What is wrong with semi-informed people re: PC's these days?

[maartendc]

Hello all,

 

Something has been bothering me lately:  It seems like every other topic that is opened on the CPU or GPU subforums these days goes something like this:

 

"Help, will X CPU bottleneck X GPU, is it really bad, OMG plz help?"

or

"Welp, I have really bad frametime, OMG, plz help?"

or

"Someone told me if I pour hot chocolate on my GT730 I will get over 1000 FPS in Fortnite, plz help?!"

 

It seems like 90% of people don't understand simple PC concepts such as:

- bottlenecking

- framerate

- frametime

- latency, etc. etc.

 

It seems a half-informed person is worse than a non-informed person. Can't these people just google or Youtube these concepts, instead of just freaking the hell out? I mean, Linus has a good "fast as possible" video on Bottlenecking for example.

 

I guess my point is: I don't mind explaining things to people, but most of this drama could be avoided if people just look up some information first? Should this forum have some kind of Sticky section above each subforum where all these basic terms are plainly and simply explained? Or are people just too lazy to read things for themselves?

 

 

[DezGalbie]

Why is "looking something up" better than having a conversation on the topic with a more knowledgeable person though?

Yes, a lot of queries could potentially be solved by "looking it up" rather than asking, but asking is a useful learning tool. You can ask in terminology you are comfortable with and get responses in that same terminology and at a customised level of complexity. When you "look it up" you are stuck with the answer written as it was at time of writing with far less scope for clarifications etc.

Plus some people enjoy answering questions for people too. A lot of people don't see it as a "drama", they see it as a social activity.

If you see it as a "drama" or annoying in any way then you don't have to answer questions. Just leave it to the folk who enjoy/don't mind it.

[lewdicrous]

The bottlenecking BS was at its peak when they made a vid about it (linked below)

Spoiler

 

As for people not googling simple things on their own, that's the unfortunate truth about how lazy people have become; they'd rather wait for someone to spoon feed them basic information instead of looking for it by themselves.

[Godlygamer23]

Not every question is solvable by Googling. Besides, the more things get asked, the more references you have to confirm or reject your view or another view. 

[Brooksie359]

I would wager most wouldn't even see the post that explains what bottlenecking is. I will say that there are people that look up bottlenecking before they come here but what they found was misinformation and think bottlenecking calculators are a good way to tell if something will bottleneck. 

[straight_stewie]

5 minutes ago, maartendc said:

It seems a half-informed person is worse than a non-informed person.

There's a few stages of gaining knowledge in a field:

1. Not knowing anything, and knowing it.
2. Gaining some knowledge, but not enough to know what you don't know. This can lead to overconfidence.
3. Realizing that there are things you don't know, and setting out to learn them. This is the stage where people are extremely helpful. They may start bleeding knowledge.
4. Being a subject master.

[Glenwing]

15 minutes ago, maartendc said:

Hello all,

 

Something has been bothering me lately:  It seems like every other topic that is opened on the CPU or GPU subforums these days goes something like this:

 

"Help, will X CPU bottleneck X GPU, is it really bad, OMG plz help?"

or

"Welp, I have really bad frametime, OMG, plz help?"

or

"Someone told me if I pour hot chocolate on my GT730 I will get over 1000 FPS in Fortnite, plz help?!"

 

It seems like 90% of people don't understand simple PC concepts such as:

- bottlenecking

- framerate

- frametime

- latency, etc. etc.

 

It seems a half-informed person is worse than a non-informed person. Can't these people just google or Youtube these concepts, instead of just freaking the hell out? I mean, Linus has a good "fast as possible" video on Bottlenecking for example.

 

I guess my point is: I don't mind explaining things to people, but most of this drama could be avoided if people just look up some information first? Should this forum have some kind of Sticky section above each subforum where all these basic terms are plainly and simply explained? Or are people just too lazy to read things for themselves?

 

You're looking at a self-selecting sample. Most of them DO use Google/YouTube to find the answer, but you're not counting/seeing all the people who successfully found the answer themselves, because they don't post any question, because they found the answer on their own. You'll only see questions from the few people who didn't do that, and it's not that many people all things considered.

[NunoLava1998]

14 minutes ago, maartendc said:

"Someone told me if I pour hot chocolate on my GT730 I will get over 1000 FPS in Fortnite, plz help?!"

