when to upgrade

wowfood · 23 Oct 2007 at 22:23

ok, i've got a fairly good pc atm, upgraded last year

2x7800gt's
skt939 4000+ amd cpu
2gb of ddr400ram

I'm planning on upgrading in the future. (not any time soon, i'm not made of money) I tend to skip out on one generation and go to the next. I was wondering if anyone had any idea around about when i should be upgrading from this

I know the best judge is when i cant play the latest games anymore

but i'm planning on doing a total gaming upgrade top of the line everything. (maybe not top, thats too expensive)

Anyway any suggestions on when to upgrade are appreciated.

hikaru452 · 23 Oct 2007 at 22:46

the best time to upgrade is when you have the money and when your current pc can not do what you demand of it within a resonable timeframe. it may be cheaper to just upgrade a single part of your pc to extend its life (if feasable), however the time to do a complete upgrade or new build (in my opinion) is not now, not with all the talk of new hardware comming our way. other then that no one can give you the best time to upgrade apart from just not before a manufacturer announced pricecut or jsut before new hardware is to be released (as doing so can be considered stupid) unless you are buliding a low spec pc then savings may be minimal.

wowfood · 23 Oct 2007 at 22:55

yeah i got screwed kinda. I upgraded to 939 when it was new still. But they ceased making 939 stuff so quickly, i was so annoyed when only a year or so after 939 they stopped making anything for it in favour of am2...

I think from what i've read the next real hardware change (new sockets etc) are going to be around 09 although that may be a mistaken conception on my part.

I've always been an amd person, i just prefer them over Intel. And for some reason i'm finding myself strangely drawn to ATI dispite the fact i've been with nVidia for all my builds thusfar.

Although i'm avoiding Asus with my next upgrade, everytime i've gotten something Asus the first one breaks.

hikaru452 · 23 Oct 2007 at 23:06

maybe get an x2 3800 (check for x2 support first) and a better gpu (im assuming you have pcie) and overclock your pc this may be a cheap upgrade for you (wait for more opinions first befoer committing and if getting a new gpu then wait until the 8800GT is out and maybe the new revision 8800gts if you can afford (they may be good enough to last to a more significant upgrade))

wowfood · 23 Oct 2007 at 23:17

i'm fairly sure the system i have now should be enough to last until 09. so i'll probably end up upgrading around then i think.

Admiral Huddy · 24 Oct 2007 at 09:36

wowfood said:
yeah i got screwed kinda. I upgraded to 939 when it was new still. But they ceased making 939 stuff so quickly, i was so annoyed when only a year or so after 939 they stopped making anything for it in favour of am2...

I don't see why that is a problem. Once you have your bits, that's it for a few years surely? It's not like you upgrade your system every 6 months is it? Is it?

So in all honesty, there is never a good time to buy and thee will always be a case that as soon as you buy, it's obsolete in the same time it takes your gf to spend you hard earned cash.

I had my 939 for over two years and it showed no signs of slowing down. With a 8800GTX installed, Bioshock ran at maximum settings on 1920. I have recently upgraded becuase I stick to a two year upgrade plan. I can then still sell the bits before they are worthless.

So buy for now.. not whats' possibly around the corner.