Fun Stuff > CLIKC
proposal: Computer purchasing F.A.Q thread
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"
--- Quote from: first post in the thread ---
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.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: second post in the thread ---
Section 2 - "Which bit(s) of my computer should I upgrade if ..."
(Knowing the main PC components and how they affect performance)
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: third post in the thread ---
Section 3 - "So, what are my options?"
(The different grades of component, and who needs what)
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: fourth post in the thread ---
Section 4 - "I heard that X is better than Y, what do you think?"
(Recommendations and example builds for your budget)
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: fifth post in the thread ---
Section 5 - "So where are you getting all this info from, anyway?"
(Suggested useful links for further reading)
--- End quote ---
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.
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