Computer Specs You Should Ignore
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2022-05-05
·
1,033 words · ~5 min read
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Whenever you shop for electronics,
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it's pretty easy to get lost
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in a discombobulating vortex of numbers
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that manufacturers throw at you
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to try to entice you to buy their gadgets.
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Ah!
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But there are some that are really just fluff
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you can more or less ignore.
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So what are they?
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Let's start out with one of the most common
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and most useless specifications you'll see,
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a CPU's clock speed, usually given in gigahertz.
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You'll see this as being one of the first things listed
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for most PCs that you buy,
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and it's very easy to think,
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hmm, more gigahertz equals faster computer.
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See, here's the thing.
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You can't really compare clock speeds
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between different computers.
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Processors have all sorts of other differentiating factors
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that are more important,
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such as the specific microarchitecture they use.
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Each new generation of CPUs
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typically contains microarchitectural improvements
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in the silicon that can give you higher instructions
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per clock cycle, better branch prediction,
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and more power efficiency,
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all of which are more important
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than the raw number of gigahertz.
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Clock speeds only really matter
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when you compare chips with the same microarchitecture
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and the same number of cores.
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Otherwise, you're not gonna wanna fret over this too much.
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It's kind of like how a Kia Rio
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and an Aston Martin Vantage
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can both reach 100 miles per hour,
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but the Aston Martin's gonna get up to speed much faster
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and be far more powerful and responsive.
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Next up, let's talk about those eye-popping speeds
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that SSD companies put on their product labels.
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It's pretty easy these days to find SSDs
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that claim to give you speeds at or above
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3,000 megabytes per second,
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but those figures can be misleading.
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And while it's true that the NVMe-based SSDs
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that boast this kind of performance
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are indeed faster across the board
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than their older SATA counterparts,
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it doesn't mean you can completely trust their numbers either.
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You see, there are two main issues
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with just looking at that spec.
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Those high megabytes per second numbers
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refer to sequential performance,
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meaning it's not a good metric of performance
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if you spend most of your time watching videos,
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working in Excel, or serving up spicy takes on Twitter.
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During typical everyday use,
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the random performance given in IOPS is more important,
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as you'll usually be accessing smaller pieces of information
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from different places on the drive
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than large sequential chunks of data
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located in a physically contiguous spot.
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But let's say, for the sake of argument,
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you do work with large amounts of sequential data
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because you're a video editor or some such thing.
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Even in this situation,
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the numbers on the spec sheet often aren't reliable.
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Many SSDs have a relatively small amount of fast cache,
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that's used when you first start moving files around.
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But as time goes on,
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sometimes even after just a few seconds,
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speeds will drop off precipitously as the cache fills
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and the SSD starts using the slower portion
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of its flash memory.
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Now this isn't to say all SSD manufacturers are dishonest,
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but some of them will put down a speed
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that you'll only realistically get
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for a short period of time.
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So be sure to read independent reviews
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and see how long the SSD you're interested in
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can maintain performance at or near
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what it says on the spec sheet.
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Finally, let's touch on a common letdown
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if you're shopping for monitors, HDR support.
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HDR or high dynamic range is a set of standards
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that can give you better contrast and clearer colors.
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But a monitor simply saying it has HDR support
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doesn't tell you very much,
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since there are a lot of monitors out there
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that technically accept an HDR signal,
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but the picture ends up looking like absolute garbage
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when you turn it on.
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So why does this happen?
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The two primary culprits
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are when the monitor can't get bright enough,
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as adequate brightness is crucial for HDR to look correct.
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And when the monitor can't display
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a wide enough color gamut or give enough color accuracy
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to take full advantage of the HDR signal.
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So instead of jumping on a monitor
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just because it says it has HDR support,
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check its peak brightness rating.
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Anything that's certified for VESA display HDR 600 or higher
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should at least get adequately bright
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with display HDR 1000 or higher being ideal.
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A monitor that can cover at least 90%
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of the IP3 color gamut is probably also a decent bet.
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But if you really want to be sure,
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read reviews where an actual human being
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looked at the screen with HDR turned on.
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Are there specs that manufacturers push that frustrate you?
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Let us know what they are in the comments
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and we might talk about them in a future episode.
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Really just lay into us here.
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Talk about your frustrations.
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