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Where people overspend/underspend on computer setup

minervx

I have no right in determining how other people should spend their money, so I'll base this mostly on personal experience and general observation.

 

People tend to overspend on:
"Gaming"-branded accessories.
High-end cooling for marginal performance boosts.
A workstation CPU for gaming

More RAM than they use.

People tend to underspend on:

Monitor; so many people buy $500+ GPU's for pretty games and use a crap monitor from 2009, i don't get it.
Keyboard/mouse.  These are the parts we interact with and use everyday.

Chair.  Comfort and ergonomic support greatly enhance the overall experience.

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Peripherals: Qisan Magicforce (80%) w/ Gateron Blues.  Razer Naga Chroma.  Lenovo 24" 1440p IPS.  PS4 Controller.

Audio: Focusrite (Solo, 2nd), SM57, Triton Fethead, AKG c214, Sennheiser HD598's, ATH-M50x, AKG K240, Novation Launchkey

Wishlist: MP S-87, iPad, Yamaha HS5's, more storage

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29 minutes ago, minervx said:

crap monitor from 2009

Says the one using a TV as a monitor

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"Crap montitor and keyboard."

Says the guy using a tv for a monitor and a apple wireless keyboard.

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I thought people bought high-end cooling for well, better cooling.

not really to improve performance boost

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1 hour ago, 19_blackie_73 said:

Says the one using a TV as a monitor

 

1 hour ago, Almostbauws said:

Says the guy using a tv for a monitor

 

My setup changed quite a bit.  I need to update that list.

PC Build: R5-1600.  Scythe Mugen 5.  GTX 1060.  120 GB SSD.  1 TB HDD.  FDD Mini C.  8 GB RAM (3000 MHz).  Be Quiet Pure Wings 2.  Capstone-550.  Deepcool 350 RGB.

Peripherals: Qisan Magicforce (80%) w/ Gateron Blues.  Razer Naga Chroma.  Lenovo 24" 1440p IPS.  PS4 Controller.

Audio: Focusrite (Solo, 2nd), SM57, Triton Fethead, AKG c214, Sennheiser HD598's, ATH-M50x, AKG K240, Novation Launchkey

Wishlist: MP S-87, iPad, Yamaha HS5's, more storage

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I mean, if you really don’t care about the highest resolutions or most crisp displays, there’s nothing wrong with using an old monitor or tv. It’s always something you can upgrade later when you feel like it.

 

 I’m using a 32-inch 720p tv that I bought in 2009. I’m more than satisfied for now. :)

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I don't think there is a problem necessarily with gaming branded items, as long as they're fundamentally good items in the first place.

 

High end cooling isn't only for more performance. You can get away with quieter cooling.

 

CPUs I'd partially agree on, but only in context with balance with GPU. If gaming performance is the target, I think people underspend on GPU, overspend on CPU. Big name system builders are particularly bad at this, giving you low end GPUs with i7s for example.

 

Ram is one I don't fully understand. On a budget build I think 8GB is still sufficient, yet everyone seems to be targeting 16GB as if anything under that is totally unusable.

 

Monitors are a tricky area, as there is so much variation in optimisation choice. Do you want colour accuracy? Response time? High/variable refresh rate? Size? Aspect ratio? Age isn't necessarily a barrier. I have and still use an LP2475W which was launched 2009. It has by far the best colour gamut of monitors I own. I low end monitor from then might have sucked, but so do many low end monitors today.

 

Similar with keyboard and mice. If you get on with it, it doesn't matter if its old or cheap. I'm using a 2005 Intellimouse at work still, beats many more modern mice. On one of my home systems, I have one of the keyboards from the cheap keyboard video, and that does great too. 

 

Chairs are a very difficult one, and possibly the most personal of all. It's not a small purchase either. I know I need to upgrade mine, which is a cheap office chair from Staples from over 10 years ago. But getting somewhere where I can try and get the right one is no simple task.

