No, you don’t need to do an introductory year. You also don’t really need to know what’s compatible with what. Tools like pcpartpicker already do that.
Finally, you’re comparing building a pc with buying a prebuilt, which is something people have been able to do since forever. The argument then becomes, why buy a steam machine with custom parts, which will be harder to fix and impossible to upgrade instead of a mini itx prebuilt with standard parts?
Carrot@lemmy.today 5 days ago
You really do, and you not thinking so is telling of how skewed your view of what common knowledge really is. Where does someone start when building a computer if they don’t know what goes into a computer? How do they pick parts if they don’t know what changes will make their computer better or worse? I love PC part picker, but let’s be real, it’s for people who already know what they are looking for. PC part picker makes things so easy for you and I, but drop any tech-illiterate person into PC part picker, and they won’t actually get anywhere. Plus, I’ve had it get the dimensions of a GPU wrong before, and without verifying through a different website, I would have bought a card that didn’t fit in the case I was using. Even the gold standard sources of information make mistakes.
As for the pre-built argument, to someone like my brother who knows nothing about computers, but regularly games on his PS5, the steam machine and a prebuilt are essentially the same. He wouldn’t know how to fix the computer without sending it off to the company, which is how he’d fix the steam machine as well. He also wouldn’t see the PC as something that could be upgraded. If a game wasn’t running well, he certainly wouldn’t know what part would need upgrading in his machine to make his experience better. In that sense, the pre-built is effectly non-upgradable. He might know to adjust the in-game settings, but wouldn’t know what settings to change. On a prebuilt, this would be an issue. On a device that millions of people use, all with the exact same specs, this information is readily available. Think of the steam deck, you could look up “<game name> steam deck settings” and get the best loadout for your exact hardware. Hell, a bunch of modern games have a “Steam Deck” settings loadout built in. With a prebuilt, that’s not possible. And finally, the steam machine is considerably smaller than any mini itx prebuilt I’ve seen on the market. Hell, a mini it’s motherboard couldn’t even fit in the steam machine’s case. To a lot of people, not having a big box in their living room matters. I’ve had a hard time convincing my partner to let me have a PC in a Fractal Design Terra case in the living room, and that’s a case that is small and clean looking.
potustheplant@feddit.nl 4 days ago
I don’t agree that it’s that hars to build a pc. Even if it was, saying that adjusting visual settings is complicates is waaay too much. You’d have to be straight up dumb not even be able to use the low/medium/high/extreme presets every game has.
Also saying that since he can’t build it, he can’t upgrade it, is false. Any “pc technician” can do that for him.
The size part is also kinda moot. A Fractal Terra is smaller than a console and it can fit an itx build with most gpus.
Stop normalizing incompetence. We use computers, people should at the bare minimum know how to use them.
Carrot@lemmy.today 4 days ago
Sure, people can use the presets, but on a lower end machine, those aren’t perfect for getting the most out of your specific hardware. What I meant there was that consoles, and by extension the steam deck/steam machine, have the exact setting loadout for that hardware dialed in.
Sure, he could pay someone to upgrade it for him, but at that point it loses a lot of the benefits that come with being able to upgrade in the first place.
The Fractal Terra is actually larger than all modern consoles. The Fractal Terra is 11.4 liters. The PS5 is 7.2 liters. The Xbox series X is 6.9 liters. The steam machine is 3.8 liters, 3x smaller than the Fractal Terra. When it comes to dimensions, the Xbox series X is smaller in all dimensions, and while the PS5 is longer and wider, it’s height is half that of the Fractal Terra. The steam machine is pretty similar in two of the three dimensions, but the depth is less than half that of the Terra. The Fractal Terra is a really nice, small case, but it’s only small for a PC, not a console.
As for normalizing incompetence, I doubt you have as extensive a knowledge as you do for computers for every single thing you interact with every day. Knowing “how to use one” is different from knowing how to build and upgrade one.
You come across as someone who is smart, and yet doesn’t fully understand that half the population is below the 50th percentile. The generalizations you make for yourself and those you regularly interact with cannot be made for everyone.
potustheplant@feddit.nl 4 days ago
If that’s the case then you could play around with individual settings to find something you’re comfortable with. I’ve been doing that since I was 12…
What? No. The main benefit is that you don’t need to throw anything away. You can even sell the comonent you’re replacing. Would it be more expensive than learning how to do it yourself? Yeah but it’s still cheaper than buying a new computer. It’s also not as wasteful considering that a broken cpu would mean throwing away the entire motherboard on a Steam Machine, whereas you would simply replace the cpu on a normal computer.
Nope. Fractal Terra is 10.4 liters and the base ps5 is also 10.4 liters. I would even argue that the form factor of the terra is better. The series X is smaller, true but it’s only 6cm smaller in one of the sides of the top and 4cm shorter. I really don’t think that’s that different.
The steam cube is a lot smaller, sure. It’s also, like I already said multiple times, completely custom and impossible to upgrade. Not worth it imo. We also haven’t discussed the hardware. It comes with 8gb of soldered memory for the gpu. You can see here that that was not enough vram (even at 1080p) for some games over a year ago.
Which is precisely why I specifically referred to people knowing how to use it, not build or upgrade it.