How often do you guys need to update your graphics cards?

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
ATI rage 128 Pro
Radeon 8500

Dunno when next? .... If i had money i'd definately spend it on cars over computer hardware. I dont think it's fair to compare spending thousands on a hobby like cars to computer hardware because if you drive a nice car it actually feels good to drive something exclusive and fast/luxurious whatever. Also if you make sound investments like Jay Leno, your car collection can even appreciate in value while computer hardware will have a salvage value of $0 over time. If you have 10 geforce 10000 videocards in your computer, you are still nobody. It wont even get you valet parking or a date...and say goodbye to 20/20 vision after 5 years of love making to your computer monitor. But I guess if you cant afford a 911, then SLI is just your way of showing off

I might not resist the temptation for R520 though..it's been a while.

really BAD analogy.

The day you drive your new car off the lot it depreciates - by THOUSANDS of dollars.

"IF you invest like Jay Leno".

Well if you invest like Jay Leno you can throw nice cars away. it is exceedingly RARE to get a nice car that appreciates in value - it is an EXCEPTION - and those cars so not come cheap.

Finally, you must be pretty young and haven't been able to afford a "nice" car. That "feeling' doesn't last.
:roll:

and the girls you attract with your nice car are materialistic and probably "expensive"

:thumbsdown:

You nailed it man. :thumbsup: Truer words were never typed IIRC the rule of thumb is that no more than 1,000 cars were produced to see real investment-grade auto's. No doubt there are exceptions though.

AFA HL2, I'll know soon. Been bombed with BS which has built up since 4/15. I plan to come in late Weds so I can hook up win2k to the BB connection. Hope my delay is not inconviencing you.

Fern

Thank-you!

No problem with the delay - whatsoever . . . you can have 'till the expansion pak is out
(mayabe late this year)

in fact, i filed an extension to August 15 for my taxes since i owe 'zero' and am way behind in work due to the hi winds we have every week. I am doing my own house repairs, yard work and tree and garden planting when my work is 'blown out' .
(with a little neffing in OT to relax)

so i havent even looked at SS2 [or ANY other game].



BTW, the ONLY time i actually "made money" on a car was my 1978 Fiat X1/9 - even though the car was a POS [and "falling apart"] - i actually got almost $2,000 more than i paid for it in [2 years of hard driving] - 1980!!!!
:thumbsup:

From a car lot, no less!!!!
:Q

See, the car was only $6,500 when i bought it brand new . . . within 2 years the car had got REALLY popular [and partly due to inflation/weakness of the US dollar] the NEW ones in 1980 were ~$14,500!!!!!!!!
:shocked:


forget cars as an "investment" unless you are rich AND savvy.
:thumbsdown:

 

[Inspector Jihad]

everyone has thier own tastes i guess. to me, all that moeny to play games seems pointless...i'd rather put it somewhere else, but i guess its different for differnt people.

 

[ponyo]

forget cars as an "investment" unless you are rich AND savvy.

You sir are correct. If you thought depreciation on videocard is bad, wait until you buy and sell cars. Sure the percentage on the videocard is bigger but dollar amount on cars is hundreds times higher.

I was foolish and young once. The first car I bought on my own after college was a new Porsche Boxster. It was during the funny money period of the internet and stock market boom and I was making absolute killing on the market. Paid 54k after tax and ended up selling it two years later for 36k with only 7k miles on it before the birth of my daughter. Weekend 2 seater does you no good when you can't fit a baby seat in it even for weekend drive.

Now I refuse to buy any luxury car new. I'll buy 2-3 year old vehicle and let someone else take the initial depreciation hit. Right now I'm looking at some used Lexus LS400 and 430 at significant savings. I'll rather take the savings and invest it and use it to fund my next used vehicle.

 

[Jeff7181]

Need to? Ummm... every 3 or 4 years. Like to? Every year.

 

[BenSkywalker]

yep, $300, not $350 . . . . IF you could find one at MSRP for the first few months.

I had no problem.

i DO know that the price of "A" titles on platform games does NOT fall quickly like the PC's game titles . . . there is a price difference in favor of the PC - that is all.

Fall to what? Vampire is still the same price it launched at and it isn't even close to A list. HL2 is still asking full retail as is WoW.

memory? . . . memory cards WTF did you think i was talking about?

Why would you want a memory card for a XBox? I have three of them(between mine and my kids'), never owned a mem card for any of them.

