Have you sped up your upgrade cycle, slowed it down, or neither?

[sxr7171]

Used to do a new build every 2 years or so. I can't justify that anymore as there are no real performance gains.

Instead of paying Intel I used the funds to pay nVidia with more rapid GPU upgrades. nVidia was very smart to roll out products in such a way to extract the maximum amount of money from people looking for a reason to spend money on their gaming machine.

As it stands I still don't see myself doing a new build for a year or more, nothing from Intel is compelling enough.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I upgraded from my Q8200 2.8Ghz to the FX in sig as I wouldn't be able to play next-gen games at a good framerate. Even single/dual threaded games like SC2 got a huge jump in speed. I'm totally held back by my GPU now now but that's something I can live with. I can upgrade that in a year with probably only $100 and get 2.5x the performance and double/triple the ram. All without having to reinstall my OS and everything else.

Once you hit something good enough, it's really hard to justify upgrading. My wife couldn't even fathom an upgrade from the Q8200, as to her it seemed very fast and you could do many things at once without it locking up. I usually keep my FX clocked to 1.4Ghz or sometimes 2.1Ghz to keep the fans off. When she uses it it doesn't feel any different at 1.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz.

 

[haggggler]

I can still game on a 775 machine with a 8800GT. Its currently my HTPC, but I've defiantly slowed down.

 

[Nhirlathothep]

I thought it was upgrade time for my sandy-e, but everybody said it is fine, so no upgrades for now.

I dunno if i ll upgrade it next year, but probably i m gonna use it for other 3 4 years

 

[buklau]

I used to upgrade my CPU every 2 years, but I kept my sandy bridge 2500k @ 4.5 for 3.5 years before I upgraded to 4690k @ 4.6, not much difference, but I was able to run my 30nm samsung ram at 2200 instead of 1866. Recently I sold my old 2gb 7870, grabbed a GTX970 4GB, main reason was to play Archage at maximum 1080p settings without lag.

Most of the time when I upgrade is because of the upgrade itch I had, so I just sell my old parts on ebay and then buy in new parts.

 

[Arcadio]

Slowed down, but only because there is an increase in devices to own and upgrade.

 

[greenhawk]

Slowed down tremendously.

Part of that slow down is due to hardly any games interesting me anymore, and the other part is the feeble improvements in Single Core performance of CPU's.

Same. I put off the upgrade from my previous q6600 as the numbers did not show a big increase, Was tempted to go a 2500K but ummed and arred so long I went for a 3550K instead. Was rather disappointed (had been running ssds since the machine before that).

The last GPU upgrade was due to the card dieing, nothing else. The GTX570 was still doing what I wanted well enough.

Currently expecting my next "upgrade" to be a "side grade", about when I can get the performance of my current machine (inc storage) in a box half the size of a shuttle, if not in a rear of monitor mount.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Performance upgrades are becoming more and more I/O and video more than anything, but I suspect that both video and I/O will also stonewall in the coming generation and it'll all be about shrinking size. All SSDs need to do now is increase in storage size at a competitive price to HDDs.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Slow as molasses...I bought my current CPU in 11th grade (i7 920)

 

[Ratman6161]

I built a system around an i7-2600K when that CPU was king of the Intel hill...and I'm still not doing anything that challenges it particularly. In fact the Q6600 it replaced is still running as an ESXi server. The main reason I went with the 2600K was for more cores and threads for running desktop VM's but were it not for that, the old Q6600 would probably still be adequate today...actually that system currently appears dead and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to tear it apart so it may end up in the trash...but not because it's too slow.

