Computers, and being an "Enthusiast"? What defines that?

[piasabird]

One of the last $500 Dollar builds at Toms Hardware they took a lower end processor and then spent the extra money on a better video card. Some processors like a G850 are good enough for most tasks but can save you some money. It is dual core at about 2.9 Ghz. It just has a lower end 2000HD Video. But if you are using a video card anyway that will not matter.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...uter,3374.html

I think the main difference is the i-3 is capable of 3D video.

[Gillbot]

When you have more parts than cases, build a system anyway then put it in a cardboard box so it's more easily transportable?

[NUSNA_Moebius]

Originally Posted by Idontcare

Smart

[Insert_Nickname]

Originally Posted by Zap

Old Abit board?

No, unfortunately. It's an MSI 694D Pro-AIR with dual PIII 933MHz, that I scrounged from work 'bout 8 years ago... (otherwise it would have gone in the proverbial trash-bin)

Was expensive as h*** back in the day.

[NTMBK]

Originally Posted by piasabird

One of the last $500 Dollar builds at Toms Hardware they took a lower end processor and then spent the extra money on a better video card. Some processors like a G850 are good enough for most tasks but can save you some money. It is dual core at about 2.9 Ghz. It just has a lower end 2000HD Video. But if you are using a video card anyway that will not matter.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...uter,3374.html

I think the main difference is the i-3 is capable of 3D video.

The Pentium doesn't have Hyperthreading (which helps in workloads with multiple threads), and AVX is disabled.

[NTMBK]

Originally Posted by bononos

Brings back memories when beige was king. Unfortunately my 300A was Costa Rican and couldn't do 450.

Is it wrong that I miss the beige? I really want to get an ancient ATX beige box with a Pentium II sticker on the front, and fill it full of modern high end goodness. Stealth box, no-one sees it coming

[guskline]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

I bought a store-bought computer, my first one that I didn't either build myself, or get as a hand-me-down from relative (my first PC during HS was given to me by my dad).

Guess what? It is adequate for my needs. Even though it's not overclocked. I *did*, however, put in a 120GB SSD, and a fresh install of Win7 64-bit HP, and eventually also added a LP NV GT430 card. So it's still souped-up a bit.

I bought it for a price that was less than what it would cost me to build it, so that's why I did. Couldn't pass up a bargain, and it uses less power than my previous rig (Edit: Previous - Q9300@3.0, new rig - SB G630), so it saves on the electric bill. Even doing distributed computing.

I do slightly feel like should hand in my "enthusiast/overclocker" badge, living with a store-bought computer running at stock speeds.

I still want to buy a Haswell next year and overclock it, but that may depend on my finances at the time. Plus, with AMD's rumored demise, and them getting out of the performance x86/x64 market, Intel may move prices up a notch for what you're getting.

Virtual Larry, my wife has a phrase for me "computer nut". I smile every time she tells me something is wrong with the computer I built her.

Computer enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes with all kind of machines. Though I'm nearly 62 I really only got into computers in the early 90s so I'm an amateur compared to some on this forum. Still remember my freshman year in college (1969-1970) trudging down to the keypunch room to type out our "program" for the CDC 6400 and having to stack the punch cards in order in a shoe box.

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by NTMBK

Is it wrong that I miss the beige? I really want to get an ancient ATX beige box with a Pentium II sticker on the front, and fill it full of modern high end goodness. Stealth box, no-one sees it coming

My memory of the first time computer aesthetics evolved such that it obsoleted a key eye-candy feature I liked was when they stopped making cases with the LED numbers that would should your clockspeed as well as the "turbo" button that you could push to toggle clockspeed (and be re-affirmed it worked because the LED number would change )

My vapophase LS had such an LED panel, blue instead of red though, but it gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies to program that screen to read "4GHz QX6700" back in the day

[Ferzerp]

Originally Posted by Idontcare

My memory of the first time computer aesthetics evolved such that it obsoleted a key eye-candy feature I liked was when they stopped making cases with the LED numbers that would should your clockspeed as well as the "turbo" button that you could push to toggle clockspeed (and be re-affirmed it worked because the LED number would change )

My vapophase LS had such an LED panel, blue instead of red though, but it gave me all kinds of warm fuzzies to program that screen to read "4GHz QX6700" back in the day

I always hated the turbo button because it was really a slow-down button in truth. It only existed because far too many software packages used the (at the time) 8Mhz clock as a reference instead of using a real timer, so the only way to make them run correctly was to limit your speed.