And the DVD Movie Playback Kit

If you want it to be a DVD player. You have to buy a DVD drive for your PC before it can do that to, doesn't come with a vid card.

a "custom controller"

I actually do have one, but to take that into consideration you need to add ~$1K to the cost of graphics cards as you need to have an entire second gaming PC instead of just another controller

"advanced" AV [or HD] pack

Add the cost of a Dolby Digital sound card with SPDIF out to the cost of the graphics card too.

x-box 'live' kit

OK, another $50 if you want Live(considerably less then 10% of the Box's installed base does).

it all adds up (all my friends have this crap).

For the graphics card upgrade we are closing in on $2,500- compared to the comparable console upgrade of $400.

 

[Genx87]

Everytime I build a new gaming machine or about every 18 months.

I am thinking the next time I do this upgrade will be around next Feb\March.

 

[frx218]

Daily

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

yep, $300, not $350 . . . . IF you could find one at MSRP for the first few months.

I had no problem.

i DO know that the price of "A" titles on platform games does NOT fall quickly like the PC's game titles . . . there is a price difference in favor of the PC - that is all.

Fall to what? Vampire is still the same price it launched at and it isn't even close to A list. HL2 is still asking full retail as is WoW.

memory? . . . memory cards WTF did you think i was talking about?

Why would you want a memory card for a XBox? I have three of them(between mine and my kids'), never owned a mem card for any of them.

And the DVD Movie Playback Kit

If you want it to be a DVD player. You have to buy a DVD drive for your PC before it can do that to, doesn't come with a vid card.

a "custom controller"

I actually do have one, but to take that into consideration you need to add ~$1K to the cost of graphics cards as you need to have an entire second gaming PC instead of just another controller

"advanced" AV [or HD] pack

Add the cost of a Dolby Digital sound card with SPDIF out to the cost of the graphics card too.

x-box 'live' kit

OK, another $50 if you want Live(considerably less then 10% of the Box's installed base does).

it all adds up (all my friends have this crap).

For the graphics card upgrade we are closing in on $2,500- compared to the comparable console upgrade of $400.

i dunno . . . Vampire:BL is $39 at Walmart (RPG games seem to hold their price better than FPSes) . . . so i guess it dropped by $10.

i got HL2 for $39 [with a retro-PM] the week it was released . . . same price for D3.
Riddick was $29 . . . within 6 months FC/PK/Thief 3/DE:IW/MaxPayne2 were 1/2 price.

Memory Cards ARE available for the x-box - even if you never use them

DVD player for the Xbox - of course - we're assuming you are not using a PC.

Where'd you get $2500 for your PC?
:shocked:
and the console version of the orignal Xbox is NOT comparable to any up-to-date computer . . . and we don't know enough about Xbox360 to really compare anything - yet.

 

[BenSkywalker]

i dunno . . . Vampire:BL is $39 at Walmart

Launched at that price at Wal-Mart- I've been waiting for it to be patched well enough or drop in price enough to be worth dealing with the bugs(was following the game for a good portion of its development- don't have the patience to deal with buggy games).

i got HL2 for $39 [with a retro-PM] the week it was released . . . same price for D3.

I can do the same going to GoGamer for console titles when they first hit.

Memory Cards ARE available for the x-box - even if you never use them

Mem cards for the XBox are fairly useless. Besides the HD being significantly better, a lot of games won't put their save files on the mem card at all.

DVD player for the Xbox - of course - we're assuming you are not using a PC.

I have one playback kit kicking around for one of the Boxs, doesn't get used anymore as set top DVD players do tend to do a bit more justice.

Where'd you get $2500 for your PC?

Remember you brought up a second controller, that means you need a second entire PC to be comparable

and the console version of the orignal Xbox is NOT comparable to any up-to-date computer .

The XBox also currently retails for less then a 6600- well below the $300 number we were talking about. When it did launch, its GPU at the least was more powerful then anything you could buy for driving games.

and we don't know enough about Xbox360 to really compare anything - yet.

Actually we know almost everything about it as of this point(in terms of how it is going to stack up/destroy current PC tech) except for the finer details. Same with the PS3, the Revolution is pretty much the only one everyone is in the dark on.

 

[apoppin]

i thought Vampire:BL was $59 MSRP . . . anyway, Bad news . . . . expect NO further support for it . . . there was a thread in Software that support was dropped after just one patch. The good news is that is is "playable" [i'm waiting for bargain bin too].

i just never saw 'just released' platform titles for what you say you pay at GoGamer . . . . my impression - disputed for the first time by you - is that that platform games are more expensive at release, are less "competitive" in pricing, and tend to hold their price longer than comparable PC titles.

not sure what you mean about the "second controller" . . . most of my friends use a custom one. besides the mouse i also use a Belkin Nostromo for my "KB" . . . . most PC gamers don't.

i think the x-box retails for ~$180 now (i think) . . . . why the hell would you "upgrade" to a GeForce4 nowadays . . . Xbox is "stale" now . . . that's why M$ is launching a new one. When the Xbox came out - for a VERY brief time - it edged out PC gaming - UNTIL the 9700p.

