A Intermediate user's advise to "newbies"

(Long post) - I feel I've graduated from Newbie to Intermediate user , so I wanted provide some important things I've learned throughout my journey. I'm sure there are many more, so please feel free to add on.

1. When choosing to install ComfyUI and your technical knowledge is "low", I would suggest installing it using the single-click installers (portable, easy install, etc.). You may also want to try Pinokio, Wan2GP, etc. If you are wondering what those are, see #3.

2. If you're asking whether your computer can run ComfyUI, there's a good possibility you should find something else to do. Or, simply do a little research.

3. Speaking of research, there are tons of resources available, and I am pretty sure 100's of people have asked your same question. Search reddit, search YouTube, Google, AI apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, etc. That doesn't mean you can't ask questions, just try to help yourself first. It's better learning that way. I searched/used this reddit months before I asked my first question.

4. Once you are up and running, start with using the default templates in ComfyUI until you become more comfortable. They work. Really.

5. IMPORTANT - I would strongly suggest refraining from downloading every freaking Workflow you come across and installing the tons of custom nodes along with it when you first start. You just might regret it later. (see below).

6. Learn, build, and most importantly, HAVE FUN!

Some of my fun times (NOT):

When I started off, I had 64GB Ram and an 8GB AMD Radeon. Absolute nightmare trying to get ComfyUI installed (tried multiple methods). I was able to get Wan2GP installed somehow and played around a bit. But I wanted the challenge of getting ComfyUI installed if it was the last thing I did. I actually gave up and bought a RTX 5060Ti 16GB before the prices went to shit, and WHAM! ComfyUI installed on the first try using a single-click installer. Was running pretty much anything I tried (within reason).

Fast forward - About 3TB worth of Models/LoRAs downloads, 50+ Workflows I had grabbed for all kinds of posts, and God knows how many custom nodes installed. I started having some issues. I couldn't get my Workflows to run properly anymore. GPU screaming, overheating, eventually crashing. I did an update to ComfyUI and went into ComfyUI manager and clicked "Update All" and.... KABOOOM. (Hint some nodes are not updated to work with specific python, triton, sage, transformer versions)

I backed up only what I had used and prepared for a clean install. I foolishly paid an enormous amount of money for a 32GB RTX 3090 and 128GB 3600mhz DD4 thinking I "needed" it. When they arrived, I installed the 3090 which barely fit (it was the only thing that could be plugged in to a PCIe slot on my MB), not to mention 350 Watts. Re-installed ComfyUI - Ran one of my normal workflows and OMG.... First thing I thought was.. I spent all this fawking money, and my previous 5060Ti was actually faster and ran it just fine too. Needless to say, I've sent it back for a refund. I did keep the 128GB Ram though since it wasn't "that" bad in price, (although they jacked it up $300 12hrs after I ordered it) and... you can never have too much ram LOL.

Note: The clean install fixed all my problems. Everything is purring like a kitten... For now.