CPU's as cars

Hi

I know a little bit about computers, so I get asked for advice by family. My cousin inlaw asks my wife for a laptop for her kid for around R4k.
Wife asks me, I said she's going to get a garbage computer for that price.

So we check takalot for the budget. I said SSD will be good to not pull out your hair.
There's a lenovo celeron with 256gb SSD, and a 128SSD with i3 (Mecer, I think)

My wife asks me to explain it in terms her cousin will understand. Like, a car.
I said , ok. An i3 is like her Suzuki swift. Reliable, gets you there.
The celeron is an Uno.

We found a slightly more expensive AMD (me not know much about AMD), she asked what car is that?
I said an Uno Turbo. (But then warned her not to use turbo in her words to explain)
I know i3's range differ in goodness, but at a 4k budget i don't think that comes into this.

anyway, how far am I off with my comparison? Is this a good way to explain computer stuff to non computer ppl?

Well. As someone who kinda knows cars and car people I have noticed that people are heavily influenced by what make (brand) they like.

For example I hate VW with a burning passion and this makes me blind to the good things they have. I also love (or used to love) Subaru (This was prior to them changing the Impreza to a large sedan and the WRX to a mushy pile). That is where the first discrepancy comes in.

The next one comes in with peoples knowledge of cars and how (or if) that person has fun with their car. Let me use the Toyota 86/ Subaru BRZ vs a hilux. The 86 is designed for a person who likes spirited driving on a road but is fun and fast enough at low speeds as to entertain the driver and no the police. The Hilux is designed for a go anywhere do anything bakkie. Very different demographics.

Now to going fast in a line vs going fast around a track (AKA cornering). The cornering car will have stiffer suspension (I guess that could be software) and the car for going fast will have more power.


But I digress

So if you want to talk technical about it you could put it this way.
Cores relate to how versatile the vehicle is (Hilux).
Frequency can be related to how much power the car has (*Insert generic high powered car here).
Turbo can be refereed to Nitrous Oxide[NOS] where it can be turned on and off but cant be sustained for long periods of time.
SSD can be compared to putting grippy tires on your car.

So for cores
It depends what you do but I will be basing it off of what I use my PC for which is a mix between video production and gaming
2-4 Hot hatch
6-8 Wagon
more Bakkie

Frequency
~ 3.0 boost 3.3 | 1L 3 Cylinder
~ 3.5 boost 3.7 | 2L 4 Cylinder [common engine]
~4 boost 4.5 | 3L 6 Cylinder [M3 engine]
~4.5+| V8

Now to laptop things
Where do I even begin. I nearly never use laptops for anything. From what I have used them for is school programming and web browsing.
I would get an i5/R5 with 8-16gb ram and a 512gb SSD.
In my personal opinion an i3 in a laptop is kak and it will only last 2 years
Hard drives in laptops never seem to work out for the people around me so SSD all the way.

In a laptop I aim for the best grip experience as possible and not focus on the speed

CGVega said:

Hi

I know a little bit about computers, so I get asked for advice by family. My cousin inlaw asks my wife for a laptop for her kid for around R4k.
Wife asks me, I said she's going to get a garbage computer for that price.

So we check takalot for the budget. I said SSD will be good to not pull out your hair.
There's a lenovo celeron with 256gb SSD, and a 128SSD with i3 (Mecer, I think)

My wife asks me to explain it in terms her cousin will understand. Like, a car.
I said , ok. An i3 is like her Suzuki swift. Reliable, gets you there.
The celeron is an Uno.

We found a slightly more expensive AMD (me not know much about AMD), she asked what car is that?
I said an Uno Turbo. (But then warned her not to use turbo in her words to explain)
I know i3's range differ in goodness, but at a 4k budget i don't think that comes into this.

anyway, how far am I off with my comparison? Is this a good way to explain computer stuff to non computer ppl?

Click to expand...

Hey! Uno Turbo owner here, the car not the cpu [emoji1787]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

KangarooMike said:

But I digress

So if you want to talk technical about it you could put it this way.
Cores relate to how versatile the vehicle is (Hilux).
Frequency can be related to how much power the car has (*Insert generic high powered car here).
Turbo can be refereed to Nitrous Oxide[NOS] where it can be turned on and off but cant be sustained for long periods of time.
SSD can be compared to putting grippy tires on your car.

So for cores
It depends what you do but I will be basing it off of what I use my PC for which is a mix between video production and gaming
2-4 Hot hatch
6-8 Wagon
more Bakkie

Frequency
~ 3.0 boost 3.3 | 1L 3 Cylinder
~ 3.5 boost 3.7 | 2L 4 Cylinder [common engine]
~4 boost 4.5 | 3L 6 Cylinder [M3 engine]
~4.5+| V8

Now to laptop things
Where do I even begin. I nearly never use laptops for anything. From what I have used them for is school programming and web browsing.
I would get an i5/R5 with 8-16gb ram and a 512gb SSD.
In my personal opinion an i3 in a laptop is kak and it will only last 2 years
Hard drives in laptops never seem to work out for the people around me so SSD all the way.

In a laptop I aim for the best grip experience as possible and not focus on the speed

Click to expand...

whoah, @KangarooMike - i feel like i understand pc's better now, with those examples. so she is getting an uno. hehe. No offense, @toy1985

Someone brought me a laptop at work. Said it's his mom's and it's kinda slow, can I reinstall everything - celeron.
After realising it is a paper weight, it was hanging around the office. My kid came with to work one day, and I wanted to set up minecraft for him to play.
It took TWO HOURS to start up. from there, i set the resolution to 320 X 240! and the frame rate was 10fps. I played doom smoother on my 386 in dos.
anyway, i know this is a more complex issue, as you stated. but your explanation dumbed it down for me perfectly.
And thanks for the follow on twitch!

CGVega said:

It took TWO HOURS to start up. from there, i set the resolution to 320 X 240! and the frame rate was 10fps. I played doom smoother on my 386 in dos.

Click to expand...

Try putting Linux on it. They have a lower performance impact on the computer