Bits Misinterpreting The Enthusiast

Ambiguity cheesecake? Are you guys that desperate for the cheesecake thing to catch on?

Nice article, anyways. Ah, the days of BH-5 and the P4 2.4c. Suffice to say, I've not bought the super-premium memory again since having spent $300 on a 1GB kit of CAS-2.5 PC4000, coughing up the extra fifty bucks to avoid the horribly slow *rolls eyes* CAS-3. It still pains me to think that I spent $80 on 4GB of much faster DDR2 a month or two ago.

I'm glad that the market has simplified itself somewhat, but so much of it still seems like a waste. What I - and many others, I expect - want in a motherboard is something stable, performs as it should, and has plenty of USB and SATA ports. That's it. Seriously. If it works and I can plug all my crap into it, I'm happy.

 

or those like me trying to get decent visualizations on specialist applications without paying the premium for enterprise grade tools ($1500 for 2 8800 Ultras or $3000 for 1 Quadro FX 5600?)

the higher end "enthusiast" parts are actually a good alternative to businesses who need power but don't want to pay workstation manufacturers through the nose.

 

I believe that a lot of the price premium in the Quadro is for the certification process.

 

I thought it was to do with CAD optimized software

 

You're right in a sense - it revolves around the certification processes for the big workstation apps. See here: http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_certified_drivers.html

 

I remember back in the socket A days where you had an option of getting a motherboard without all the extra useless crap built in, I wanted one of those SOYO boards so bad too. Now I only see their name on those $300 24" LCDs at Office Max.

 

I do really wish motherboard makers got thier prices back down. I remember in the 939 days when you could get a really high end board for ~£110 with the tip-top performers going for ~£150. ~£250 (forgetting skulltrail) is just plain silly!

 

Thanks all

I have to say, thank Tim too as he put in considerable effort to keep me pointing in the right direction, turning a rant into a read

 

Man, you guys hit it on the head. Send me your PayPal and I will freaking buy you a drink of your choice.

I remember 250 1:1 on a 2500+ on a Shuttle AN35N Ultra that I vmodded. I remember buying a few 1700+ looking for a JIUHB. I then remember buying 2500+s looking for AIXDA steppings. I remember when the top of the line video card cost 250 and were thought our asses were sore then...

Fast forward, I DO own a 4 card system, without drivers for it to boot, and I'm RMAing a flaky board-a problem I've had more and more recently. Performance boards seem to go fast, if they go at all. My K9A2 Plat ran like a banshee, the three times it loaded Windows. It's now an expensive paperweight. Good thing it's 4 days old...

As far as innovation, check out my project log currently. I'm designing everything myself that can be done myself-blocks, loops, case, all reservoirs/flow balancing, etc. If I can't make it, I'm shelling out the dosh to get the tools or have it done, in one case. Some of us are trying to be innovative, but it gets harder and harder...

Great article. You've made my day brighter knowing I'm in a community of like minds.

 

actually the quadro doeshave some unique hardware. the FX5600 has 1.5 GB of video mem (2x what an ultra has) and also has unique 2D/3D clipping hardware that allows it to render only certain sections of a frame in directX

still too expensive when 2 ultras are just as good

 

Great article; when I really got into computers in middle school and high school it was just for fun to push performance since I didn't have a lot of money but plenty of time to mess around with things and get them working. Recently though with the demands of college and knowing in a year I'll be working a full time job with 40-60 hours a week I won't have the same amount of free time. I'll probably end up spending more money because it's not worth it to spend 4-5 hours reading different motherboard reviews to find the trick to overclock and volt mod and I'd rather just have something that does it all for me. I know this isn't the case for everyone but to me it seems a natural progression of the industry.

This whole situation reminds me of a quote from my dad:

Enthusiasts will adapt and so will the market, however long it might take.

 

Nice article, nice norks too.

 

Nice read, but .. Was I the only one (looking at the title and indeed the picture) who thought this was going to be about something completely different?

 

As sad as it makes me to read this article I have to agree with all of it, I upgraded my PC recently and was frustrated that I didn't really have a choice in what I wanted to buy, all the motherboard designs are virtually the same with the same performance and the same garish features. What happened to simple and powerful boards which were stable and didn't have a million and one features you'd probably never use. The industry has stagnated into rigid grooves of repetition, almost never bringing in new concepts but just repeating the same old solution because it works, when did the last revolutionary products come out? The motherboard I bought three years ago supported 8gb of RAM had 8 SATA ports and 2 PATA ports and now, I bought a motherboard last week which supports 8gb of RAM, 6 SATA ports, 1 PATA port, virtually the same layout and it cost twice the price of the old one yet the performance increase is about 30 to 40%. So many improvements could be made, EFI, sole use of PCI-E, sole use of SATA but they rather choose the route perceived less risk. If you follow a groove you are less likely to fall over and break your neck. I can't help but draw parallels to the gaming market crash in the 80s, the market is flooded by all the same overpriced goods with nothing standing out from the rest. The world of computing has changed and unfortunately there is very little we can do about it.

