Do you feel a compulsion to constant hardware upgrade?

[Bustamonte]

Back then it mattered. Now it doesn't.

 

[Dux]

I bought quite a expensive gaming laptop last year, one capable of running many new games at high settings. I've played GTA V so far, which to date is probably the only "new" game that I've played. The rest have all been old games, most of which would require only a potato to run. I don't even know anymore. I guess I want to be prepared, until the time comes when an interesting new game comes around that demands a good rig. Then I won't have to stand there with inadequate specs and abjectly wish for better things.

The last time I upgraded my computer for a particular purpose, however, was long ago. It was for Operation Flashpoint 2, curiously enough. I absolutely love OFP and have done so ever since its release. I thought - foolishly - that the sequel would be even better. I knew beforehand that it would require some decent hardware so I bought parts and assembled. In the end, I didn't even play OFP2. Not once. Why? Because it sucks balls. The ARMA games don't care if you have a good computer or not: they'll perform like shit no matter what.

 

[Zarniwoop]

And yet there are still morons who MUST buy the latest Geforce GTX 1080 XXXXXXX Black Ultra ZZZZZXXXX on launch day so they can play CS:GO or World of Warcrap at 300 FPS.

 

[Davaris]

I'd rather collect old hardware and restore it, if I had those skills.

 

[Astral Rag]

And yet there are still morons who MUST buy the latest Geforce GTX 1080 XXXXXXX Black Ultra ZZZZZXXXX on launch day so they can play CS:GO or World of Warcrap at 300 FPS.

"Founder's Editions" is where it's at in [Current Year]
https://www.techpowerup.com/222895/...edition-owners-complain-of-fan-revving-issues

 

[Zarniwoop]

And yet there are still morons who MUST buy the latest Geforce GTX 1080 XXXXXXX Black Ultra ZZZZZXXXX on launch day so they can play CS:GO or World of Warcrap at 300 FPS.

"Founder's Editions" is where it's at in [Current Year]
https://www.techpowerup.com/222895/...edition-owners-complain-of-fan-revving-issues

Yeah I heard about that. I have NFI who the Founders are except these guys from DS9:

But they'll still sell millions because muh overclock. And I guarantee you there will be a faster Titan version. And then an even faster and more expensive Titan X or Z or some AWESOME letter. And then there will be a slightly less expensive but still expensive ti version.

 

[Haba]

I've reached the point where in a gfx card I first look at the power consumption and fan/coil loudness, then price. The actual performance barely comes into play.

 

[Astral Rag]

I've lost any urge to upgrade PC... for what purpose should I do that? To play MGS5, Dragon's Dogma, Wolfenstein'14, D44M, Witcher 3... in none of these games there is a promise there's would be much better fun than with games that are currently available... it's not 1997/1999 when waiting for another Quake was waiting new best thing ever.

Pretty much this. In the 90s and early 00s I (well my parents in the 90s ..) bought a new computer every couple of years but those were different times. The overclocked i7 920 I bought in late 2008 is still fast enough to run 95% of the games I'm interested in and I have a massive backlog of games already so why would I upgrade my MOBO and CPU? I did upgrade the computer's RAM from 6 to 16GB and I've bought 2 new mid-range GPUs since 2008 (4890 -> 560ti -> 960).
I see little reason to go for more expensive, high-end GPUs.

I'll probably start looking for a new computer in late 2017 or early 2018 unless my trusty Bloomfield gives up the ghost before then.

GPUs I remember owning over the years:

S3 Virge ( not sure which, I should ask my father )
3D Blaster Voodoo 2 8MB
TNT2 32MB
3D Prophet 4400
GeForce 5700 128MB
GeForce 6600 GT 128MB


edit:

Spoiler

 

[Severian Silk]

Witcher 3 is the only game I would be tempted to upgrade my PC for. There simply is nothing else that interests me that requires additional power.

I'm also not sure I have a "backlog" of games, since I'm not interested in blobbers, and have played most of the non-blobber RPG "classics".

Lastly, I have no idea what's worth playing in other genres. Maybe ED or SC if they are improved.

 

[The Decline]

The only reason upgrade at the moment is if you have a UHD display.

 

[Dexter]

My first PC (after C64, Atari and the likes) was a Pentium 66Mhz, then an additional AMD K6-2 200Mhz with MMX! (which turned out slower than the Pentium), then an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (there might've been something I forgot before that) and a AMD Athlon XP 2800+

After that it was back to Intel with a Core2Duo E6600 and I still got the Core i7-950 Bloomfield CPU I bought some time in 2009.
My first graphics card was a GeForce256 I believe, I remember upgrading that to a GeForce 4 Ti for Doom 3 and a GeForce 6600GT for Neverwinter Nights 2, a GeForce 8800 GTX for Crysis.

