Show HN: A better PC builder for the US, more parts and Ryzen (Ask HN follow-up)(pc-kombo.de)
pc-kombo.de
Show HN: A better PC builder for the US, more parts and Ryzen (Ask HN follow-up)
https://www.pc-kombo.de/us/tipp?price=1640&cpuLegacylist%5BAM4%5D=on
48 comments
Very useful tool, will definitely send people who want a new computer here as their first stop. Unfortunately the website doesn't open very nicely in Safari - seems fine in Chrome though
Thanks.
I appreciate any pointers on what is wrong with Safari here. I'll otherwise have to use something like Browserstack to test for that browser.
Does it just not open nicely on first load and then work fine, or is everything in one row or one column and broken?
I appreciate any pointers on what is wrong with Safari here. I'll otherwise have to use something like Browserstack to test for that browser.
Does it just not open nicely on first load and then work fine, or is everything in one row or one column and broken?
Here is a screenshot I took: http://i.imgur.com/FDWQh3o.png
This is pretty great. I do have a few issues though:
1. Your part picker seems to remove some symbols; for example if you change your video card to the 'Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro 4G', then click the link, you'll see it's actually the Nitro+ 4G, which is a different product.
2. When typing into the autocomplete box, once your string matches no items the list returns to 'show all items' rather than 'show no items', which is more sensible (along with an indication to the user that their search found no results).
3. Searching seems to be alphanumeric; typing 'Nitro+' into the search box shows you results for 'Nitro'.
4. It doesn't work in Safari; I'm not sure why or how much work it would be to fix, but it would be nice.
1. Your part picker seems to remove some symbols; for example if you change your video card to the 'Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro 4G', then click the link, you'll see it's actually the Nitro+ 4G, which is a different product.
2. When typing into the autocomplete box, once your string matches no items the list returns to 'show all items' rather than 'show no items', which is more sensible (along with an indication to the user that their search found no results).
3. Searching seems to be alphanumeric; typing 'Nitro+' into the search box shows you results for 'Nitro'.
4. It doesn't work in Safari; I'm not sure why or how much work it would be to fix, but it would be nice.
Thanks for the feedback. I just pushed some fixes: Less symbols should get eaten, and a 'no results' found is now shown instead of the full box when nothing was found.
I asked a friend for help with Safari.
I asked a friend for help with Safari.
Firstly, t his looks great! I really like just being able to upgrade/downgrade each component with just one click.
A couple is issues I found though - the cheapest graphics card is $448 and I was unable to specify 32Gb of RAM - the next option up from 16GB was 128GB.
A couple is issues I found though - the cheapest graphics card is $448 and I was unable to specify 32Gb of RAM - the next option up from 16GB was 128GB.
Thanks for your feedback. Do you remember the steps you took till the system did not show any gpu lower than $448? Because that was a bug, it goes down till the RX 460 otherwise (~$90).
The ram I just fixed by allowing more ram sticks in that category to be selected.
The ram I just fixed by allowing more ram sticks in that category to be selected.
As it stands, I can read only the left column of the Web page.
Suggestion: Turn on or leave on the horizontal scroll bars of the Web page.
Then when I magnify your fonts by 4x or so so that I can easily read your content on my screen, I can scroll horizontally and still see the other half of your Web page.
In general, Web pages need both vertical and horizontal scroll bars. Even if a page looks good on the screen of the Web page designer, without the scroll bars the screen might be a disaster for some users.
Suggestion: Turn on or leave on the horizontal scroll bars of the Web page.
Then when I magnify your fonts by 4x or so so that I can easily read your content on my screen, I can scroll horizontally and still see the other half of your Web page.
In general, Web pages need both vertical and horizontal scroll bars. Even if a page looks good on the screen of the Web page designer, without the scroll bars the screen might be a disaster for some users.
Uff. That's actually not that easy. By default, that recommendation page is 50% of a page wrapper that fills 200% of the viewport. The other 50% contain the almost empty space for the alternatives list. That is why horizontal scrolling is disabled.
