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[est]

hi all, i thought that we could maybe put our heads together and make a nice FAQ for people here so that we could have one general resource instead of a million "help me buy a pc!" threads.  at the moment i am looking only to start with an IBM-compatible guide, but if we get enough interest from Mac powerusers perhaps we could add another section!

first part would cover the basics, and would not really change all that much.  things like the higher cpu vs more ram, higher ghz cpu vs dual-core cpu, do i need to buy an expensive video card?  what rating PSU should i buy for ...?  etc.

second part would be a bit more fluid, and would be based on suggestions from you guys as time goes by.  this second part would probably give recommendations for cpus, ram and motherboard brands, and what level of graphics card people should buy, depending on their needs.

hopefully we can put together some rough pricing guides for entry level, mid-range and top-spec pcs at the end, based on the recommendations given in the second section.

does this sound like something that people would be interested in?  if so, start making suggestions/writing thigns to put into the FAQ/guide.  if not, lemme know how we can change it, or why this is a Bad Idea and i might change my mind!

[jeph]

This sounds like a good idea to me!

I think if we're going to do it, we should have a seperate "which Mac should I buy?" thread and ignore the whole stupid "OMG MACS SUX TEH PC IS BESTZOR" debate.

[est]

i am thinking that we can split it up into multiple posts in the one thread for clarity, each with its own heading, feel, etc.  i'll try to think about some stuff over this weekend and put it up as a tentative start, then people can point out the holes, add to it, etc.

[Se7en]

Good idea, but its going to be fairly complex. Price guides are out of the question really, because prices differ across the world, and change very quickly.

Also, recomendations for certain brands will do little other than encourage people to trot out old biases and prejudices based on very limited experience. Very very few consumers get a chance to make any kind of objective comparison between brands.

What you can do however, is compare arcitectures. Its easy enough to compare 2 different standards and sum up the pros and cons of each.

Now, i am speaking here as someone who has worked as a freelance writer for various PC rags, and done a lot of online work of a similar nature too. I have written lots of buyers guides in the past, and its always far far more work than you think it is. Anyway, where my contracts and copyright law allows, i will contribute some of my past articles.

I think the best thing to do, is assemble a list of external links to simple and accurate guides on specific subjects, and then fill in any gaps.

Whilst i agree there is little point in resurrecting the pc versus mac argument, i think many people would be interested in some sort of article about what software is and isnt avaliable on the mac. I am sure there are plenty of these online, though i wouldnt have a clue where since i dont have the slightest interest in macs.

[Catfish_Man]

This sounds like a good idea to me!

I think if we're going to do it, we should have a seperate "which Mac should I buy?" thread and ignore the whole stupid "OMG MACS SUX TEH PC IS BESTZOR" debate.

Quoted for truth. Fanatics f'ing get on my nerves. I will be happy to look at the rough draft FAQ and use my processor-geek-fu on it (if it needs it)

[Vlishgnath]

http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html

This is my definitive site for guaging new PC technology.  Might be more useful as a baseline for when someone wants to know precisely why their new $400 video card is better than the $200 alternative.  Or vice versa.

[Se7en]

Toms are of limited use. They NEVER get to the point, and theres always a certain amount of fanboyism and performance fanaticism that makes it very difficult for someone who isnt a totaly rabid gamer to actually get an honest impression of what gives the best value. And god help anyone who wants a budget system.

[est]

yeah, i tend to kinda shop around when i look at review sites.  tom's, anandtech, x-bit, behardware.  i search around try to read between the lines.

i obviously forgot to put something up over the weekend.  i'll be bored after lunch at work, so i'll probably put something up this afternoon.

[Se7en]

Few things i have done that are already published online anyway:

http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/gfxgroup Nice graphics card group test. 6 months out of date, but still mostly relevant.

http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/tftbuyers A buying guide for TFTs.

http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/hdriveroundup And a hard drive group test.

I have loads more stuff  (mostly group tests of a range of similar products) but they were for magazine publication, id have to find out about copyright.

[Catfish_Man]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu.ars

Best cpu articles ever. I wish Hannibal would get off his butt and release his book already

[est]

re: those articles, they seem pretty good links to put towards the third section of the guide.

for the first and second sections i was thinking about speaking more in general terms.  ie: that each pc is made up of a handful of major components, what effect upgrading each of them does, different grades of those parts.

eg: (and this is a really bad, fast blurb) that the CPU is the workhorse of the computer, doing most of the computational operations.  memory or RAM provides space for the CPU to store information while it is working on it, and that to a point the more RAM you have will increase the amount of data that your CPU can juggle at the same time without slowing down (etc)

in the second section, examples of the different kinds of CPUs and what you would use them for would be Semprons/Celerons at the budget end for officework, homework and light gaming.  lower end Athlon 64 and Pentium 4s for heavier office work and gaming.  higher-end Athlon 64s and Pentium 4s for "enthusiast" machines and high-end gaming.

the point here being that whie the names and numbers change significantly from month to month, there are certain underlying principles that people should know and consider when buying a new pc.  once they have a rough grasp of the basics they can then look at a pricelist for their local pc dealer and say "ok, so i want to play games, but i don't want to spend a lot of money.  so that means i need to get a CPU that is good but not expensive, some decent RAM and as good a graphics card as i can afford...".

obviously we are not going to turn people into experts with a single thread, but that's the kind of gist that i'm looking for in the first section, at least.

