‘No AMD!’ We asked Micro Center shoppers what’s inside their PCs

A Micro Center returning to the Bay Area is a big deal for local nerds, including a big chunk of the PCWorld team. That’s why Adam Patrick Murray decided to do an informal and impromptu survey of the attendees of the grand opening. What are they putting in their home-built desktop PCs? We found out in our latest YouTube video.

There seem to be pretty predictable trends among this group, which leans towards gamers and other performance-obsessed builders. These folks lean towards AMD for the processor, Nvidia for the GPU, and a few shoppers were on hand specifically to find a “Founders Edition” card at retail price, which is almost impossible online. Eddie says that he’s been looking for one online and at Best Buy for months.

There are exceptions to both, of course. Adam’s pointed interview of an Intel user made me laugh out loud.

“Didn’t you hear on the internet, Intel sucks?” Adam asks. “Yes, yes it does,” says Micro Center shopper and Intel user Ariel.

Others are more dedicated to their chosen brands. “I’ve got a bunch,” says Chris. “I’ve got a lot of Macs, a couple old Intel PCs. I’m not an AMD guy. No AMD!” Chris is also primarily a Mac user. Drama ensues.

Of course, CPUs and GPUs are modular, for the most part. The more interesting question for me—and for avowed SFF fan Adam—is what form factor these folks are building in. He found a good mix of people building in oversized full tower, standard ATX tower, and small form factor cases… along with one very interesting divergence.

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