Regarding PC Build and Upgrade Advice - Please Read

I've noticed a trend developing over the last few months, if not longer, of people giving technical PC advice who really shouldn't be. I've seen everything from a user recommending someone pair an Nvidia card with an AMD card for "across the board performance" to seeing someone suggest that a 400w PSU was "more than enough for any SLI setup", and more. Sadly I am not kidding - both of these situations really happened, and recently, too.

Building a PC for the first time can be a daunting enough task for newcomers to the hobby without getting conflicting or straight up incorrect advice from people who aren't that experienced themselves. So please - if you aren't 100% sure of what you're about to suggest and why you are suggesting it, don't guess, just don't say it at all. Someone with more relevant and current experience will be along shortly to answer the question. This applies to PC upgrade questions as well - if you aren't sure or can't back up your suggestions with specific reasons why the user should go in that direction and how your suggestion could benefit them technically, then perhaps you shouldn't be giving the advice at all.

Users who continually give incorrect advice regarding PC builds may be asked to stop participating in these topics altogether.

Thanks~

Can we use this as the go-to advice thread for PC builds/upgrades/troubleshooting?

@patoday: I don't think that would be a very good idea. Having too many different builds or tech support problems in one thread would end up being more confusing than it's worth.

Maybe someone was frozen in time and was recently awoken so they assumed you could still use hacked drivers to use a NV card for physx while maining a ATI card. :p Though I am surprised about the PSU one since most of the folks I see always go way over with suggesting 650+ PSU for single card systems.

wow, didn't see anything crazy like that being suggested but that would ruin somebody's day pretty fast..

Completely agree with this, this sort of advice cannot be given lightly, can lead to some very frustrating experiences for some people and also to some waste of good money/broken stuff, so unless you know what you're talking about it's perhaps maybe best you don't say anything at all.

I agree. It wouldn't be a big deal if PC hardware wasn't so expensive, but really uninformed advice can cost someone a lot of money. The only problem is that most people giving terrible advice are pretty sure of themselves.

@mb: Thanks for putting this out. If I see another thread encouraging a first time builder to go watercooled SLI, I'ma toss my NAS out a window.

Wow that's pretty ridiculous advice!! I think its been going on for longer btw MB.

I laughed so ridiculously hard at this. I can't STAND people who don't do their homework and try to advise people on their builds. As a long-time PC enthusiast, that's near insulting lol.

It also depends how recently someone has upgraded their rig. A user will do a tonne of research before purchasing their hardware and then probably not bother keeping up with price/performance variations for the next few years.. be wary.

But if anyone has a question for me please ask!

Wait, this was a post? Always thought this would have been a wise thing to suggest. Also when the hell did MB just become Mike? :P

Wow I cannot believe what I just read. Hope no ones had a bad experience because of this.

Actually there are a few build recently where using an AMD paired with a Nvida card has shown great results because of DirectX 12. There have been a few demonstration of these so-called SLIFire systems in the past month....just to prove there is something new under the sun from time to time. If you don't pay attention it easy to miss what is possible.

Would I plan a system around this now? No, because it is brand new and neither AMD nor Nvida have really reacted to this. And, at any point either of them could add some spoiler hardware on purpsose or by accident that would make the result less advantageous.