[nihilist]

WHAT IS A COMPUTER?

[est]

exactly.

here's what i am working on so far:

Thread title: something like "The QC Computer Upgrade/Purchase F.A.Q"

The QC Computer Upgrade/Purchase F.A.Q

Section 1 - Introduction

Before we start, if you feel that we are being condescending or simplistic throughout this guide please try to remember that we almost certainly have people from every point in the computer-literacy spectrum reading these forums.  With this in mind, the guide you read here will be aimed at giving those readers toward the bottom end of that spread an understanding of what each of the major computer components do (and why they would choose to upgrade them) whilst allowing the more tech-savvy forumgoers to skip over the parts they already know and get straight into the recommendations.

With this in mind we will be splitting the guide up into multiple posts.  This first post is obviously an introduction and disclaimer post, so if you get the gist and are already bored by all of this then by all means you should jump to the next post.  Go on.  Do it.  Doooo iiiit.  

Ok!  So now that we've gotten rid of those jerks I can tell the rest of you that the second post will be a brief run-down of what all the different parts of a computer do, and how changing/upgrading each of those parts will affect the performance of your PC.  The aim here is to give people a sense of which bit they should be looking at replacing, depending on their own individual requirements.

The third post will attempt to break those components down into sub-categories based on price range and performance.  In this section we will try to be as general as possible, but I'm pretty sure that certain specific examples will need to be given so that people unfamiliar with the hardware are sure to fully understand what we're talking about.

The fourth post will be one of the most frequently-updated sections, in that it will contain specific examples of the parts talked about in posts two and three, as well as dated recommendations for different kinds of computers (ie: budget workstation, budget games machine, mid-range games pc, etc).

The fifth post will contain helpful links to information or reviews that will be added and updated as people contribute them.

Section 2 - "Which bit(s) of my computer should I upgrade if ..."
(Knowing the main PC components and how they affect performance)

Section 3 - "So, what are my options?"
(The different grades of component, and who needs what)

Section 4 - "I heard that X is better than Y, what do you think?"
(Recommendations and example builds for your budget)

Section 5 - "So where are you getting all this info from, anyway?"
(Suggested useful links for further reading)

so yeah, anyone object to the tone or the format?  if no-one really cares i'll just go ahead and write a first draft for each section, then people can nitpick and/or give constructive criticism/recommendations/new slabs of text to put in.  if people have strenuous objection to the way i've laid things out, however, i'm pretty open to suggestions on how it could be better.

[salada]

this all sounds pretty cool, but i think people are still going to post threads etc, they just mightn't be as clueless. i guess people would like to think that they are a special case or whatever, or that they still need to be helped through the process or something like that.

good idea though!

[est]

i'm sure that it's fairly obvious by now that i've lost pretty much all interest in doing this.

i'm gonna un-sticky this.  if anyone else wants to have a crack at it then go ahead.

[Rizzo]

ZOMBIE THREADDDD WOAAAARGH.

How do I tell if my motherboard has PCIe or AGP?
How do I find out what sort of motherboar I have short of ripping open the case?

My graphics card appears to be plugged into a slot that's slightly longer than the PCI slots below it but there is only one slot where the graphics card is.
The reason I ask is I've read that most PCIe motherboards have more than one PCIe slot on them (SLI etc etc). I've discovered that I can upgrade my card for cheap so I'm just trying to workout which kind I need.
I _think_ it's PCIe but advise would be good.

EDIT:
Looking in the control panel under System>Device Manager>Display Adapters>my graphics card.
It has the following text for it's location;
Location: PCI Slot 0 (PCI bus 2, device 0, function 0)
That means it's PCIe right?

[Catfish_Man]

ZOMBIE THREADDDD WOAAAARGH.
Location: PCI Slot 0 (PCI bus 2, device 0, function 0)
That means it's PCIe right?

How old is your computer? It could be a PCI card rather than PCI-E or AGP.

[moley]

what type of card do you have? if Nvidia, I know this should show you, if not it still probably should.

RMB on desktop > properties > settings > advanced

at the top of this window I have a tab for my nvidia card, you should have something similar, in the information it comes up with look for an item called 'Bus'

mine looks like this :

[Rizzo]

Hurrah! PCIe. Thanks heaps guys.