And we don't know how a Xbox360 is gonna stack up with a SLI'd 6800U system let alone attempt to predict how sli'd r520 or G70 sytems will compare.
:roll:

 

[carlosd]

2-3 years
Ungraded 6800GT from a Ti4200.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

umm, the xbox never edged out a pc

 

[NEVERwinter]

about every 2-3 years. Now i'm on 9600XT and I don't feel to upgrade yet. maybe next year... I won't spend more than $200 though.

 

Well i have been changing a bit.
Started at a original Voodoo.
Moved to a Gforce MX440
Then to a ATi 9600pro
Now to my X800XT PE
X800XT PE is the bomb, i hit amazing 3dmark2001se: 23543

 

[MonkeyWrench4000]

I did it around every 3 years also, I'm now on a 9800pro and was previously on a ti4200. Guild Wars and HL2 ran fine on my 4200 (fine for me is 1024x768 no aa @ 30fps)

This is def not fine for everyone else

I think the 9800pro is my last high-end card, then I am going to stop playing games with my pc, I'm already sort of getting out of them, sadly, i cant sit in front of a game for more then a few minutes before my mind wanders.

looks like the future of PC's just got alot cheaper for me! The $50 mainstream card looks more tempting to me every build

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
umm, the xbox never edged out a pc

Sure it did - for a couple of months when it was first released - till the 9700p came out.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Don't know what the wide launch price was for Vampires, but it was $39.99 at my local Wal-Mart.

GoGamer also tends to have the best deals on PC games too.

Second controller for the XBox so you can have two people play at once- you need a second PC to do that

XBox is @$150 now, wouldn't be shocked to see that drop at E3 either. Also, when the XB launched the highest end PC part was the GF3Ti, neither the GF4 nor the R8500 had hit yet(it was close to a year before the 9700 hit).

And we don't know how a Xbox360 is gonna stack up with a SLI'd 6800U system let alone attempt to predict how sli'd r520 or G70 sytems will compare.

Actually we pretty much do. Go to the B3D console forums(for the best collection of information) and read up on all of the details available. It is going to be using the R500(not the scaled down R520 ATi is going to release for the PC for their next gen part) paired with eDRAM and a version of IBM's Power in a multi-core configuration. The only real question as of this point is how much RAM it is going to ship with.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Don't know what the wide launch price was for Vampires, but it was $39.99 at my local Wal-Mart.

GoGamer also tends to have the best deals on PC games too.

Second controller for the XBox so you can have two people play at once- you need a second PC to do that

XBox is @$150 now, wouldn't be shocked to see that drop at E3 either. Also, when the XB launched the highest end PC part was the GF3Ti, neither the GF4 nor the R8500 had hit yet(it was close to a year before the 9700 hit).

And we don't know how a Xbox360 is gonna stack up with a SLI'd 6800U system let alone attempt to predict how sli'd r520 or G70 sytems will compare.

Actually we pretty much do. Go to the B3D console forums(for the best collection of information) and read up on all of the details available. It is going to be using the R500(not the scaled down R520 ATi is going to release for the PC for their next gen part) paired with eDRAM and a version of IBM's Power in a multi-core configuration. The only real question as of this point is how much RAM it is going to ship with.

i use GoGamers for PC games . . . especially their bargain games . . . DE:IW is ~$5 right now [in Hot Deals @GG - actually there are a LOT of nice games for cheap the next 24 hours].

EDIT: Oops, the current HotDeal is at EBworld
1.99 Great Games at Ebworld

Yep, Xbox will be dirt cheap by the time the 360 is out. . . . i think MSRP is $179 but there are "deals" now.

So how do YOU think the xbox360 will compare with the next gen of PC gaming (multicore 4Ghz CPU/SLI'd r520 or G70/2GB RAM/Win XP-64)?

(i read the rumours too)

 

[qbackin]

once a day

 

[BenSkywalker]

Yep, Xbox will be dirt cheap by the time the 360 is out. . . . i think MSRP is $179 but there are "deals" now.

The MSRP is $150 right now, has been for a long time too.

So how do YOU think the xbox360 will compare with the next gen of PC gaming (multicore 4Ghz CPU/SLI'd r520 or G70/2GB RAM/Win XP-64)?

(i read the rumours too)

That's why I told you to head over to the B3D forums. I'm not talking about rumors, I'm talking about patents.

