 at 1:45 PM, BingoFishy said:

Just rekt my friend(ish) who replied to an e-mail I sent that's over a month old.
I shared an april fool's NCIX video called NCIX recommends: Buy a mac!

 

Anyways, here's how the conversation went down.
Friend(ish): 

Actual reasons to buy a Mac that are actually true in this video

Special customization takes too long for Windows

Too many options make my brain hurt for windows 

Takes too much time to upgrade everything for windows 

Mac helps save brainpower for other more important stuff

Near infinite scrolling for windows takes too long

Brand new Mac  computer =yay

Mac is shiny

Price proves quality

All in under a minute 45
Friend(ish):

Btw Mac trumps Windows 

Me:

Hahaha. Ever heard of those $1,000 HDMI cables?

Price definitely does not equal quality.

You see, some people like you do need a mac because:
1) You managed to get 100 malwares in a month.
2) You need that extra brainpower to learn why you just overpaid for a computer.

Also, you said "btw mac trumps windows" but you haven't realised that Windows is an OS, and a mac is a piece of hardware. The correct statement would be "btw OS X trumps native windows" or "btw Macs trump native windows computers."

 

 

Why your statements are false:
1) What if you went into a restaurant and could only order ham or wasabi? Would you be happy with lack of options? 
2) Most people don't upgrade their computers. However, Computing Forever made an excellent video on why you should instead of buying a new computer.
3) I can tell you don't want a ton of apps (referring to the scrolling), because you totally wouldn't have trouble finding steam games that will actually work with your computer. I remember when you used a mac. You actively struggled to find a Humble Bundle that would actually have compatible games with your mac.

 

/rant

 

There are some

 

legitimate needs for a mac, like when you need to use certain professional applications like Final Cut. And macs do do some things better than PCs. But the fact that you can get a pc that's about equivalent to a mac or better for less than half the price in some cases really does make a huge difference when comparing them. But to the average user, a mac will simply be more money being spent than is necessary.

Also, mac is shiny? I think not.

 

Me:  Correction: 

 

"btw OS X trumps n̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ windows"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, admittedly I am an apple hater. But they can do some things well, and there are some good needs for macs as said above. Also, weird formatting because I didn't want to lose stuff and am too lazy to correct all of it (copy+paste). So just pretend it's perfect.

 

 

 

Macs are pretty good.  Windows is too, I think Windows is great if you are a system administrator or need to use the .NET framework because often sysadmins will have need for Powershell.  

OSX is great for other development, it has Xcode which is used to make iPhone and Mac apps which is useful if you are an app developer.  Linux in my eyes is still better for Ruby though, so if you are a ruby dev that's the way to go. 

 

I actually hate modifying my Windows install.  I think Windows is great without modifications, it's designed to be an advanced operating system and it is, it's capable of a lot of things but because the registry is so complicated it can cause some issues with third party software.  So in my eyes Linux is probably the best for customization, it's text based too so you can easily fix problems faster and easier than in Windows. 

23 hours ago, kaiju_wars said:

So my boss (who also happens to be a friend) wants me to build two PCs for his kids to be able to do some PC gaming.  Here's the thing, he needed all new peripherals.  Monitors, mice, keyboards, OS, speakers, etc, besides just the parts for these builds.  He also wanted it for both, all together, under $1000. 

That's not the hard part, I'm just giving some backstory.  So I got on PC Part Picker to show him some builds we could do to get things working.  Plus, I had some spare parts lying around knocking about $200 off one of the builds.  Anyways, his son was more into AAA titles, so I gave him a dedicated GPU, while his daughter is more into "Minecraft" and "Who's your Daddy?" so I went with an APU for her.  

He's one of those people who buy into the hype and after I show him the builds:

"But I thought gaming PCs needed like 8 core cpus and had to have super big GPUs."

I had to explain for about 10 minutes how this wasn't so...

A lot of people have that idea of gaming computers.  Yet the smaller the component, the less power it needs to function and that makes it produce less heat when compared to a bigger component.  Smaller components are also more efficient in space and performance.   

 

I think smaller components are better, some may not agree with me but I've changed from someone who wants the most powerful to someone who would rather spend 100k on a beastly server instead of a car.  

[matrix07012]

I just saw a really sketchy ad from Vodafone. It said: "If you get a family tarif with unlimited calls and data for 100 dollars a month, you will receive a Wi-Fi network for free" and under it was, in small letters, written: "In order to receive free Wi-Fi network, you have to buy our Huawei modem."

Edited May 15, 2016 by matrix07012
"unliminited" fixed

[BingoFishy]

7 hours ago, matrix07012 said:

I just saw a really sketchy ad from Vodafone. It said: "If you get a family tarif with unliminited calls and data for 100 dollars a month, you will receive a Wi-Fi network for free" and under it was, in small letters, written: "In order to receive free Wi-Fi network, you have to buy our Huawei modem."

Logic 

[waggythegeek]

Friend of mine has been trying to.convince me for months that floppy disks aren't floppy...

[WkdPaul]

5 minutes ago, waggythegeek said:

Friend of mine has been trying to.convince me for months that floppy disks aren't floppy...

I guess that friend never opened a floppy then, because the name doesn't refer to the outer case but the the actual magnetic dick inside, which is VERY flexible! lol

[waggythegeek]

Just now, wkdpaul said:

I guess that friend never opened a floppy then, because the name doesn't refer to the outer case but the the actual magnetic dick inside, which is VERY flexible! lol

Ya IK

[BingoFishy]

5 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

I guess that friend never opened a floppy then, because the name doesn't refer to the outer case but the the actual magnetic dick inside, which is VERY flexible! lol

Even with the casing, there's a lot of flex.

[Fetzie]

8 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

I guess that friend never opened a floppy then, because the name doesn't refer to the outer case but the the actual magnetic dick inside, which is VERY flexible! lol

The 5 1/4 inch floppies were rather floppy, even in their case

[daniellearmouth]

2 hours ago, BingoFishy said:

Even with the casing, there's a lot of flex.

I wouldn't say it was necessarily "floppy", though.

 

5 1/4'' disks, on the other hand...

[Lurick]

8 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

I guess that friend never opened a floppy then, because the name doesn't refer to the outer case but the the actual magnetic dick inside, which is VERY flexible! lol

LOL!

 

I always thought that floppy disks got their name from the original 5 1/4" disks which were pretty floppy.