• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Is the demand for Computer hardware hurting Quality?

Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
20,780 (5.97/day)
Location
The Washing Machine
Processor i7 8700k 4.6Ghz @ 1.24V
Motherboard AsRock Fatal1ty K6 Z370
Cooling beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 3
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200/C16
Video Card(s) ASRock RX7900XT Phantom Gaming
Storage Samsung 850 EVO 1TB + Samsung 830 256GB + Crucial BX100 250GB + Toshiba 1TB HDD
Display(s) Gigabyte G34QWC (3440x1440)
Case Fractal Design Define R5
Audio Device(s) Harman Kardon AVR137 + 2.1
Power Supply EVGA Supernova G2 750W
Mouse XTRFY M42
Keyboard Lenovo Thinkpad Trackpoint II
Software W10 x64
Is quality hurt? No.

When it comes to the overall experience of personal computing definitely no. Back in the day you had tons of incompatibility, installation and stability problems that you needed to know about before even trying to build a rig. At the same time, that required and therefore also meant that the user had more control over everything. But control is also responsibility. Not everyone fancies that. In that sense, PC has definitely improved. Yes, we lose control over certain things (mostly advanced user territory) but the masses gain lots of quality of life features and ease of installation.

When it comes to the hardware, the same thing applies: these days you really have to be a bit stupid, clumsy, or unable to read to break your hardware. When things don't work its generally user error and only rarely an oversight in the product itself. What does happen with hardware is that while quality rises, the headroom shrinks. Back in the day components had more headroom just because there was a higher variation in quality. This applies in a big way to overclocking. Overclocking these days is in most cases a complete waste of time. Only CPUs are somewhat nice to do, but even that headroom is shrinking rapidly: look at Ryzen's OC headroom and how performance can even drop when XFR is enabled. Or look at the recent Intel gens that clock nearly to the max right out of the box. On GPU: Nvidia is doing the OC for you a little bit more, every gen. Now with scanner to dial it in automatically...

Another factor in hardware is the market is huge and demand is high, and this means there is a portion of it filled with cheap knock-offs and fake junk. That is common in every market, really, but also easy to avoid. This also applies to hardware that is overloaded with branding and marketing. You can safely say most of that falls in the same category of things to avoid, because expenses were made on nothing substantial and it means cutting cost on things that dó matter - or an inflated price.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
Messages
2,960 (0.90/day)
Location
Long Island
When it comes to the overall experience of personal computing definitely no. Back in the day you had tons of incompatibility, installation and stability problems that you needed to know about before even trying to build a rig. At the same time, that required and therefore also meant that the user had more control over everything. But control is also responsibility. Not everyone fancies that. In that sense, PC has definitely improved. Yes, we lose control over certain things (mostly advanced user territory) but the masses gain lots of quality of life features and ease of installation..

Boy do I miss those days ....

a) miss using a boot menu to boot a box to 1 of 6 possible hardware configurations with 6 sets of autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

b) loved it that editing one of those 2 files fixed your problem and it stayed fixed and wasn't rebroken every other month w/ Windows update,

c) Loved never having "reisntall OS " as a common solution.
 

OneMoar

There is Always Moar
Joined
Apr 9, 2010
Messages
8,740 (1.71/day)
Location
Rochester area
System Name RPC MK2.5
Processor Ryzen 5800x
Motherboard Gigabyte Aorus Pro V2
Cooling Enermax ETX-T50RGB
Memory CL16 BL2K16G36C16U4RL 3600 1:1 micron e-die
Video Card(s) GIGABYTE RTX 3070 Ti GAMING OC
Storage ADATA SX8200PRO NVME 512GB, Intel 545s 500GBSSD, ADATA SU800 SSD, 3TB Spinner
Display(s) LG Ultra Gear 32 1440p 165hz Dell 1440p 75hz
Case Phanteks P300 /w 300A front panel conversion
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply SeaSonic Focus+ Platinum 750W
Mouse Kone burst Pro
Keyboard EVGA Z15
Software Windows 11 +startisallback
Boy do I miss those days ....

