Hardware Elitism - a tech scourge that needs to die.

[Mussels]

Not sure harassed is the right word but I have been accused of not being a computer enthusiast on several occasions for all sorts of reasons that make no sense to me. For example, because I am not a hard-core gamer, I can't be a computer enthusiast. Or because my CPU is not a "K" model. Or because I don't over-clock or because I cool with air instead of liquid. Most recently it was because I stated I'm not into RGB lighting. Never mind the fact I've been into computers since the early 70s when I literally stood inside a NORAD mainframe consisting of more than 67,000 vacuum tube diodes. Or when I started overclocking, it involved cutting motherboard traces and soldering in jumpers. But then that's when 32KB of RAM was "more than you will ever need!" Oh well.

You are clearly not PC Master Race if you dont overclock with lots of RGB because a stock clocks box with no customisation might we well be an office PC or a [whispers satanically] Game console [/whispering]

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

You are clearly not PC Master Race if you dont overclock with lots of RGB because a stock clocks box with no customisation might we well be an office PC or a [whispers satanically] Game console [/whispering]

i cant tell if this is a joke or not

 

[mouacyk]

There are those who underbuild.
Those who overbuild.
And those who build just right.

 

[SenditMakine]

So, I'm posting this as a reaction to a few recent threads where I've seen people being ridiculed for having a 'below par' hardware set-up. Whether that be a lower level GFX card, a lower core CPU, or an AIO from DELL, a portion of the community reaction has been absolutely appalling. I made some life choices and have the fortune of a stable, mediocre salary and no kids. My last great PC splurge was a 2080ti. The last time I would spend 4 figures on what to me is a toy (and that came from an inheritance). And I class myself as fortunate. There are more people on this forum who can't buy 'top end' kit than those that do. And ocassionally, a thread appears where someone posts about what they've bought. Those who buy something that doesn't meet some magical 'tech standard' appear to be mocked.

It's a disgrace. A dispicable representation of the worst of ourselves.

Maybe I'm being harsh but last time I mocked somebody for being less fortunate than myself was... no wait, I'm not that much of an arsehole. And before you all get antsy and say TPU is a tech forum; that doesn't excuse the elitism that has begun to appear. Who cares what somebody buys - what we're here to do is support and advise. TPU is a community that has a broad spectrum of incomes and expenditure. Certainly, as the world has turned, hardware is getting more and more expensive. Not everybody is earning more and more cash. Heads up, I earn less than my nations average income (no kids goes a long way to making it easier to buy shit I actually don't need). It's hard for me to justify a £1000 gfx card these days.

So, when somebody buys something that might not be cutting edge, it's a loser's move to make fun of it. TPU is about tech, whether it's the cheapest, or the most expensive. We should make that person feel happy with their purchase, perhaps advise on future improvements. Certainly, laughing emoji's posted as a response to a purchase are pathetic. They say more about the member's reaction than they do about the OP's purchase. Tech starts as a bargain bucket purchase. Or a hand-me-down. By the way, feel free to Pay It Forward. It can climb all the way to a HOF RTX 3090. And just as the budget scale, it shows weakness to mock someone spending at the other end. Tech is tech. People have different budgets. Whatever that budget, TPU should offer support. Not condemnation. Certainly not mockery.

Just my two cents about some very disturbing recent trends. As a mod. If I see it happening, I'll just start handing out infractions left, right and centre.

If you can't support the community, why are you even here?

100% agreed, although most of the comments (imo) are from genuinely good and helpful people it's really a deal breaker to see some schmucks making people feel bad about their achievements.
As for myself I can proudly say that my time in this community has been one of the best (if not the best at all) times I've spent on social media. Lots of people that are actually interested on something specific you posted chatting together about that topic is just magic.
I'm really proud of this community and the people that make it really great

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

There are those who underbuild.
Those who overbuild.
And those who build just right.

their is no such thing as under or over
their is building for what you want

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

What, now there's elitism, you're joking, I joined owning a q6600 and lived /just about somehow managed to survive years of FX ownership, it's not new.
I always want the best I can get, it just gets exceeded too quickly in a way and obviously I can't afford the best, one part a year average.

 

[SenditMakine]

So everybody should drive a corolla? There are so many variables you can add to you problems...and every single person will feel different in some way. Just offer good advice, try to help..maybe learn. That is why I come here....not to be personal and as humans we should all have thick skin, patience and understanding. I know the personal part is tough being human also...its what we do.