 

[jpiniero]

Slow as molasses...I bought my current CPU in 11th grade (i7 920)

Intel really screwed up the pricing on the 920 by pricing it so low. That won't happen again.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I realized today i have been in the same ballpark gpu wise on and off performance wise nearly 3 years.Started off with a reference 7970 that had sleep issues,got a trade for a notebook for my wife then i jumped to a gtx560ti to finally end up with a 7850.That failed and i ended up going gtx770 in September of 2013.:awe:

The 770 ends up being worst off then the 7970 cause of like 1gb less vram,the 7970 gets a GHz then gets rebadged to a 280x,all in about 3 years time.:|

God its gonna be great getting a 970 soon for less then what the 780 was going for a year ago,getting that additional 1gb of memory and lower power consumption.:biggrin:

 

[tential]

I realized today i have been in the same ballpark gpu wise on and off performance wise nearly 3 years.Started off with a reference 7970 that had sleep issues,got a trade for a notebook for my wife then i jumped to a gtx560ti to finally end up with a 7850.That failed and i ended up going gtx770 in September of 2013.:awe:

The 770 ends up being worst off then the 7970 cause of like 1gb less vram,the 7970 gets a GHz then gets rebadged to a 280x,all in about 3 years time.:|

God its gonna be great getting a 970 soon for less then what the 780 was going for a year ago,getting that additional 1gb of memory and lower power consumption.:biggrin:

Why didn't you simply just do some research... GTX 970 isn't even a good card for the price currently.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Why didn't you simply just do some research... GTX 970 isn't even a good card for the price currently.

Didn't buy it yet lol,i have been all over comparing the 290 to 970 to 290x.Tough call but the 970 appears to have the best performance out of the box which matters to me.There is a $330 Asus 290x with $30 mail in rebate which looks nice too.The $360 gigabyte g1 gaming 970 is tasty as well.

Got some weeks to make up my mind Doing my research,been on the forums,youtube and pretty much reading multiple reviews.

 

[tential]

Didn't buy it yet lol,i have been all over comparing the 290 to 970 to 290x.Tough call but the 970 appears to have the best performance out of the box which matters to me.There is a $330 Asus 290x with $30 mail in rebate which looks nice too.The $360 gigabyte g1 gaming 970 is tasty as well.

Got some weeks to make up my mind Doing my research,been on the forums,youtube and pretty much reading multiple reviews.

I clearly meant with the other GPU purchases you made...

I mean up to you on the GTX 970.

If you can justify paying more money for the GTX 970 for less performance than the R9 290x more power to you. I personally don't like to throw cash away though.
Especially since that lead increases as you increase resolution and since the primary use of a high end card is either A) Higher resolution than 1080p or B) VSR/DSR at 1080p, I would be mind boggled at how people justify picking up the GTX 970 but people do every day so whatever floats their boat I guess. Personally, I'm holding on to my HD7950 until the R9 390x release, taking a gauge at the price market (as then the GTX 970 will be forced to hit a reasonable price of $300 or less which is where its performance level actually is), and pick up whatever solution gets me to 4k/60fps or 1080p/highlevels of DSR/60fps.

 

[Arachnotronic]

tential

There are other factors to consider besides benchmarks. For example, in my experience, NVIDIA cards work better out of the box, have better game support, higher quality drivers, and so on.

Now, I haven't owned an AMD card since the 7970 (which I returned precisely for the reasons listed above) and maybe the situation has improved since then, but given how competitive NVIDIA's GPUs have been in terms of perf/power, I've had no reason to go AMD for my most recent round of GPU buys.

That being said, if AMD were to release a card that reviewers state offered amazing performance, great power consumption, and solid compatibility with games, I would give them another shot.

Looking forward to the 14/16nm generation of GPUs from both camps as I could really use even more performance than I have today. Far Cry 4 definitely needs more performance than what my system can provide.

 

[tential]

tential

There are other factors to consider besides benchmarks. For example, in my experience, NVIDIA cards work better out of the box, have better game support, higher quality drivers, and so on.

Now, I haven't owned an AMD card since the 7970 (which I returned precisely for the reasons listed above) and maybe the situation has improved since then, but given how competitive NVIDIA's GPUs have been in terms of perf/power, I've had no reason to go AMD for my most recent round of GPU buys.

That being said, if AMD were to release a card that reviewers state offered amazing performance, great power consumption, and solid compatibility with games, I would give them another shot.