a) miss using a boot menu to boot a box to 1 of 6 possible hardware configurations with 6 sets of autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

b) loved it that editing one of those 2 files fixed your problem and it stayed fixed and wasn't rebroken every other month w/ Windows update,

c) Loved never having "reisntall OS " as a common solution.

if you do any of those things now days you have no business working on a machine
because none of those things are a issue

A. literally did this twice last month customer upgraded from a OG phenom running W10 to a new 8th gen intel I cloned the drive to a new ssd put it in the new machine
windows picked up the hardware change never skipped a beat

B: example ? I have yet to have a issue with windows update breaking something the same way twice ... or undoing some change I made

c: again Nope I don't think i have 'needed' to reinstall windows since windows xp people that tell you to reinstall windows because Of X issue simply don't know how to fix X issue
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
54 (0.03/day)
Location
UpNorth-UK
System Name Overkill!
Processor i7-8700k
Motherboard Asus Prime Z370-A
Cooling Corsair H100i v2
Memory 32GB DDR4@2400Mhz
Video Card(s) Evga 980ti FTW
Storage Samsung Evo 500GB
Power Supply Evga 1000W G2
Software Win 10 Pro
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
2,417 (0.42/day)
Location
Whitby, Ontario
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 2600
Motherboard MSI B450 Gaming Plus
Memory GSkill 8GB Dual Channel DDR4-2800
Video Card(s) MSI GamingX RX580 4GB
Storage Kingston V300 240GB SSD + WD Green 2TB
Display(s) ACER K212HL 27" + Haier 55" + Lenovo Explorer Mixed Reality Headset
Case Enermax Ostrog (Red)
Power Supply EVGA SuperNOVA B2 750W
Software Win10 64bit
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,707 (0.81/day)
Location
On The Highway To Hell \m/
I'm not going to reply/quote the statement a few posts up. But YES...YOU CAN BREAK AN OS TO THE POINT THAT IT NEEDS REINSTALLED! Even M$ knows it's true. If you click your way through their recommended fixes for many issues, you'll eventually get to their final recommendation. Which would be what you ask? That's right..."Perform a clean install of the OS". Which is not a fix. But it is what they recommend you do when all else fails.

I'm just about to do it for the second time(in the last 6 months) on Windows 10. So no. It's not something that hasn't needed done since the XP days. In fact I've never needed to do it with any earlier OS than Windows 10.
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
54 (0.03/day)
Location
UpNorth-UK
System Name Overkill!
Processor i7-8700k
Motherboard Asus Prime Z370-A
Cooling Corsair H100i v2
Memory 32GB DDR4@2400Mhz
Video Card(s) Evga 980ti FTW
Storage Samsung Evo 500GB
Power Supply Evga 1000W G2
Software Win 10 Pro
This I can agree with. Perhaps it has something to do with the world population?

I agree. It has everything to do with the ever increasing world population and constant demand. But of course we have those who will argue and say there is nothing wrong in having 20+ billion people on the planet as long as the money is rolling in.
 
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
12,014 (1.86/day)
Location
Nebraska, USA
System Name Brightworks Systems BWS-6 E-IV
Processor Intel Core i5-6600 @ 3.9GHz
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 Rev 1.0
Cooling Quality case, 2 x Fractal Design 140mm fans, stock CPU HSF
Memory 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4 3000 Corsair Vengeance
Video Card(s) EVGA GEForce GTX 1050Ti 4Gb GDDR5
Storage Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD, Samsung 860 Evo 500GB SSD
Display(s) Samsung S24E650BW LED x 2
Case Fractal Design Define R4
Power Supply EVGA Supernova 550W G2 Gold
Mouse Logitech M190
Keyboard Microsoft Wireless Comfort 5050
Software W10 Pro 64-bit
c) Loved never having "reisntall OS " as a common solution.
Huh? It was in the good old days when that was commonly recommended. In fact, many ill-advised and uninformed felt reinstalling the OS periodically was just a matter of routine. "It's been a year so I decided to reinstall Windows." :kookoo:

I am glad those days are long gone.

I agree with OneMoar. IMO, reinstalling Windows is just a cop out - typically for those unwilling to dig a little deeper while troubleshooting and attempting to repair.

Yes, an OS can be broken to the point a reinstall is needed, but that is extremely rare, an exception to the rule, and often is associated with some hardware failure.

