Rob Cheng
Dave Methvin
Steve Hogan
Lyle Schuknecht
Bill ZahrenBattle Of The Sexes
May 27, 2008 by shogan in The Pit Blog
| Other Research |
Through our world renowned OverDrive diagnostic test, PC Pitstop has accumulated a unique view of trends in the PC industry. In this report, we take a look at several million computers to analyze the computing differences between males and females.
Surprisingly, there are some very large and real differences between male and female computers. We take a light hearted look at the battle of the sexes for computing supremacy. Roll your mouse over each chart to learn more about each and every tasty difference.
June 5th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Ok so Men are rushing out to get upgrades and junk, which they don't need and only have more space on thier disks…Due to running out without asking the wives and girl-friends if they can…To buy the latest and greatest! snickers …and ok so they have more memory, Eventhough It takes a lot to run Vista…. The difference Between men and women. We may be Cheaper Yet we are still sexy!( Just so you know I happen to Love AMD!, and have a 500gig HD with 500Gig back-up. with 5 gigs memory. and happily In computer heven with XP pro SP2!)
A happy Female computer! oh yeah…My BF's Computer is way older and lots lots slower than mine, his HD is smaller too! LMAO…My toys are Bigger!
June 6th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Well at the risk of generalising, being called a traitor etc etc. I would say most women use computers because they need them rather than because they like them. Therefore they are less likely to talk about them to their friends and thus be embarrassed by what wimpy little machines they have, therefore less likely to want to rush out and spend money on upgrades. As for those big, hard, disks that men seem to have - well women don't need nearly so much space to store their downloaded porn, right? It ain't rocket science…
June 6th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Yep, we love the best. Of course, we don't need it. But if you can afford it, why not have the things you want? And about asking wives, maybe… but asking your girl-friend if you can buy yourself something?!? As for me, I always let my wife know when I am going to make a purchase. Let's see…. sexy? I haven't met many sexy computer loving women. Sadly, most of them are just as unpleasant to look at as the rest of us. I have two 750gig HDDs… but screw backup - how about a RAID0. Thumb drives are for backup. An avid software engineering Male computer! Oh yeah… My wife doesn't know what a gigabyte is. For that matter - maybe the reason women have lesser systems is because they are unaware/scared of upgrading.
Usually, I wouldn't be such an ass - but when I see a feminist taking a light hearted comparison of statistical information, and becoming defensive, it's rather irritating.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I think these differences are being somewhat exaggerated. For example, the Processor speed difference is only 0.09Mhz (2.09 vs 2.18). Differences between men and women in their computer hardware doesn't necessarily prove a correlation between the sexes. More men work in tech jobs, and thus are probably using higher end equipment, and are also probably more concerned with upgrading their personal PCs. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that most men and women are pretty similar in these regards, but that men with tech jobs skew the data. Basically, this data doesn't say much by itself and the conclusions that are drawn are really just "proof" of already defined stereotypes and gender-roles. Either way I can't convince my girlfriend to let me build her a new computer with a quad core processor
:-p
June 6th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Someone wasted time comprising these numbers unless THEY just actually wanted to know. Computers are tools and toys. Can your computer do what you want it to do? If it's not broke don't fix it. If it is, do what you can to make it work for you. We have 5 and the numbers are irrelevant, they function for my family. We can play Clifford and do IRS spreadsheets. : )
June 6th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
OK MY 2 CENTS from a network engineer, PC tech, server manager and system analyst!!!!!! I prefer to build MY computers. WHY cuz MEN build them and guess what, over 90% i have ever had to work on blows. More problems than IRS has our money. AMD you better believe it. Dual processors absolutely, teragig hard drives a must. 8 fans but not because im so stupid to over clock my systems but because I prefer major cooling only thing better is a liquid cooled system which is major bucks. I have had more men come to me for help in simple tasks all the way down to "how do i attach a file to an email or how do i open an attachment or how do i make this print" 8 gig memory please dont tell me i lack memory. Maybe im the exception to the rule. But when i build my systems men come to me for help on theirs. Im a self taught SEXY female, in the IT industry, married with children wearing makeup, nails, and dresses w/nylons and yes to run cables too. I can find a network issue in 30 mins or less and my coworker males take 8 hours to 3 days to come to the same conclusion as I. Am I upset yes. Women have the time at home, work from home, network from home and work and we share ideas and information on what works and doesnt work. We dont need to prove ourselves or feel like the BIG DOG on the block with toys that are unnecessary or a waste. Men dont have to AS A GENERAL RULE worry about the bills, groceries, clothes etc we take all that into account prior to being the BIG DOG on the block.
