So, you've read the official PC building thread, you've followed their advice, followed my advice and decided to plunge headfirst into the world of PC gaming so you can enjoy this very open platform, and truly customize your system, and how you play the game to your heart's content.
But, being a newbie, you're not sure about some hardware choices, specifically, what features actually matter, and which ones are pure marketing and gimmicks. PC hardware manufacturers, being businesses, want you to buy their products. Thus they are going to use marketing to sway you to buy their products over the competition.
But, dear readers, some of their marketing is little more than gimmicky "features" that only exist to drive the cost of that prospective piece of hardware up.
We'll be looking at different products in terms of marketing and packaging, going over features that matter.
Now, lovely readers, you may ask, "How is this going to benefit me?" Well, my answer will be that the reason for this post is to point you towards features that do actually matter, and you should definitely consider them, and steer you away from marketing lingo so you can make informed decisions on a piece of hardware that will work the best for you, and will give you the most performance per dollar you spend.
MOTHERBOARDS:
For our first example, let's look at something that will be a bit of a challenge for newbies, picking the right motherboard. We'll start with one company, in this case, Asus, and then compare it to MSI.
Both of these manufacturers make high quality, very nice motherboards packed with nice quality of life features, and both contain a lot of very useful things that will save the end user a ton of headache and time.
Let's take a look at my favorite momboard company, Asus:
Rear of the box. Look at the marketing here.
If you look at the marketing of this motherboard, specifically on the box, you'll soon see that this is very minimalistic compared to others, as we will see. Asus and EVGA are very straightforward in this regard. They let you know what features really matter. They let you know the chipset, if it's overclocking ready, SLI certified, compatible with thee CPU you're using, etc. The other useful features they let you know about is LAN adapters, how many USB 3.0 headers built in, RGB headers, fan headers, USB 2.0 headers, how much memory it can support, M.2 support, how many PCIe lanes, expansion slots, and things of that nature it has.
Those are the features that matter, but even Asus isn't free from marketing gimmicks, such as being 3D Printing friendly. While nice, this isn't a feature most people shopping for a motherboard are going to care about.
The box also mentions Asus's Aura Sync lighting software, which we'll discuss RGB in a minute.
Now, let's compare this rather straightforward marketing to MSI:
Rear of the MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon.
Quite a bit of a different story isn't it? There's a lot of gimmicks that are marketed here, and so many that it gets in the way of the useful things that really matter. They, unlike Asus and EVGA, don't advertise how many PCIe lanes it supports, how much memory, chipset, if it's overclocking ready, expansion slots or anything that really matters to the prospective buyer.
I can tell you right now, that a motherboard advertising being gaming ready, or VR Ready is a pure marketing gimmick. The Audio Boost that MSI is advertising here literally means that for its onboard audio, it has an amplifier built in. However, most audio enthusiasts, as well as audio engineers usually have dedicated audio systems for that express purpose, as onboard motherboard audio is kinda **** to be honest.
On top of that, it's advertised as Windows compatible, which is hilarious that it even needs to advertise that, because you can install whatever OS you want to, and the motherboard won't care.
But the VR Ready is something that's truly hilarious. And that's because THE MOTHERBOARD DOESN'T DO **** FOR THAT!!!
VR depends more on the CPU, but most importantly, the graphics card, so why is MSI advertising this? Why aren't they advertising expansion slots, dual BIOS, fan headers, USB 2.0 and 3.0 headers, chipset, and other things that will matter to the prospective buyer?
I can already tell you that this specific MSI X370 board is a great motherboard, with a lot of killer features, yet it's advertising does it no favors, nor does it favor the consumer in letting them know what a sweet piece of hardware they're buying.
Well, what about CPU's? Are they free from this nonsense?
Well.....
Not really.
CPU:
The CPU choice is an important one, and for a gaming system, arguably the most important consideration right after the graphics card. So naturally, you want a CPU that will compliment the rest of the build, is powerful, and reliable right?
On this specific CPU, it also is advertised as VR Ready. It makes more sense for the CPU to advertise that, as they do play somewhat of a hand in VR, but the graphics card matters more with that.
Comparing a comparable Intel CPU, the Core i7 8700K, we can see that the difference between the two marketing styles is different, as Intel decided to market the things that mattered.
These specifications let you know immediately what the memory requirements are, how many cores and threads each prospective chip has, that they are unlocked for overclocking, the amount of cache they have, chipset compatibility, and other useful bits of information.