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by Ferzerp

I always hated the turbo button because it was really a slow-down button in truth. It only existed because far too many software packages used the (at the time) 8Mhz clock as a reference instead of using a real timer, so the only way to make them run correctly was to limit your speed.

LOL, I didn't say I used it! I just thought it was cool that you could, at the touch of a button, "deturbo" your computer. (and I always wondered who on earth did that)

There was one game though which I had to deturbo - Abrams Battle Tank It ran just fine on a 286 but if you loaded it onto a 386 or 486 then it ran so silly fast you couldn't function in the game. Deturbo to the recue

edit: attempting to correct the link, not sure why VB substituted the forums URL for the wikipedia URL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_Battle_Tank

[Ferzerp]

Your link is weird. it goes to forums . anandtech . com/Abrams Battle Tank

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by Ferzerp

Your link is weird. it goes to forums . anandtech . com/Abrams Battle Tank

Thanks for letting me know, that was a straight copy-paste URL job, something weird must have happened on the VB side of the fence?

[Martimus]

Originally Posted by Ferzerp

I always hated the turbo button because it was really a slow-down button in truth. It only existed because far too many software packages used the (at the time) 8Mhz clock as a reference instead of using a real timer, so the only way to make them run correctly was to limit your speed.

When I was a kid, I had an 8088 that had only a couple games on it. I used GW-BASIC to write my own games with it, and I used simple For loops for timing. Suffice it to say, any timed portion of the games I made were unplayable when I switched to a Pentium-60. I rewrote the loops on some of the games that I wanted to keep though to make up for it.

[piesquared]

I think being a computer enthusiast means that you are enthused/knowledgeable about computers. It in no way implies that you have to have the fastest benchmark rig possible. In fact there is no hardware requirement involved at all for IMO. I think having an E350, tinkering with it, learning about it, tinkering with the OS, etc. would certainly classify a person as an 'enthusiast'.

[Homeles]

Originally Posted by piesquared

I think being a computer enthusiast means that you are enthused/knowledgeable about computers.

I totally disagree with it being tied to knowledge. There are a lot of ignorant enthusiasts — in fact, I'd argue the vast, vast majority are. Myself included, despite how much time and effort I've put into learning. There is so much that I don't know on a low level; seeing as I have no insider knowledge, the best I can do is make wild assumptions.

It simply means you take interest in them, and says absolutely nothing about your gnosticism.

It in no way implies that you have to have the fastest benchmark rig possible. In fact there is no hardware requirement involved at all for IMO. I think having an E350, tinkering with it, learning about it, tinkering with the OS, etc. would certainly classify a person as an 'enthusiast'.

This I agree with. It makes me chuckle when someone tries to talk down on me because I don't have a quad-SLI 680s or something like that.

[VirtualLarry]

Originally Posted by piesquared

I think having an E350, tinkering with it, learning about it, tinkering with the OS, etc. would certainly classify a person as an 'enthusiast'.

Tinkering with the OS, perhaps, but I don't think it's possible to really "tinker" with an E-350 all-in-one board. That's probably the furthest from enthusiast you can get. Unless you consider adding a video card and SSD tinkering, which I guess that you could.

[piesquared]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

Tinkering with the OS, perhaps, but I don't think it's possible to really "tinker" with an E-350 all-in-one board. That's probably the furthest from enthusiast you can get. Unless you consider adding a video card and SSD tinkering, which I guess that you could.

Well it could be just me then true, but if I had an E350 the first thing i'd do is rip into the BIOS and see what I could play with, find software that I could use to rampage through the settings and play with the dedicated IGP memory, etc.(like AOD, Catalyst or CPU Tweaker maybe). I don't mean physically tinker but with software to manipulate things internal.

[Homeles]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

Tinkering with the OS, perhaps, but I don't think it's possible to really "tinker" with an E-350 all-in-one board. That's probably the furthest from enthusiast you can get. Unless you consider adding a video card and SSD tinkering, which I guess that you could.

Hard mods?

