rant about specs for casual use...

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, Sir Balbador said:

Marketing 

yeah... maybe...

[Sir Balbador]

there is something to be said about owning something that is new. Warranty, not worrying about what the previous owner did to it,etc

then there is the whole being told you totally need 2tb storage and 16+GB ram, 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, Sir Balbador said:

there is something to be said about owning something that is new. Warranty, not worrying about what the previous owner did to it,etc

then there is the whole being told you totally need 2tb storage and 16+GB ram, 

yes. and then there is the store staff at places where "casuals" buy pc's.... "yeah, a 500gb harddrive is really good. and 4gb of ram too" 

[MEC-777]

It's a knowledge thing. The average user doesn't know what they really need or why their current PC is "slow". The salesman at the store won't tell them it's because of the HDD and suggest they swap that out for an SSD and do a fresh OS install. Instead, they will tell them "We have this tower on sale, it's got 1TB hard drive and 8GB of ram which is plenty!" The customer thinks "Yeah, those number are bigger than my current PC, it must be better." and buy it. The vicious cycle continues... 

[MEC-777]

 

[ProjectBox153]

1 hour ago, edward30 said:

I find that extremely hard to believe. I mean, assuming you're dedicating one core to your Win 7 VM, are we to believe that a single 10 year old core is running the rest of it?

 

I don't think it could do all of that without some slowdown. It doesn't pass the smell test. If yours does, then either I'm not understanding what you're actually running and your use case, or you really do have a magic Core 2 Duo from outer space.

I'm not lying, though. I've been running this particular setup for a few months, and it has handled everything really well. Running MacOS is the only thing that limits me, and that's only because it hits my RAM limit when doing other things in addition to MacOS (which runs in VMware). It's not overclocked (I actually can't on this system, because it's a Dell OptiPlex and runs at 150 degrees all the time), so that's not a factor. 

[mrchow19910319]

On 08/06/2017 at 3:29 AM, firelighter487 said:

casual usage to me is writing emails, browsing the web (with 2-4 tabs open), old games maybe... asual gaming to me is need for speed, and older stuff. 

I'm using a 2012 non retina macbook pro with a SSd in it. 

I think this machine is more capable of doing all those things...

 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

4 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

I'm using a 2012 non retina macbook pro with a SSd in it. 

I think this machine is more capable of doing all those things...

 

more capable than my machine? why? 

[mrchow19910319]

4 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

more capable than my machine? why? 

your machine?? what??? 

 

speed wise this thing is a blast. due to the SSD just like every other had been saying. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 minute ago, mrchow19910319 said:

your machine?? what??? 

 

speed wise this thing is a blast. due to the SSD just like every other had been saying. 

yeah, but i mean for the uses that i described. my machine will do that stuff just as fast as your macbook.

[mrchow19910319]

1 minute ago, firelighter487 said:

yeah, but i mean for the uses that i described. my machine will do that stuff just as fast as your macbook.

good to know! 

[themctipers]

On 6/7/2017 at 2:10 PM, firelighter487 said:

hello, just a bit of a rant about something.

 

excuse some grammar mistakes, english is not my native language. 

 

when i was fixing up my old gaming rig the other day, i started thinking,

because everything i tried to do on that machine was still fast and smooth, what are the minimum specs for casual use?

 

my old gaming pc specs:

 

core 2 duo e8400

4gb ddr2

60gb ssd as boot drive

1.8 tb of total hdd storage

radeon hd 6670 gpu

windows 10

 

everything i did on that thing; watching youtube and netflix, playing a few old games, need for speed most wanted 2012 and the like, installing stuff, web browsing etc. ran smooth..

 

so i was just wondering, for casual users, people who mostly just browse the web and type up documents, why do they still buy new machines with i5's or something in them?

 

if i can browse youtube, type up documents etc on a machine from 2008, why are people paying $500 for machines that are way overkill for that stuff.

 

 

 

talking as a 'normie here'

my pc is slow and theres viruses and stuff 

 

slow because HDD only in prebuilts, viruses because user is an idiot

 

you can browse youtube, type up documents, play games, play music, even use some apps on a fucking pentium 4, ok? 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

18 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

good to know! 

exept maybe high resolution video. and reliability. machines like mine are old after all. 

 

 

proper disclosure:

 

i'm not responsible for you buying a old machine and then getting issues. your experience may vary. 

 

[GDRRiley]

know one knows that all they need is an i3 at max and a Pentium current gen will work fine

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, Mihle said:

 

I know quite a bit that casual people that got a around 300 $ laptop and then complain because it is slow.... mostly because they dont have SSD.

Case in point.    You only know about the ones that complain and that is only in your circle of people.  There are literally millions of average spec laptops and desktops out there being used happily for little more than facebook, email and word.    

 

4 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

that seems logical... i'm just amazed by the amount of people in this day and age that aren't tech-savy...

 

IT and technology is only one facet of life.  I know for a fact that many social science enthusiasts are just as amazed at the lack of knowledge people have about topics such as cultural appropriation,  governance and poverty etc.   It is actually normal for majority of the population to not know the difference between an AMD CPU and an Intel, forget tiers or product names).