Looking forward to the 14/16nm generation of GPUs from both camps as I could really use even more performance than I have today. Far Cry 4 definitely needs more performance than what my system can provide.

I've heard this "AMD terrible drivers thing." a lot of times. I decided to jump in and do it anyway.
Never seen this "work better out the box" (What you mean, put the card in and it works... for BOTH vendors), or this "Better game supporT" (Watch Dogs is a gameworks game without SLI support STILL), and as for higher quality drivers(NVidia HDMI color issue was just recently fixed? How do you have a color issue for THAT many generations go unfixed?).

Both vendors have their issues, and I use both vendors.

But again, up to him to decide.

I haven't had issues with either vendor though.
I have no vendor preference like them both but this time around AMD has the better deal.

Edit: Also the Omega drivers have probably changed a ton. I don't know what things people are doing where they find issues with either vendor's drivers though. I've never had an issue with NVidia or AMD drivers.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I've heard this "AMD terrible drivers thing." a lot of times. I decided to jump in and do it anyway.
Never seen this "work better out the box" (What you mean, put the card in and it works... for BOTH vendors), or this "Better game supporT" (Watch Dogs is a gameworks game without SLI support STILL), and as for higher quality drivers(NVidia HDMI color issue was just recently fixed? How do you have a color issue for THAT many generations go unfixed?).

Both vendors have their issues, and I use both vendors.

But again, up to him to decide.

I haven't had issues with either vendor though.
I have no vendor preference like them both but this time around AMD has the better deal.

Edit: Also the Omega drivers have probably changed a ton. I don't know what things people are doing where they find issues with either vendor's drivers though. I've never had an issue with NVidia or AMD drivers.

I'm happy to hear that you've had a pleasant experience using cards from both vendors. Remember that I'm speaking only from my personal experience with a very limited sample size. Other users with other cards in different system configurations than the one I tried to use may have different experiences; it's possible, even probable, that I was just unlucky.

 

[Ramses]

AMD's drivers have been a lot more together the last year or two, I haven't had an NV card since the gforce2 unless you count the 840m laptop I got last month. It's OK, the interface and such is a heck of a lot better on the AMD drivers I think but that's just personal preference. I run a pair of 280x that are still kicking along fine, I'd like a 980 but not till I can buy one for less than this pair of cards cost. Or two 970's, either way.
These things are still kicking butt for the money.

 

[poohbear]

I've heard this "AMD terrible drivers thing." a lot of times. I decided to jump in and do it anyway.
Never seen this "work better out the box" (What you mean, put the card in and it works... for BOTH vendors), or this "Better game supporT" (Watch Dogs is a gameworks game without SLI support STILL), and as for higher quality drivers(NVidia HDMI color issue was just recently fixed? How do you have a color issue for THAT many generations go unfixed?).

Both vendors have their issues, and I use both vendors.

But again, up to him to decide.

I haven't had issues with either vendor though.
I have no vendor preference like them both but this time around AMD has the better deal.

Edit: Also the Omega drivers have probably changed a ton. I don't know what things people are doing where they find issues with either vendor's drivers though. I've never had an issue with NVidia or AMD drivers.

I noticed nvidia has neglected SLI for the past year or 2....i dumped my gtx 670sli & got a gtx970 g1 gaming: no more strange microstutters, no more texture issues, no more having to wait months after release for proper SLI drivers. Just too much of a headache. Since going 1 card havent looked back & never plan on going multicard again even @ 1440p.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I clearly meant with the other GPU purchases you made...

I mean up to you on the GTX 970.


If you can justify paying more money for the GTX 970 for less performance than the R9 290x more power to you. I personally don't like to throw cash away though.

The 770 obviously was bias and i won't lie,but my track record with Amd has ranged from a crashed partition due to bsod,crossfire issues to overheating to sleep bug issues to a out of no where failure.Every time a issue so it was next to impossible to not be bias this one time and it was a first for me seriously.Try sitting down with your wife watching a dvd on your pc with a 7970 enjoying the nice company,have the screen go to sleep and end up having to hard reset not once but at least 4 times in a 1 and a hour.She was more pissed then me.

