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Myth 3 : Our new processor will make your life much easier, really.
While both AMD and Intel will tell you that buying one of their newfangled Phenom or Core 2 processors will make your life easier and more meaningful, the truth is they are just processors, not miracles. It's not going to cut your workload by half or even make you a cup of coffee. So, before you decide on the processor you want to buy, ask these 3 very essential questions :
- What’s your budget?
- What is your intended purpose?
- Will the processor's deficiencies and/or advantages affect or benefit you?
Just remember that you do not necessarily benefit from the latest technology espoused by any CPU company. Take for example, virtualization. If you do not even know what it is, you do not need it. You can save money by opting for a model that does not support virtualization.
Also, does your applications and games support multi-core processors? Many games and applications are currently still optimized for dual-core processors. So, you may not necessarily benefit from the performance advantage of a quad-core processor, for example. On the other hand, if your applications and games support quad-core processing, then you will probably benefit from a quad-core processor instead of a faster dual-core processor.
As buying a processor also means buying the platform that runs it, it is a hefty investment overall. You should consider the pros and cons of the available processors and platforms before buying. Once you purchase a particular processor and platform, it would be very expensive to switch to a different processor/platform. Let's not forget the hassle of reinstalling the operating system, drivers and updates.
If you need advice on a particular processor or platform, you can ask our resident gurus in the Tech ARP forums.
Myth 4 : Our new graphics card will make your games run faster and look nicer!
Time to clear up a grave misconception. A new graphics card will not necessarily improve the performance of your games or even make them look nicer. Before you start quoting a few of our recent graphics card reviews, consider these factors.
If you are using a 15" or 17” monitor, then purchasing the powerful new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB graphics card would be overkill. There will not be a noticeable improvement in the speed of your games because the card's performance would be restricted by the CPU and other components. Even worse if you are only playing games like Warcraft III (DOTA) or O2 Jam.
You should also not fall for the marketing ploy that newer graphics cards are always faster and better than older models. For example, many gamers traded in their GeForce 7950 GT for the newer GeForce 8600 GT, expecting better performance and greater capabilities. The truth is, the GeForce 8600 GT is slower than the older and cheaper GeForce 7950 GT. Its only advantage is its support for DirectX 10. Unfortunately, it is still too slow in that respect for that advantage to matter.
So, it pays to read the reviews on the graphics card you are interested in. Even if you are not interested in reading about the technology or features of the card, it pays to at least check out the benchmark results that should be part of every review of a graphics card. Over here at Tech ARP, we run time demos of recent games at various resolutions and anti-aliasing modes in our reviews. For example, our review of the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB.
You should take a look at the benchmark results and look for the frame rate at the resolution that your monitor supports. Then you can judge if the purchase will deliver a significant improvement in the performance of your games. If the difference is not significant, you really do not need to upgrade. It would be better to save your money and wait for a faster card or use it to upgrade something else.