[GDRRiley]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Case in point.    You only know about the ones that complain and that is only in your circle of people.  There are literally millions of average spec laptops and desktops out there being used happily for little more than facebook, email and word.    

 

 

IT and technology is only one facet of life.  I know for a fact that many social science enthusiasts are just as amazed at the lack of knowledge people have about topics such as cultural appropriation,  governance and poverty etc.   It is actually normal for majority of the population to not know the difference between an AMD CPU and an Intel, forget tiers or product names).

but how much of the social science is just bs and people just wanting to get their way (good part of it)

[mr moose]

32 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

but how much of the social science is just bs and people just wanting to get their way (good part of it)

How much of new technology is just BS and big companies forcing obsolescence to get their way... etc etc etc. 

 

Same argument from the other side.

[mr moose]

39 minutes ago, edward30 said:

 

I think he should stick to music. 

 

FTR, it's only called science becasue they try to use the method as best they can,  but it's hard to run double blond tests for subjects like poverty/education because ethics says you can't make someone poor or intentionally retard their education in the name of science.  

 

But for those who question the validity of the field,  I refer you to the killdozer event and suggest you ask as many questions as you want but try to avoid anything related to society or community.  If you can then you have a valid reason to dismiss sociology.

[mr moose]

18 minutes ago, edward30 said:

Tom Lehrer (the singer in the video I posted) is a mathematician, and was a professor, teaching at MIT and Harvard, among others.

 

I can dismiss it because its "research" is predicated upon so many baseless assumptions as to render it worthless.

 

 

 

 

Either he is trying to be funny or he genuinely misses the point of sociology.  Does he also think psychiatry/psychology is a pseudoscience?   What assumptions is the "research" based on?    Do you actual have any experience with this or is this just another "I don't like what they say" response?  

 

EDIT: I just looked him up, yes he was trying to be funny,  He also taught political science it turns out.  He is a satiricalist.   

[mr moose]

Just now, edward30 said:

I can't speak for what he thinks.

 

They have to base their work on assumptions because nothing they do can be definitively tested. You said as much yourself. So then there must be assumptions. 

 

Take structural poverty in the United States. The sociologist will tell you that some countries that have lower poverty than the USA, have less poverty because they have larger welfare spending... which completely ignores the differences between populations.

 

And so without the ability to actually know what increased welfare spending would do here in the US, they include a whole raft of assumptions and make the numbers up. Go read their studies; they read like magic spells. Their studies are nothing more than appeals to conform to progressive dogma.

 

They're full of ssssociology.

No, I said some of the work can't be tested the same way becasue of ethics, that is not the same thing as saying the entire field is wrong.   They can take a known condition, like poverty,  then start to analyze all the co-existing conditions, they can analyze entire groups to find correlations.  Ignoring sociology when voting, running a business or trying to help the poor/disadvantaged is pretty silly.   Just becasue you can't absolutely determine causality does not mean there is no substantial reasoning behind a condition.

 

Harvard longitudinal cohort studies into health and happiness have great volumes of information that point to some pretty unarguable conclusions, although no absolute causalities.  But if you want to dismiss these guys at Harvard for making assumptions, then by all means, that is your right.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

 

[MEC-777]

Let's keep it on-topic please, folks. 

 

Thanks. 

[Ithanul]

On 6/7/2017 at 1:10 PM, firelighter487 said:

if i can browse youtube, type up documents etc on a machine from 2008, why are people paying $500 for machines that are way overkill for that stuff.

The majority of consumers that buy computers don't even know what the all those specs mean.

Because the majority don't know plus most likely don't care, they will just buy what looks good.

[Jboord44]

On 6/7/2017 at 2:10 PM, firelighter487 said:

hello, just a bit of a rant about something.

 

excuse some grammar mistakes, english is not my native language. 

 

when i was fixing up my old gaming rig the other day, i started thinking,

because everything i tried to do on that machine was still fast and smooth, what are the minimum specs for casual use?

 

my old gaming pc specs:

 

core 2 duo e8400

4gb ddr2

60gb ssd as boot drive

1.8 tb of total hdd storage

radeon hd 6670 gpu

windows 10

 

everything i did on that thing; watching youtube and netflix, playing a few old games, need for speed most wanted 2012 and the like, installing stuff, web browsing etc. ran smooth..

 

so i was just wondering, for casual users, people who mostly just browse the web and type up documents, why do they still buy new machines with i5's or something in them?

 

if i can browse youtube, type up documents etc on a machine from 2008, why are people paying $500 for machines that are way overkill for that stuff.

 

 

 

If they don't care and all they want a pc for is to do the stuff you said, then yes it is dumb to spend a lot on that. But for a lot of ppl they get into the tech side of things and it is fun to have a high powered machine. It is a cool feeling knowing you have a beast even if you never use it to its full potential, it's reassuring to know that it can handle whatever you are gonna throw at it no problem. 

 

But again, if one doesn't care about this and just wants to browse the web and play old games, yes it's dumb to overspend. It stops being dumb the moment someone cares about how powerful their machine is, and the reasons they end up caring are vast and multifaceted and lack the need for justification.