Misinterpreting The Enthusiast

Awesome article! I really couldn't agree more with you on this issue. Alot of the power has been taken from out of our (the enthusiasts) hands these days. Options really are dwindling in terms of the high-end hardware available. There is an advantage though: Many people just getting into building their own systems have it relatively easy (after they get over some sticker-shock, of course) when looking into what hardware to buy. They really can't go too horribly wrong. I think alot of us in the bit-tech community and elsewhere have resorted to looking for the best (read: most cost-effective) boards out there and making them stretch theri legs. The P35 chipset is an excellent example of this, and as long as there's boards like that out there, we will always have a nice reliable, refined, and tweakable platform. Sure, it's not like the old days by a long shot, but man is it more forgiving if you don't get something right the first time.

I always thrive on buying up the 'just behind the cutting edge' hardware at bargain basement prices. I just love it. To think; I just bought a new system to game on for under $1000 that absolutely spanks the tar out of my current 4-year-old system, and can hang with the latest and greatest out there too. To me, that's what being an 'enthusiast' is all about.

Originally Posted by MrWizard

I always thrive on buying up the 'just behind the cutting edge' hardware at bargain basement prices. I just love it. To think; I just bought a new system to game on for under $1000 that absolutely spanks the tar out of my current 4-year-old system, and can hang with the latest and greatest out there too. To me, that's what being an 'enthusiast' is all about.

Same. I love buying one product line behind the best.

Awesome article, genuinely lol'd at times reading it. Makes a very valid & timely point...

Great article...though you only seem to touch what is wrong with the industry! I want more!

I especially liked the bit on motherboards. I really don't look forward to getting a new one.

Thats was a good read, nice work.

From my experience, most enthusiasts fall into the latter of the two categories you mentioned. I have no love of blowing wads of cash on a high-end mobo or CPU. If I did, I'd be thinking twice about clocking it's nuts off. Yeah, I've killed the odd CPU or board, but the prospect killing an E2140, while still a shame, is a lot easier to swallow than frying a QX Turbonutterbastid.

I still get a buzz out of achieving clock speed that I thought was unattainable only a day or so earlier, if only by scouring forums and picking brains. I don't want to follow a manufacturer's buying list to achieve a given overclock - that is sounding the death-knell for the enthusiast community.

I've often been hunting for info on one particular board and have been totally sidetracked by another forum post, relating to a bit of kit I have in another PC. It's a voyage of discovery, to find that someone has managed something special with an ordinary component, and something you will not find if you just accept whats handed to you on a plate. Yes, even this method only really amounts to 'standing on the shoulders of giants', to a lesser degree, but it is still more fun than filling in a shopping list.

I do think it is better to have an industry, like watercooling, that has matured and evolved to make products that meet our needs, but I don't want to be spoon-fed the choices I make.

The money-bags enthusiast is a very rare animal indeed, do they actually exist? or are they creatures of myth and legend, like the Yeti? Regardless, I find it difficult to believe that £250 motherboards are selling in sufficient quantities to justify the efforts of the manufacturers but, while ever there are hideously expensive premium products out there, the mid range products have a much wider band within which they can be priced. So, I echo the calls to focus on producing solid mainstream products, rather than premium priced, flawed toys. Maybe then we'll see better, more reasonably priced, enthusiast-friendly parts.