But I did test that with very small screens and high zooms, and on my devices the responsive design makes that work each time. Please excuse that remark, that is not a "your setup is wrong" comment. But I wonder whether there is a incompatibility with the css that makes the situation as bad as it is for you? And in that case maybe I can fix it instead.
For example: What do you mean with left column? On a small screen or a high zoom there should only be a single column. Are you on a browser that does not support flexbox, at least not as implemented here? Could be the safari bug mentioned before.
But I did test that with very small screens and high zooms, and on my devices the responsive design makes that work each time. Please excuse that remark, that is not a "your setup is wrong" comment. But I wonder whether there is a incompatibility with the css that makes the situation as bad as it is for you? And in that case maybe I can fix it instead.
For example: What do you mean with left column? On a small screen or a high zoom there should only be a single column. Are you on a browser that does not support flexbox, at least not as implemented here? Could be the safari bug mentioned before.
Running Google's Chrome Web browser
Version 49.0.2623.112 m
(which is now a very old version) on Windows XP SP3; Google no longer supports Chrome on XP. Yes, I'm shopping for a new PC, especially because my current motherboard has problems causing the system to reboot several times a day, has caused some data corruption, e.g., my software, including essentially all the software for my startup, that dynamically loads Microsoft's .NET Framework will no longer run, etc.
On your Web page at 100% zoom, I see two columns. The left one has a block of text with title
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
and the right one has
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium Pack
At 100% zoom, a lot of the text I can't read because the font size is just too small and/or the font is not bold and/or dark enough to show up clearly on my display.
As soon as I zoom to the next larger magnification, 110%, I get just one column that starts with
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
as in the left column before the zoom.
At zoom 150%, I can read the content, but zoom 175% is easier to read.
But, now that I look again, at 175% zoom, farther down the Web page I see again
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium Pack
again. So, this looks like the start of what used to be the right column.
So, maybe I can see all the text but at zoom 175% the page is reformatted to one column instead of two.
In the Web pages I've written for my startup, I have put all my content in tables and not used HTML element <div>, and zoom settings do not reformat or rearrange the content on my Web pages. So, maybe your pages (I have not looked at your HTML code) have HTML elements <div> which let a Web browser rearrange the content.
So, maybe I was wrong: A user doesn't need horizontal scroll bars to read the content.
What fooled me is that suddenly at zoom 110% the page reformatted (rearranged), jumped around. Pages I've seen that jump around a lot are at Facebook; at times I've screamed myself hoarse; and that jumping nonsense is a big reason I try to avoid Facebook, even when they have content I'm interested in.
Version 49.0.2623.112 m
(which is now a very old version) on Windows XP SP3; Google no longer supports Chrome on XP. Yes, I'm shopping for a new PC, especially because my current motherboard has problems causing the system to reboot several times a day, has caused some data corruption, e.g., my software, including essentially all the software for my startup, that dynamically loads Microsoft's .NET Framework will no longer run, etc.
On your Web page at 100% zoom, I see two columns. The left one has a block of text with title
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
and the right one has
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium Pack
At 100% zoom, a lot of the text I can't read because the font size is just too small and/or the font is not bold and/or dark enough to show up clearly on my display.
As soon as I zoom to the next larger magnification, 110%, I get just one column that starts with
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
as in the left column before the zoom.
At zoom 150%, I can read the content, but zoom 175% is easier to read.
But, now that I look again, at 175% zoom, farther down the Web page I see again
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium Pack
again. So, this looks like the start of what used to be the right column.
So, maybe I can see all the text but at zoom 175% the page is reformatted to one column instead of two.
In the Web pages I've written for my startup, I have put all my content in tables and not used HTML element <div>, and zoom settings do not reformat or rearrange the content on my Web pages. So, maybe your pages (I have not looked at your HTML code) have HTML elements <div> which let a Web browser rearrange the content.
