How old is your hardware?
Posted on 22nd May 2012 at 07:31 by Antony Leather with 143 comments
Something that's fascinated me since I became a PC enthusiast in the 1990s is the economy surrounding the hardware industry. It’s incredibly disjointed in some ways, and heavily reliant on other segments of itself in others. For instance, software, such as games or new operating systems, can dramatically drive forward new generations of hardware kit.
On the flip-side, hardware can drive itself forward, with one release spawning other releases. CPUs and motherboards are the classic example, and we’re seeing the exact same thing with Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge CPUs and motherboards equipped with the Z77 chipset. We all want the latest hardware of course. It provides better frame rates, sexier visuals,or in the case of PSUs, can even save money on your electricity bill.
However, while our industry relies on new hardware and people’s willingness or need to buy it, there are plenty of people out there that are quite happy with seriously old kit. We’re not talking about a generation or two out of date either. We’re talking about three or four generations old, and the hardware was never particularly impressive when it was new either. Some of the graphics cards are barely DirectX 9 compatible, yet these people are keen gamers.
ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro was a great graphics card in its day, but many gamers still use ancient hardware to play games.
Several people I know have only recently upgraded from graphics cards such as the ATI 9600 Pro (now AMD of course) or the Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT. An interesting look into just how many people are using quite aged hardware is the Steam Hardware and Software Survey. Currently updated as of April this year, and with numerous bug fixes that now tell a more accurate story of newer PCs, it shows some interesting facts about the PC gamers out there.
Nearly 10 per cent of those surveyed use DirectX 9 and below-capable graphics cards – a figure that’s roughly similar when it comes to single-core CPU usage too. The latter suggests quite a few people are still rocking with elderly Intel LGA775 and AMD Socket 939 systems – both of which were the turning points for the switch to dual core CPUs. Likewise, the Nvidia GeForce 8800 series is still massively popular and with a figure of just over 30 per cent attributed to ‘other’ for video card description, it’s likely this number is made of substantial numbers of even older graphics cards.
Steam, of course, is home to a wide variety of games. One explanation for the large numbers of old systems is that many games simply don’t need cutting edge hardware. 2D-based games are prime examples of where a half decent CPU is all that’s needed. This argument might go some way to explaining why some people are still using hardware that was already half a decade old when President Obama was victorious in the 2008 presidential election. However, I know from personal experience that many people simply play very old games, or are quite happy dropping the settings of more modern games to hideous levels in order to play them with acceptable frame rates.
They’re passionate gamers, and many must have the money to upgrade (after all, an upgrade from a 9600 Pro can probably be had for half the cost of a tank of petrol these days, even less second hand). Maybe they're console gamers first, PC gamers second? There are some other more promising facts in the survey though. Windows 7 64-bit is now by far the most common operating system, and Windows XP is more popular than Windows Vista (even Microsoft admitted it wasn’t a great OS). This is a clear sign that gamers are at least buying new PCs or opting for Microsoft's new operating system.
The Steam Hardware and Software survey makes for some fascinating reading into what kind of PCs are out there and what the most popular hardware is.
More importantly, the most popular graphics cards are now those from the GeForce GTX 560 series, undoubtedly due to the serious price drops the series has had thanks to new hardware launches, while Intel HD Graphics 3000 are close behind. The latter might make you cringe to think of all the poor souls out there using what is essentially integrated graphics for games, but don’t forget that the HD 3000 series means they’re also sporting a very modern Intel CPU, which is all you need to play some of the simpler, less graphically-demanding games on Steam.
Game graphics comparisons such as this Battefield 3 one clearly show just how much better the game looks at high settings. Clearly there may be many reasons why someone might not have modern-enough hardware in their PC to play games at high settings, and after all, many people would say it's better to play the game, even at low settings than to not play it at all.
For me it’s an alien concept not to want great graphics though. It’s half the joy of buying and playing a new game, especially one that’s had thousands of man hours put into the visuals as well as the actual gameplay such as those in the Crysis or Battlefield series'. I’ve even held off playing new games in the past, just so I could save up to get the hardware needed to play them at decent settings. For that reason, the core hardware in my PC is rarely older than two to three years, although I'm quite happy to relent and drop in mid-range hardware and not pay a small fortune on the latest must-have gear. I also upgrade because other tasks I use my PC for such as photo editing, would see improvements too, so upgrading isn't just a game-related urge.
I’d be genuinely interested to know how old your hardware is, how often you upgrade and if you or anyone you know has some seriously old gear kicking around and what games they actually play. Let us know in the comments.
On the flip-side, hardware can drive itself forward, with one release spawning other releases. CPUs and motherboards are the classic example, and we’re seeing the exact same thing with Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge CPUs and motherboards equipped with the Z77 chipset. We all want the latest hardware of course. It provides better frame rates, sexier visuals,or in the case of PSUs, can even save money on your electricity bill.
However, while our industry relies on new hardware and people’s willingness or need to buy it, there are plenty of people out there that are quite happy with seriously old kit. We’re not talking about a generation or two out of date either. We’re talking about three or four generations old, and the hardware was never particularly impressive when it was new either. Some of the graphics cards are barely DirectX 9 compatible, yet these people are keen gamers.
Several people I know have only recently upgraded from graphics cards such as the ATI 9600 Pro (now AMD of course) or the Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT. An interesting look into just how many people are using quite aged hardware is the Steam Hardware and Software Survey. Currently updated as of April this year, and with numerous bug fixes that now tell a more accurate story of newer PCs, it shows some interesting facts about the PC gamers out there.
Nearly 10 per cent of those surveyed use DirectX 9 and below-capable graphics cards – a figure that’s roughly similar when it comes to single-core CPU usage too. The latter suggests quite a few people are still rocking with elderly Intel LGA775 and AMD Socket 939 systems – both of which were the turning points for the switch to dual core CPUs. Likewise, the Nvidia GeForce 8800 series is still massively popular and with a figure of just over 30 per cent attributed to ‘other’ for video card description, it’s likely this number is made of substantial numbers of even older graphics cards.
Steam, of course, is home to a wide variety of games. One explanation for the large numbers of old systems is that many games simply don’t need cutting edge hardware. 2D-based games are prime examples of where a half decent CPU is all that’s needed. This argument might go some way to explaining why some people are still using hardware that was already half a decade old when President Obama was victorious in the 2008 presidential election. However, I know from personal experience that many people simply play very old games, or are quite happy dropping the settings of more modern games to hideous levels in order to play them with acceptable frame rates.
