When did the PC hardware scene get so crazy and stressful?

WantoN said:
I've just watched it all unfold with a smirk on my face. I find the whole thing faintly ridiculous.

I've had a good chat about it now and then, and I'm absolutely delighted AMD has a horse in the race, but honestly I think most people are like us, and it's a very select few who are acting like crazies.

I mean imo, buying multiple GPUs so you can pick one, or so you can game on the next gen a few days earlier, is absolutely mental, but it seems quite common place.

Hype has definitely built over the years, and I think part of that is us getting older, and seeing younger people join the scene. I also think you're right; the socio-political landscape is tense, people are board, and they desperately want something to be excited about.

I'm very much in the hang back, buy second hand camp. Almost my entire rig is second hand, and it performs wonderfully at 3440x1440. Im also about 4 years behind the times on AAA titles. I just buy them on sale and play a lot of Indies, old favourites.

I look at all this the same way I do pre-orders, especially digital ones; people are crazy, let them get on with it.
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This. I've been into PC's since 1994. I started upgrading the year after. I started building from scratch in 2003. I've been on this Forum for 13 years now. I think what's going on now is Bonkers.
I've been an early adopter in the past, now I'm not interested. I won't be drawn into the hype, though I do like keeping up to date with PC tech for the sake of giving others 'advice' if you can call it that. :p

I gave up gaming a few years ago after I built my nephews a budget gaming rig each, the only reason I got into that was because of them. GFX cards, I dont recall spending more than £200 at any time.

I have 2 rigs both built in the last year, Both Ryzens (3rd & 1st gen based, both off the MM) from new parts & 2nd hand. GFX in both are 950 & 960. plenty good enough for me. Buying new now I think is stressful & frustrating. Screw that for a Game of Soldiers. If anyone doesnt like my rigs - can you do any better & there's the door.

JAZE2C's sums it up

 
I've done little upgrading in the past ten years; two gfx card changes, one ssd, and some memory expansion from 8-16gb.

That's it. My i5 2500k was the absolute **** and i enjoyed nearly a decade of 1080p gaming.

Now however, the world is moving onto 4k. Apart from a select few who are desperately holding on to HD and QHD like some decade old hipsters, the real next gen of gaming is here. And it's causing high prices, a lot of demand and no thanks to the pandemic, supply issues. If you can be patient do so and chill out, things will normalise eventually. Otherwise prepare to pay with your wallet and possibly your sanity.
 
4k4uNuNu said:
I've done little upgrading in the past ten years; two gfx card changes, one ssd, and some memory expansion from 8-16gb.

That's it. My i5 2500k was the absolute **** and i enjoyed nearly a decade of 1080p gaming.

Now however, the world is moving onto 4k. Apart from a select few who are desperately holding on to HD and QHD like some decade old hipsters, the real next gen of gaming is here. And it's causing high prices, a lot of demand and no thanks to the pandemic, supply issues. If you can be patient do so and chill out, things will normalise eventually. Otherwise prepare to pay with your wallet and possibly your sanity.
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https://gearbroz.com/s1mple/

1280*960 is the Res the top csgo player in the world uses.
 
Heh, let me guess, he earns millions from playing a video game I used to play for fun over a 56k modem two decades ago. Competitive gaming is just one of the many problems of modern gaming. They are in the minority, the don't speak for actual gamers and I have no interest in their needs or desires.

And seemingly neither do tech companies, who are pushing 4k, ray tracing and all kinds of awesome tech on the home users.
 
4k4uNuNu said:
I've done little upgrading in the past ten years; two gfx card changes, one ssd, and some memory expansion from 8-16gb.

That's it. My i5 2500k was the absolute **** and i enjoyed nearly a decade of 1080p gaming.

Now however, the world is moving onto 4k. Apart from a select few who are desperately holding on to HD and QHD like some decade old hipsters, the real next gen of gaming is here. And it's causing high prices, a lot of demand and no thanks to the pandemic, supply issues. If you can be patient do so and chill out, things will normalise eventually. Otherwise prepare to pay with your wallet and possibly your sanity.
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I agree that 1080p is getting long in the tooth, but 1440p is still by FAR the best sweet spot for gaming and hardware performance and isn't going anywhere for a generation or three yet. 4k is gaining traction at the high-end, but it's still a level of performance out of reach of most PC gamers... even new games are struggling at 4k on the latest hardware with RT etc enabled.