So, maybe I was wrong: A user doesn't need horizontal scroll bars to read the content.
What fooled me is that suddenly at zoom 110% the page reformatted (rearranged), jumped around. Pages I've seen that jump around a lot are at Facebook; at times I've screamed myself hoarse; and that jumping nonsense is a big reason I try to avoid Facebook, even when they have content I'm interested in.
I'm happy to hear that. Even if you did not like the behaviour here, it is good to see that the css worked as planned. It indeed is a responsive design that will adapt the columns, from 3 to 1. After that the blocks get smaller. Sadly flex-wrap seems to be not animatable, that might have helped here.
It would not work to force the layout to remain, there is not one good configuration that looks good on all displays.
It would not work to force the layout to remain, there is not one good configuration that looks good on all displays.
As someone who wants to build a pc but doesn't want to worry about doing all the research to the components, this is very simple and wonderful. Thank you.
This subreddit is quite useful: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/
They usually have pretty good builds, and they update them regularly.
They usually have pretty good builds, and they update them regularly.
came here to say this! also a huge fan of /r/buildapcsales
The filters are lacking seriously and the amount of component that are listed is quite poor. The recommendation is nice, but without better filtering and more component availability I don't see myself using this.
Noted. Please don't forget that the alternatives selection is really new. Filtering will be extended, and I count on having more components soon.
Where do you pull product reviews from?
How much views/income do you get?
How much views/income do you get?
Hi. I'm not pulling full reviews, only benchmark results. Which benchmarks are used can be seen by hovering over the performance chart, they are linked. That currently does not work well with Kaby Lake processors, since their ratings rely mostly on logic deducing their performance from their predecessors. That will change soon when I'll add another round of benchmarks, at the latest when Ryzen gets released.
I'm not fully sure how many views I get, it is only using piwik which gets blocked by adblockers and respects the dnt-header. But I can tell that sharing the site here gave it a big spike with 3000 visits in the last 24 hours, counting those that piwik can see. I'm not comfortable with sharing the income, sorry. It's not that much.
I'm not fully sure how many views I get, it is only using piwik which gets blocked by adblockers and respects the dnt-header. But I can tell that sharing the site here gave it a big spike with 3000 visits in the last 24 hours, counting those that piwik can see. I'm not comfortable with sharing the income, sorry. It's not that much.
I wanted to show you the new version of the PC hardware recommender I asked advice for here, a bit less than a year ago in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11618937. Afterwards I continued to work on this sometimes in my spare time, but the last month I took some real time to fully concentrate working on this, after realizing I really wanted to.
Now, this version does not look completely different, but there are some bigger changes. Most important is probably the new database scheme. Instead of having one preferred model per vendor, it now has a big list of recommended models and takes the cheapest from that. That step alone improved the recommendations a lot. It also made it a lot easier to add new hardware and new countries, which I was thankful for when adding Ryzen just now and extending the version for the US with more vendors.
The other big change is the feature to customize the recommendation, to swap one part with another. You probably see how that goes together with prior change of extending the database. Since this is HN: The UI there was a problem for me, but the solution might be interesting for some. I did not want to load a new site, since storing the current recommendation can be confusing, for the user. But the selection list is too big for an overlay. My compromise was then to scroll to the right (using css) and showing the alternatives list there. The user has a lot of space, but is still very close to the recommendation list, without losing state. I wonder how that will work out, thatfeature is all new.
Apart from that there are many smaller changes. I took a round working on the design: Flexbox for the responsive design, Cache-Headers (set to immutable), syntax highlighting for the share codes, adopting Yahoos pure.css for the buttons, fixing pace.js showing longer load times than was true, using a system font stack instead of webfonts. Had some fun reworking how the recommendation process itself works, breaking it in the process, then having too bad of a performance, resorting to memoization and concurrency to fix that. That reworing included lots of added logic to see which parts go together. More vendors for Germany, a version for France, additional vendors for the US-site (again, made possible by the database change, together with detecting EANs as identifier being supported by the APIs I use - well, by most of them).