Yes, that's exactly what most of the comments here sounds like. Really helpful people.

 

[dragontamer5788]

What, now there's elitism, you're joking, I joined owning a q6600 and lived /just about somehow managed to survive years of FX ownership, it's not new.
I always want the best I can get, it just gets exceeded too quickly in a way and obviously I can't afford the best, one part a year average.

Pffff. A FX is more of a secondary computer, you should get a REAL primary computer.

More seriously, with computers getting so fast these days, the "minimum enthusiast's computer" is surprisingly old. I'd say Haswell (DDR4, AVX2, PCIe 3.0) covers most of people's needs today. Obviously, newer stuff is better, but you're going to be playing with most of the modern tech stack even on a computer from 2014.

The exceptions are PCIe 4.0 / NVMe stuff. But the PCIe 4.0 GPUs aren't even that much faster than PCIe 3.0 in any benchmarks I'm aware of. So really, PCIe 4.0 advantages seem to be limited to the $200+ / TB PCIe 4.0 tier of SSDs (which IMO, are above the price/performance point I care to buy). The mainstream is served well with ~$100 / TB SSDs IMO, and those go full-tilt even on an old Haswell from 2014.

----------

In practice, the only "elitism" that I seem to come across are GPUs. But that's likely to do with marketing: either RTX elitism or other fancy features. Having the latest and greatest GPU seems to be a perpetual ego-boosting game played by pretty much everyone. But given how these parts are marketed, that's only natural. Hmmmm... I guess there's also a degree of elitism on monitor gaming specs.

Strangely enough: high-performance artist monitors (such as high color gamut / color accuracy) don't seem to be a major point of elitism. Its mostly just the gamer community IMO.

 

[Wirko]

Reminds me of Harley riders who refuse to wave to the rest of us mere mortals.

Some wave to me, and I ride a bicycle.

 

[Bill_Bright]

You are clearly not PC Master Race if you dont overclock with lots of RGB because a stock clocks box with no customisation might we well be an office PC or a [whispers satanically] Game console [/whispering]

LOL

I guess not.

i cant tell if this is a joke or not

That's part of the problem. Some times it is obvious. Other times, it is not.

In this case, it is completely obvious Mussels was being totally serious and meant to belittle and chastise for my clear lack of enthusiasm towards computers.

 

[Shrek]

More seriously, with computers getting so fast these days, the "minimum enthusiast's computer" is surprisingly old. I'd say Haswell (DDR4, AVX2, PCIe 3.0) covers most of people's needs today.

You are scaring me, my main machine is a Core 2 with DDR3 RAM and I keep DDR2 machines up to date as backup.

 

[tussinman]

There's alot of elitism and over-reaction in PC hardware.

I've been hearing for 4 years now about how my quad core i7 is "a major bottleneck" yet I currently play every game on very high settings. Anything over 2 years old = "uhhhh bottleneck uhhhhh"

My favorite is "uhh that 4 year old mid-range card lacks V-ram, that's the issue not that it's a 4 years old" (reality: the 8GB competitor to that card literally DOES NOT perform any better.........)

 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

In this case, it is completely obvious Mussels was being totally serious and meant to belittle and chastise for my clear lack of enthusiasm towards computers.

i still cant tell if this is a joke

 

[Mussels]

i cant tell if this is a joke or not

more like quoting the mantra of the elitists
There are genres amongst computer users, and they all want to think they're the pinnacle

Intel K users? the best because we overclock
AMD owners? the best cause they bucked the trend and didnt get intel! (and now zen3 genuinely is amazing, the early adopters are double smug)
Nvidia owners? expensive but i paid for 'the best' dont be jealous
Custom water? totally better than AIO
high end air coolers? low maintenance is for SMART people
linux users? apple users? win 7 die hards? you get the idea. For every tiny difference, people think it makes them better somehow.

And then the silly stuff like my personal favourite, the multi monitor trend.... and the extra screens just have discord or something that could be done in an overlay


I kinda toe the line because my main PC is an elitists dream, 5800x + 3090 with 64GB of ram? i keep forgetting it's top tier, because i'm used to being mid tier at best. I got lucky.
Then theres my junk PC's i make from spare parts in a cave while being held hostage by terrorists, where i watercool a wraith stealth without a radiator cause im too stingy to buy extra parts at new prices so i also fit in with the budget ghetto crowd that make do with whatevers on hand

 

[R-T-B]

You are clearly not PC Master Race if you dont overclock with lots of RGB because a stock clocks box with no customisation might we well be an office PC or a [whispers satanically] Game console [/whispering]

Noob. I am frog.