 

I'm not sure what to make of this. When I built my current machine (winter of 05-06) I spent a lot of time figuring out exactly what I wanted and then built it. The result was a machine that was unique to me and one that probably no one else would want. I also know that this box will still be serving me well long after most of the consumer and enthusiest machines of the same generation have been relegated to fileservers and firewalls.

I'll be the first to admit it though, I'm a sucker for obscure hardware. Despite the fact that a single 8800 would give better performance at a lower price, i'm still salicating over wanting a pair of 7950 GX2s. Never mind the fact that they're not that practical, and will unboubtably come with some headaches to get running, I still want them. I have a PCI slot reserved for a Phys-X card some day too.

Where am I going with all this? I'm not evn sure now. Oh yeah, just that the large e-peen is a valid market segment and a lucrative one. So too are the "performance at any cost" and the "out of control overclockers". There is also a market segment for the plain vanilla boards with lots of potential, and I think that segment is being underserved in the current market.

 

Cthippo.. you better get that PhysX card soon, after it gets integrated with nVidia's cards via CUDA who knows how much longer they'll stick around.

 

I dont know, but it was definately the picture that got me to click through, lol, who is it anyway?

 

That was a really good article.

The same thing is happening everywhere though.

I know in the last ten years it's happened with dirtbikes (another hobby of mine). When I was growing up, everyone had one, and when they broke we would fix them, ride them again, fix them, ride them......and we never had any downtime. I remember one time my uncle changed out the engine of his bike in the back of his truck, patched it up with some plumbing putty he had in his truck, and road the rest of the weekend.

Just last weekend I went up riding with a few of my buddies and the scene has completely changed. 10 year olds ride around without knowing even how to start their bikes, everybody have matching gear so when they ride by all I see is green (if they own a Kawasaki) Instead of work trucks and tents everyone has 75-ft triple opening, stretch trailers. And if the bike breaks it doesn't matter because , "Daddy" paid for the extended service plan and he'll be back in an hour with a brand new bike.

To me everything seems to be like this. Hobbies and crafts are less popular because you can buy most anything cheaper than you can make it. Not to mention that everything is a fad. I don't know anymore, I feel like a lone ranger when I ditch my friends to work on my computer case or rework the audio in my car. I guess it all comes down to the has and the has-nots. My parents never really bought me anything that I didn't need so when I want something I try to spend the least amount of money getting it. And if that means spending 2 nights working on an aluminum radiator grill just so I don't have to pay AC Ryan $26+ Shipping for something practically everyone has then so be it. At least mine's one-of-a-kind.

 

Good read as always

One of my pet peeves is CPU reviews where they use a top end MB to overclock a low end / mid-range CPU and claim what a great overclocker it is. If it requires a $300+ board you'd be better off buying a cheaper board and spending the extra on a higher clocked CPU. Being an enthusiast is about finding that balance - not about buying the top end of everything (or maybe not even the top end of anything).

Not unless they get all the DRM and digital cable / satellite tuner issues sorted. Otherwise that market will die fast

I think they are

I too was wondering what the article might be about when I saw the pic. But I think they got it right - marketers are using whatever they can (including sexy images) to get us to buy their brand but the real enthusiast is (/should be) interested in the actual hardware - not the marketing pitch (no matter how good the "software" looks ).

 

I think in general it was a good article, one that many of us can empathize with.

But let's face it, many on here are the lemmings who pay the silly money for 'enthusiast' components purely for bragging rights.

Personally, I'm always chasing bang for buck... I've owned an FX5900XT, and GeForce 6600, a Pentium 805, a 7900GTO, an E6600, a P5B Deluxe and a Q6600. Many of us have tried a 2B pencil mod, or use nTune/ATI Tool/Rivatuner and other tools & techniques to make a more modest component perform like it's more expensive 'enthusiast' brethren.

I reckon the major OEM will be reading sites like BT and the other geek fora, but they aren't going to change their habits because too many people are buying the over-specced expensive toys that we are objecting to here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you agree with Bindi, let your buying habits be the message to the OEMs, and in time they will listen.