Some highlights: bflesch pushed thinking about how to proceed in general, edent triggered the thinking about the database design, WA for the recommendation to do the work I want and not more (this indeed was the kind of project for that). sokoloff and some others recommended ignoring the newegg api terms I did not like, at least so far they were right. aharonovich made a comment I really did not want to hear at the time but accepted later, that the german version was only enough to prove that this can work, not more. But basically, I am still impressed, going through that thread now again, how many helpful comments there were - I just don't want to enumerate too many names here. I hope some of them see it anyway.
I did not become a overnight millionaire thanks to this, and there is still a lot that could be done, but when I saw that the improvements of the site you pushed me to finally came together, that made me very happy. Of course, I would love again to listen to your feedback.
Now, this version does not look completely different, but there are some bigger changes. Most important is probably the new database scheme. Instead of having one preferred model per vendor, it now has a big list of recommended models and takes the cheapest from that. That step alone improved the recommendations a lot. It also made it a lot easier to add new hardware and new countries, which I was thankful for when adding Ryzen just now and extending the version for the US with more vendors.
The other big change is the feature to customize the recommendation, to swap one part with another. You probably see how that goes together with prior change of extending the database. Since this is HN: The UI there was a problem for me, but the solution might be interesting for some. I did not want to load a new site, since storing the current recommendation can be confusing, for the user. But the selection list is too big for an overlay. My compromise was then to scroll to the right (using css) and showing the alternatives list there. The user has a lot of space, but is still very close to the recommendation list, without losing state. I wonder how that will work out, thatfeature is all new.
Apart from that there are many smaller changes. I took a round working on the design: Flexbox for the responsive design, Cache-Headers (set to immutable), syntax highlighting for the share codes, adopting Yahoos pure.css for the buttons, fixing pace.js showing longer load times than was true, using a system font stack instead of webfonts. Had some fun reworking how the recommendation process itself works, breaking it in the process, then having too bad of a performance, resorting to memoization and concurrency to fix that. That reworing included lots of added logic to see which parts go together. More vendors for Germany, a version for France, additional vendors for the US-site (again, made possible by the database change, together with detecting EANs as identifier being supported by the APIs I use - well, by most of them).
Some highlights: bflesch pushed thinking about how to proceed in general, edent triggered the thinking about the database design, WA for the recommendation to do the work I want and not more (this indeed was the kind of project for that). sokoloff and some others recommended ignoring the newegg api terms I did not like, at least so far they were right. aharonovich made a comment I really did not want to hear at the time but accepted later, that the german version was only enough to prove that this can work, not more. But basically, I am still impressed, going through that thread now again, how many helpful comments there were - I just don't want to enumerate too many names here. I hope some of them see it anyway.
I did not become a overnight millionaire thanks to this, and there is still a lot that could be done, but when I saw that the improvements of the site you pushed me to finally came together, that made me very happy. Of course, I would love again to listen to your feedback.
I remember this thread! Congratulations on following through and making it happen!
It seems like a nice next step would be more options for the case, and perhaps some quick preview of how each case looks.
I assume it will update when we have solid Ryzen benchmarks? Is the main source of income through affiliate links?
I plan to better integrate product photos, is that what you are thinking of for the case preview?
Ryzen will definitely get proper benchmarks as soon as they are out. I'm honestly eager to know how they will place itself in the system. And affiliate links are indeed the main source of income for that project, with main source meaning the only source ;)
Ryzen will definitely get proper benchmarks as soon as they are out. I'm honestly eager to know how they will place itself in the system. And affiliate links are indeed the main source of income for that project, with main source meaning the only source ;)
Hmm. Seems pretty badly broken on iOS. ;(
Some concerns:
Can you make the titlebar change as the price changes?