But, even AMD and Intel have their own marketing gimmicks, as demonstrated here.
Oh Intel, this is marketing that tells us nothing!
What are you doing AMD? Nobody cares about this sales tactic!
The point here with CPU's, is that they will sell their products based on gimmicky marketing. Compared to the above specifications, does this marketing tell you any useful information?
No.
Surely, GPU manufacturers, even with the board partners are immune from this right?
Well....
GRAPHICS CARDS:
Any graphics card labeled "gaming" is a marketing gimmick. Don't believe me? Lemme show you why.
Take a look at this MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GPU:
It's labeled as a gaming graphics card, housing an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU in it.
Okay? Good. Now compare it to this:
Okay? What're trying to tell me Cthulhu?
Well, this isn't labeled as a gaming grade graphics card, yet it's stronger and faster than the GeForce GTX 1650 from MSI.
Well, okay, the gaming feature on the MSI card was pure marketing gimmick right? Surely, this is something that can go both ways right?
And you'd be right!
This is an Asus Strix Radeon RX Vega. Meaning, Asus made a graphics card that houses the Radeon RX Vega GPU in it. Okay, fine.
But this card is actually weaker than the Founder's Edition Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti! Even though Asus labeled it as a "gaming grade" graphics card!
The funny thing is the founder's edition version of the GeForce GTX 1080Ti, which means Nvidia designed and created it, isn't labeled or marketed as a "gaming grade" graphics card!
But why are some labeled as "gaming" graphics cards?
Because there's a distinction between Add In Boards, which is graphics cards manufactured by the board partners of AMD and Nvidia. AMD and Nvidia design the PCB blueprints, that they then send to the board partners like Asus, MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte, PNY, etc, who then make the card. These are called AIB's. Often, with an AIB graphics card, they pair it with different things not found in the original design from AMD and Nvidia, which are then called "Reference" or "Founder's Edition" graphics cards.
But then, things changed. Now, Nvidia keeps the best binned GPU dies for themselves. Makes sense, right? They are designing the cards, so they have full rights to keep the best dies for themselves, but often the Founder's Edition cards have garbage coolers on them. The AIB's often pair the Founder's Edition circuit board, with their own beefy and overbuilt coolers on them.
So really, shopping for a good graphics card requires some digging, and you can't rely on manufacturer's marketing to give you an idea of how good a card is.
Here's Linus from Techquickie explaining how one should shop for a good graphics card.
In short, a lot of graphics card marketing is just gimmicks. The thing to look for when shopping for the right graphics card for you is performance benchmarks, both synthetic and in real games. Everything else you're likely to hear is nothing but fluff.
Which is why most PC builders choose a graphics card based on how much performance they get PER DOLLAR THEY SPENT. And really, that's the best way I've found to shop for a graphics card. And that's by finding out how that particular graphics card actually performs in the games that you're playing or want to play.
RGB CRAZE:
Now, I hold the unpopular opinion that RGB is nothing to stick your nose up at. It isn't a gimmick in my eyes. RGB is nice because it affords you the option to color match and customize your build as you see fit.
I mean, I have a build that's blasting rainbow unicorn puke.
If you want to blast rainbow unicorn poop everywhere, you can do that.
However, if you want to go for a specific and tasteful color scheme? You can do that.
Want to just turn the damn lights off? You can do that.
Wanna get festive during the holidays? You can do that.
This makes customizing a build or going for a specific color scheme far easier than what it used to be. In olden times (talking 2007 here), manufacturers made motherboards, graphics cards, RAM DIMM's, and even coolers and case fans a specific color.
Thus color matching to make a build pop was something that required a lot more shopping. This was especially painful as hardly anyone made acid green RAM, something that bothered me, because I was aiming for an acid green themed build at one point.
RGB throws that consideration away. Now you can focus on buying the best performing parts, and use the RGB built into some of these components to color match and more easily customize your build.
But the marketing surrounding RGB components is something that's truly terrible. Companies advertise their RGB components as blasting rainbow unicorn barf, because, honestly, that's the best way of showing the range of colors that that part can do.
But many people take that to mean it's a singular setting that can't be changed. Hate the marketing guys! Not the product for offering a feature that helps you customize your build to your heart's content much more conveniently.
CONCLUSION:
What I hoped to illustrate here guys, is that don't be swayed by gimmicks. Features is what should sell you. Features tell you important information that you should worry about.
