[HN Gopher] Show HN: PC Builder AI
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Show HN: PC Builder AI
Hey HN! You know when you wanna build a new PC, and need to watch
a bunch of videos to find the best parts, and then tweak your
shopping cart to fit your budget? Well, this new app can help you.
It recommends the best hardware for your usage (gaming or work),
and considers your budget. It's really helpful, even when you got
expertise on hardware. Check it out, and feel free to suggest
stuff! Hope you like it! https://www.pcbuilderai.com/
Author : abnerorlamunder
Score : 39 points
Date : 2023-08-09 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pcbuilderai.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pcbuilderai.com)
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| It should ask more questions about your preferences. Some person
| would value smaller size, someone would value more speed per
| dollar, someone values upgradability (i.e. more PCIe slots,
| latest CPU socket) and durability above everything else. E.g. I
| would mostly prefer to get a cheaper CPU but a better motherboard
| so I can just buy a better CPU later once I need it and have more
| spare money.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| thanks for the feedback, we're adding more preferences soon.
| will let you know when it's deployed
| hmmstedaa wrote:
| [dead]
| untech wrote:
| I was tired of waiting after 30 seconds or so. I think it would
| help to have a more meaningful progress reporting, like flight
| ticket services have. 99% Invisible had a nice episode on the
| subject. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/wait-wait-tell-
| me/
| jeanmayer wrote:
| Yeah, that's true. As we create many simple tools every day,
| sometimes we forget about the UX. I'm listening to the podcast
| and will add a better loading, thanks!
| butz wrote:
| There are probably a set of top defaults, e.g. "gaming $1000",
| would be easier to cache those for faster load times.
| nathias wrote:
| feature suggestion: start with some components and generate what
| fits with them
| pacifika wrote:
| Matches my own spec quite well.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| glad to hear that
| mushufasa wrote:
| seems like this was posted for feedback, here's mine
|
| - seems like the market data about components is out of date, so
| I wouldn't actually trust this.
|
| - pcpartbuilder is helpful in large part because there are links
| to actually buy the components
|
| - really what I'd want to do is describe what I want to do with
| the computer, then have it suggest things -- not just select from
| a dropdown. That would actually be helpful; there's a learning
| curve to stay abreast of the latest hardware things and really
| what I would want is "tell me what's the good stuff to buy" like
| you might find if you google "best workstation build for ai" or
| watch a Linus tech tips video
|
| - I'd want to take a look at the list of components and edit them
| and have it recalibrate, like "actually I think this case looks
| really cool" and then have it automatically readjust components
| based on for example things that fit in the case
|
| - I'm guessing this is using a LLM based on the out-of-date
| market data. For the above, I think you would really just need a
| robust set of apis about pc part data and then use LLMs to
| function call into the apis. It seems like pcpartpicker is the
| group with this data, not sure if they expose it to other
| developers
| jeanmayer wrote:
| The prices really are not exact, but they are close. Fetching
| the prices from real-time sources and then using AI to
| transform them into information seems to be a good approach
| (currently we're using AI only)
|
| We will add links soon. We have this feature already, it's just
| not available because the prices don't match (the AI price is
| higher than the actual Amazon price, for instance)
|
| Your feedback is much appreciated and very very helpful, thank
| you so much.
| SirMaster wrote:
| It's recommending a $42 1TB HDD. I can get a 1TB SSD for less
| than that...
| celrod wrote:
| It recommended I pay the $150 extra to downgrade from the 3950X
| to the 7950X. Also, that I pay $1400 for a 3080 TI, but a
| substantially less powerful GPU would do just fine. I asked for a
| workstation, not a gaming rig.
| chung8123 wrote:
| Isn't the 7950x better than the 3950x in all aspects or am I
| missing something?
| celrod wrote:
| Yes, it is. That is why this is a terrible recommendation.
| Kiro wrote:
| I don't understand your comment then. Did you make a typo?
| celrod wrote:
| Oops, I meant downgrade from 7950X to 3950X.