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On 2/24/2018 at 4:13 PM, porina said:

 

Ram is one I don't fully understand. On a budget build I think 8GB is still sufficient, yet everyone seems to be targeting 16GB as if anything under that is totally unusable.

 

8 gigs is not enough in the near future. Rainbow 6 siege is an example, and if you do any video editing 16 is a must. Also the ram usage gets higher every year.

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4 minutes ago, Almostbauws said:

8 gigs is unusable nowadays. Rainbow 6 siege is an example, and if you do any video editing 16 is a must. Also the ram usage gets higher every year.

For creative work, sure.  But to be honest, I think there are thousands of people out there who want to get 16 GB RAM for video editing but really just game and only do light editing occasionally 

PC Build: R5-1600.  Scythe Mugen 5.  GTX 1060.  120 GB SSD.  1 TB HDD.  FDD Mini C.  8 GB RAM (3000 MHz).  Be Quiet Pure Wings 2.  Capstone-550.  Deepcool 350 RGB.

Peripherals: Qisan Magicforce (80%) w/ Gateron Blues.  Razer Naga Chroma.  Lenovo 24" 1440p IPS.  PS4 Controller.

Audio: Focusrite (Solo, 2nd), SM57, Triton Fethead, AKG c214, Sennheiser HD598's, ATH-M50x, AKG K240, Novation Launchkey

Wishlist: MP S-87, iPad, Yamaha HS5's, more storage

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14 minutes ago, Almostbauws said:

8 gigs is unusable nowadays. Rainbow 6 siege is an example, and if you do any video editing 16 is a must. Also the ram usage gets higher every year.

I did video editing on a Core 2 Quad machine with 8GB of RAM, and it worked perfectly...

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Just now, thegreengamers said:

I did video editing on a Core 2 Quad machine with 8GB of RAM, and it worked perfectly...

Depends if you use movie maker or advanced programs that movie makers use. I used to edit on low end laptops to using moviemaker and 2gigs of ram, but the more advanced programs right now crashed frequently on 8 gigs, so i got 16 and it works now. It depends on your use and programs.

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9 minutes ago, thegreengamers said:

I did video editing on a Core 2 Quad machine with 8GB of RAM, and it worked perfectly...

I have no problem editing 4K on my wife’s 2011 MacBook Air with 4GB of ram with a crappy integrated GPU, and 1.8 dual core processor. I create a proxy of the files, render the preview each go boom. Works great for smaller, less complex projects on the go. But yeah, you’d be surprised with how little ram you can actually get away with. Oh this, this is in FCPX btw.

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3 hours ago, minervx said:

I have no right in determining how other people should spend their money, so I'll base this mostly on personal experience and general observation.

 

People tend to overspend on:
"Gaming"-branded accessories.
High-end cooling for marginal performance boosts.
A workstation CPU for gaming

More RAM than they use.

People tend to underspend on:

Monitor; so many people buy $500+ GPU's for pretty games and use a crap monitor from 2009, i don't get it.
Keyboard/mouse.  These are the parts we interact with and use everyday.

Chair.  Comfort and ergonomic support greatly enhance the overall experience.

agree on all points there! What I Like overspending on, however are nice air coolers from noctua (you get aio perf most of the time without the hassle) and also quality fans.

Folding stats

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53 minutes ago, Almostbauws said:

8 gigs is unusable nowadays. Rainbow 6 siege is an example, and if you do any video editing 16 is a must. Also the ram usage gets higher every year.

It's really not. I would say a majority of people do not do video editing. I use six gigs of ram on my computer and I have no issues. Granted I don't edit videos or play games but a lot of people don't either.

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I'd say power supplies. A lot of people are getting 850w or 1000w power supplies when their rigs simply don't need it. Mind you, some people like doing that because you can usually get a quieter running PSU as the fans won't be kicking on but I would say most people aren't doing it for that reason.