Psycho Sonny said:
https://gearbroz.com/s1mple/

1280*960 is the Res the top csgo player in the world uses.
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Why would anyone care what resolution the worlds top CSGO player uses? He doesn't play for 'fun' and everything he chooses, including resolution, is just designed to give him a competitive edge. It's not representative of any average use case.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Just saying Res isn't everything and if you stick with 1080p gaming rigs are stress free and cheap.

I game at 1440p but would have zero issues dropping down if I had to.
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You're right that resolution isn't everything, but 1440p should be the achieveble goal for most gamers in the mid range and is I think a big improvement over 1080p... moreso than 4k is over 1440p. I have 1440p and 4k monitors and switch between them depending on the game. I play a lot of older strategy titles like Sins Of A Solar Empire with various mods (Star Wars and Star Trek etc) and they are awesome at 4k. :)
 
Richdog said:
There was alsways some toxicity but it was never this level of obsession and compulsion that I see today. There was the occasional nut, but people were mostly getting along and brand loyalty wasn't yet as vitriolic as it is today.
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I can certainly remember ludicrous fanboi wars in the past over gfx cards that even threatened to shut the subforum I've heard, thats been relatively quiet over the last couple of years it may be picking up recently after the new AMD cards have finally arrived though.

The orther recent toxicity comes from frustration over severe lack of stock for reasons that aren't entirely clear as well as overwhelming demand presumably because no-one has anything much else to do with entertainment and hospitality places being shut, as a result theres an awful lot of people chasing very small amounts of hardware and people are letting their frustation boil over.
 
Richdog said:
You're right that resolution isn't everything, but 1440p should be the achieveble goal for most gamers in the mid range and is I think a big improvement over 1080p... moreso than 4k is over 1440p. I have 1440p and 4k monitors and switch between them depending on the game. I play a lot of older strategy titles like Sins Of A Solar Empire with various mods (Star Wars and Star Trek etc) and they are awesome at 4k. :)
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The issue is its far too expensive as the tech is going up and wages have been stagnant for 15 years for the majority and the tech has also been mostly stagnant too. We have only seen major jumps recently in the past few months to a year or two. Before that CPU were much if a muchness and gpu hardly had any major improvement either.

So tech stagnated and prices rose meaning you got pretty much little improvement but had to pay a lot more for it until recently.

Now you have Covid pricing. Next year will be Brexit pricing.

I don't think for the majority aiming for resolution should be a big factor but it will be as pc see themselves as pushing the boundaries. So you will always have people who can afford it saying go 1440p or 4k, etc.

It costs like £1500 currently for a decent 1440p full rig at a minimum when you factor in the screen cost too.

Next year that will likely be £2000 thanks to Brexit.

It's nice to have but I don't think we should be pushing new gamers down the rabbit hole. Especially if they can't afford it.

I'm okay for the next 4-5 years. I have a pretty decent set up. I've slowly put together and upgraded several times over the past few years.

My next rig I'll salvage what I can and I'll probably just stick with value for money options. It's pointless jumping resolution if it means double the price in a rig.
 
Imagine having endless amounts of money for builds like that. :D


Or a 15K setup.


That's quite a snazzy looking case.
 
I think you should only upgrade if you have the money or need to. I upgraded last year, the MOBO, CPU, PSU and Ram. Everything else is the same since December 2012. Now, I am getting a 2tb ssd and a new PC case. Still have corsair 500r but its been 8 years, time for a change and the Lian Li Lancool 2 has caughter my eye, because of the design, the 6 ssd and 3 HD caddy. I plan to keep the case for atleast 5 years like I did my corsair. I am still using my 2gb 2012 GPU but going to upgrade this, maybe next year. Unless you have the money or a competive gamer, don't understand why you would want a 10k+ pc rig.
 
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