|
| It told me to buy a 3950X.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Depends on what "workstation" means to you... For some, it
| literally means AI work, and would suggest a higher end GPU
| with plenty of VRAM. For others, it may mean really memory
| heavy work, or high CPU process work. For me, it's the latter,
| for others it could be the former. YMMV, seriously.
| celrod wrote:
| I agree. "Workstation" is too general.
| rexxars wrote:
| Seems to be hugged to death - every request I run ends in a
| 500/504 - and there is no error handling to display an error when
| it happens.
|
| What is the backing AI/data source? I tried using ChatGPT for
| this, but given it's cutoff is September 2021 it doesn't really
| give you the most relevant hardware.
| abnerorlamunder wrote:
| Thank you all for the feedbacks, we will be doing our best to
| improve and fix what you guys reported. Keep doing it!
| ok_vimmer wrote:
| I'm sorry but this seems like a moneygrab AI keyword operation.
| Also I'm a bit worried about the other projects I've found
| clicking the dropdown: https://www.duplicateduplicate.com is very
| disturbing.
|
| Also it never generated a PC for me...
| jeanmayer wrote:
| we make a lot of crazy stuff here and I respect your opinion (:
|
| did you check out https://www.seanceai.com it's even weirder, I
| admit, but people seemed to like it, search for "Seance AI" on
| Google
|
| Could try again generating the PC, please?
| wallaBBB wrote:
| I guess this is what you get when you train it on data from the
| chip shortage (high prices) period
| stainablesteel wrote:
| fwiw bard and gpt-4 seem to do a pretty similar job at this
|
| gpt-4 actually gave me ~90% similarity on the suggestions too
| capableweb wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be working 100%, but it's a neat idea :)
|
| I put I wanted the computer to cost $8000, and it generated
| components that cost $5340 together (1000 + 500 + 2100 + 700 + 90
| + 250 + 500 + 200) but still the UI showed the correct prices for
| the individual items, but the total still showed as "$8000"
| although adding them together is nowhere near that.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| interesting... thanks for the feedback, I'll see what happened
| TheCapn wrote:
| Yeah... I randomly punched in $40,000 for Gaming and got
|
| (1) Parts that total $9,980, but claims it totals $33,950 (2)
| Recommendations for parts that are both years out of date, and
| vastly inferior to other options (CPU = AMD Ryzen Threadripper
| 3990X, GPU = RTX3090)
|
| So I'm guessing the AI data isn't trained enough and is going
| off some poor metrics like sorting by price, perhaps
| recommending multiples without indicating (was it asking me to
| double up on RAM or Stroage?)
| wpwpwpw wrote:
| Just tried it and, asking for a $2000 workstation, it recomended
| right away a 3700x for $340 dollars. I can find a faster, cheaper
| option (7600x) for $244. And a rtx 3060 for $650? It's just plain
| wrong
| nerdix wrote:
| Speaking of out of date prices. Does anyone know where up to date
| pricing data is usually sourced from?
|
| How does PCPartPicker get pricing data from Amazon, NewEgg,
| Walmart,etc.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| that's a really good question, I'd like to know either
| 05bmckay wrote:
| It gave me a P2200 GPU. lol.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| Their suggestion for a $1k workstation is laughable. I can build
| a comparable system for $250.
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| Pretty cool, but for all of what I could imagine AI could do,
| this seems a bit limited. Does it just generate the same thing
| each time? This could just be some premade lists.
|
| When I think of an AI I'd imagine some more personalisation, and
| there's so much that goes into building a PC but the only input
| here is the price.
|
| What about appearance? Opaque causes, transparent cases, white vs
| black PCBs, RGB? Preferences around the prioritisation of certain
| specs (more storage?). Then there's the many form factors.
|
| Even for just a "gaming" build - are you going for blockbuster
| graphics, or more CPU-intensive simulation genres.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! You are right. We made this tool to be
| as simple as possible, but it makes sense to have something
| more powerful. We will test and add these options soon (:
| snisarenko wrote:
| Pretty useful tool!
|
| Do you verify that all the parts you suggest are compatible ?