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by piesquared

I think being a computer enthusiast means that you are enthused/knowledgeable about computers. It in no way implies that you have to have the fastest benchmark rig possible. In fact there is no hardware requirement involved at all for IMO. I think having an E350, tinkering with it, learning about it, tinkering with the OS, etc. would certainly classify a person as an 'enthusiast'.

I agree with the latter part but not the "knowledgeable" portion of the first sentence only because of what Homeles says.

Originally Posted by Homeles

I totally disagree with it being tied to knowledge. There are a lot of ignorant enthusiasts — in fact, I'd argue the vast, vast majority are. Myself included, despite how much time and effort I've put into learning. There is so much that I don't know on a low level; seeing as I have no insider knowledge, the best I can do is make wild assumptions.

It simply means you take interest in them, and says absolutely nothing about your gnosticism.

Being an enthusiast is about the journey, and electing to take the journey of one's own volition, and not about the destination.

Look at me for example, it was only just 2yrs ago that I wrote up this completely wrong POS of a thread on clockspeed and Vcc versus power consumption

Why did I make that thread? Because I enjoyed the process, I was enthusiastic about the journey. Why was it wrong? Because despite having a PhD and having years of experience with semiconductors I totally managed to brain-fart and forget to capture the effects of temperature on power-consumption

Come back 3 weeks later and you have this thread, correctly incorporating the device physics that belay the impact of temperature on power consumption in addition to operating voltage and clockspeed.

Knowledge was generated in the process, but would I have bothered to undertake such an endeavour if I wasn't enthusiastic (curious) to see what I could find out with those tests?

I think most people in this forum have a unifying commonality, we are all curious about stuff going on with computers and technology. Be it the process tech, the business management aspects, the economics, the software side of things, and the hardware of course etc. We are all here because, unlike the people who wouldn't take the time to be in these forums, we find it (the journey) of discovering things we previously did not know about to be well worth the time invested in being here. We are enthusiastic about it.

[piesquared]

Originally Posted by Idontcare

I agree with the latter part but not the "knowledgeable" portion of the first sentence only because of what Homeles says.



Being an enthusiast is about the journey, and electing to take the journey of one's own volition, and not about the destination.

Look at me for example, it was only just 2yrs ago that I wrote up this completely wrong POS of a thread on clockspeed and Vcc versus power consumption

Why did I make that thread? Because I enjoyed the process, I was enthusiastic about the journey. Why was it wrong? Because despite having a PhD and having years of experience with semiconductors I totally managed to brain-fart and forget to capture the effects of temperature on power-consumption

Come back 3 weeks later and you have this thread, correctly incorporating the device physics that belay the impact of temperature on power consumption in addition to operating voltage and clockspeed.

Knowledge was generated in the process, but would I have bothered to undertake such an endeavour if I wasn't enthusiastic (curious) to see what I could find out with those tests?

I think most people in this forum have a unifying commonality, we are all curious about stuff going on with computers and technology. Be it the process tech, the business management aspects, the economics, the software side of things, and the hardware of course etc. We are all here because, unlike the people who wouldn't take the time to be in these forums, we find it (the journey) of discovering things we previously did not know about to be well worth the time invested in being here. We are enthusiastic about it.

I agree knowledgeable was the wrong choice of word. What I should have said was 'eager and willing to learn and understand'. Knowledge is a byproduct of that.

[2is]

Originally Posted by 2is

You're an enthusiest if you bust out your box of old components, put together a functional computer, install an OS on there and when you're done, think to yourself "now why the !@#$ did I just waste my time on this???"

Originally Posted by Idontcare

Being an enthusiast is about the journey, and electing to take the journey of one's own volition, and not about the destination.

I'm glad we agree. Lol

[Homeles]

Originally Posted by piesquared

I agree knowledgeable was the wrong choice of word. What I should have said was 'eager and willing to learn and understand'. Knowledge is a byproduct of that.

Eh... there's some so-called enthusiasts that are perfectly fine with staying ignorant...

[Jacky60]

While your reasoning for buying the shop build rig is entirely correct I do feel you should hand in the badge at the desk and leave by the back door. Hang your head in shame

[Idontcare]

Originally Posted by Homeles

Eh... there's some so-called enthusiasts that are perfectly fine with staying ignorant...

And we are ok with them being referred to as "so-called" enthusiasts, so it all works out in the end after all