They’re passionate gamers, and many must have the money to upgrade (after all, an upgrade from a 9600 Pro can probably be had for half the cost of a tank of petrol these days, even less second hand). Maybe they're console gamers first, PC gamers second? There are some other more promising facts in the survey though. Windows 7 64-bit is now by far the most common operating system, and Windows XP is more popular than Windows Vista (even Microsoft admitted it wasn’t a great OS). This is a clear sign that gamers are at least buying new PCs or opting for Microsoft's new operating system.
More importantly, the most popular graphics cards are now those from the GeForce GTX 560 series, undoubtedly due to the serious price drops the series has had thanks to new hardware launches, while Intel HD Graphics 3000 are close behind. The latter might make you cringe to think of all the poor souls out there using what is essentially integrated graphics for games, but don’t forget that the HD 3000 series means they’re also sporting a very modern Intel CPU, which is all you need to play some of the simpler, less graphically-demanding games on Steam.
Game graphics comparisons such as this Battefield 3 one clearly show just how much better the game looks at high settings. Clearly there may be many reasons why someone might not have modern-enough hardware in their PC to play games at high settings, and after all, many people would say it's better to play the game, even at low settings than to not play it at all.
For me it’s an alien concept not to want great graphics though. It’s half the joy of buying and playing a new game, especially one that’s had thousands of man hours put into the visuals as well as the actual gameplay such as those in the Crysis or Battlefield series'. I’ve even held off playing new games in the past, just so I could save up to get the hardware needed to play them at decent settings. For that reason, the core hardware in my PC is rarely older than two to three years, although I'm quite happy to relent and drop in mid-range hardware and not pay a small fortune on the latest must-have gear. I also upgrade because other tasks I use my PC for such as photo editing, would see improvements too, so upgrading isn't just a game-related urge.
I’d be genuinely interested to know how old your hardware is, how often you upgrade and if you or anyone you know has some seriously old gear kicking around and what games they actually play. Let us know in the comments.
143 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyI don't include keyboards and monitors in this, as they don't age very much, although my keyboard and monitor are around the same age, at around 2 years approx.
* 1.4GHZ Tualatin Pentium 3 SL6BY CPU (pin modded to work on my motherboard)
* Gigabyte GA-6VXE7+ (VIA APOLLO PRO AGP+iTE 8671)
* 256MB Samsung PC-133 SDRAM
* 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500
* Diamond Monster 3d Voodoo2 8MB Sad
* Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
* 120GIG Western Digital
* 650WATT PROCASE PSU, yup its overkill, but I believe in having big margins.
* Windows 98SE
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=31774
Those keen enough to look at the specs should notice a trend, its a dedicated 3dfx glide rig, I had to hunt for parts as most just weren't available in South Africa,others I had to fix, like replacing caps on the V5500, it was a fun build and is neering completion, should be done next week some time.
While I could have easily ran DosBox and a glide wrapper, it just isnt the same as running games on actual hardware, glide wrappers dont do nearly as good a job as a real Voodoo 2-5 , things look smoother and more refined on the system.
And I dont have to worry about compatibility problems on any of my older favorite games, its simply install and play.
Youll be surprised what that little P3 can do, it works great with Firefox 8 and some newer apps once you install KernelEX,its nearing completion now and should be done in the next week or so.
One of them will be the lucky recipient of my 560Ti when I upgrade which probably means I will have to source another similar 2nd hand card to stop any arguments.
My Laptop is from 2001 and rocks with 1ghz CPU and 1 gig ram, runs windows vista basic and is "always on", i have no plans to change that :)
I also had old PC kit going back 10 years in my attic before I moved recently, but took the opportunity to finally get rid of it when i did move house.
I ended up with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 overclocked to 3.5Ghz with 4gb DDR2 on an IP35 mobo, and an ATi HD5870. Still fast enough for all my needs, plays battlefield 3 at high settings. Only upgrade i can see is maybe an ssd soon but otherwise i'm very happy with previous generation hardware.
My keyboard changes on a monthly basis at the moment though!
BitComet 2.44%
Utorrent would appear to have the torrent market sewn up. I myself have been a utorrent owner, but find they are now sneaking in a lot of excessive bloatware.
650W BeQuiet Modular PSU BN073
ANTEC TWELVE HUNDRED CASE
Asus P6T Deluxe X58 MoBo
TRIPLE 3GB 3x1 TR3X3G1333C9
Intel Core i7 920 2.66G *OEM*
Akasa AK-967 775 NERO COOLER
and my trusty 8800GT gfx card
I do have a raptor 10K drive in there, cost me a big lump at the time, must be about 10 years old. Also just retired my old monitor, an LG lcd bought at the same time.
Intel Core Q6600 @ 3.5GHz
4GB OCZ Reaper 1066MHz
Asus P5E
EVGA GeForce GTX 570
Crucial C300 128GB SSD + 750GB Spinpoint F1
I'd love to upgrade to a new MB/CPU/RAM config but I can still play most modern games at full monitor resolution (1920x1200) at pretty much full detail settings and really should keep the cash for more boring things. I do get tempted though.
Complete with DIN plug?
I threw my last IBM board in the skip about a year or so ago.
Main rig - x58, DX10. My oldest regularly used bit of kit is one of the laptops - a single core Dell D610.
It's quite nice having an old computer as you're more familiar with it; I know exactly what goes wrong with it and how to fix it. My brother still uses the first PC I ever built (Athlon 4200+ so not that old) with a few upgrades.
Got an Audigy card that I must have had at least 5 years and I've replaced it a couple of times but never been happy with the new cards so ended up going back to it.
Oldest peripherals I still use are the Altec Lansing speakers from my first PC purchase back in '98.
Same but on an NVidia 9300 chipset .... I'm looking to upgrade for a mini-ITX H67 + i5-2400, The Q6600 and its GF 9300 IGP will be perfect as a small Linux server. My upgrade cycle is like 4 years for hardware, 8 - 10 years for monitor (change when they die :D) and never for the case (unless it is too big or too small .... but the Lian-Li PC-V1000 is unlikely to be too small ).