|
| Are you able to complement with actual build instructions ?
| capableweb wrote:
| > Do you verify that all the parts you suggest are compatible ?
|
| Generating a part list compatible with pcpartpicker.com could
| fix that easily if not.
|
| > Are you able to complement with actual build instructions ?
|
| It's almost easier to build a PC today than a 100 piece LEGO
| kit. Otherwise, most components come with manuals for how to
| assemble them together with the other pieces too, like the
| motherboard comes with instructions on where things go.
| atonse wrote:
| Seems like this is something PC Part Picker (with their
| metadata on compatibility and slots and such) could build
| without AI.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| It's easy but it would be good to have a simple "How to".
| We'll add soon
| tracker1 wrote:
| I think CPU cooling mounts are probably the only thing that's
| really difficult, and even then, the types of mistakes you're
| likely to make (namely uneven tension or not enough thermal
| compound) take some hands on experience to get right.
|
| I've walked 3 different under 21 kids through a build since
| start of the pandemic... only because my hand/eye
| coordination for some bits (panel headers, etc) isn't so
| great combined with low light visibility.
| capableweb wrote:
| I dunno, there is a bunch of motherboard/RAM/CPU
| combinations that don't work properly together. Just
| because the socket is right, doesn't mean the component
| supports it.
|
| Slightly recent example is newly launched CPU architectures
| using contemporary sockets, where you have to insert a
| supported CPU first, update BIOS and only then could the
| motherboard support newly launched CPU. But if you just
| have the one, new CPU, it might not be able to boot.
| tracker1 wrote:
| That's fair as well.. matching launch chipset and CPU is
| a pain. Also, even in Phoenix, I had trouble getting
| access to an older CPU to update a MB chipset for a new
| build last year... wound up spending $100 more on a newer
| chipset MB. It had bios flashback, but that didn't work.
| cumshitpiss wrote:
| [dead]
| gavin_gee wrote:
| neat.
|
| newegg has something similar -works pretty well
|
| https://www.newegg.com/tools/custom-pc-builder/
| m_kos wrote:
| Is there a tool similar to this one but for searching through
| the offerings of large manufacturers like Lenovo or Dell? In
| other words, based on my criteria, it would find PCs with
| configurations closest to my needs.
|
| I need a relatively high-performance i9-based desktop PC (for
| ML and toying with LLMs) with on-site warranty, so building my
| own PC would not work for me.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Hug of death? Sorry, my attention span on websites is < 15 sec
| unless it's giving me a progress bar for stable diffusion.
| icodestuff wrote:
| Not sure where you're getting pricing data, but it's clearly out
| of date. A Ryzen 5 3600 is $97 on Newegg ($92 after rebate), not
| $350. Tools like this absolutely must have up-to-date pricing to
| be useful.
| distortedsignal wrote:
| I agree broadly. I think this helps to narrow down what pricing
| for these types of expenses should be, though. If I'm trying to
| spend $1000 on a PC (the last time I built a PC was in 2013,
| can you tell?) and I don't have intimate knowledge of the
| prices of specific parts, I'll probably try to get a vague
| sense of proportions for "what should the ratio of CPU cost to
| GPU cost be?" I think this tool helps with that. Then, when I'm
| ready to load up a cart, I can use something like PC Part
| Picker and verify my order.
|
| I think this is a good tool, but not a great tool. Some
| refinement is needed, but the API is good, if sparse.
| swid wrote:
| If anyone is looking for a different website to help with these
| kinds of choices, I've used https://www.logicalincrements.com
| many times over the years and have been happy with the
| recommendations there.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| this is very powerful and complete, thanks for sharing!
|
| PC Builder AI is more of a fun project that might help by
| giving you direction of what to search
| politelemon wrote:
| Great site thanks for sharing it! Really good breakdown.