Well of course you will get 1000 FPS

[lewdicrous]

1 minute ago, NunoLava1998 said:

Well of course you will get 1000 FPS

You can get more if you disable G-Sync

[Mira Yurizaki]

Regarding the topic of bottlenecking in particular, I think even people who know what it is don't understand how to use this information in the overall context of computer usage.

 

Bottlenecking is not a problem. It's a symptom of a problem. The problem is "my computer isn't providing enough performance." So if someone with an i5-4960K and a GTX 950 isn't getting enough performance and they replace the video card with a GTX 1080 Ti, this is not a problem. Will the GTX 1080 Ti be bottlenecked? Sure. But will OP achieve their goal of getting appreciably more performance? Yes.

 

Lay the facts down and let OP decide for themselves whether or not it's a problem for them. If OP is fine with having a card not running at its fullest potential at first (maybe they plan on upgrading the system later), then let them do what they want.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Well anyway, my issue isn't so much the "ignorant" people asking the questions, but often how the replies of "more knowledgeable" people are written. And some people are all too happy being in the Actually Squad and fighting over opinions over helping the OP.

 

(Yes I'll admit I'm guilty of this sometimes)

[ThePD]

I don't think asking for help is a problem. I think asking for help when you don't know and then arguing with the advice given is a problem. Many of these questions seem to come from people who have a very high favoritism of branding. "Oh I don't want to buy Team Blue for (insert stupid mindless reason here)". This is then fueled by the same people on these forms to convince people to buy extremely high priced products when it wasn't the question that was asked.

I have seen questions on these forms about people buying the 8700. Then people recommend them the 9700K because "U can overclock it lol XD"  even if it comes at a pricepoint that is way out of scope of the OP's original purchase price.

[maartendc]

1 hour ago, Glenwing said:

You're looking at a self-selecting sample. Most of them DO use Google/YouTube to find the answer, but you're not counting/seeing all the people who successfully found the answer themselves, because they don't post any question, because they found the answer on their own. You'll only see questions from the few people who didn't do that, and it's not that many people all things considered.

That is a good point, I hadn't thought of that. You are only seeing the posts of people who didnt find the solution on their own.

1 hour ago, Finwillwin said:

Well, you have to understand that not everyone is that knowledgeable, and the only way to learn is to ask. Most tech-related questions that you google will be answered with a forum post.  That is why people ask here because it is dynamic and more accurate.  Most newbies are quite pleasant when asking so I don't mind.

You are right, if you Google a tech related question, mostly the answer will come from a forum post, which is good. And I do enjoy a good question and an informative answer, nothing wrong with that.

 

My gripe is more so with simple topics that FOR SURE have been covered 10000 times before, but people keep asking the same questions over and over, instead of looking for the answers that are already there. Or also just badly expressed questions with no real explanation of what the problem is, bad grammar, no punctuation, etc. etc. You know the type.

14 minutes ago, campy said:

snip

I definitely tend to agree that sometimes it is kind of like the blind leading the blind. Someone who thinks they know something will try to help someone who knows even less. This is where a lot of the misinformation comes from.

[ThePD]

1 minute ago, campy said:

Heres my hate PC, it has an expensive and weak processor from an older generation on a board I can't utilize the key feature of, with a cooler that is entirely not needed and a psu that will never top 10% of its peak output.

It looks awesome and really pushes the limits of the case I got, which is the inferior version with less airflow than the new version which has an ugly top fan mount that ruins the aesthetic.

It looks bitchin and is entirely silent, the PSU never turns on and the only two fans are the MSI RX 560 Aero itx and the 900rpm noctua as intake in the rear.

It exhausts through the PSU as well which I guess is some massive super sin for 95w worth of potential heat.

I love how you refer to it as a 'Hate PC'.

[maartendc]

1 hour ago, lewdicrous said:

The bottlenecking BS was at it's peak when they made a vid about it (linked below)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

As for people not googling simple things on their own, that's the unfortunate truth about how lazy people have become; they'd rather wait for someone to spoon feed them basic information instead of looking for it by themselves.

Yeah that is kind of what I was getting at I guess.

 

Again, I don't mind a good question, that has not been asked a million times before, and that can actually provide new insight for everyone that reads it.

 

I do mind the questions that have been asked a million times, and the answer can easily be found online.

[maartendc]

38 minutes ago, campy said:

Heres my hate PC, it has an expensive and weak processor from an older generation on a board I can't utilize the key feature of, with a cooler that is entirely not needed and a psu that will never top 10% of its peak output.