I kept it for years, always threatening to spray it up and give it a new lease of life; but it was frikkin LOUD, man. :)
AMD Athlon 3500+ 64 bit single core processor, 2.2GHz, socket 939, BIOS
v.08.00.09
Page file 1296MB used, 3037MB available
Maxtor 6Y160M0 Diamond Max Plus SATA hard drive 160 GB
152.66GB available of which I typically use about 1/3rd--about 50-55GB
LG GSA-H10L 16x Internal Super Multi CD/DVD Rewriter optical drive
Corsair Dominator 2046 MB memory 2 x 1GB DIMM 240-pin 1600 MHz PC3-12800
HIS Radeon HD 4670 AGP GPU
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 audio card, DirectX 11
Thermaltake Purepower 680 watts PSU
Vista Home Premium 32 bit 6.0, build 6002 Service Pack 2
Samsung SyncMaster 957MB 19" CRT monitor
Logitech G110 gaming keyboard
Logitech G500 gaming mouse
Seagate ST-9160821U2-RK 160GB SATA external hard drive
Brother HL-2270DW laser printer
I have the same ;) .... was on my old IBM PC. Rock solid and heavy as hell, I'll never trade it :D
Been keeping up a bit better in the last year or so
Asus p8z86-v lx 1155 socket motherboard
intel i3 2100 3.1 ghz processor
4gb corsair vengence ddr3 1600mhz memory
xfx radeon hd 6850 1gb ddr5
60gb ocz vertex 3 ssd
2tb seagate barracuda hdd
I do this because as well as keeping up to date, i find it is the best way to get back most of the money you spend building the system.
That way it only costs you a minimal amount extra to build your new system.
I do come across computers that people have or still are using currently, the oldest i have seen recently was an old tiny with a pentium 2 processor and sd ram, running windows 98.
other than that I have an old 6800gt I use for emergency's and troubleshooting, almost put it in my HTPC to save cash but I found a refurbed lower-end ati card with native HDMI for next to nothing.
At my local tech shop I was rummaging through a clearance bin and found a Voodoo 4 that had obviously fallen off a shelf decades ago (unopened box, a little damaged cardboard). I was quite tempted to grab it, but I just couldn't make a good enough excuse.
That plays anything I throw at it with high-quality settings and at 1080p - at my monitors native res (1680*1050) it's even better. Therefore I see utterly no need to upgrade at the moment. It's by no means ancient hardware, but it's not exactly recent either; plus that chip is a beast for overclocking - I reckon I could easily get it past 4GHz with PC2-8500 RAM, if PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM wasn't so expensive. I am considering an SSD, but that's about the only upgrade I have planned - even then I'm not sure whether to give the SSD to my laptop or keep it for the desktop.
Speaking of laptops, mine is pretty old by todays standards, too:
Yet again that still runs damn fast, has amazing battery life and is in no danger of being replaced any time soon. As above, I may give it an SSD, but I'm starting to doubt whether I even need that - since switching to Debian pretty much full time it's running much nippier than it did under Win7.
Erm... you sure you've got the right thread there...? ;)
The subtitle of the article is a timely one though, since my 4670's coming up 4 years old but showing its age in Tribes Ascend and would barely run the title screen of Battlefield, it's had a good run for only my second ever PCI-E card but the 560Ti's going to be next, as that can be kept for the proper new build next year.
I have a E7200 in my HTPC too. That still does everything I want of it.
Before that I had a C2D 2GHz, 2GB DDR2, 8600GTS. That was a very trusty PC, but is was time for an upgrade, which happened about a year ago.
This.
Have exactly the same setup that i've been rocking for a few years. Looking to upgrade in a couple of months. Really want to play Witcher 2 with Ubersampling on at 1920x1080. 670 here i come!
Absolutely epic CPU.
I got 4.48GHz out of one, on air. Only for benching, though, not 24/7. It managed 4.2 stable though. :D
I have had a full PC rebuild twice in that time. My family have my old Q6600 with 460GTX and I am using an original i7 with 2x570GTX's.
I will be looking another full upgrade sometime next year I reckon.
My oldest baby is a 386 25MHz which I keep to run the original Civ and Wing Commander 1; I have to enter the HD data everytime I switch it on since the battery is a non-replaceable one and long gone.
My favorite rig at the moment is based on a ASUS TX97-X which I recently improved with an AMD K6-III 400MHz from a K6-II 300MHz. MechWarrior 3 just rocks on it with the Diamond Monster 3d2 (3dfx Voodoo2)!!!
Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.0GHz cooled by Akasa Nero S
3x2GB Corsair XMS3
Gigabyte GA-x58A-UD3R r2
Sapphire Radeon HD5850 Toxic
SB X-Fi Extreme Gamer
OCZ 120GB RevoDrive
2 x 1TB WD 1002FAEX
Corsair HX620W PSU
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Laptop:
Sony Vaio 14" C Series
Core i5-2410M
Radeon 6670 (iirc) & 1600x900 display
320GB 5400 HDD
My next upgrades (when I can afford them) are to be:
Graphics card (thinking a GTX670)
Monitor (still using an old 17" Sony)
Speakers
SSD for laptop, new SSD for desktop.
Later, Board Chip and RAM for desktop.
When laptop is 2-3 years old, I'll consider its replacement (though last time it was 18 months)!
Prior to that I has a Q6600, 8GB, 275GTX which I'm pretty sure had it not been for buying a Mac would have been upgraded late last year to an i5 with GTX560. I tended up upgrade my system around every 18 months with maybe a component upgrade (gfx, more ram, etc) in between full upgrades.
The wife has an Asus i3 laptop but having low requirements she'll havwe that for quite some time.
I tend to do rolling upgrades as the money is available, with the last being the graphics card (but even that will be a while ago). Currently the plan is to replace the MB, CPU and RAM before to long as these are bottlenecking the GPUs performance a bit; and I'll probably go to 8GB DDR3 (I would go to 8GB RAM now but DDR2 is really expensive now :()
Unfortunately my Dell 2407WFP died recently, so a lot of my budget has gone on replacing that instead of in to the PC like it should have done... still I am rocking an awesome Dell U2410 (yes, it really is awesome)!
I have been running Windows 7 since it's beta builds, and still running w7 on my PC; but my laptop (Dell Latitude E6400) is running windows 8.
I think they were a well balanced pair originally. But I think the old C2D is holding the 4850X2 back a little in modern titles now. Might upgrade to 2500k or Ivy.
But other than that, I have an old 4200+ dualcore system with a 8400 gs and a 7600gt... super dooper. It's pretty slow though...
E8400 (6 months old, second hand, upgraded from E6750)
MSI platinium combo P35 motherboard
4GB of DDR-6400
WD Black 1TB
HD 5850 (3 months old, second hand)
Prior to my HD 5850 I had an 8800GT which managed BF3 fine on low settings. I only switched it out because I got it cheap and felt like some "new" hardware.
I really struggle to see why someone would upgrade a 2 year old system that's more than capable of running whatever you throw at it. to me the difference on running a game on medium instead of ultra high, is not always that huge a difference, and so, something I would throw a shitload of money after.
