TC
The Comparator
Academy Wiki / Buyer User Guide

Buyer Wiki & Hardware User Manual

Master The Comparator UI: learn how to calculate PC upgrades, quickly find the best deals, pin your current GPU, add custom used listings (Avito/eBay), compare products, and customize weight presets.

PC Hardware Buyer Wiki & Interface Manual

Welcome to the Buyer Wiki. This encyclopedia provides step-by-step user guides explaining how to use every feature and UI mechanic of The Comparator calculator.

📖 Interface User Guides

🔄 1. How to Calculate PC Upgrades (Out-of-Pocket & Perf Uplift)

Learn how the Upgrade Calculator calculates net out-of-pocket costs ($\text{New Price} - \text{Resale Value}$), filters candidates by the +20% performance uplift floor, and ranks upgrades by scenario capability (1440p gaming, AI/LLM).

🔍 2. How to Quickly Find the Best Deals

Learn how to use budget sliders, VRAM floors, Value Score sorting, and condition toggles (New, Refurbished, Used) to find top deals in seconds.

📌 3. Pinning Cards & Adding Custom Listings

Step-by-step guide to Pinning your existing graphics card (📌 icon) at the top of the table and adding Custom Listings (Avito, eBay, Marketplace) to evaluate second-hand deals against new store prices.

⚖️ 4. Comparing Products Head-to-Head

How to select multiple products to launch the side-by-side Compare Matrix (/compare/) or explore pre-compiled Versus Matchup Pages (/versus/).

⚙️ 5. Presets & Custom Weight Sliders

Detailed breakdown of what each of the 8 weight sliders affects (price, perf, rt, ai, vram, tdp, warranty, year) and how workload presets (1080p, 1440p, 4K, AI/LLM, 3D Rendering) work.

🧮 6. How the Value Engine Works

High-level overview of how the Value Engine compares performance and specifications against total retail price and TCO electricity costs.

🧠 7. Specs That Actually Matter

Cut through marketing fluff: VRAM capacity, memory bus bandwidth, Tensor TFLOPS, and 3D V-Cache impact on gaming frame times.

🕵️ 8. GPU Deal Hunting Guide

Strategies for spotting genuine discounts, checking price trend histories, and using target price matrices.

🛠️ Direct Tools