When that went kaputt out of warranty I replaced it with a GeForce GTX 460 and recently because some games like Sleeping Dogs, Metro 2033 and similar ran shit on higher settings and because of the Oculus Rift I got a GeForce GTX 770.
Another recent acquisition was a Samsung SSD 840 Pro.

I kind of miss *having* to replace stuff to play some of the newest games every 2-3 years but I'm thinking another upgrade of CPU/GPU isn't that far away (1-2 years) for a 4K resolution display (3840x2160) and possibly higher res VR.

Just quoting myself from page 1, it was a bit more than 2 years like I thought, but I'm just putting together a new build for exactly said reasons (4K resolution and VR): http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...s-gtx-1080-thread.108060/page-14#post-4540737 I've only had a GTX 970 upgraded since then (since the 770 didn't have display connectors that supported 4K and was too weak for VR games), otherwise I still have a similar PC to back when I wrote that post which I built in like 2009.

New one will look something like this: http://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/mVXgXH

And yet there are still morons who MUST buy the latest Geforce GTX 1080 XXXXXXX Black Ultra ZZZZZXXXX on launch day so they can play CS:GO or World of Warcrap at 300 FPS.

It's called ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 OC and pretty much needed to run games like Witcher 3, Fallout 4, GTA V, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Division etc. at 4K/60FPS, best in SLI.

 

[Turjan]

This thread is certainly a blast from the past.

I only update if I have to. My 2006 system died at the beginning of 2012, and I replaced it with an i5-2500K with 16 GB of RAM, an SSD and a 2TB hard drive. The only thing that's still quite old is the graphics card, which I had bought during the later days of my former system, an ATI Radeon HD 5770. I sometimes think of replacing it with something more recent, but I always forget about it.

That GPU died last year, RIP. Which means I had to buy a new graphics card. I was also tired of not having enough space on my SSD (this produced issues with swap space and games that insist on saving everything in the C:\User directory) and upgraded that one to a larger one. The old one is still usable though and will see some new life. The rest of the system is still the same as when I wrote that post in 2013.

 

[Melcar]

I also have lost the will to live. Don't see the point in updraging any of my current components and I can't be bothered with hardware mods anymore. Shit sucks man.

Last piece of hardware I bought was a 500GB SSD and I doubt I will buy anything else unless it's to replace a dead component. Maybe a Polaris GPU for Christmas, but my old HD7850 still kicks ass even at 1440p. Will probably skip the first couple of itinerations of Zen too, since this old over clocked FX8320 is more than what I need.

 

[Jaesun]

The last few times I can remember where I actually upgraded my computer, JUST because of the game(s) I was playing was Gothic 2 and then later Neverwinter Nights 2 (video card wise).

Now games want 16GIG memory, and my (current) Motherboard only supports 4. Fuck that shit, will play them years later from now, sorry.

 

[Tribal Sarah]

I upgraded years ago so I could play Oblivion, then the guy along the road helped me build a new one this year after the stupid PC nearly melted when I tried playing Witcher 3. It should keep me going for another 6 years or so.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Well actually I have my first upgrade down the road since 2008.

 

[Destroid]

The only thing I purchased since page 1 of this thread is an SSD.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

NO

 

[vitamin]

I only upgraded my gpu (gtx 750ti) and ram (8gb), so I could play some mods for Stalker without problems. And that was only a year ago or so. The rest of my pc components (Athlon II x2 240e, AM3+ mobo, 500gb hdd, 19" lcd) are about 6 years old, but still going strong, and I have no plans for future updating. And that's the only good thing about modern games being utter shit - no need to buy latest hardware means you have more money for women and beer

 

[Unkillable Cat]

My first computer was a HD-less 8086 with 2 5 1/4" drives, and a greyscale EGA monitor. This was back in the late 80's, I played all the Sierra adventures on that box, and probably had the most fun ever.

Games have always more or less propelled all of my hardware upgrades since late 1993 - that's when I saw DOOM, and had a revelation. By then, my trusty 386DX couldn't run it properly, and I had no sound card. So I upgraded to a 486DX2 and got a Sound Blaster. Also, on a lesser note, Betrayal at Krondor and Ultima 8 (U8 ran like a dog on a 386).

This happened again in 1996, when Quake came about. 486 couldn't run Quake Test properly, so I got a Pentium 166, and played Quake to death. Shortly thereafter I had to get a Voodoo 1 to get GLQuake working, it was another revelation.

In 1998 I wanted to play Unreal, so I bought a Pentium 2/400, and upgraded my Voodoo 1 to a 8MB Voodoo 2.

So on and so forth. However, in more recent years (maybe 2006-now), I've become a jaded oldfag and don't really feel the need to upgrade anything for long stretches of time. There's a huge back catalogue of good games that I haven't played, and most of the new stuff coming out that's interesting doesn't require anything better than what I already have.

