31–40 of 401 posts
It's really nice when some build process takes less time because of better hardware. Also, try running some upcoming games on an old PC. Obviously the need for some hardware depends on what you are planning to do.
CPUs have not gotten significantly faster in the last couple years, especially at the high end. Back in Q1 2010 I got an Intel Core i7 980X which benchmarked at 8911 according to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+X+980+... Now in Q2 2013 (3 years later) the very top of the line processor available, an Intel Xeon E5-2690 v2, is only twice as fast at 16164: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=In…
I don't know which conclusion I had about this was more useful: 1) I don't need to buy a new PC every two years anymore 2) Someone should make a tablet with slots so it can be upgraded like a PC
Look at some ipad teardown for instance and watch how everything is packed together. Not to mention that these days everything is in SoCs: you can't upgrade the GPU and CPU separately. Even the RAM can be stacked on the SoC package and if it's not it's soldered right next to it.
Contrast that with the innards of a desktop PC which is mostly empty space.
Thinkpad T60 purchased (refurb!) in 2007. Still a rock solid machine. It does get a little warm though..
I built a dev/gaming machine back in early 2010. It's stout, but not a ridiculously expensive (~$1,000) behemoth. The only thing I've done since then is toss some more RAM in so I could have two sets of triple channel DDR3 instead of one. I can still run just about any modern AAA game at the highest settings. The only time I felt like I've needed an upgrade is while playing Planetside 2, which is/was very CPU bound f…
~$1,000 sounds quite cheap for a gaming machine which can still run any modern game at highest settings. I remember I built mine at about the same time (2010) for $2500, top notch video card, fastest cpu, lots of ram, but its 2013 now and I can not say that it runs any modern game at highest settings.
Maybe the OP doesnt play some of the most demanding games?
It's not that people don't need a new PC because their old PC does just as good a job as it did 5 years ago. It's also not because your average mom and pop are upgrading their own rigs themselves that new PC sales are slow. It's that when tablets hit the scene, people realized they don't need their PC for 90% of what they do on a "computer". Email, social networking, shopping, music, video etc. Us old geeks who swap…
I built a dev/gaming machine back in early 2010. It's stout, but not a ridiculously expensive (~$1,000) behemoth. The only thing I've done since then is toss some more RAM in so I could have two sets of triple channel DDR3 instead of one. I can still run just about any modern AAA game at the highest settings. The only time I felt like I've needed an upgrade is while playing Planetside 2, which is/was very CPU bound f…
AAA games mostly target the console. Look at GTA5, which isn't even out on the PC. Most AAA games will run on a PS3, which came out in 2006, and has 512MB of RAM (combined system / graphics).
That said, there's a point of diminishing returns - making games look much more realistic will take obscene amounts of resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
~$1,000 sounds quite cheap for a gaming machine which can still run any modern game at highest settings. I remember I built mine at about the same time (2010) for $2500, top notch video card, fastest cpu, lots of ram, but its 2013 now and I can not say that it runs any modern game at highest settings.
It was surprisingly easy. I'm not saying you over-paid, but for $2,500 I could have built something pretty ridiculous. Most of my money went into processor and GPU, which are typically your two big ticket items. I trolled around Newegg looking for upper-middle tier components with a higher quantity of good reviews. A lot of the times you won't see a lot of the recently released stuff with useful reviews, so some of t…
I built a dev/gaming machine back in early 2010. It's stout, but not a ridiculously expensive (~$1,000) behemoth. The only thing I've done since then is toss some more RAM in so I could have two sets of triple channel DDR3 instead of one. I can still run just about any modern AAA game at the highest settings. The only time I felt like I've needed an upgrade is while playing Planetside 2, which is/was very CPU bound f…
~$1,000 sounds quite cheap for a gaming machine which can still run any modern game at highest settings. I remember I built mine at about the same time (2010) for $2500, top notch video card, fastest cpu, lots of ram, but its 2013 now and I can not say that it runs any modern game at highest settings.