Palit GTS 250
Corsair CX 650
Asus P5NE-SLI PLUS E Motherboard
4 Gig of random corsair value ram
3 Sata HDDS (One 500G, two 250G)
Yeah I need to upgrade as I regularly hammer the **** out of it.
Exactly. I understand wanting to have the latest and greatest, but I think that there are a lot of people out there wasting their money. Of course, it's theirs to waste...
Truth be told, I usually operate on a "need to upgrade" basis. The only reason I abandoned my Geforce was that Fallout 3 dropped to single digit frame rates in certain screens featuring lots of shaders. And even then it was a last resort and I chose a pretty budget replacement.
Most games do run fine on older hardware. If you aren't interested in playing games with better graphics, you rarely need to upgrade. Battlefield 3 on Low looks the same as Half-Life 2 on High, and if you're happy with Half-Life 2 on High why do you need to upgrade? It takes some seriously ancient hardware for a game to literally be either too unplayable or too ugly to enjoy.
I reckon my current rig will last me another five years or so, and then I might upgrade graphics card a little bit. Certainly I reckon it won't be until at least 2017 until there is a game released my rig physically won't play.
Age of hardware doesn't bother me much, I like gaming but am happy with medium setting (used to basic graphics as am still ocking R6 Vegas 2 with mate on the 360) plus the money you get for old parts s minimal, a working test unit is a better option.
Gladly though I think am due a mobo upgrade soon, which will mean CPU and RAM, oh well
At the moment my screen is a 19" widescreen with a resolution of 1440x900. I don't really need the highest performing card to run games at a decent framerate at that res and I'm not going to be getting a new screen anytime soon due to my living arrangements for the next few years.
The final point is money - what money I have remaining after bills, the taxman and fuel gets split between savings, gaming, airsofting and having a social life. Dropping £200+ on a processor just isn't going to happen.
Seeing as a lot of new games at the moment are console ports, I've not had any trouble running anything so far. In fact nothing seems to have taxed the latest version of my system at all - although it's early days still.
So there you go - most of my hardware is fairly new, but most of it has been out for over a year so is at least last gen. Before last weekend, it was around 5 - 7 years old.
Still...the transition to a 120gb + 80gb storage solution to a 2tb + 80gb was a lovely transition to make. No more sitting in the red constantly for HDD space.
The rig in my sig is going strong, upgraded a few bits last year. I need a new ssd but unfortunately no money for one at the moment. The only thing I can't run absolutely full spec seems to be BF3 at 1920x1200 but it looks awesome anyways and I'm not really bothered. There was a time when that would have been unacceptable but I reckon I've managed to kick the upgrade habit for now
current pc is two years old, but still six cores at 3.6ghz so i settled for an msi 7970 lightning.
however, the previous pc was given to my mum for gaming and the six year old htpc is dead on its feet, so i will be building a new 'console' for the living room in a fortress mini shortly.
s939 opteron 165 @ 2.4 Ghz
DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI-DR
2Gb (2x1) G.skill PC4000 DDR 500 GBHZ
Sapphire ATI x1950pro 512mb
W XP Pro with a lot of tweaks
Although my PSU just died and it doesn't seem to work with a new Be Quiet dark power pro 650 watts :(
Asus P5K premium wi-fi Motherboard Black Pearl Edition
His Radeon IceQ Turbo Radeon 6970 2GB
NZXT Apollo PC Case (Black)
Corsair HX 620watt Modular PSU
4GB OCZ HPC PC2-8500 DDR2 Memory (4X1GB)
18x DVD-RW/CD-RW Optical Drive
main hdd Samsung spinpoint F3 1TB
two Seagate Barracuda Hard Drives SATA II 320GB
Windows 7 64bit
creative X-Fi extreme gamer sound card
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
removed origonal drive HDD bay and added a lan Li caddy for 3 drives in 5.25 inch front bays so graphics card could fit.
Intel Q9650 @ 3.6
Gigabyte EP45 mobo
4GB ram
Radeon 4890
Seasonic S12 650w
X-Fi platinum
Lack of money means no upgrades although might get a 7850 soon to replace the 4890. Trickle-down means the GF gets the 4890 and the kids get her 3870 which should be a nice step-up from their X1900XT.
While it's still adequate for my needs, I plan a major upgrade soon!
I still have a working 9800 pro by the way!
I'm using a i7 950 and a sapphire 5870(only recently upgraded from 5850 as i had a waterblock for it lying around)
Games like TF2
Borderlands
mass effect 2(still need to go get an origins account grrr)
and indie games such as the killing floor or heist all run with full settings at m 2048x1156 res
That said i dare say that once i get round to getting BF3 and ofcourse borderlands 2 (drools) it'll be time to get an upgrade to a 600 series card but 3 years ain't bad for a system specially since the 1366 will last me a few years still.
Current:
i5 2500k
GTX570
8 Gb DDR3 1600
120 Gb Corsair Force 3
120 Gb Samsung 470 (carryover)
750 Gb WD notebook drive (in enclosure)
Seasonic x-760 PSU (carryover)
I do have a spare gtx570/80 waterblock laying around... ;)
Previous:
Q9550 (from C2D E6600)
8Gb DDR2 800 (from 4Gb DDR2 800)
HD4890 (from 8800GTX, from 6800GT)
120 Gb Samsung 470 (mid-use upgrade)
500Gb Seagate HDD
Seasonic x-760
This + the wife has me on a spending ban until we can build her a computer and buy here a new pistol. Rig is in my SIG
AMD AM2 Phenom II 940 OC to 3.6ghz
8gb ddr2 800
CPU is 3 years 4 mo. old and still kicking strong :)
May upgrade if Pile-driver cores look promising.. or not..
Many people are installing a second steam client on some older laptops and playing indy/older games on them.
I have and use my GF8600 laptop to play some of the older GTA's and BF2, as well as indy titles.
An AMD Athlon XP3200+ and an X1600 GPU, built in 2004. Aside from the obvious (loud, slow, only goes up to DX9) it's... fine. I'm always looking at building a new PC, but the damn thing just keeps trucking (and truckin' and truckin'). Also, real life and my obsession with bikes gets in the way, a nice new silent PC isn't much cop against a week in Les Gets.
.
If it'll run CS:S that's me happy.
I have 3-4 PC's one is an old P4 2.8GHz with no HT (absolute donkey), 2 are skt 939 A64 X2's - one with a HD4850 (Magic card) the other has a 7600GS/GT?.
My main rig has my X-Fi Elite Pro in it which is still a magic card (shame the HD5830 is so carp) although it still only has an E8400. - I think I need to upgrade soon
Still have an i486 system in bits in the cupboard, might have to see if I can get going again.