Reinstalling should always be a last resort effort. For one, it often does not resolve the problem! And if it does, nothing is learned to prevent recurrence. So what happens is the problem is re-introduced - often when the user re-installs the same corrupt data files, bad drivers, etc. that caused the problem in the first place.

I have not had to reinstall Windows on any machine I am responsible for since W7 came out in 2009. And for those customer systems where re-installing was necessary, it was always due to user error! :( That is, the system was so infested with malware, or the system was so cluttered with junk and the customer then ran every Windows tuner/optimization (We will make your Windows run better than new! :mad: :banghead:) program under the sun that they fixed it to death!

The only other time reinstalling has been necessary is due to drive failure with no viable backup. :( Which of course, again is a user failure.

Frankly, I think since W7, Windows has become very robust and able to take a lot of abuse. This is particularly true with W10.
 

Frick

Fishfaced Nincompoop
Joined
Feb 27, 2006
Messages
18,914 (2.86/day)
Location
Piteå
System Name Black MC in Tokyo
Processor Ryzen 5 5600
Motherboard Asrock B450M-HDV
Cooling Be Quiet! Pure Rock 2
Memory 2 x 16GB Kingston Fury 3400mhz
Video Card(s) XFX 6950XT Speedster MERC 319
Storage Kingston A400 240GB | WD Black SN750 2TB |WD Blue 1TB x 2 | Toshiba P300 2TB | Seagate Expansion 8TB
Display(s) Samsung U32J590U 4K + BenQ GL2450HT 1080p
Case Fractal Design Define R4
Audio Device(s) Line6 UX1 + some headphones, Nektar SE61 keyboard
Power Supply Corsair RM850x v3
Mouse Logitech G602
Keyboard Cherry MX Board 1.0 TKL Brown
VR HMD Acer Mixed Reality Headset
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores Rimworld 4K ready!
It's all about profit these days.


This has always, always been the case.
Not sure if the designs are sometimes know to be flawed but as long as the tills are ringing they don't seem to care. Buy it now, RMA it later.

That had been known to happen, and the rampant "buy it and toss it" mentality is definitely a problem. No one fixes things any more, they just replace them. Even if it's expensive stuff (I speak mostly of consumer things). Example: a guy had problems with his windscreen wipers on his 2008ish Fiat. The workshop said a computer box had to be replaced, and just the box cost like €1000 or so. So the guy taked it to an electronics shop (one of the few existing) and the guy there fixed it in 15 minutes using off the shelf parts for €70. It's also a class thing, the electronics shop is run by an immigrant who comes from a place where they repair instead of replacing because it's cheaper. You have busted phones tou don't believe can be fixed? Donate them to third world nations where they fix damn near everything, whereas in the civilized world we replace stuff because we don't like color or because Facebook is slightly sluggish.
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2018
Messages
54 (0.03/day)
Location
UpNorth-UK
System Name Overkill!
Processor i7-8700k
Motherboard Asus Prime Z370-A
Cooling Corsair H100i v2
Memory 32GB DDR4@2400Mhz
Video Card(s) Evga 980ti FTW
Storage Samsung Evo 500GB
Power Supply Evga 1000W G2
Software Win 10 Pro
This has always, always been the case.


That had been known to happen, and the rampant "buy it and toss it" mentality is definitely a problem. No one fixes things any more, they just replace them. Even if it's expensive stuff (I speak mostly of consumer things). Example: a guy had problems with his windscreen wipers on his 2008ish Fiat. The workshop said a computer box had to be replaced, and just the box cost like €1000 or so. So the guy taked it to an electronics shop (one of the few existing) and the guy there fixed it in 15 minutes using off the shelf parts for €70. It's also a class thing, the electronics shop is run by an immigrant who comes from a place where they repair instead of replacing because it's cheaper. You have busted phones tou don't believe can be fixed? Donate them to third world nations where they fix damn near everything, whereas in the civilized world we replace stuff because we don't like color or because Facebook is slightly sluggish.

Agreed, and it also makes me sick to see goods that are perfectly usable tossed away. But I do see more and more people repair goods these days as they tighten their financial belts.
 
Top