| mrozbarry wrote:
| What part of this needs ai? This looks like it could be done with
| a database and a price list. I think this suggestion is already
| said, but the main push of "ai" is mostly in terms of natural
| language processing, so why not allow a prompt? Give a default
| prompt like "I'd like to build a gaming pc with a budget of
| $1000." You could even make it a fill in the blank like "I'd like
| to build a _______ pc with ___special features____ for a budget
| of $____." The thing about it's current iteration is regardless
| of there being "ai" in it, it's not clear what it's doing that's
| more special than me asking a pc building community for a parts
| list with a budget.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Non PC experts need this sort of thing.
| mrozbarry wrote:
| I don't disagree, but from what I see, it could be executed
| faster with just a good database query. It's not clear what
| is AI about this, or what benefit AI actually gives it as a
| tool.
| politelemon wrote:
| Pcpartpicker does this perfectly
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| i used the logical increments guide back in the day
| mrozbarry wrote:
| To continue this idea (feel free to steal this), what if this
| tool looked more like this:
| https://play.tailwindcss.com/KqFF5wqk5I
|
| Have a conversation with the AI about the PC you want, and
| challenge it on things like "can I see the equivalent PC but
| with AMD instead of Intel" and things like that. I think that
| would have extremely good value. And for prices, you might be
| better off scraping amazon (or whatever site makes the most
| sense), instead of whatever stale data you have. Prices for PC
| parts fluctuate so much that I don't know that it make sense to
| try and store/cache it locally.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| this makes a lot of sense, thanks for the feedback! We'll
| think more about your idea and get back to you here
| huac wrote:
| I feel like this is a linear optimization problem (maximize
| benchmark score for games and/or for work) constrained on price /
| part compatibility, not something which you can just feed into
| ChatGPT. Unfortunately, the compatibility constraints are tricky,
| as well as understanding what the benchmark score would be with a
| nonlinear set of items.
|
| What I would do is classify each item to the best item year
| (similar to FB's best device year), find benchmark scores for
| representative sets of item-years, and use that as a 'oracle' to
| guide the solver.
| hunterhod wrote:
| Getting HTTP 500 response when I attempt to generate a build.
| Seems like the intent isn't to charge money for a useful tool,
| but rather have the traffic funnel into your agency business. I
| would highly suggest fixing your errors if that's the case.
| visarga wrote:
| Apparently people don't build systems for AI, just for gaming and
| work.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| if you have any other types, let me know and we'll add
| toxicFork wrote:
| That's a security measure to prevent AI building other AI.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Newegg.com actually has an AI PC builder where you describe your
| needs in natural language and it spits out parts.
| https://www.newegg.com/tools/custom-pc-builder
| gavin_gee wrote:
| by the way https://www.cheerleaderai.com/ is great!
| jeanmayer wrote:
| thanks! That's what we do. Simple, cool and Agency Increasing
| tools like this (all for free)
| wyre wrote:
| I would love if this was able to text me cheers throughout the
| day.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| that's a great idea, this could be the next feature. I'm
| adding it to the roadmap. Probably we'll launch this feature
| next week ;)
| midnightclubbed wrote:
| Gave ok suggestions for a $500 desktop, apart from including a
| redundant $45 cooler (Ryzen 3200g already has a passable cooler
| in the box).
|
| Changing to a $550 build keeps the same cpu but changes its price
| from $100 to $170, adds a $20 cooler, and drops Ram from 16gb to
| 8gb.
|
| Sorry for the negativity but algorithm needs work.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| indeed it needs more work, thanks for the feedback! It helps us
| to make it better (:
| rzhikharevich wrote:
| I've chosen "Gaming" and $4000. What I've got is quite strange:
|
| * Ryzen 5950x -- a 16-core Zen 3 CPU for gaming in 2023?
|
| * RTX 3090 for 1500 -- you can get a 4090 FE for about that price
|
| * an X570E motherboard which generally doesn't make a lot of
| sense for gaming
|
| * a 1200W PSU which is wildly overspecced for this build
| tracker1 wrote:
| Suggested a 10980XE for a $4000 workstation... I would have
| expected a 7950X and an RTX 4080/4090 class.
| jeanmayer wrote:
| sometimes AI sucks, but it's good to know so we can make it
| better (: did you try again?
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