Asus A7N8X
AthlonXP2500+ (underclocked by setting the mobo FSB to 100MHz to save on the leccy)
1GB RAM
80GB system disk
2x160GB storage disks
CentOS 5.8
It was my backup fileserver, so I now need to hustle to find out what went pop (in a very smelly manner) and try and resurrect it.
My current rig is a Q6600 on a Gigabyte X38-DS5 with 4GB RAM and an AMD 6870 (to replace the 8800GTS512 that failed a few months ago).
Still plays WoT with good frame rates on the 22" Samsung monitor at 1680x1050.
Andy
Oh, and "R480" Oh yeah! Who's rocking the AGP Bus? I'm rocking the AGP Bus!
Seriously though, this is a IBM Intellistation M Pro Graphic Workstation I bought back in 2003
Pentium 4 3.06Ghz
2GB RAM
ATI (Yes they will always be ATI to me) Radeon X850 Platinum Edition
146GB 10,000 RPM Ultra320 SCSI with a Vista partition
146GB 15,000 RPM Ultra320 SCSI with an XP partition
750GB SATA storage drive
Still turns on every time I push the button.
Slow? In Vista, Hell yeah! In XP, Not bad!
Reliable? You bet!
Loud? Definitely!
Does it run Crysis? Probably not!
To be relegated to garage computer soon. Planning new computer for my birthday this year.
An even older build currently holds the lowest score on the bit-tech Geekbench table.
Current PC in my sig.
how future proof it was,so I was happy because I had just build a PC with an Asus 1156 board.
On May 1012 my PSU died and I give a look over the Internet for a good PSU and a motherboard socket 1156,for a moment I feared that the mobo was dead too!
I could not find a motherboard socket 1156 of any brand on any of my favourite on line shop,
from Overclockers uk to Scan,Aria E-Buyer and many others.
with the coming of socket 1155 the old 1156 and my i5 760 = 20/30 slower than a 1155 i5 2500k sandy bridge cpu is confined to history.
Is a rig with an Asus P7P55D and i5 760 old hardware?
AMD take better care of they customer,
Intel has the arrogance of the winner!
My media server, on the other hand, is much older. Athlon 64, 1.8Ghz, and I don't even know what mobo it's got. 1.5GB DDR rocking WinXP, and about a terabyte of storage for movies and music. I really need to upgrade that one, though ... likely with the e8400 kit mentioned above ...
For the record my old system would still play the latest games much better than any current console !
runs like a dream still and doubt the motherboard will die anytime soon...
+1
BF3 is like a slideshow sometimes but Im still holding on.
There's no longer any point in having a powerful rig.
At the mo this is what is grinding along (perfectly well... ish, apart from vista anyway...)
C2D E8400 @ 3.6 with a Thermaltake MaxOrb (it was 4.0 but I thought it deserved a rest...)
Asus P5K SE/EPU
4GB GSkill DDR2
500GB Seagate
GeForce 9600GT Sonic
Some awesome red lights and 'questionable' cable management solutions.
The GFX card is old but I'v been impressed with its ability to keep up, and recently I'v just decided if it doesn't look pretty enough on my main monitor I switch it over to my other monitor which is only 17" not 21". Problem solved :P
Not just you, I can't really see that much difference either.
Some settings in some games make a massive difference to the gaming experience, (distance settings in the Elder Scrolls games for example) but a lot of the so-called 'eye candy' in other games - I really struggle to see the difference in a lot of it. If I'm running running around like a demented lunatic chasing/running away from someone, I generally don't stop to admire whether the shadows on the grass under my feet are being realistically rendered or not...
if you know one that's cheap, reliable, very fast and small, I'd like to know :)
It is a little annoying having such outdated hardware but I don't have as much time to just relax and play games as I would like 'cause of uni so it's not too bad. Besides, I'm still working my way through Half Life so there's plenty of good old stuff out there that I can run until I get some money together :D
Last game I played was Mass Effect 3, but the machine's dropped below minimum requirements for most AAA releases now. Time for an upgrade?
The work one, which I am currently writing on, was originally built in early 2003 and is very similar to Shielder's & a few others:
AMD Athlon XP 2800+. (Single core, 32 bit.)
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo.
1.5 GB DDR400 RAM.
A few things have changed:
- on my third PSU
- third GPU, (from ATI 9600 Pro, to x1650, to current X1950)
- third HSF, (Stock, to Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2, to current Zalman Copper Flower).
Lost track of the HHD's and case fans that I've swapped in and out over the years.
I'd upgrade it to a nettop, but it still does what I need it to so I don't see the point until it finally goes bang. Still runs a minimum 50+ hours a week, and for the first 6 years of its life probably did 100+ hours a week. Still almost silent too, (I change fans a lot).
For a giggle, I ran the CPC/bit-tech benchmarks on it:
Image: 394
Video: 313
Multi: 67
Overall: 258
Flash heavy websites slow it right down, (the National Lottery is the worst) but for most tasks I use it for you can't tell the difference between it and my other machine.
My 'personal' PC is based on an i7 950 with 12GB RAM. Old by many peoples standards here, but I doubt I'll bother replacing it for years, (upgrading GPU's, HDD's/SSD's & fans aside). It does everything I need it to really well. I have a multi-monitor setup, but I only use one for gaming on, and I don't need 100+ FPS to be happy...
Money isn't the issue, I could go and replace both tomorrow morning if I had to.
I'm already starting to feel my X58 chip set Mo' Bo' and i7-930 CPU are nearing semi retirement as a Minecraft server or secondary 'surfing' PC.
I built a mate a rig out of my old i5 and GTX460 set up when I upgraded to this.
I don't 'need' a new GPU just yet but want faster turn times in Civ 4 :D
Yes, I'm a pathological serial upgrader.
Bless all of you with the presence of mind enough to resist seizing all before you :)
Q9650 @3.3ghz
8gb 1066mhz DDR2
GTX260
etc, etc.
Then Jan 2011 I upgraded the gc to a GTX580.
That's pretty much my upgrade cycle: graphics card every 2 years, whole system every 4.
Will be looking to completely upgrade again sometime next year. At the moment I have my sights on a 3770K, but we'll see where things are next year.
I Have the same setup except for a geforce gtx 580. Because my new motherboard is rma'ed. So with a graphicscard atleast two or three generations ahead and miles away in performance, I find it difficult to believe you can run battlefield 3 at high settings. Battlefield 2 ok fine.... Just because you can start it, doesn't mean you can "run it" implieing that it runs well. But You might just have a 19" monitor wich makes it plausible, or you might talk about dx9 rendering or something :)
Currently sitting on my old computer as said before, with the oldest parts being The Chieftec Dragon Miditower from like 2002, and two Seagate Barracuda 160GB sata disks from the same time, wich I used to run in raid 0 :)
Don't knock 775.