You forgot: where the GPU is bottlenecking the CPU of reaching it's full potential

[Froody129]

I just let it go now. I used to think "why don't you just spend 30 seconds and Google this? Then I realised there's always a brigade of people who seem to always be new to the forum who are happy to help, so everyone is happy and I have no problem.

 

I have a problem when people think they know everything about PCs and force their "knowledge" onto other people, even if it's just wrong. 

 

Anyway OP: you're dealing with random people on the internet who will never care about what you do and you shouldn't really care about they do imo

[Mira Yurizaki]

15 minutes ago, Froody129 said:

I have a problem when people think they know everything about PCs and force their "knowledge" onto other people, even if it's just wrong.

Worse still are the ones that have a particular way of doing things, think that's the right way of doing things, and then they try to force it on people like it's the PC Master Race Gospel of Truth.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

27 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Worse still are the ones that have a particular way of doing things, think that's the right way of doing things, and then they try to force it on people like it's the PC Master Race Gospel of Truth.

It's especially bad in the PSU world where everyone loves and hates their particular units (tbf I'm as bad as anyone, I'm on crusade against the Bitfenix Formula and probably like the Focus+ Gold a little more than I should)

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, campy said:

It's a problem on many tech forums, you find a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about because they don't personally look into it, they rely on others. In the case of LTT you see a lot of people here recommending high end everything because anything less is a waste of money. Not everyone needs the high end but it's always suggested because the community here is people who watch techtubers who almost exclusively cover high end mainstream hardware.

Or they presume everyone is on a budget and only want the best price to performance.

 

Example, if I say I want to buy an RX 550, and ask for recommendations, many people will ignore my request for recommendations and will instead say it's not worth it's asking price and suggest cards like a 1050ti.

Want a 1050? "A 1050ti is only a little bit more!"

Want a 1080? "The 1070ti is almost the same at slightly cheaper!"

Want to buy an i3? "i3 is trash tier, buy an i5 or i7!"

Like, that's not what was asked. They didn't ask what was a good choice of CPU, they wanted info on a choice they already made.

 

But this ties into the misinformed telling the slightly more misinformed a bunch of misinformation when it comes to motherboards and power supplies. In this high end technology sphere, with people where all their knowledge comes from techtubers, if someone asks about motherboards you will get replies about how xyz motherboard is trash and here's recommendations a b and c instead.

But what they're looking at to quantify a "better" motherboard or "worse" motherboard is shit nobody cares about and no normal consumer needs to care about.

Oh, the x470 Taichi has better VRMs than the gigabyte aurous? Who gives a crap? Are you going to push your 2700x to 27ghz on liquid nitrogen or something? It doesn't matter at all to the normal consumer.

"japanese caps"

"vrm heatsink design"

"multiple (insert header here)"

 

Meanwhile the reality is any same chipset board with the features you need is gonna be about the same thing.

Dont even get me started on power supplies, this pre conceived notion that anything that isn't the top of our almighty PSU tier list is going to explode and die within a few hours is complete crap. We all ran terrible oem psus that came with cheap cases for years and years without issue, low end antec earthwatts stuff used to power GTX 270's without issue, it's great that we have these advancements in PC power supplies that make them more efficient, cooler, more reliable in the very long term, but when someone looks at a lower end psu and they're instantly told it's a piece of crap because there's a marginally better psu out there is a serious problem.

This idea that can be generalized as:

>do you want a 500w psu

yeah

>cool, your only option is the CX550m, but only from these few years of manufacturing and any other choice makes you a retard

 

As someone who goes out of their way to test and experience the weird, obscure and especially low end options for every type of hardware out there to see what it can do, it's infuriating. People recommending 200-400$ of higher part costs for a whole system for essentially snake oil returns.

 

My Chinese PC build pissed off a lot of people because they made presumptions, presumptions are why I didn't post the full details here.

People made presumptions that the power supply was going to be a house fire. People made presumptions the GPU was fake (that happened here too). People made presumptions the motherboard was going to die instantly. People made presumptions the cooler was false advertising. People made presumptions the ram wasn't its advertised spec.

Presumptions as in they didn't do any research themselves, and simply spewed what they thought was true because of what others have told them.

 

Thats where this partial tech illiteracy comes from.

