What is strangest things you heard when shopping for computer components?

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, kenjigreat said:

Is it legal to do that as an employee? How does he get away with it?

Well, I haven't seen him there in a couple months, so presumably he didn't.

[Blucyrik]

3 minutes ago, kenjigreat said:

I'm actually really curious on this because not many videos are on PSUs and I rarely hear anyone talking about. What is the actual tanglible difference between a High-end and a budget. I got a http://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Factor-Modular-SX600-G/dp/B00MO675S8 for my new build and I still have no clue. I went with it because it fit my case and I'm powering a 6700K.

The quality of the capacitors and components are what make the difference. Would you want a high-end system that requires 1000W run on cheap Chinese capacitors in a PSU you spent $20 on?

 

The CX series isn't THAT bad (let's be honest here, there's worse power supplies out there) but people bash on them because of their low quality of components.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, byalexandr said:

Helping my sister buy a notebook, and the sales dude at Best Buy comes around.

 

'Well the i3 is more for email and stuff, the i5 is for movies and stuff, but the i7 is for, like, really heavy gaming and stuff.'

'If you have more RAM it makes it a lot faster, this one only comes with 16GB but if you want to watch HD movies you might want to get a 32GB kit over in that isle.'

 

I was standing there trying not to knock myself out by facepalming too hard, and as soon as he left, I told my sister 'Take everything he just said and throw in the garbage.'

thats what happens when instead of hiring IT trained salespeople, you let management train the salespeople.

[GlassBomb]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

a guy told me that sending speaker audio over a phone line cable would make the audio come out garbled and really low quality.

 

the dude is an electronics engineer college student, deeply believes in the superiority of "perfect surface silver" audio cables being far superior than cables that can scientificly be tested to show they have lower resistance and less interference.

 

also, iOS has superior audio quality over android. let that sink in folks, an OS has superior audio quality.

Apple products generally have fairly decent audio hardware though. But yeah, operating system does very little to change the audio quality. The software within the OS change the quality more than the OS itself.

 

And what OP said about Price = Durability. I'd go so far as to say that spending more will give you more longevity of the product that you are buying. Sometimes, Price = Durability as well, but not always for computer hardware.

 

Spending more money on some stuff that you use. Headphones, keyboard, car, or whatever can net you a product with greater durability.

[Zeinone]

Just now, kenjigreat said:

I get where the 7 comes from but where does the 8 come from.

In my country people just add +1 to the processors like i3, i5, i7 to make them quad, hexa and octa core, respectively. Don't ask me why, and the model number is just there for no reason at all. They also consider Xeon a deca-core (10) processor  

[kenjigreat]

1 minute ago, GlassBomb said:

Apple products generally have fairly decent audio hardware though. But yeah, operating system does very little to change the audio quality. The software within the OS change the quality more than the OS itself.

 

And what OP said about Price = Durability. I'd go so far as to say that spending more will give you more longevity of the product that you are buying. Sometimes, Price = Durability as well, but not always for computer hardware.

 

Spending more money on some stuff that you use. Headphones, keyboard, car, or whatever can net you a product with greater durability.

My Razer Naga died in 9 months and my cheap mouse still works.

[Imakuni]

 

I laughed SO HARD at this part..... "fast motherboard".

 

[aisle9]

2 minutes ago, byalexandr said:

Helping my sister buy a notebook, and the sales dude at Best Buy comes around.

 

'Well the i3 is more for email and stuff, the i5 is for movies and stuff, but the i7 is for, like, really heavy gaming and stuff.'

'If you have more RAM it makes it a lot faster, this one only comes with 16GB but if you want to watch HD movies you might want to get a 32GB kit over in that isle.'

 

I was standing there trying not to knock myself out by facepalming too hard, and as soon as he left, I told my sister 'Take everything he just said and throw in the garbage.'

Oh, the stories I could tell about Best Buy employees. Like the guy who tried to convince my mom (while I was on the phone with her) that she needed an $1,100 i7 gaming laptop with a discrete GPU because iGPUs, including the A8 system I'd suggested to her, could stream 1080p clearly.

[Supercian411]

4 minutes ago, kenjigreat said:

I get where the 7 comes from but where does the 8 come from.

and the 1

[manikyath]

Just now, GlassBomb said:

And what OP said about Price = Durability. I'd go so far as to say that spending more will give you more longevity of the product that you are buying. Sometimes, Price = Durability as well, but not always for computer hardware.

 

Spending more money on some stuff that you use. Headphones, keyboard, car, or whatever can net you a product with greater durability.

the price/durability thing is true to some extend, but doesnt really apply to processors.

 

a high quality desk will set you back more than something cheap from ikea (a LOT more) but that high quality desk can be measured to last longer.

theres actually tests done on this: ikea's material they use on everything can take roughly 700 "sanding motions" before it breaks trough to the substrate underneath.

the more "premium" (high price) material will take roughly 1300 "sanding motions" before it breaks trough the first layer and starts to "show" the wear, and will take another 2-3000 "sanding motions" to actually break trough to substrate.

 

now, these "sanding motions" are actually a piece of sandpaper going back and forth, weighted down.

--

thats where the price/durability thing comes in, but i bet you'll have a hard time finding such a comparison anywhere in computers, if its not for the things we talk about in power supplies: capacitor brands, the soldering job, etc.

[LiamApex]

one of the apple genius said that its essential that you need to leave the mac on all the time because it can ruin the Metal inside the CPU because it expands and cools when it turns on and off... yeah ok...

[Supercian411]

4 minutes ago, Blucyrik said:

The quality of the capacitors and components are what make the difference. Would you want a high-end system that requires 1000W run on cheap Chinese capacitors in a PSU you spent $20 on?

