Quote from Akemii;525025:
This might sound stupid, but all these part names confuse me. How do you know ram stick thingy G31879327B83A is better than Ram Stick thingy G9471328947B804808A?
Like I don't get how you can tell stuff like that, so many random numbers and letters and dashes
you dont look at the name
you look at the details
CPU
The CPU is the brain of the computer. Does all the processing stuff... like your brain.
-the frequency which is measured in Ghz, usually more = faster. but architecture of the CPU plays a much bigger role. That's why a 2.0 Ghz AMD Anthlon 64 is faster than a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 (terrible example but it still shows the point. architecture is something you read about)
-caches. basically caches of memory in a CPU. When a CPU has to do something complicated, all this goes to the memory caches. Level 1 cache receives it first because its the fastest. when it runs out of memory, it goes to the next level which is slower. Dont need to really know
-Architecture is the MOST important aspect. The names of processors like Sandy Bridge, Phenom, Pentium 4 is the name of their architecture. It affects every aspect of a CPU, power usage, heat management, frequency, etc.
-Components of an architecture includes a microarchitecture and cores. Microarchitecture handles processing. A CPU is made up of cores (physically). You see dual core, quad core, 6 core, 8 cores. which is pointless because video games nowadays only need four cores to max out.
You have to research on the architectures of different CPUs. Here's the trends of most popular companys when it comes to CPUS
Intel- expensive but the strongest CPUs on the market
AMD- Cheaper for almost similar performance... although they're getting owned by Sandy bridge
Video Cards
The thing that displays whatever you see on your screen. Video games depend on this more than the CPU because everything has pretty graphics. (except for starcraft 2)
Video cards have a core that functions the same way as a CPU except it makes pixels. Unlike CPUs, you just need to know the frequency, which ranges from 500-600+ nowdays.
-Memory. The amount of memory a video card can hold. usually in the card's name like Radeon HD 6XXX 1GB. Not an important aspect.
-Memory speed. measured in Ghz and tells how smooth your images would be on screen since there's more pixels per second. Also depends on what memory you use like DDR3 or DDR2 RAM. It'll say GDDR3 or GDDR2 on the card's name. GDDR3's format is superior to GDDR2 even with slightly lower Ghz
Types of video cards
-integrated ones... ignore
-dedicated/standalone buy
Main video card brands
-nVidia Geforce card: Expensive as hell but the strongest in the market.
-AMD's Radeon cards: Cheaper, similar performance alternatives
don't listen to people when trying to decide between. Everyone has some sort of bias.
You have low-end cards which are $100 or less. Can play old games easy like Mabinogi easy
and there's medium cards that are $100 to $200. Best price to performance ratio out of all tiers. Can play games like Left 4 Dead, Battlefield.
and there's the highend/enthusiast cards that are more than $200. The prices scales terribly with performance but they max most/all games.
okay break time