Cabling

[Jerakl]

So as the local tech guru I get people making no sense to me a lot.

My friend and me had an argument today. This is what he was saying

 

"Gold cables make it faster"

 

His argument support was "My dad's an electrician" and "we make our own cables".

 

LOLWHAT.

 

He also said Motherboards traces are made out of gold 3-4 atoms thick and that the part you can see is just the protective layer.

(This one actually made a bit of sense)

 

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK ANYMORE

[prolemur]

umm cables make electrons faster, I think he's onto something...

[Jerakl]

umm cables make electrons faster, I think he's onto something...

The thing was, he was saying that the cable was made of gold, so it was faster. I don't get it.

[prolemur]

The thing was, he was saying that the cable was made of gold, so it was faster. I don't get it.

Well silver is more conductive than copper and gold in that order. All that I've heard about gold connectors is that they can potentially have a better connection after many re-insertions.

[skywake]

I had an argument with a retailer a few years ago about HDMI cables. Was buying a DVD recorder and while trying to haggle with the price I cheekily asked if he could bundle in a HDMI cable because it didn't come with one in the box. I mean why not? Dude insisted that those $60AU HDMI cables were at cost because that's how much HDMI cables were worth and because of that he couldn't bundle. He grabbed the HDMI cable anyway and asked if I still wanted the HDMI cable. So I told him no and that I'd just go over the road and grab one from the PC retailer who was selling them for $10AU. Dude went mental, obviously his HDMI cables were top quality gold plated HDMI cables and those ones over the road wouldn't work at all. Told him that HDMI was a digital cable and there's no way his HDMI cable would perform better than the $10 one across the road given it's only going to ever run at 1080p.

 

I ended up getting the HDMI cable from across the road, it worked fine and still works fine

[Jerakl]

Well silver is more conductive than copper and gold in that order. All that I've heard about gold connectors is that they can potentially have a better connection after many re-insertions.

So you're saying that silver is more conductive then copper which is more conductive then gold.

My friend INSISTED that it was better because the wire and connector was "gold plated". When I told him it was for durability he freaked out and told me I was wrong because his dad was an electrician.

[Gronnie]

Ah, the good old "appeal to authority" fallacy.

[skywake]

Wikipedia is your friend BTW.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity#Resistivity_of_various_materials

 

Basically it goes in order of least resistance: Silver, Copper and then Gold

[Jerakl]

Wikipedia is your friend BTW.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistivity_and_conductivity#Resistivity_of_various_materials

 

Basically it goes in order of least resistance: Silver, Copper and then Gold

 

I'm going to pound him tomorrow (Not physically) 

Ah, the good old "appeal to authority" fallacy.

I just said "eh, whatever you want David"

So I never really agreed with him. I just stopped talking because he was making up random crap and backing it up by saying his dad is an electrician and that they weave their own cables. He even said he knows how to make an HDMI cable and that it is "easy".