So get out there and do some shopping!
But, being a newbie, you're not sure about some hardware choices, specifically, what features actually matter, and which ones are pure marketing and gimmicks. PC hardware manufacturers, being businesses, want you to buy their products. Thus they are going to use marketing to sway you to buy their products over the competition.
But, dear readers, some of their marketing is little more than gimmicky "features" that only exist to drive the cost of that prospective piece of hardware up.
We'll be looking at different products in terms of marketing and packaging, going over features that matter.
Now, lovely readers, you may ask, "How is this going to benefit me?" Well, my answer will be that the reason for this post is to point you towards features that do actually matter, and you should definitely consider them, and steer you away from marketing lingo so you can make informed decisions on a piece of hardware that will work the best for you, and will give you the most performance per dollar you spend.
MOTHERBOARDS:
For our first example, let's look at something that will be a bit of a challenge for newbies, picking the right motherboard. We'll start with one company, in this case, Asus, and then compare it to MSI.
Both of these manufacturers make high quality, very nice motherboards packed with nice quality of life features, and both contain a lot of very useful things that will save the end user a ton of headache and time.
Let's take a look at my favorite momboard company, Asus:
Rear of the box. Look at the marketing here.
If you look at the marketing of this motherboard, specifically on the box, you'll soon see that this is very minimalistic compared to others, as we will see. Asus and EVGA are very straightforward in this regard. They let you know what features really matter. They let you know the chipset, if it's overclocking ready, SLI certified, compatible with thee CPU you're using, etc. The other useful features they let you know about is LAN adapters, how many USB 3.0 headers built in, RGB headers, fan headers, USB 2.0 headers, how much memory it can support, M.2 support, how many PCIe lanes, expansion slots, and things of that nature it has.
Those are the features that matter, but even Asus isn't free from marketing gimmicks, such as being 3D Printing friendly. While nice, this isn't a feature most people shopping for a motherboard are going to care about.
The box also mentions Asus's Aura Sync lighting software, which we'll discuss RGB in a minute.
Now, let's compare this rather straightforward marketing to MSI:
Rear of the MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon.
Quite a bit of a different story isn't it? There's a lot of gimmicks that are marketed here, and so many that it gets in the way of the useful things that really matter. They, unlike Asus and EVGA, don't advertise how many PCIe lanes it supports, how much memory, chipset, if it's overclocking ready, expansion slots or anything that really matters to the prospective buyer.
I can tell you right now, that a motherboard advertising being gaming ready, or VR Ready is a pure marketing gimmick. The Audio Boost that MSI is advertising here literally means that for its onboard audio, it has an amplifier built in. However, most audio enthusiasts, as well as audio engineers usually have dedicated audio systems for that express purpose, as onboard motherboard audio is kinda **** to be honest.
On top of that, it's advertised as Windows compatible, which is hilarious that it even needs to advertise that, because you can install whatever OS you want to, and the motherboard won't care.
But the VR Ready is something that's truly hilarious. And that's because THE MOTHERBOARD DOESN'T DO **** FOR THAT!!!
VR depends more on the CPU, but most importantly, the graphics card, so why is MSI advertising this? Why aren't they advertising expansion slots, dual BIOS, fan headers, USB 2.0 and 3.0 headers, chipset, and other things that will matter to the prospective buyer?
I can already tell you that this specific MSI X370 board is a great motherboard, with a lot of killer features, yet it's advertising does it no favors, nor does it favor the consumer in letting them know what a sweet piece of hardware they're buying.
Well, what about CPU's? Are they free from this nonsense?
Well.....
Not really.
CPU:
The CPU choice is an important one, and for a gaming system, arguably the most important consideration right after the graphics card. So naturally, you want a CPU that will compliment the rest of the build, is powerful, and reliable right?
On this specific CPU, it also is advertised as VR Ready. It makes more sense for the CPU to advertise that, as they do play somewhat of a hand in VR, but the graphics card matters more with that.
Comparing a comparable Intel CPU, the Core i7 8700K, we can see that the difference between the two marketing styles is different, as Intel decided to market the things that mattered.
These specifications let you know immediately what the memory requirements are, how many cores and threads each prospective chip has, that they are unlocked for overclocking, the amount of cache they have, chipset compatibility, and other useful bits of information.
But, even AMD and Intel have their own marketing gimmicks, as demonstrated here.
