Well, I think it's been over 18 months since I upgraded my PC last, and I'm starting to get the urges to see if I can mak any vast improvements anywhere.
The spec now is a
Q6600
8800GTX
4GB RAM
A graphics card would be the obvious choice, but then again, the games I play at the moment are running just about fine (COD4, TF2 etc). However, I've had some great urges to buy Crysis, and thought that either an addition card or a new one might help the performance...
Apparently not. Looking at some of the figures quoted for the newer cards from ATI and nVidia, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between them and the 8800GTX. Not one to justify the money anyway.
So my question is this. Am I missing something here, or has the technology progression hit a rather large brick wall? Especially in the graphics card area. My previous upgrades had been out of date no more than 6 months after I'd bought them and were running games so much smoother than before. Granted, the games I play are no where near as demanding as the likes of Crysis and the likes, but looking at Tom's Hardware performance charts (which I always take a pinch of salt with) there really doesn't seem to be much happening...
So, the 8800GTX is around two years old as far as I can remember (at least it had been out several months before I bought it), and yet there doesn't seem to be anything groundbreaking to report in about or entice me to buy.
Am I right? Or have I been mislead by shakey performance charts? Have I been out of the loop too long? Or am I reading the wrong charts?
Or is it that we're about to, or are already in, a recession? Is there just not enough demand for people wanting to play Crysis on max settings without feeling as though their motherboard is melting under the strain?
Oh wise OCUK...enlighten me either way, please.
The spec now is a
Q6600
8800GTX
4GB RAM
A graphics card would be the obvious choice, but then again, the games I play at the moment are running just about fine (COD4, TF2 etc). However, I've had some great urges to buy Crysis, and thought that either an addition card or a new one might help the performance...
Apparently not. Looking at some of the figures quoted for the newer cards from ATI and nVidia, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between them and the 8800GTX. Not one to justify the money anyway.
So my question is this. Am I missing something here, or has the technology progression hit a rather large brick wall? Especially in the graphics card area. My previous upgrades had been out of date no more than 6 months after I'd bought them and were running games so much smoother than before. Granted, the games I play are no where near as demanding as the likes of Crysis and the likes, but looking at Tom's Hardware performance charts (which I always take a pinch of salt with) there really doesn't seem to be much happening...
So, the 8800GTX is around two years old as far as I can remember (at least it had been out several months before I bought it), and yet there doesn't seem to be anything groundbreaking to report in about or entice me to buy.
Am I right? Or have I been mislead by shakey performance charts? Have I been out of the loop too long? Or am I reading the wrong charts?
Or is it that we're about to, or are already in, a recession? Is there just not enough demand for people wanting to play Crysis on max settings without feeling as though their motherboard is melting under the strain?
Oh wise OCUK...enlighten me either way, please.