 

Also I think AIOs are kind of like that. You could probably get similar temps with a much cheaper air rig. Mind you, AIOs do look (subjectively) 'cooler' and generally has cosmetic stuff like LED and RGB blingery, but that doesn't really help your cooling. Although, I'm one to talk. I rock an AIO myself. xD

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1 hour ago, Almostbauws said:

8 gigs is unusable nowadays. Rainbow 6 siege is an example, and if you do any video editing 16 is a must. Also the ram usage gets higher every year.

I can play cs:go on 4 gigs and that's totally enough for me. Not everyone plays AAA titles on 4k so it's tough to make a generalization like that. 

Also, I find it funny how everyone on here is also a video editor apparently. If I wanna make a quick  snippet of my gopro holiday videos I can do that on my macbook or even iphone today ^^

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I dont understand spending more than $20 on a mouse.

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8G of RAM will crunch through a lot (most?) of modern games, provided you aren’t trying to do a lot of multitasking at the same time. Not everyone needs 4K and VR. I’m running 8 in my gaming rig and it does extremely well!

 

You want more for aforementioned tasks like editing, streaming, and such. Some pro-grade sims will also need a minimum of 16.

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1 hour ago, Nicnac said:

I can play cs:go on 4 gigs and that's totally enough for me. Not everyone plays AAA titles on 4k so it's tough to make a generalization like that. 

Also, I find it funny how everyone on here is also a video editor apparently. If I wanna make a quick  snippet of my gopro holiday videos I can do that on my macbook or even iphone today ^^

I would say that 16 gigs is more future proof, but for normal computer usage right now 8 is enough

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its all relative. 

 

we choose what we wanna spend on. its our money.

 

simple as that. 

 

tell all the non techies that we have $2000 machines they will think that we are wasting money,but for us this is where the fun starts. 

 

 

If it is not broken, let's fix till it is. 

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1 hour ago, Mutoh said:

I'd say power supplies. A lot of people are getting 850w or 1000w power supplies when their rigs simply don't need it. Mind you, some people like doing that because you can usually get a quieter running PSU as the fans won't be kicking on but I would say most people aren't doing it for that reason

Or they get a prebuilt that severely underspends on the power supply.

 

Or they get an 850W power supply that costs $30 because the wattage is what counts amirite...

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Okay I'll admit I did overspend on my CPU for my latest build. The reason though is because getting an Intel extreme edition chip and owning an 'X' motherboard has been dream of mine, it's something I've always wanted to experience myself and it grew from watching Jay (JayzTwoCents) and Linus play with X79, X99 and more recently X299 gear. It was a really tough decision to make because I knew the 8700K was the better CPU that had the same core/ thread count but in the end I decided to go with the 7800X on X299 down to the fact it was a dream and I wasn't prepared to wait any longer to make my dream come true. And despite the flack the X299 platform gets it's being amazing so far, every time I turn on my computer I smile because I am on the extreme platform that I've always dreamed about owning for so long and don't regret my decision one bit. 

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1 hour ago, Mutoh said:

I'd say power supplies. A lot of people are getting 850w or 1000w power supplies when their rigs simply don't need it. Mind you, some people like doing that because you can usually get a quieter running PSU as the fans won't be kicking on but I would say most people aren't doing it for that reason.

 

Also I think AIOs are kind of like that. You could probably get similar temps with a much cheaper air rig. Mind you, AIOs do look (subjectively) 'cooler' and generally has cosmetic stuff like LED and RGB blingery, but that doesn't really help your cooling. Although, I'm one to talk. I rock an AIO myself. xD

Yeah, you have people over spending on PSUs, but at the same time I see so many underspending with some 20-30$ shit they bought on ebay (Years ago I was that guy btw). Definitely better to over spend than to under spend.

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5 hours ago, minervx said:

Chair.  Comfort and ergonomic support greatly enhance the overall experience.

I would love to overspend on a chair, but space is a problem for me. I sit on my bed and the position it's very uncomfortable, but it is what it is. Maybe I'll get rent in a better room in future.

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