VRM design is more important than ever with the 9th gen Intel chips. If you try to run the i9 on a crap z370 you will heat this things out if spec and cause massive throttling. This has been tested and on multiple diffrent low end boards and the majority show this issue. Yeah you don't need an overkill VRM but to say that it isn't important and that all VRMs are equal within a chipset is just plain wrong. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

13 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

It's especially bad in the PSU world where everyone loves and hates their particular units (tbf I'm as bad as anyone, I'm on crusade against the Bitfenix Formula and probably like the Focus+ Gold a little more than I should)

I feel like I can let this out now.

 

I strongly dislike most of the PSU crowd. What upsets me is a bunch of people who know what things are, but have no real appreciation or understanding as to the why and how certain things are the way they are and how in hindsight, things don't just "blow up" like they want to believe they do. I'm sure some of them do know what they're talking about, even perhaps approaching BigClive or EEVBlog territory, but I'm pretty sure most of them don't.

 

To put things into my perspective, some of the classes I was required to take for my major in college was electrical engineering. And not just something like Bio 101 which is "biology for not-biology majors", but "this is what you have to know to be an electrical engineering." I also did a lab which involved building a basic power supply that took in 20v AC and converted it into I believe 12V, 5V, and a variable 0-5V rails. And while the PCB was already designed and built and most of the components ready, we weren't allowed to just build a power supply, we had to solve the math behind the circuitry and prove to the lab proctor (whom mine was a hard-ass, in the good way, professor) our theory before we were allowed to build that part of the power supply and verify the numbers. While it was a basic power supply so there wasn't things like XY filter caps, PFC, high voltage and low voltage domains, if you were to ask to bang out a basic AC to DC converter, that I can tell you about, I can draw it out on a paper napkin and explain to you what everything does, how it works, and why it's used.

 

I'd love to see so-called power supply experts (yes, I've seen some one on the forum not only claim they are, but "the best in the country" or something like that) bang out a power supply circuit design on the spot and explain every single thing to the level that a 6 year old can understand.

 

I think my most favorite moment about this topic in recent memory was when Steve Burke stress tested the Walmart Overpowered PC PSU and not only did it survive, but performed rather admirably for a cheap no-name power supply, and he almost seemed flabbergasted that the thing didn't fail outright.

[Mattias Edeslatt]

My biggest palm-face is all the post in this section because that should be posten in the right sub-forum. 

 

But: 

a - people don't care or bother to take 2 minutes to scan the forum for the right place to post and just post everything in General Discussion. 

b - if people had done a, they likely  would have found the answer or a post discussing the question in question.

c - Help is not a good headline.

d - WRITING IN ALL CAPS or Every First Letter In The Word is not alright either.

 

[Mattias Edeslatt]

6 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I think my most favorite moment about this topic in recent memory was when Steve Burke stress tested the Walmart Overpowered PC PSU and not only did it survive, but performed rather admirably for a cheap no-name power supply, and he almost seemed flabbergasted that the thing didn't fail outright.

 

A think he had a sane reaction and not flabbergasted at all. He know that there are many PSU vendors but few manufacturers that makes PSUs for dozens of vendors. And that "the label" doesn't make the PSU good or bad by default. (Which is a common theme here, vendor x is great, which not is true. The all make lemons and the all make more or less god product.)

 

Just because that the PSU isn't black or have sleeved cables and are modular it isn't automatic crap and he did say just that. And he wasn't surprised that it did't blow up, more likely positively surprised that id did perform as good as it did. It is a Great Wall PSU (if I remember correct) that does manufacture PSUs for most of the big name vendors out there so it is really not a no name brand PSU. And Great Wall designs and produces both good and not so good products based on what the costumer spec out the want or want to pay for.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

46 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I think my most favorite moment about this topic in recent memory was when Steve Burke stress tested the Walmart Overpowered PC PSU and not only did it survive, but performed rather admirably for a cheap no-name power supply, and he almost seemed flabbergasted that the thing didn't fail outright.

To be fair to him what do you think he expected given how cheap everything else in that "PC" was

[Mira Yurizaki]

5 minutes ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

To be fair to him what do you think he expected given how cheap everything else in that "PC" was

I expected him to have drank the "cheap PSU = exploding when looked at funny" kool-aid.

 

I've used cheap PSUs in highish-end machines before, lasting years before giving up the ghost. One of which I was surprised lasted as long as it did given it was in an environment that formed a thin layer of rust on the case and I believe it would've lasted longer had the fan not died.