 

The CX series isn't THAT bad (let's be honest here, there's worse power supplies out there) but people bash on them because of their low quality of components.

the 750w version uses very different components

[GlassBomb]

6 minutes ago, kenjigreat said:

My Razer Naga died in 9 months and my cheap mouse still works.

My brother's Deathadder Chroma died after only three months use. And my old Logitech G500 is still in working order. There will always be lemons, products can't always be perfect. The extra money spent on a product SHOULD go towards better hardware, quality checks, and an overall better product.

 

But there will always be those who skimp on certain parts so that the product will only just get past the warranty date.

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the price/durability thing is true to some extend, but doesnt really apply to processors.

 

a high quality desk will set you back more than something cheap from ikea (a LOT more) but that high quality desk can be measured to last longer.

theres actually tests done on this: ikea's material they use on everything can take roughly 700 "sanding motions" before it breaks trough to the substrate underneath.

the more "premium" (high price) material will take roughly 1300 "sanding motions" before it breaks trough the first layer and starts to "show" the wear, and will take another 2-3000 "sanding motions" to actually break trough to substrate.

 

now, these "sanding motions" are actually a piece of sandpaper going back and forth, weighted down.

--

thats where the price/durability thing comes in, but i bet you'll have a hard time finding such a comparison anywhere in computers, if its not for the things we talk about in power supplies: capacitor brands, the soldering job, etc.

Yeah, comparing computer hardware to other products will always be harder. But to a certain extent you can. If the product is more expensive because of better, more stable power delivery and such.

 

But there will always be a golden price to performance that people will go for. And people will more often go for greater performance, than higher durability.

[Supercian411]

3 minutes ago, kenjigreat said:

My Razer Naga died in 9 months and my cheap mouse still works.

which naga

[Blucyrik]

1 minute ago, Supercian411 said:

the 750w version uses very different components

Weird, didn't know that. Thanks for the correction. But yes, the CX750 is what I was referring to.

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, GlassBomb said:

But there will always be those who skimp on certain parts so that the product will only just get past the warranty date.

Yeah, comparing computer hardware to other products will always be harder. But to a certain extent you can. If the product is more expensive because of better, more stable power delivery and such.

 

But there will always be a golden price to performance that people will go for.

i'm not gonna touch on prebuilts and skimping, i've seen the horror stories, under my desk theres currently an i7 4770 running off of ONE VRM.

 

price/performance is something very easy in the computer world, but we just have SUCH a long lifespan on our components, and such a massive deviation in life expectancy that theres no really good way to quantify which component will "outlive" the other.

 

and specificly on the side of processors: you can talk abour single core performance over more cores and vice versa, but with all the crystal balls in the world, we cannot predict what the future will hold for our processors. for all we know next year someone brings out an add-in card that can easily offload all multithreaded workloads off the cpu and do them mindblowingly faster - bringing us back to cpu's being single core bound.

but maybe someone will instead bring out a card that can BURN single thread, but only has one "core", bringing us to cpu's being multicore bound, where single core performance doesnt really matter, as long as theres enough cores to compensate.

[kenjigreat]

19 minutes ago, Supercian411 said:

which naga

Model No. RV01-0104

[Supercian411]

4 minutes ago, kenjigreat said:

Model No. RV01-0104

I have that one it also died

[kenjigreat]

2 minutes ago, Supercian411 said:

I have that one it also died

RAZER Products -_-.... I'm just going to get another Cheap small mouse to compliment my Mini-ITX RVZ02 Build.

[Tech_Dreamer]

at a store , i was looking at some laptops , not really interested or to buy , was just grazing through the models & some guy comes up & asks the guy  who is supposed to show& explain the models to the customer , the store guy starts with the base models citing i3 & i5 range cpu  & mentioned i7 as their highest &  the customer just out of the blue asks for something in between and asks if there was an i6 model available! i Almost facepalmed right there! but kinda swung my hands away like i saw a fly in the end..

[Davehaslanded]

I overheard a guy in PCworld asking for an i7 laptop for video editing. He got told by staff that this laptop with an AMD A-series processor was equivalent and much better for the job. I waited for the staff to go get some information, then crept over and told him he was being lied to and to leave as he was trying to shift old stock. Guy thanked me and walked out. 

 

I hate PCworld. I've asked for components before when upgrading a friends laptop in limited time. I was told "we don't really sell PC components, try Amazon". Lol

[Bhav]

 

 

 

[PooPipeBoy]

When my old Toshiba Satellite gaming laptop died back in 2013, I went to ma fav computer store to order what would eventually become my current Core i5 system.

So I mention to the guy that my laptop had died, and it was like:

 

Guy: "You know, if you bring it in here we could fix it for you. What's wrong with it?"

Me: "It's completely dead, won't even POST."

Guy: "Is the battery charged up? Did you try it plugged into the wall without the battery installed? Did you try resetting it?"

Me: "Yep, all of that"

Guy: "Oh, you might need to send it back to the manufacturer to get it fixed then."

 

Sure.....because obviously they were able to fix it for me.....

[ziogref]

I was shopping for a new Laptop (specifically a lenovo yoga 2 in 1) And i said i wanted a core i5 (for decent performance) and 8 gb ram. And one guy told me that the new model with a intel m5y cpu would have better performance than the older model with the core i5-6200u.

[ddrkreature]

Was talking to a guy about parts when I was picking out parts for a new rig. Said I was going to be gaming and editing video on it and picked out an i7. Then this happens:

 

"Why are you going for an i7?"

"Because it's better at video rendering"

"Just get an i5. They're better, faster, and cheaper. The i7 is a ripoff"

".....are you being serious right now?"

"Yes. I've owned both. The i5 beat the i7 in everything. Also, that whole hyperthreading bs is a gimic. It doesn't actually do anything"