In the past 8 years I've made 2 reasonably big upgrades, one in 2008 from an Athlon 64 3.2/Geforce 6800GT to a C2D8400/ATI 4850 and one this year from that to an i5 3570k - this wasn't really needed, but I wanted to run Dota 2 at a constant 60fps, that game is really CPU bound. Also, emulation of newer consoles at full speed without caveats is a nice bonus.

Quoting this post because it describes my history of PC upgrades all too well. Started on an Amstrad PC with 2 5.25" drives and a CGA display (1988-1990), then a HP 286 with a VGA graphics card but only an EGA display (1990-1992). All of these were hand-me-down hardware. The first PC I ever bought was a 386DX 40 Mhz with 8 MB of RAM in late 1992. It was powerful enough to run Ultima Underworld and Doom decently, and could even run Ultima 8 at a constant 10 FPS. I upgraded again in 1995 to a P90, then to a P200 in early 1997 and finally a P500 in early 1999 - a rig I still have, BTW.

All upgrades since the turn of the century have been either hand-me-down hardware or me just upgrading one particular part of my rig. The latest upgrade was replacing my 10-year old Sound Blaster X-Fi with a Sound Blaster Z. My rig can run modern games, but I have to scale back the graphic settings to get most of them to run properly as I "only" have a GTX 660...but the upside is that there are very few modern games I'm interesting in playing.

But to answer the original question? Not anymore, I'm done with all that.

 

[Hupu]

I'm completing a list of parts for an upgrade to play some of the games my 2010 shitbox is too slow to play comfortably (Mafia 2, Divinity OS, even god damn Titan Quest chugs in bigger fights). I can just barely play these at 720p but I'd rather work through my backlog and play them properly later on.

There's no recent hardware-intensive game I'd wanna play (maybe The Witchkurwa 3), but I paint and do some 3D work for a living, so an upgrade is always welcome. Thing is, with all the software going for a subscription model (Windows, Adobe products) I really don't wanna stay dependent on more and more service-like products, Steam's bad enough already, so I've been working with Blender and Krita as alternatives and have found them perfectly acceptable for my needs. I'm just about ready to jump ship to Linux, but there's still some games and software I'd rather keep the opportunity to use.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that you can achieve above 90% performance on Windows in a VM using passthrough thingamajig. It just needs quite specific parts to work smooth or at all.

 

[Bustamonte]

I remember I got an add-in card for wing commander one. I am pretty sure it was a memory expansion. I had A WHOLE MEGABYTE.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

I've finally bought new PC because I needed to left my C2D in old flat and after few months I'm pretty shocked how little there's to play.

Then, when I brought back my old PC, I'm almost starting to feel regrets for upgrading...

Basically, only native PC games I enjoyed are MK11, Quake Champions and Phantom Pain (which I finished on PC after I got rid of that awful PS3 console). Damn, what a fuckin' empty void that PC Master Race world is. I've made Steam account and bought some gaems, breaking my own rules of not paying for digital distribution and now feel kind of dirty... Playing a 'rented' games that can become unplayable once the service servers are dead is fucking WRONG and FAKE, feels like its was something worse than playing clean, cracked, unbloated version. And being worse than piracy is the new low.

At least I can run Saturn, WiiU and 3DS emulation perfectly or close to that.

Let's say it loud, C2D is still absolutely fine for any modern casual computer use (youtube, mailing, word processing, social media shit etc.) and upgrading is just for few modern titles that you are not even allowed to OWN is just a caprice for spoiled brats.

I've lernt my mistakes bros, don't follow my steps and realize before it's too late.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Between the years of 1995-2010 I would have said yes. Did it so often I unwillingly learned pretty good hardware skills. Had plenty of card changes. Matrox, Diamond, several Voodoo, and Banshee. The move from PCI to AGP took some work to get hardware conflicts solved. IIRC the move to PCI-E as a standard has eliminated any more problems.

Since the 2010 or so the answer is no. I've had 2 PCs in the last 8 or 9 years, and the last one I replaced (Athlon II X4) was only due to a lightning strike/outage and my lazy ass not having installed a decent PSU backup. I'm currently running an HP office PC with a RX 460 thrown in. Runs damn near everything at med-high. The days of constantly swapping out mobos and dedicated cards are over. It's a mixed bag. On the good side, hardware is cheaper and lasts longer. On the downside, no one really tinkers with shit any more, so engineering skills get nerfed.

 

[DalekFlay]

Depends on my gaming habits. I bought a GTX 480 back in the day because I was super into gaming at the time, but then I went through a spell where I didn't play much so I didn't upgrade again until the 1000 series, and even then I got a 1060. Lately I have been really into games again, so I got a nice new 1440p monitor which killed my 1060, so I upgraded pretty fast to a 2070. So like I said, it depends on how I'm feeling at the time about games. I don't know why I'm so off-and-on with gaming as a hobby. I've gone a year or two without playing anything before, then I'll do nothing else hobby wise but game for a year. It's weird, but it is what it is I guess.