Why is the cheapest case $108 and PSU $70?
You've got some bad links, like this one I excitedly clicked expecting a $12 Dark Rock 3 (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8MC3VU6...)
I'm surprised by the omission of the Pentium G4560 as a midrange CPU.
Also RAM doesn't change when going from Intel/DDR4 to AMD/DDR3. I'd probably just remove the really low-end AMD setups anyway.
But really my biggest question is why should I use this over PCPartPicker? They show a lot more specs than just normalized performance, and being able to sort by total reviews from many sites is really great.
Can you make the titlebar change as the price changes?
Why is the cheapest case $108 and PSU $70?
You've got some bad links, like this one I excitedly clicked expecting a $12 Dark Rock 3 (https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8MC3VU6...)
I'm surprised by the omission of the Pentium G4560 as a midrange CPU.
Also RAM doesn't change when going from Intel/DDR4 to AMD/DDR3. I'd probably just remove the really low-end AMD setups anyway.
But really my biggest question is why should I use this over PCPartPicker? They show a lot more specs than just normalized performance, and being able to sort by total reviews from many sites is really great.
Thanks. All valid feedback
> Can you make the titlebar change as the price changes?
Yes, that seems to be possible. I'll add it to the todo list.
> Why is the cheapest case $108 and PSU $70?
That should not be like that. I guess for the case this can happen when the cooler or the gpu is very large and it has no remaining other option. I'll check whether the data is correct, but I expect that problem to go away when the newegg API works better. As you noticed there are still some problems (they don't take EANs and the manufacturer-sku sometimes produces different products than expected).
I thought about adding a second list with the components that don't fit currently, and that will replace the non-fitting component with something like a closest match.
For the psu, there suddenly seem to be holes in the offer-database for the US. Very bad timing. The german version now gives a better impression on how that should work...
> I'm surprised by the omission of the Pentium G4560 as a midrange CPU.
Midrange is the wrong word for that one :) I mean that positively, is has a great performance for its price. It's just either not listed or not in stock and thus ignored. If it becomes available again it should show up shortly after, the system does know it, and uses it in the german and french variant.
> Also RAM doesn't change when going from Intel/DDR4 to AMD/DDR3. I'd probably just remove the really low-end AMD setups anyway.
Thanks for catching that. Hmpf, I did just fix that yesterday already. But the US version seems to know of no offer for ddr3 ram anymore. I'll have to work on that API integration, and prevent this from happening.
> But really my biggest question is why should I use this over PCPartPicker? They show a lot more specs than just normalized performance, and being able to sort by total reviews from many sites is really great.
Let me preface that: I like pcpartpicker. They build what I set out to build many years ago (I don't think they existed back then?), only that I pivoted very soon to the performance comparison approach and then did not take the project seriously for a while, during which they pulled through, built a community and a business. I do respect that.
But honestly, that pivot and its workflow is why: Just entering a price and getting a working PC is so much faster than what I understand as being the pcpartpicker-workflow. For me, the recommendations most of the time work quite well, and if not are easy adaptable with the arrows, and now maybe with the custom selection.
> Can you make the titlebar change as the price changes?
Yes, that seems to be possible. I'll add it to the todo list.
> Why is the cheapest case $108 and PSU $70?
That should not be like that. I guess for the case this can happen when the cooler or the gpu is very large and it has no remaining other option. I'll check whether the data is correct, but I expect that problem to go away when the newegg API works better. As you noticed there are still some problems (they don't take EANs and the manufacturer-sku sometimes produces different products than expected).
I thought about adding a second list with the components that don't fit currently, and that will replace the non-fitting component with something like a closest match.
For the psu, there suddenly seem to be holes in the offer-database for the US. Very bad timing. The german version now gives a better impression on how that should work...
> I'm surprised by the omission of the Pentium G4560 as a midrange CPU.