Some of the old Core2Quads are extremely fast, the Q9550 still hangs with modern mid-range processors, despite being over 3 years old. The only reason I dumped my Q9550 as because I wanted more memory and Sata3. Upgrading from 8 gigs DDR2 to 16gigs would have cost me $300. For that price I could get an I5 2400, an okay board, and 16gigs of DDR3. Updating to SATA 3 was also am issue, most of the Sata3 boards for 775 are junk.
The q9550 now sits as a development server for Android, and it flies! It hangs with (perceived) much stronger systems just fine. I loan it out to other developers and they absolutely LOVE using it.
My old Radeon 4870 was still capable of modern games when I got rid of it about a year ago as well. It was around 2 or 3 years old as well. I went to a 6870 and barely saw any improvement in the games I play. It ended up in a friends desktop she uses for Second Life and it works fantastic for her.
The oldest part I have though is my PSU, a 5 year old PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 (before or around the time they were bought). The thing is still rock solid on a brand new system, and I expect 3-5 more years before it's replaced. Why change it when it works flawlessly.
My wife's rocking my old desktop, with a A64 x2 5400+. It's got an MSI mobo scavenged from work, and inherited the DDR2 from my desktop when my old mobo died and I upgraded to an M5A97 EVO. That was right before BD dropped...if I'd been able to wait, I would have saved a few bucks and stuck with AM3 :\
While the Phenom II X3 720 has a sadly unstable 4th core, it's more than adequate, and I've had it OC'd to 3.7 without a problem (currently at 3.37)
Next is a modern system for the wife - thinking Llano, as it's the perfect fit for her usage. Going to try for a Mini-ITX board and actually make a tiny build this time - my current Mini-ITX has space for 5 3.5" HDDs, so not so tiny.
All the closets in the house are a different story - front closet has several 939 boards (not sure where they came from, tbh), bedroom closet has a couple 486s and a couple 386s...somewhere around here is a 15 lb laptop from the early 80s.
Had 4gb of DDR 3200 ECC the whole time, The psu died 6 months ago and i recently replaced it.
The graphics card was the only thing that i ever needed to update and that got as far as an GTX260 and from there its just been doing fine. I dont play a lot of modern games anymore due to work and social commitments. How ever it still goes decently.
Ill admit that over the last few years i have noticed it starting to lag behind quite a bit, but i dont mind playing games on medium or low settings. besides Civ5 is a great game :)
I recently replaced the HHD's and swapped the original 8800GT with a 460GTX while I was in Taiwan and it is still running perfectly.
So far it has been able to handle everything I threw at it, but I might replace the innards for something new next year if I have the funds necessary.
However I am in the middle of building a new system atm (Have CPU and Mobo to go) as I felt it was time to finally bring things up to date.
Current system:
CPU: Phenom II X4 940 slightly OC'ed to 3.3GHz, with Titan Fenrir HS&F.
Mobo: Biostar TA790GX3 A2+.
GFX: KFA2 NVIDIA GTX 470.
Sound: Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS.
Memory: 2 GB (2x1 GB) DDR2 800MHz Corsair XMS2.
PSU: SeaSonic X760 Modular 760W (Pretty much new. This was bought for the new system I'm building, but a week after it arrived my old PSU went "BZZZZT" and died taking my HDD with it (From jealousy I think ^^.)).
Drives: 2 TB internal WD Green 7200 RPM (My old WD Black 320 GB drive got killed by the death throws of my previous PSU.). 2 TB External USB3 Iomega drive. Generic DVD writer.
Case: Antec P182 case using 4 x 120mm Gentle Typhoon fans.
Speakers: Creative Labs Inspire T7700 7.1
New system:
CPU: Ivybridge 3770K (Not bought yet), with Noctua NH-D14 HS&F (Already bought)
Mobo: MSI Z77A-GD65 (Not bought yet - Trying to hold out for the GD80)
GFX: KFA2 NVIDIA GTX 470 (Simply cannot afford to upgrade the GFX as well atm)
Sound: As the MSI mobo's don't have a PCI slot I'll have to drop the Audigy 2 card and use on-board sound. :(
Memory: 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) Corsair DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v Vengeance (Black) low profile.
PSU: SeaSonic X760 Modular 760W
Drives: 2 x 2 TB internal WD Green 7200 RPM in RAID 0. 2 TB External USB3 Iomega drive. Generic DVD writer.
Case: Antec P182 case using 4 x 120mm Gentle Typhoon fans with NZXT Sentry II 525 fan controller.
Speakers: Corsair SP2500 2.1
So even if I did want to upgrade a single part (i do), such as the gfx card. I can't without it being bottlenecked by the CPU. Then I would need a new CPU, but it wont fit on my mobo. So I need a new mobo and RAM. My PSU might be too weak to handle a modern card so add that in with it. Then I would need a fresh copy of Windows.
Basically people are left with 2 choices. Buy a new PC every 2 years, or stick with the old one as long as possible. However even though I defend my choice to hang on to this current PC, I still want/need the latest tech. My PC isn't spectacular but it works well enough.
It manages but I would like something newer.
athlon x2 6000+
4gb ram
Gtx260
I could upgrade to a phenom but what's the point? I recently upgraded my netbook to a 13" lenovo with an i3 2330 and hd6630. Only upgrading the gpu will improve on that, upgrading to a phenom ii only matches it and whats the point till next gen games come out? Cash is tight and currently I'm still playing around with OS's atm to work out what I want server wise. hard disks will absorb most of my budget this years budget leaving the desktop neglected another year.
Torn between replacing the 4890 which has been and is a fanastic gpu or an ssd. The i7-920 is, I suspect good for another 3years+ ...which is nice.... which is a real problem for the likes of Intel.... we've reach the 'good enough' horizon. If it's good enough, why change it?
