Should you bother Upgrading your PC

I've not upgraded for ages, still have a GTX285 and a Q6600 @ 3Ghz.

Every game I buy runs perfectly on max settings at the native res of my monitor.

As I am no longer 17 I don't gain any sort of e-kudos from the latest graphics card as I once did, so I see absolutely no point in buying a new card until a game I buy no longer runs on max settings.
 
My 4890 and overclocked ancient C2D CPU is still running everything I want to play fine.

Might get an i7 come March though.
 
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Has anyone noticed though, sure some have that we’re now down to pretty much a two horse race – so to speak for the core components...

Lets see, upgrading or building a gaming rig.

Video – ATI /NVIDIA
CPU – AMD /Intel
Motherboard – ASUS /Gigabyte
Sound – ASUS / Creative (onboard as well if you don’t want a soundcard)

Even peripherals are coming down to just a select few.

Microsoft / Logitech / Razor

Its soon going to be that PC hardware is going to be very standardise for us all. We all use Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows XP.

And nearly all PC gamers will have one of the above products installed in our systems, but anyhow. Its just something I noticed. Remember many years ago, you went go get a 3D card and you’d have so much choice, now all you have to decide is are you ATI or NVIDA and select the brand..!! All use the same ref design, just buy a card with the budget you have… But it’ll be either ATI or NVIDIA.
 
You've only had a choice of ATi or Nvidia for the last 10 years! The 'other' players made worthless rubbish anyway. Not since 3dfx went has there been a credible third choice.

Ditto CPU's. It's always been AMD or Intel.
 
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It's come full circle for me.

With the release of the last console generation I pretty much gave up on PC gaming. I couldn't really say why, as I was always a bit of an RPG/Strategy man. I blame my kids and the convenience factor.

Recently though I've tried some multi-format games on the PC and this has spurred me to upgrade my system to the extent that I bought a 580 yesterday. Mainly because poor ports aside, the PC versions are technically superior, by a massive margin in some cases.

Maybe if I hadn't had this hiatus from PC gaming I may be feeling the same but I have years of stuff to catch up on at the moment. :)
 
My old system (e6300 with 5770) was playing most things 'okay' at average settings @ 1600x1200. I upgraded to spec in sig and its been the biggest upgrade since going from a 486 to a P166 MMX with a voodoo banshee! 3d vision has blown me away, its not cheap but if you need a new monitor like I did its not a huge premium for - in my opinion - a huge leap graphics. If you have money burning a hole in your pocket i'd highly recommend it :)
 
This current system I built in 2008 and its been running like a trooper since. The only reason I put a 5870 in was my 8800GTX went pop and used it as an excuse to buy a new GFX card and put the RMA replacment on ebay.

In the next couple of months I do intend to go to i7 as prices are good at the moment.
 
Its simple in my eye, the hardware is way ahead of the software. I still don't see a need to upgrade from e8400 OC'd and a 4850. Still plays most things that I play very well. My recent purchase F1 2010 hasn't had any problems on high. Not only that but I bought the pc 2 years ago now iirc. The e8400 is still worth more than I paid for it when the pound tanked.

Think I will upgrade in 1-2years. I see nothing on the horizon that will bring it to its knees. Gaming is pretty much dominated by the console market - given they are static builds, most games will probably only make use of what they can do - hence a 2 yr old pc can still play games at the same level or better than the consoles.
 
AWPC said:
PC is actually coming back in a big way now ;)

The consoles are dying even though they sell more copies most console games look/play the same as innovation is not there due to most using the same technology so they are very limited by the 5 year old hardware which MS/Sony are trying to stretch another few years with crap like Kinnect (which Bill Gates said is coming to PC as well but I doubt it will happen ;)) & 3D which is pointless until they can make 3D displays which do not require glasses (which is technically possible right now but the cost is not viable so we have to wait around 10 years until all displays use native 3D built into the screen).

The big thing the PC has going for it is that emerging markets are PC only gaming markets. Consoles do not sell well in places like Russia, East Asia, Africa & Europe. Its ironic in a way that Russia & China are huge PC gaming markets ;) (Germany is the biggest apparently).

Piracy is also starting to get contained more on PC as most games contain online only components like Co-Op or MP via GFWL or Steam so the revenue is now guaranteed.

Still we get mainly DX9 level ports but even MS have realised the PC needs to lead the way again & only the PC can allow developers to make DX11 or higher games so I expect the focus to come back to PC a little in the next 2 years. The consoles right now are in the same static rut the PS2/Xbox1 found itself in the early 2000's where everything was similar & gamers got jaded.

For sure there are not many games worth buying the best gfx card for but give it time there will be more & at least the PC can run the console ports as they are intended. Many current console games do not run very well at all as the FPS is dire then even with screen tearing the hardware cannot hack it unless the game was built specifically for the console like some PS3 games use the CPU's to offload gfx card rendering. So at least the PC can run these games even if we do get shoddy ports & limited gfx options we still get a much better experience overall.

30M Steam users is a good indication that PC gaming is booming as when console gamers see how good their games look on the PC many move over plus along with emerging markets its doing quite well.

Then consider how cheap decent PC games are either online etailor sales or weekly Steam/GFWL sales now you can pickup recent games for silly money. Its far better for the publishers to sell say 1M games @ £9.99 than 100K @ full price ;)

Dedicated PC only games are certainly long dead since 2007. PC gaming is thriving & growing rapidly so high end hardware is selling accordingly but we are spoiled as a mid range card & budget PC between £500-600 will give much better gaming than a console on current games then you have the huge library of catalog PC games as PC games sell for years unlike console games they do not stop selling them thanks to the magic of digital downloads.
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Hold me.
 
im still on a q6600 and a 8800gtx :p they play wow and football manager fine still.

i play any other games on 360, cant get enough of achievements :(
 
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