Computer MFGs

It makes me upset how confusing buying a computer can be, even to someone like me who has some basic computer knowledge. I'm not saying I know everything, but I believe I know more than the average consumer. Between RAM clock speeds and timings, GHz, cores, hyper threading, dual and triple channel, Graphics cards (where not only does each gen have different models, but each model has subsets of each model, and then even among those there is variation based on the RAM, manufacture and even clock speeds.) Power supplies, MOBOs which are virtually imposable to compare objectively, and HDDs, and even more that I didn't list, who wouldn't be confused?

All cycles are not created equal!
Some people don't seem to understand that the Hz rating only tells you the number of cycles per second. It doesn't tell you what gets done in each cycle. Don't try to compare an Atom processor to a P4 based on clock speeds. If you do, you are an idiot.

A computer will get slower over time.
Unless you know what you are doing, trying to maintain your computer can often make it worse. There are an endless list of things that can slow down your computer on both the hardware and software side. For example your HDD will often develop bad sectors over time.

The whole is equal to whatever the hell is slowing it down the most.
If any one component is shitty, it doesn't matter how great the rest of the computer is, your computer is still going to be shitty. To be continued later.