C2Q wolfy Q9550 (stock)
4gb 1066 corsair
Asus P5q Pro
GTX 460 1gb
Force 3 SSD
and a couple Samsung 1TB F3's
Processor, mobo and memory have been going for 3 maybe 3.5 years for me and looking to make the jump to ivybridge today as the mobo is on its last legs.
my system is a P5QC deluxe with a q9550 @3.4ghz, 8gb ddr3 Ripjaws 1600mhz cl8, 2 x ati hd 5770 in CF, 2 x 500gb samsung f1 in raid 0 and a 2tb samsung f3, azuentec x-fi prelude, be quiet dark power pro all inside a antec 300 all hooked up to my panasonic vierra 50inch in 1080 goodness and running win 7 64bit. nice!!
the system has been on the go in one form or another since late 2005 with its beginnings underpinned by an asus p5kc (that blew up) with a Pentium e2160, geforce 7800 gt (for sale on ebay) and an audigy sb1394 (also for sale on ebay)
latest addition is a crucial m4 256gb that has had a massive price drop this week, that should be in the post as i type. i might upgrade with a bru-ray writer possiby at some point soon, other than that i honestly cant see any reason to upgrade for a good while yet. maybe in the long term the next gen of gfx cards might be a good upgrade. if theyre more than twice as fast as my cf 5770 combo and use half the power then ill be sold i think.
AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition
Zalman CNPS9900 LED Copper
ASUS M3A32MVP-Deluxe WiFi
OCZ 8GB DDR2 PC-8500 Gold Edition
LC-Power Arkangel 850W
Zalman GS1000
Sapphire ATi HD4870 1GB GDDR5 Toxic Edition
Asus VK246H @1920x1080 (native)
(HDD's and Optical Drive)
Only thing I believe needs switching to handle modern games and applications is the GPU but low on money and have to hold on. When possible, switching to GTX580 3GB or GTX680 2GB.
I can run all the games, only BF3 isn't maxed out.
Dell XPS 15Z
15 Inch 1080p Screen WLED
2nd Gen i7 2640 - 2.8GHz turbo to 3.5
8GB DDR3 RAM 1333Mhz
2GB Nvidia GT 525M
256GB Samsung SSD (came with pc think 830 Series)
Intel Wifi N + Bluetooth
Desktop:
i7 2600K 3.4GHz
16GB DDR3 RAM Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz
Nvidia GTX 570 1.28GB Triple Slot (ASUS)
Dual Philips 21.5" LED TFTs
2 x Seagate 500GB SATA
120GB Samsung SSD with TRIM PB22 Series
Alienware TactX Mouse & Keyboard
Silverstone Case . Corsair 700W PSU, Corsair H60
3D Connexion Mouse
Self Build
Desktop is quick but crashed far too often i think SSD is on the way out!
Laptop is epic, Battery Can Last for 2/3 Films when on low settings, and when doing 3D rendering stuff about 1and a half hours!
Anybody want to swap / part exchange my desktop graphics card for a workstation card?
Current Rig (Looking to upgrade soon, thankfully my lower res monitor has kept the 9800gtx punching above its weight):
Q6600 @ 3.4ghz
Asus P5n32-e Sli
4gb Corsair Dominator DDR2 @ 900mhz
9800GTX BFG OCX Version.
2 x 500gb Seagate HD Drives
HTPC:
Athlon 64 x2
2gb Cosair Ram @ 800MHZ
Onboard 8600GT (i think)
250gb IDE hard drive stolen from a broken external hard drive enclosure from 2006.
Server:
Celeron D
2gb Ram @533mhz
OS installed on an old 40gb Maxtor hard drive from 2001.
Onboard ATI1900
3x 1.5tb Drives
1x 1TB Drive
2x 500gb Drives
Office PC (only used for word and excel, was a printer server briefly):
Pentium 2 @ 1.9ghz
1gb DDR Ram (Recently installed as was two painful with 119mb)
119mb DDR Ram
250 IDE Hard Drive (another one from same broken enclosure.)
The CPU is cooled by the PSU in this old PC.
Laptops:
Philips Freevents X54 (This laptop never died CPU hit over 110c a couple of times, dropped many a time, transported across the country, ran four different OS's and was still an absolute champ at running windows 7. The only thing to ever fail was the dvd drive and that was only after burning way too many dvds for a laptop drive. Sadly it was stolen couple of months back)
Intel centrino duo core 1.6ghz
2gb RAM @667mhz
100gb Hard Drive
Nvidia Mobile 7300
Dell Inspiron 9400 (Brought at a similar time to the X54 this bit of kit was hated despite costing 20% more. Was stolen as well but unluckily for whoever nicked it its running the windows 8 consumer preview. Used this as my demo machine for trying out new OS's as i disliked it too much for it to have any permanent roles)
Intel Centrion Duo 1.8ghz
1gb Ram @667
120gb Hard Drive
ATI 1900 mobile
I remember replacing my 9800 Pro with the X800 Pro and just how much better CS:Source ran.
Or even further back, playing Max Payne on the Geforce 3 Ti500 after trying to play through half of it on my Geforce 2 GTS. I still maintain that the best video card ever made was the Geforce 4 Ti4600. But is that just through rose tinted glasses?
These days you can spend just over £100 and settle for reasonable graphics at 1080.
Jumped from a geForce 2 Mx to a geForce 4 Ti 4600, so I agree with you. The was the biggest jow dropping I ever had when upgrading (maybe in paar with the 3DFX). Kept it for years and still running on an old Athlon 64 rig.
So with that in mind... the last few years I have basically been buying a whole new PC every couple of years, or upgrading it yearly. Everything I have at the moment is pretty decent and a year old at the most, excluding my screen which is about 4 years old and needs an upgrade too because the seal has broken on it.
ASUS P7P55D-LE S1156
8GB HyperX Blu 1333MHz CL9 (kit of 2)
ASUS branded HD5670
WD 80GB SATAII disc
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2383728
now to sell my old one
Though the Shuttle system I built for my mom (got it back when I built her a new i3 system) and gutted the case to build a HTPC out of is probibly older.. the little socket 478 - 2.4Ghz P4 still works though, have it setting on a shelf asembled outside the box with Ubuntu 9.x loaded just for kicks..
Unfortunately I need to confess that I went down to the local PC World and bought a lovely LG 19" 1280x1024 TFT which also came with a Packard Bell iExtreme built around a Gigabyte Motherboard (not sure which one), a Pentium Dual Core D920, 1GB DDR2 667Mhz Ram (instantly upgraded to 2GB) and a Radeon X600 running Windows XP Media Centre Edition. I believe I bought a set of 2.1 Logitech Speakers at the same time too.
The Packard Bell computer was actually not bad at all and ran Visual Studio just fine but when Crysis was released it was upgrade time again. My Athlon that I built back in 2000 was still going strong as I donated it to my borther-in-law who was starting to get into computers and gaming...
At the start of 2008 I upgraded to an E6600, 4GB RAM, ATI 2900HD, 2x250GB Hitachi HDD running on a Gigabyte ATX board but I can't remember the model. I later added a xFi Gamer sound card.
