Are you a computer hotshot expert pro to the extreme?

Oddler

Oddler

Member
I'm not! lol

I'm looking at everyones profiles in this forum and a lot of you have your computers specs listed in it. I'm sure to a lot of you it makes perfect sense and you can appreciate what another persons computer is packin'. I checked online for the meanings to some of the terms listed in peoples computer specs and they would give such technical meanings I couldn't understand.

Could you ,as best you can, explain what a lot of the important specs do and mean in laymans language (easy to understand:) ). The reason is I want to buy a new computer but I no longer remember what everything does from CPU to RAM to GPU to the other things people list as important specs to show off.

I was telling my mom I wanted to buy a new computer and said how mine was shit and too slow. I told her the difference between my computer and hers and said my RAM has 512 and hers has 1 Gigabyte. When I told her she had one gig instead of 512 megs she frowned as if it were a bad thing lol...we're both in the same boat kinda and don't know what RAM CPU GPU Mhz and everything else people list and the values in numerical values displayed next to it mean.

Could anyone with knowledge of what those all mean and knowledge of what the fast specs of today are etc help a clueless guy out?
 
For CPU Mhz, pretty much anything after 2.8 is pretty fast. 3.2 is really fast.

As far as RAM, 2G is pretty normal. Some people have 4 and some have 1, but 2 is pretty solid. 512 is pretty bad. That is half of 1G or a quarter of 2Gs.

GPUs, for Nvidia cards is pretty much, the higher the number the better/faster/more advanced the card. I have a 7900, which is good for DX9 gaming (windows xp). After the 7900 there are the 8 series cards such as the 8300, 8800, and the 8900, the card getting better the higher the number. And recently released was the 9 series cards, which are high performance, top of the line DX10 cards (windows vista). 8 series is for DX10 as well.

For harddrives, all the numbers mean is howmuch it can actually store, and how fast it can store/recall data.

other than that, people might list how big their monitor is, what kind of keyboard or mouse they have, or what kind of PSU they have.

Hope that helped, just ask if you still need stuff cleared up
 
Thanks GSAV55. That cleared up a bit of my questions but opened a few more. hehe

I"m looking to get a good computer but I do a lot of work with Photoshop, After Effects etc. Takes a lot of oomph! to run them and can lag if your computer is as bad as mine.
What's the difference between how RAM and CPU effect the computer in an everyday situation?
 
The CPU processes and calculates everything. A slow CPU can cause slower renders in those programs, as it takes longer to calculate the effects. RAM on the other hand is used for rapidly storing and recalling random information. It stores the CPUs calculations and other important data that needs do be immediately accessible, but not in any particular order. The more RAM you have, the more calculations it can store and recall, which also increases your system's speed.

So you want to have a good balance of CPU speed and RAM size to optimize your computer's performance. You could have an amazing CPU, but if you have hardly any RAM your computer could still move slow. The opposite is true too. You could have 8Gs of RAM but if you have a slow, crappy CPU, then you arent doing the calculations at an adequate speed, and therefore have a slow comp as well.

You just need to find the balance between the two. 2G of RAM and at least 2.4Mhz CPU would give you some good performance in those applications, with windows xp (not sure about vista).
 
Keep in mind when you're shopping around that hard drive space and how much memory it has are pretty insignificant. In other words, I see many OEM companies sell systems with fairly crappy processors, motherboards, video cards, etc...and jack the memory (ram) and hard drive space through the roof in order to "dupe" people who aren't computer savvy.

The main reason I say this besides the fact that I see it happen often, is that hard drive space and ram are cheap. You can always buy more if you need them. The processor and motherboard are easily the 2 most important components in a system, with the video card also important if you're a gamer.

For memory (ram), I would just make sure the max capacity the system can handle is at least 4GB.

The other main place that OEM companies "screw" buyers is in the video card area...or lack thereof. Many of them come with onboard graphics only...or integrated video. If you want to game, that is bad.

If you find a cheaper system with a nice processor, decent everything else, whatever...but it has onboard graphics...you can always buy a video card separate and install that later.

Don't be afraid to run some systems you find online by us. We will let you know what we think.
 
To evaluate CPUs, it isn't about clock speed anymore. I mean we had over 3Ghz clock speeds years ago, and yet our newest processor come out with lower clock speeds.

Lots of features make up a processor:

-Cache
-instruction sets
-multi cores
-power consumption
-heat radiance
-architecture
-front side bus speed

It is no longer just about clock speed. A 2.0Ghz Core 2 duo will blow a P4 3.2Ghz out of the water, and wouldn't even break a sweat doing so.
 
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