Hardware The Best Hardware of 2010

I have to add - I hate the term fanboy - people are just expressing their opinions.

I switch between brands when I want to - have been using an AMD platform for a year as it seemed the best at the time I bought it - I have stuck with it as switching to intel would cost a lot of cash, whereas I could upgrade the CPU to a 1090T without too much outlay.

I have swapped between a 4870 to a 5770 and then to a 460 - purely because they seemed good at the time.

As I mentioned before, my next build will be an Intel merely to find out how much better they are - from the office i7 machines I have used, it doesnt feel that much, but then that is probably because they are basic motherboards with an i7 installed just to get sales.

I will have to make some more money so I can buy some more kit.. roll on 2011!

 

what did you do to the motherboard on page 2 (PS2 end of the board is bent up lol)

 

Good spot!

 

It must be one of those Aussie boomerang motherboard versions. Either that or one of the benchtechies sat on it!

 

I've heard they have a problem with keep rebooting...

 

No, they just won't come back!

 

The report said they "kept coming back" to the BIOS...

 

Why does every AMD/ATI guy think Price/Performance is king of everything?

My Ratings

1. Performance
2. Performance
3. Performance
4. Price

AMD Guys
1. Price
2. Price
3. Power use..
4. Heat/Noise (although I find it funny that the new AMD cards are noisy and hot it is ok now)
5. Performance

 

There are a lot of brandists on this forum...

 

True, they were the best for most of the year (I've got a 5870 atm), but the 580 is still better than them, even though it was released only relatively recently. The article was about the best hardware, not what was the best for the longest time.

 

Because some people have like, a budget?

 

It really is quite bothersome when people throw around broad generalizations. AMD lays claim to the most expensive video card of last generation with the 5970 ($700 USD for awhile) while Nvidia's arguably most successful card, the GTX460, gained fame for its excellent price-performance ratio.

You're looking at it from the wrong end, which is quite common when brands get involved. There are, I hope you're sitting for this one because it's a shocker, different people in this world. When the tastes of other people happen to coincide with the offers of a certain brand then they will buy from that brand. Why would you buy a product that didn't do what you wanted? So when a company offers lower power draw, for example, it's not exactly surprising to see people who worry about power draw buying their products.

Getting more specific, everyone is price-performance oriented. The only difference is which one is fixed and which is a variable. We're all familiar with the fixed price budget where people have $XXX to spend and get the best performing card which is at or below that price. You're just looking at it from a fixed performance variable budget perspective. Only thing is that your fixed level is set as high as possible so your budget varies to match the best performing card.

I buy off of fixed performance variable price, myself. Just that my fixed performance isn't above the top end. I wanted the cheapest card that would play all my games at max at my resolution. There are a handful that perform well enough, but the 5870 was the cheapest that still met the requirement. A few months later my friend wanted a similarly powered machine and ended up speccing him 2xGTX460s in SLI, but that's a different story.

 

if ever there's a dedicated fan, here's one.

what sloth said is spot on. different people have different view, arguing on the internet is simply pointless.

although i do find it funny that you've listed nvidia's bad points there: price, power and heat. and you've thought no nvidia user would care if their card is running at 100c or 60c.

 

I'm not a fan of any brand really. If ATI's new cards rocked the pants off the GTX 580's I would be running ATI now.

Currently I think Nvidia is winning on Price

AMD is on the bad side of noise/heat this time.

 

So, now you shoot straight to #4?

 

i went ati for ages but switched a year ago and the drivers for nvidia were just great - will never go back