This computer lasted me until April 2010 when I upgraded to my latest Core i7 930 cooled by an H50, 5870 1GB, 12GB 1600Mhz Dominator RAM , RoG Rampage II Gene, 1TB Samsung and a Samsung 24" TFT housed in an Antec P180 Mini (a Custom PC article inspired me to buy the case and MB).
The i7 920 is still my main PC although I've since changed the MB over to an RoG Rampage III Gene, added 2 x 256GB M4 SSD and changed to 2 x HP 2210i 1920x1080 TFTs. This computer does everything I throw at it, whether it be playing the latest games, running multiple VM's with Vmware Workstation, developing using Visual Studio 2010 (C#) or running multiple Adobe CS6 Applications.
Therefore as much as I would like too, common sense prevails as I simply can't justify the expense (to myself) of changing over to Sandy/Ivy Bridge when my current computer does everything I could possibly ask it to do.
I normally go through laptop cycles of around three years or so and my latest one is a Dell XPS 15 L502x running a Core i5 2410M, 8GB 1333Mhz RAM, Corasir 120GB SSD, 525M, 1920x1080 TFT etc.
My original Athlon machine dating back to 2000 that I started with finally gave up the ghost last year and my borther-in-law now has a lovely new rig.
I only switched to that last year from a AMD 940BE/4GB/4870.
The 570 is the latest addition around 6 months ago, the SSD before that - I only feel the need to upgrade if I need it. So in the forseeable future it'll only be the GPU and maybe a larger SSD as the CPU and 6GB RAM isn't stretched in the slightest at the mo.
My 2nd rig again does what is required, AM3 quad core, oboard GPU and 4GB RAM - no need to change.
The downstairs PC that the GF uses, mainly for word and internet, now that's the oldest rocking an AMD x2 5000BE on an Abit AX78 with an AMD x800 and an F1 750Gb HDD :D
Now the latter is the one that is starting to show its age a bit but saying that it's not slow. The GF doesn't want it upgrading at the mo though. :'(
Now I can see myself creating the need to upgrade - a larger monitor and thus a beefier GPU would then be essential. :D
In my defense...I wanted to upgrade last year, didn't get to it, and this year I'm pretty much not at home the entire year.
Actually having a relatively fast single core isn't that bad...at the time it was faster than the dual cores when gaming.
The newest game I ran was Prototype though.
You win... I think my Nokia is faster than that :) Atleast it can run HD video :) Now is a good time to jump to ivy bridge dude :)
My just replaced main rig (will be my wifes new rig) is a DFI 790FX, 5000+ BE, 4GB Corsair XMS2DHX and an ATi 3850, its 4 years old this week.
My new main rig is a Gigabyte 990FXA, FX6100, 16GB Corsair Vengeance, and twin Sapphire 4890 OC Editions.
I still have my Voodoo 3 that i used with the onboard gfx from the first rig.
It does play Full-HD video...heck my netbook plays 720-HD. ;-)
I'll be traveling till december. But you're right, an upgrade is long overdue
P4 3.2Ghz
X1900XTX 512MB
2GB
I had the money to upgrade to a 920 when it came out but decided against it. For one thing, there weren't any/enough games to get a new PC for (and PC gaming was a mostly grim, somber and depressing landscape of sequels, blockbusters, bad multiplatform ports, and Bobby Koticks, there were times I actually thought money had killed PC gaming). Now that PC games are entering a new golden age, it's FINALLY worth upgrading for me.
Another factor is that I honestly believe you should make your PC last, not buy a new one at the slightest hint of having to turn the detail down a bit. This philosophy has been very helpful, up to a point. I should've upgraded sometime last year but held off due to lack of good games. The only time I really regretted not having upgraded sooner was at Portal 2 launch, and Amnesia. It's bad enough people are fully indulging themselves in a throw-away culture of buying new smartphones every 6-12 months (hello DR Congo civil war!) and crappy middling laptops which are outdated when they come out. If I can balance that out even in the slightest I'm happy to work with outdated hardware. Silicon may be plentiful on planet earth but everything else that goes into electronics and computers ISN'T, and these things have consequences, a fact no one really wants to accept.
Now the time has come to upgrade though. Some good games are coming, Max Payne 3 (hopefully good), Dishonored, BioShock Infinite, HL3, Hitman 5, Alan Wake just came out (don't know if it's good but we'll see) and probably more importantly is the boom in independent developers putting out excellent games and even easily outdoing the AAA-developers here and there. I also have yet to play Mafia 2, Dear Esther and the STALKER sequels, possibly GTA4 (as well as aforementioned Portal 2 and Amnesia).
If I were rich I might get a new system every 3-4 years, but I think 6 years is a better replacement cycle (or at least it ought to be), with perhaps an upgrade or two in the middle.
It's a shame I picked a terrible time to upgrade (budget wise, not game-wise) since both Intel and AMD&nVidia seem to have decided there is no financial crises and people ARE made of money, and priced their hardware accordingly, but otherwise I can't wait to get my hands on it and play some great games both new and from the backlog. (and incidentally also start to learn game development myself, but that's another story).
The graphics card (8800 GT) stopped working a couple of days ago so I had to replace it.
The lesson? Invest in decent gear and it will last you for years, buy cheap rubbish and you'll spend more money in the long run keeping it running.
My watercooled rig was built early 2008 with a Q6600 which has been running a VCore of 1.9volts ever since! It's had 3 graphics cards due to 1 old age, 1 dying prematurely just out of warranty (shame on you ATI) and the present one that is still alive..
However, the time has come to upgrade from XP and build a new rig! Components are starting to appear - new mobo and i3570K have arrived and I'm just waiting on w/c blocks and a few modding bits before I start a project log :-)
Current hardware is all sb-e stuff, I've got some athlons around and some x58.
An Atari somewhere and a voodoo 2 or 3, an ISA modem as well, thing is longer than a 6990 how it ever fit in my old Amstrad I do not know
Sent from my HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio using Tapatalk 2
I have a i7 920 running @ 4.2 Ghz cooled with a Corsair H80, at that clock its pretty damn fast, scores over 7.1 on cenebench (that's only a fraction slower than a 12 core Opteron), I see no reason to upgrade this processor any time soon.
EVGA X58 SLI3 brilliant board
GTX460 1GB @ 850Mhz can run almost any game on highest settings 1080p, I mostly play RTS games like Starcraft II and occasional FPS, BF3 Runs on all high without any problems, maybe if there's game I like that demands more than this card I will upgrade it
12GB DDR3 1600Mhz RAM, I do a lot of graphics work, so maybe Ill go up to 24GB
2 x 120GB OCZ Agility III SSD's
My keyboard and mice are really new, a Razer Lycosa and a Razer Abyssus.