Oh Intel, this is marketing that tells us nothing!
What are you doing AMD? Nobody cares about this sales tactic!
The point here with CPU's, is that they will sell their products based on gimmicky marketing. Compared to the above specifications, does this marketing tell you any useful information?
No.
Surely, GPU manufacturers, even with the board partners are immune from this right?
Well....
GRAPHICS CARDS:
Any graphics card labeled "gaming" is a marketing gimmick. Don't believe me? Lemme show you why.
Take a look at this MSI GeForce GTX 1650 GPU:
It's labeled as a gaming graphics card, housing an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU in it.
Okay? Good. Now compare it to this:
Okay? What're trying to tell me Cthulhu?
Well, this isn't labeled as a gaming grade graphics card, yet it's stronger and faster than the GeForce GTX 1650 from MSI.
Well, okay, the gaming feature on the MSI card was pure marketing gimmick right? Surely, this is something that can go both ways right?
And you'd be right!
This is an Asus Strix Radeon RX Vega. Meaning, Asus made a graphics card that houses the Radeon RX Vega GPU in it. Okay, fine.
But this card is actually weaker than the Founder's Edition Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti! Even though Asus labeled it as a "gaming grade" graphics card!
The funny thing is the founder's edition version of the GeForce GTX 1080Ti, which means Nvidia designed and created it, isn't labeled or marketed as a "gaming grade" graphics card!
But why are some labeled as "gaming" graphics cards?
Because there's a distinction between Add In Boards, which is graphics cards manufactured by the board partners of AMD and Nvidia. AMD and Nvidia design the PCB blueprints, that they then send to the board partners like Asus, MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte, PNY, etc, who then make the card. These are called AIB's. Often, with an AIB graphics card, they pair it with different things not found in the original design from AMD and Nvidia, which are then called "Reference" or "Founder's Edition" graphics cards.
But then, things changed. Now, Nvidia keeps the best binned GPU dies for themselves. Makes sense, right? They are designing the cards, so they have full rights to keep the best dies for themselves, but often the Founder's Edition cards have garbage coolers on them. The AIB's often pair the Founder's Edition circuit board, with their own beefy and overbuilt coolers on them.
So really, shopping for a good graphics card requires some digging, and you can't rely on manufacturer's marketing to give you an idea of how good a card is.
Here's Linus from Techquickie explaining how one should shop for a good graphics card.
In short, a lot of graphics card marketing is just gimmicks. The thing to look for when shopping for the right graphics card for you is performance benchmarks, both synthetic and in real games. Everything else you're likely to hear is nothing but fluff.
Which is why most PC builders choose a graphics card based on how much performance they get PER DOLLAR THEY SPENT. And really, that's the best way I've found to shop for a graphics card. And that's by finding out how that particular graphics card actually performs in the games that you're playing or want to play.
RGB CRAZE:
Now, I hold the unpopular opinion that RGB is nothing to stick your nose up at. It isn't a gimmick in my eyes. RGB is nice because it affords you the option to color match and customize your build as you see fit.
I mean, I have a build that's blasting rainbow unicorn puke.
If you want to blast rainbow unicorn poop everywhere, you can do that.
However, if you want to go for a specific and tasteful color scheme? You can do that.
Want to just turn the damn lights off? You can do that.
Wanna get festive during the holidays? You can do that.
This makes customizing a build or going for a specific color scheme far easier than what it used to be. In olden times (talking 2007 here), manufacturers made motherboards, graphics cards, RAM DIMM's, and even coolers and case fans a specific color.
Thus color matching to make a build pop was something that required a lot more shopping. This was especially painful as hardly anyone made acid green RAM, something that bothered me, because I was aiming for an acid green themed build at one point.
RGB throws that consideration away. Now you can focus on buying the best performing parts, and use the RGB built into some of these components to color match and more easily customize your build.
But the marketing surrounding RGB components is something that's truly terrible. Companies advertise their RGB components as blasting rainbow unicorn barf, because, honestly, that's the best way of showing the range of colors that that part can do.
But many people take that to mean it's a singular setting that can't be changed. Hate the marketing guys! Not the product for offering a feature that helps you customize your build to your heart's content much more conveniently.
CONCLUSION:
What I hoped to illustrate here guys, is that don't be swayed by gimmicks. Features is what should sell you. Features tell you important information that you should worry about.
So get out there and do some shopping!