Most men I know use their computers for gaming. Whoopie that is why they need the toys so they can blow eachother up. Please if that is all that is in your heads then have at it. Just so you can keep from blowing up your own computer cuz you dont know how to do it smart.
You want smart and multitasking better watch the female in your life and give up on the computers cuz they are not helping.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
As a female I jumped on XP the second it was released and oh yeah, that went well when after installing it took 5 hrs. My husband who wants absolutely NOTHING to do with computers commented "See, I knew it wouldn't work." But after getting it installed my modem no longer worked. It didn't matter what I did the Modem just would not work and buying a new one didn't help I uninstalled it and had ended up buying a new computer with XP. So Jumping to Vista? NOT A CHANCE! Not till the system works or I have to.
I am not a feminist but I try to keep up with all the tech out here in the country in the middle of no where. I upgrade my computer as best I can and LOVE Bells and whistles. But come on stooping to attack level just because you are male and a female said something you took wrong.. Yeah buddy, your Mr. MACHO.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I realize that the intent is humour, but I feel that I need to point out that men can't possibly have higher clock rates than women with AMD processors today, or women really don't upgrade at all.
My wife runs a E6750 @ 3.6GHz with 2 gigs of RAM and 2×160g hard drives in RAID0.
I run a E8400 @ 3.8GHz with 2 gigs of RAM, 2 x 250g hard drives, plus a 500g for backup, 160g for Vista, 160g for Ubuntu.
The wife had her current (upgraded) system first. That's not about her insisting upon it by any means as she'd have been happy to stick with her P4 3.0GHz. It's about me being smart enough to show her that the upgrade made a big difference, thus justifying my own upgrade when the technology got even better.
Now my girl friend… oh wait, that's another thread.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Hi everyone and thanks everyone for responding.
This was all meant in fun, and it sincerely was not meant to yank anyone's chain. So please keep that in mind.
Second point, is that this is a study of averages. Therefore, on average the average male has a faster CPU than a female. This does not mean that ALL females have slower CPUs, just on average.
All that said, I was surprised that some of the differences are so dramatic. For example, we did the same analysis by age, and there is really no difference. There are some real differences on average.
The data does not tell us why the difference exists. I can speculate however. I believe that if a man and woman go into the store and buy a PC, they actually buy on average the same PC. The difference is that men tend to replace their PCs faster than women. Or that women tend to hang onto their old PC longer. But that's just my theory, and supported by the Vista / XP transition.
Anyways, let's have fun talking about this subject, but also let's keep it light.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I'll just tell you about a recent conversation with my husband.
Honey, I just bought a window washer for my puter now that we're doing online banking.
Oh really? Does it just hook up to the hose?
nuff said…….
June 6th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
This whole thread is hilarious. My momma always said that men were the best opposite sex there is, so let's just enjoy the differences and be o.k. with it all.
June 7th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I find it rather disturbing that women are being praised for keeping with XP, as if that is a good thing. Whether they switch to Vista or not is more of a personal preference, not a solid "right or wrong" thing. Me and my dad are both happily using Vista. I have 2 Gig RAM and he has 8, but I still get a pretty fast startup.
June 7th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I built mine a couple of years ago, a dual core AMD. Until I recently retired, I was a mainframe assembler programmer. If you think that's a dinosaur, it's a velociraptor. It's what you use when you have very high thruput. I also still have an Amiga up and running. The difference in speed between a 25 MHz machine and 2.2 GHz should be much greater than 2 or 3 times faster. I'm still running XP because I have no desire to turn any more of my resources over to a clunky operating system. I have 120GB, 250GB, 300GB, 500GB and 1TB for backup, not to mention a moderately high end graphics card.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I was a mainframe programmer too, and did the 'build-your-own' thing back in the early 90s, but I'd just rather do other things with my time these days. I wonder what would happen to the numbers if they included Macs. My Windows machines are laptops running XP (too many pricey peripherals to switch to Vista), but when I'm ready to get more bells and whistles (and RAM and processors) it will be a (third) Mac.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I think this is hilarious. No… in a good way. I couldn't agree more. I know just by using my girlfriend's computer and mine, there are differences between a guy's computer and a woman's, just as there are differences (thankfully!) elsewise. After all, we are literally wired differently. And I'm all for that. It's nice to see some analytical humor about it.
June 15th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Yes, it's true.
Men do have bigger disks and women tend to stay with their PC's longer than men.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Let the battles begin and may the best win!! LOL
JT
[link deleted by administrator]