Midrange is the wrong word for that one :) I mean that positively, is has a great performance for its price. It's just either not listed or not in stock and thus ignored. If it becomes available again it should show up shortly after, the system does know it, and uses it in the german and french variant.
> Also RAM doesn't change when going from Intel/DDR4 to AMD/DDR3. I'd probably just remove the really low-end AMD setups anyway.
Thanks for catching that. Hmpf, I did just fix that yesterday already. But the US version seems to know of no offer for ddr3 ram anymore. I'll have to work on that API integration, and prevent this from happening.
> But really my biggest question is why should I use this over PCPartPicker? They show a lot more specs than just normalized performance, and being able to sort by total reviews from many sites is really great.
Let me preface that: I like pcpartpicker. They build what I set out to build many years ago (I don't think they existed back then?), only that I pivoted very soon to the performance comparison approach and then did not take the project seriously for a while, during which they pulled through, built a community and a business. I do respect that.
But honestly, that pivot and its workflow is why: Just entering a price and getting a working PC is so much faster than what I understand as being the pcpartpicker-workflow. For me, the recommendations most of the time work quite well, and if not are easy adaptable with the arrows, and now maybe with the custom selection.
Ok, I can see the value added as entering the page to a fully-built PC without necessarily needing to know all the components needed for a PC. I guess it's just API integrations for US sellers that caused most of my problems. Looking forward to seeing this page do well.
And G4560s are hard to keep in stock anyway so that's fair on your part. They are really surprisingly good.
And G4560s are hard to keep in stock anyway so that's fair on your part. They are really surprisingly good.
> Looking forward to seeing this page do well.
:) In that spirit, the ram issue for FM2 got just fixed. Not a hole in the database, just a parser bug making it impossible to select DDR3 ram. Thanks again for reporting that.
:) In that spirit, the ram issue for FM2 got just fixed. Not a hole in the database, just a parser bug making it impossible to select DDR3 ram. Thanks again for reporting that.
> I'd probably just remove the really low-end AMD setups anyway.
If you did that it seems like you would easily cut out the best low end configurations. For a while the AMD athlon re-makes were the best low end options. Last time I checked they weren't as cost effective. But they were the best bang for the buck for several years. New athlon + SSD + 4gb ram was a solid machine for <$250.
If you did that it seems like you would easily cut out the best low end configurations. For a while the AMD athlon re-makes were the best low end options. Last time I checked they weren't as cost effective. But they were the best bang for the buck for several years. New athlon + SSD + 4gb ram was a solid machine for <$250.
Server returns a 500 on any input over $2,500
It does return "Value must be less than or equal to 4000" for numbers over 4000, but 2501 to 4000 does give me a 500 as well.
Yes, confirmed and noted. Happens solely with the US version, it is a a missing case. I'll fix that now.
A genuinely curious question; How is this an improvement on pcpartpicker.com?
With them, I can see completed builds and pictures, compare benchmarks and prices as well as restrict builds to specific parameters.
With them, I can see completed builds and pictures, compare benchmarks and prices as well as restrict builds to specific parameters.
As someone who hasn't built a PC in a decade, I appreciate a site that stack ranks components. PC Part Picker still seems to require quite a bit of selection. While most enthusiasts are willing to do a little more research to optimize things, I think that there's room for a site like this for less knowledgeable consumers who don't want to do more research or want a simpler starting point for researching a build.
Thanks. That's exactly the angle I'm aiming for.
Hey I think you need to write explicitly at the top of the page "Enter your budget and we'll recommend an optimal build."
Because I opened the page and it wasn't quite clear to me wtf I was looking at and I had to come in the comments to figure out how this isn't better than pcpartpicker, found this comment and then went back to the page and was like "oh you have to enter your budget in at the top"
edit: ah just realized this was an issue because I was taken to https://www.pc-kombo.de/us/tipp?price=1640&cpuLegacylist%5BA...