The 360 in practical terms should be considerably more potent then 2xR520s for a few reasons. One is that it is going to be using eDRAM to alleviate bandwidth concerns and allow for some fairly interesting effects that would be otherwise too costly on PC parts. Another element is that the R500 should be a superior chip in relation to the R520 anyway. Also you have fixed platform performance edge which tends to be in the neighborhood of 100% faster then general purpose code not to mention that the processor in the X360 should be significantly more powerful then anything we will see on the desktop for years. The only potential weak spot the X360 has in comparison to the PC is RAM amount- that is the one major question left. Of course, from all available information the X360 will be easily overpowered by the PS3 anyway.

But, the largest factor doesn't relate to the hardware itself, it is the elimination of LCD. Check out the coverage of Madden for the next gen that's floating around- current PC titles look like a joke in comparison.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Yep, Xbox will be dirt cheap by the time the 360 is out. . . . i think MSRP is $179 but there are "deals" now.

The MSRP is $150 right now, has been for a long time too.

So how do YOU think the xbox360 will compare with the next gen of PC gaming (multicore 4Ghz CPU/SLI'd r520 or G70/2GB RAM/Win XP-64)?

(i read the rumours too)

That's why I told you to head over to the B3D forums. I'm not talking about rumors, I'm talking about patents.

The 360 in practical terms should be considerably more potent then 2xR520s for a few reasons. One is that it is going to be using eDRAM to alleviate bandwidth concerns and allow for some fairly interesting effects that would be otherwise too costly on PC parts. Another element is that the R500 should be a superior chip in relation to the R520 anyway. Also you have fixed platform performance edge which tends to be in the neighborhood of 100% faster then general purpose code not to mention that the processor in the X360 should be significantly more powerful then anything we will see on the desktop for years. The only potential weak spot the X360 has in comparison to the PC is RAM amount- that is the one major question left. Of course, from all available information the X360 will be easily overpowered by the PS3 anyway.

But, the largest factor doesn't relate to the hardware itself, it is the elimination of LCD. Check out the coverage of Madden for the next gen that's floating around- current PC titles look like a joke in comparison.

elimination of LCD? . . . . not sure what you mean.

Compared to Unreal3, current PC games [also] look like a joke in comparison

NOT being a platform gamer [since Genesis] - i have only given "passing interest" to the xbox360/PS3 in comparison to PC gaming [i didn't bother with the original Xbox 'cause it was obvious it would be quickly eclipsed by the PC]. . . . of course i will take a closer look when they are released to see if it worth upgrading my PC - "just for gaming" . . . . i am not planning to upgrade my current rig till Winter [if at all - i don't need to upgrade for anything BUT gaming].

As long as "anytime save" becomes standard for console games, i might consider a next gen platform
:shocked:

 

[DAPUNISHER]

PCs and consoles both have their place IMO. I have a modded xbox and it is capable of quite a bit Just add a big hdd, media center, media player, DVD region free, different DVD-ROM, emulators, ect. You can access it from your LAN, back-up games to hdd, run Linux, web surf, play DVDs or just about any other media file, and without the remote kit if you need too. You can play your old console games with a emulator, and the list goes on. Add the DD 5.1 and HDTV capabilities and you have a kickass little home theater setup for relatively cheap that also does a great deal more :beer:

 

[BenSkywalker]

elimination of LCD? . . . . not sure what you mean.

Lowest common denominator. Games released today have to run on R9200s with P4 1.4GHZ and 256MB of RAM for the most part. You aren't going to sell crap requiring 6800U-SLI setup paired with an A64 x2 4400

Compared to Unreal3, current PC games [also] look like a joke in comparison

The Unreal3 engine is targetting the next gen consoles- not a particular PC technology point(according to Sweeney). Here is a clip of Madden for the next gen consoles.

As long as "anytime save" becomes standard for console games, i might consider a next gen platform

For the XBox it already is pretty much in all games(some titles like racers it isn't, but that is true on the PC also). Actually, many of the GameCube and PS2 games allow you to save anywhere, and that was with last(this) gens relatively puny meory cards.

 

[Megatomic]

I upgrade whenever a "must play" game comes out that my current video card can't play at suitable res. and settings. This is usually an 18 month cycle for me, but the last 2 years saw me upgrade half a dozen times.

 

[Gurck]

How often do you guys need to update your graphics cards?

"Need", as in to play the newest games, every 4 years or so. My ti4600, now installed in my htpc, is 3 years old and can still handle new games in 10x7 with high detail settings, which is better than consoles by a long shot (640x480, low detail). Most upgrade sooner than that though, and I think it's mostly a game of keeping up with the Joneses. Far be it from me to complain though, the fact that many do this lowers prices for all of us, especially on the older, half as expensive, 90% as-good hardware I buy