The two cards i have eyeballed are both $350,both Asus actually except the 970 is the Strixx edition.I am just using review numbers for the games i play to factor in a final decision.I won't be bias in this purchase unless there is game breaking issues with either brand in the games i play.

 

[2is]

I noticed nvidia has neglected SLI for the past year or 2....i dumped my gtx 670sli & got a gtx970 g1 gaming: no more strange microstutters, no more texture issues, no more having to wait months after release for proper SLI drivers. Just too much of a headache. Since going 1 card havent looked back & never plan on going multicard again even @ 1440p.

I've noticed the same trend sadly. When I first got my 2nd 680 the support was great, performance was great, scaling was great, now not so much. Even in popular titles like COD, having SLI enabled is anything but an enjoyable experience. While my FPS is pegged at 90 (I believe the game is capped at 90) one of my cards will randomly decide to throttle itself down by 300mhz compared to the other one which causes all kinds of random hitching in-game. Setting the games profile to use a single card, doesn't... I still have load on both cards, thought it's a lot less on the second card, but this doesn't last long as the game will eventually crash when set to single card. I actually have to disable SLI to get reliable single GPU performance in that game.

The other game I'm actively playing currently is AC: Black Flag, luckily SLI appears to be working quite well there, though PhysX is a complete mess when enabled.

I don't know if they're completely neglecting SLI or if they're just not bothering to optimize it for older generation cards. Either way, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and I don't plan on paring 2+ GPUs in the future.

 

[Ramses]

For the record, Firefox still wakes up my 2nd 280x out of sleep mode. Nobody seems to have a clue why. One other browser did, and two others did not, but I can't remember which was which now. I think Chrome did not.
Otherwise, I was expecting grief from crossfire, it's been as close to transparent as you could ask for. I ran lots of software monitoring and fraps and stuff for awhile, now I just game and forget it's there now. I know it's not the same for everyone, but it's been really good to me. Other than the heat and power consumption, I can't find anything better for within a hundred bucks or more of the price.
I'll be watching for 980's to hit the $300 mark, or a pair of 290x to hit the $300 mark.
Whichever comes first.

I noticed the 840M in my laptop, the software will not reliable force a given program to use a given video source. Neat idea, seems a little wonky.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just curious what other people had done with their upgrade cycles.

I've probably sped mine up, buying, well, what some people consider crap, that I don't really need, in search of smaller / lower-powered systems.

But by the same token, I've slowed down my desktop upgrades. Been sticking with a pair of Q9300 CPUs for the longest time. Could have bought a 2500K, ended up buying a Thuban 1045T, and then another one. (It's nice having a Microcenter nearby.) Don't use the Thuban much, except for DC. I use the Q9300s more for day-to-day stuff, as well as DC in the winter.

Now, some people are ditching their 2500Ks for a 4790K or 5820K.

I know BonzaiDuck is holding onto some 775 rigs just like me.

Just a follow-up. Since 2014, I've done two major desktop upgrades. Bought a pair of G3258 CPUs in a combo with a Gigabyte H81 board that allowed overclocking OOTB. But then Skylake was released in late 2015, and I bought some Z170 Pro4S boards from ASRock, and a pair of G4400 CPUs, and overclocked them. Those are my current machines, but I still have the Q9300 CPUs, and for that matter, the 1045T Thubans as well. Too many machines, really. I should sell some of this stuff while it's still worth using.

 

[TeknoBug]

tential

There are other factors to consider besides benchmarks. For example, in my experience, NVIDIA cards work better out of the box, have better game support, higher quality drivers, and so on.

Now, I haven't owned an AMD card since the 7970 (which I returned precisely for the reasons listed above) and maybe the situation has improved since then

Sooooooo... yeah That first paragraph is invalid after seeing the second paragraph.

Just to politely put it, as of late Nvidia needs a smack in the face.