If you just go to https://www.pc-kombo.de then it is clear
but still worth considering to keep that "recommend" call to action at the top no matter what page you are on so that there is never any confusion what the website is for
Because I opened the page and it wasn't quite clear to me wtf I was looking at and I had to come in the comments to figure out how this isn't better than pcpartpicker, found this comment and then went back to the page and was like "oh you have to enter your budget in at the top"
edit: ah just realized this was an issue because I was taken to https://www.pc-kombo.de/us/tipp?price=1640&cpuLegacylist%5BA...
If you just go to https://www.pc-kombo.de then it is clear
but still worth considering to keep that "recommend" call to action at the top no matter what page you are on so that there is never any confusion what the website is for
Color me convinced. After the next restart the explanation will also be on the recommendation page.
The logic was of course that people will go to the main page first and only search in a second step, making the explanation not necessary anymore. But in practice, most people come to the site via a share link and never see the start page. As long as the site is not widely known it is better that way. Thanks.
The logic was of course that people will go to the main page first and only search in a second step, making the explanation not necessary anymore. But in practice, most people come to the site via a share link and never see the start page. As long as the site is not widely known it is better that way. Thanks.
i think this service is better compared with http://www.logicalincrements.com/
Looks great! I appreciate the new ability to swap parts. A few comments:
1. Most of your swap pages have less than 100 parts, but display 50 by default. I wish this would default to "View All". Unless there's a huge number of components that will crash my browser, I'd rather view them all than paging through. Or, if you can't view all in case you crash a little phone on a bad connection, at least remember my selection across all of these pages so I don't have to reselect it for each component and visit to the site.
2. I wish there were more sort options on the select screen. At the very least, I want to see the performance metric you're using to recommend one over another. Further, I want to be able to sort and group by manufacturer (Nvidia/AMD), brand (MSI/Asus), VRAM, release date, power consumption, efficiency, form factor (ATX/uATX), etc. This is a lot of data, but it's the main reason why I use Newegg over Amazon, and Digikey over Allied. Parametric search tools are just the best way to select technical parts.
3. The Intel/AMD processor selection is a difficult UI problem. You want to simultaneously recommend the right brand for a target price point out of the gate, but also recommend only processors compatible with the selected motherboard. I'm not sure you nailed this one.
4. In the "Advanced" screen, the Intel/AMD/Additional check box hierarchy is confusing. The additional platforms should be under the Intel/AMD hierarchies, perhaps deselected as "Legacy" by default. Also, I know why they're additional, but a tooltip describing that LGA1150 is "for Intel 8x and 9x chipsets used with Core iX-4xxx and -5xxx series processors from 2013 and 2014" would tell me a lot more than I know without Googling. (Also, I can generate a server error by deselecting both Intel and AMD.)
5. I didn't see any M.2 or PCIe SSDs in the storage section.
1. Most of your swap pages have less than 100 parts, but display 50 by default. I wish this would default to "View All". Unless there's a huge number of components that will crash my browser, I'd rather view them all than paging through. Or, if you can't view all in case you crash a little phone on a bad connection, at least remember my selection across all of these pages so I don't have to reselect it for each component and visit to the site.
2. I wish there were more sort options on the select screen. At the very least, I want to see the performance metric you're using to recommend one over another. Further, I want to be able to sort and group by manufacturer (Nvidia/AMD), brand (MSI/Asus), VRAM, release date, power consumption, efficiency, form factor (ATX/uATX), etc. This is a lot of data, but it's the main reason why I use Newegg over Amazon, and Digikey over Allied. Parametric search tools are just the best way to select technical parts.
3. The Intel/AMD processor selection is a difficult UI problem. You want to simultaneously recommend the right brand for a target price point out of the gate, but also recommend only processors compatible with the selected motherboard. I'm not sure you nailed this one.