 

[r9]

You are clearly not PC Master Race if you dont overclock with lots of RGB because a stock clocks box with no customisation might we well be an office PC or a [whispers satanically] Game console [/whispering]

Can't stand unicorn vomit just fucking pick a color.

There's alot of elitism and over-reaction in PC hardware.

I've been hearing for 4 years now about how my quad core i7 is "a major bottleneck" yet I currently play every game on very high settings. Anything over 2 years old = "uhhhh bottleneck uhhhhh"

My favorite is "uhh that 4 year old mid-range card lacks V-ram, that's the issue not that it's a 4 years old" (reality: the 8GB competitor to that card literally DOES NOT perform any better.........)

VRAM is definitely direct proportional to ePen.

There are those who underbuild.
Those who overbuild.
And those who build just right.

And about every single person reading your post (me included) find themselves in the last group. lol

 

[Mussels]

Can't stand unicorn vomit just fucking pick a color.


VRAM is definitely direct proportional to ePen.

i actually went the expensive route of good software controllers so i can go static lighting per LED - ARGB is wasted on rainbow or every single LED On the same colour
I went lemon-lime themed at one point with alternating yellow and green for every LED (also the official aussie colours)

I have a lot of Epen apparently

 

[hat]

What do you expect you don't even have a discrete GPU.

Neither does my fiancee, even though I built her computer personally. Why? Because she doesn't need a 3090 to play the games she plays.

I know we got a few gearheads in this forum. I think my 04 Civic with ~210k miles on it is one of the best vehicles I could have. Why? Because I don't have a fat enough wallet to afford a "better" car when mine gets great gas mileage and hasn't broken down yet. What good does buying a new vehicle do me, whether it's built for performance or efficiency, when I really can't afford one (unless I'm forced to) and mine does what I need? I'm certainly not buying a new v8 Mustang to make Mr. Whoever, Car Enthusiast on TPU happy with me.

 

[r9]

i actually went the expensive route of good software controllers so i can go static lighting per LED - ARGB is wasted on rainbow or every single LED On the same colour
I went lemon-lime themed at one point with alternating yellow and green for every LED (also the official aussie colours)

I have a lot of Epen apparently

I don't know how you walk without stepping on that thing. lol

 

[Mussels]

I don't know how you walk without stepping on that thing. lol

cable ties

 

[r9]

Neither does my fiancee, even though I built her computer personally. Why? Because she doesn't need a 3090 to play the games she plays.

I know we got a few gearheads in this forum. I think my 04 Civic with ~210k miles on it is one of the best vehicles I could have. Why? Because I don't have a fat enough wallet to afford a "better" car when mine gets great gas mileage and hasn't broken down yet. What good does buying a new vehicle do me, whether it's built for performance or efficiency, when I really can't afford one (unless I'm forced to) and mine does what I need? I'm certainly not buying a new v8 Mustang to make Mr. Whoever, Car Enthusiast on TPU happy with me.

The discrete car comment was sarcasm and I find out that can't use my phone keyboard to post emoji.
Regarding the car comment was talking about people that would spend insane amount of money on a hardware so they can shame others and feel important.
There is nothing wrong with having a Civic or using an APU.

 

[Grog6]

The stuff I have I feel the most snobbish about most people wouldn't care about, or even understand, in some cases.
EISA SCSI and Data AQ cards, RAMBUS...

 

[Shrek]

There is nothing wrong with having a Civic

I'm a Civic snob; mine was one of the first with VTEC-E technology which I feel is downright clever Engineering.

 

[Grog6]

I don't know you but I've seen people being ridiculed for buying high end Hardware, that said it's not just one side but both

I felt ridiculous for spending $ 600 for a 7970 card; The thought of spending $2k for a card is just not gonna happen.


I saw a split block yesterday. He came by on Friday to show me his new wet nitrous kit.

 

[Bill_Bright]

the silly stuff like my personal favourite, the multi monitor trend....

Hey! Don't knock multi-monitors until you've learned to live with them for awhile. Chances are, you will wonder how you ever lived with just one. And "trend"? Ummm, no. I've had a multi-monitor setup since W95 was a newborn. If there's any trend, it only due to some finally catching on.

You can have my full sized keyboard and mouse, and 2 x 24" monitors when you can pry them out of my cold, dead hands.