4. In the "Advanced" screen, the Intel/AMD/Additional check box hierarchy is confusing. The additional platforms should be under the Intel/AMD hierarchies, perhaps deselected as "Legacy" by default. Also, I know why they're additional, but a tooltip describing that LGA1150 is "for Intel 8x and 9x chipsets used with Core iX-4xxx and -5xxx series processors from 2013 and 2014" would tell me a lot more than I know without Googling. (Also, I can generate a server error by deselecting both Intel and AMD.)
5. I didn't see any M.2 or PCIe SSDs in the storage section.
That's great feedback. Thanks. I'll use this as a todo list.
> 5. I didn't see any M.2 or PCIe SSDs in the storage section.
They are indeed still missing. I postponed them for when I habe a good idea on how to handle both a SSD and a M.2/PCI-E SSD without adding another static Box. Guess it's time to add them to the SSD section for now.
For 3: Are you still talking about the swap page there? My only idea in that direction so far is to have a second list that contains parts which would replace other parts, in that case AMD cpus that would replace the Intel mainboard. Maybe shown as combinations of what they do contain, like "AMD Ryzen 7 1700 + AM4 board"?
> 5. I didn't see any M.2 or PCIe SSDs in the storage section.
They are indeed still missing. I postponed them for when I habe a good idea on how to handle both a SSD and a M.2/PCI-E SSD without adding another static Box. Guess it's time to add them to the SSD section for now.
For 3: Are you still talking about the swap page there? My only idea in that direction so far is to have a second list that contains parts which would replace other parts, in that case AMD cpus that would replace the Intel mainboard. Maybe shown as combinations of what they do contain, like "AMD Ryzen 7 1700 + AM4 board"?
> They are indeed still missing. I postponed them for when I have a good idea on how to handle both a SSD and a M.2/PCI-E SSD without adding another static Box. Guess it's time to add them to the SSD section for now.
Sure. Or maybe add them, SATA SSDs, and hard drives to a multiple-selection "Storage" box? I definitely think it's time to add them, they're similar in price and much faster than SATA SSDs!
> For 3: Are you still talking about the swap page there?
No, sorry, the "Advanced" tab, which is where AMD/Intel is selected.
Sure. Or maybe add them, SATA SSDs, and hard drives to a multiple-selection "Storage" box? I definitely think it's time to add them, they're similar in price and much faster than SATA SSDs!
> For 3: Are you still talking about the swap page there?
No, sorry, the "Advanced" tab, which is where AMD/Intel is selected.
> Or maybe add them, SATA SSDs, and hard drives to a multiple-selection "Storage" box?
I like that, it would be a good solution and could work well with the design.
For the Advanced tab, I think I got the problem now. It's that the swap page filters, making it potentially hard to get from for example socket 1151 to AM4. The Advanced settings are not problematic by itself, the concept of starting with one mainboard is. Does that catch it?
I'm not sure that is obvious, but when you browse via the side buttons, it will happily switch out the mainboard. That is just less discoverable right now because the 1151-processors are always higher rated than the FX-processors (which additionally are disabled by default because of the incoming Ryzen).
But in the alternatives list, there it is problematic. That one needs a way to list alternatives that do not fit into the current build, but would replace additional parts. All I got in my mind for that is having a second list, or probably rather additional entries in the main list that are somehow marked distinctively and contain the additional item as well.
I like that, it would be a good solution and could work well with the design.
For the Advanced tab, I think I got the problem now. It's that the swap page filters, making it potentially hard to get from for example socket 1151 to AM4. The Advanced settings are not problematic by itself, the concept of starting with one mainboard is. Does that catch it?
I'm not sure that is obvious, but when you browse via the side buttons, it will happily switch out the mainboard. That is just less discoverable right now because the 1151-processors are always higher rated than the FX-processors (which additionally are disabled by default because of the incoming Ryzen).
But in the alternatives list, there it is problematic. That one needs a way to list alternatives that do not fit into the current build, but would replace additional parts. All I got in my mind for that is having a second list, or probably rather additional entries in the main list that are somehow marked distinctively and contain the additional item as well.