Why do I feel the need to keep upgrading...when I don't even need the extra processor power?

[Drsignguy]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
LOL, I'm afflicted too. I just bought a GTX 280 but I already had a 8800GTX, I was playing The Settlers VI at the time. Now I have to play Crysis again.

Same goes for my Velociraptor, my Q9450 & my Asus Xonar. I didn't really need any of them, but I'm glad I bought them, it got the monkey off my back for a few days at least. But then eventually you start thinking about the next upgrade. I'm starting to think I need a bigger than 22" LCD.

On the up side, my Folding@Home performance is through the roof.

This is exactally what I want to do. ( Congrats Cutthroat! ) So, of course, I am getting another vid card. Then I think I will have to build another pc around my HD3870 that I will be removing. A never ending process.......................

 

[Denithor]

Ouch, this thread hits close to home for me as well.

Two comments:

"Why would you upgrade your already fast computer?" "Because I can!"

"More is never enough."

 

[Hugh H]

I guess everyone here that has the same addiction are able to actually spend money to do so. I certainly couldn't do this a few years ago when I was back in college... any pc that would get me to play my favorite games on low settings was enough. Now, there is always the opportunity to have a better 'puter'!

I tried to explain this to my girlfriend using the excuse of "well, it is a much cheaper hobby than if I was into sports cars, boats, etc..." I don't know if she is buying it completely.

 

[nemoshotyany]

I too have had the same problem. I went from an Opteron 170 System to E2180, ASUS Maximus, Cooler Master Stacker, 2 500 GB Segate Barracudas (32 MB cache), 2 DVD burners, 4 GB (2x2) Corsair XMS2, Corsair 620W Modular, and a Sapphire HD3870. I was quite satisfied ..... for about a week then I decided I wanted to go with water cooling. Swiftech is good watercooling but I had to have the best so I got the Thermochill PA 120.3 system which costs me about $450. Oh yeah not to mention I brought another HD3870 because I didn't feel like redoing my watercooling loop so I went crossfire and then installed the watercooling kit. Now here I am today I just built a relative a PC using my old E2160 and I upgraded to an E7200. The sad part of it all is that I barely use my computer for any gaming. I was into playing Guild Wars which ran perfectly fine on my Opteron System. The most gaming I do now is maybe 4-5 hours weekly on my 360 playing Gears of War. Needless to say I'm already planning my budget for Neleham*, x58, and DDR3.. I read somewhere that Neleham will be coming out in September, by budget will be ready in August

We need a PCP (Personal Computer Parts ) recovery program.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: Shortass
There's an easy solution! All you gotta do is start folding and bam, all that performance is used in a somewhat tangible fashion. I increased my points per day about 11 to 12 times over compared to my Athlon XP rig I had before this (2500+ mobile)... feels so good it hurts.

Nehalem will taunt me.

That's cool and all, but I'm not down with the power consumption and heat generated. I like the fact that when I leave my house, my machines are fully hibernated and powered off within 45 minutes. On top of that, I have a smart stip that senses when the computer hibernates and turns off the speaker, printer and yanks power to all those power sucking bricks for cellphones, etc.

So in short, my upgrading addiction is more about the process of building. Converting my machines to high energy efficiency setups is fun.

 

[Shortass]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: Shortass
There's an easy solution! All you gotta do is start folding and bam, all that performance is used in a somewhat tangible fashion. I increased my points per day about 11 to 12 times over compared to my Athlon XP rig I had before this (2500+ mobile)... feels so good it hurts.

Nehalem will taunt me.

That's cool and all, but I'm not down with the power consumption and heat generated. I like the fact that when I leave my house, my machines are fully hibernated and powered off within 45 minutes. On top of that, I have a smart stip that senses when the computer hibernates and turns off the speaker, printer and yanks power to all those power sucking bricks for cellphones, etc.

So in short, my upgrading addiction is more about the process of building. Converting my machines to high energy efficiency setups is fun.

Word, I can certainly appreciate that. That's a pretty slick setup you got there, too. For me, at least for now, I'm living either with a lot of my friends (at college in a house... electricity split 5 ways) or at home (free, for me) so the power doesn't affect me. Heat is actually great in the winter, my computer can nearly heat up my bedroom alone which helps against the outrageous oil prices (at least that's what I tell myself).

For anyone not interested in efficient power savings, my point will always stand!

 

[solog]

find some new hobbies. I'm still on an Barton (planning an upgrade this year though)

 

[Drsignguy]

Originally posted by: solog
find some new hobbies. I'm still on an Barton (planning an upgrade this year though)

nah, that's like telling an avid fisherman to take up bowling.

 

[Mwing]

In the past year, I have made numerous upgrades, some of them were not neccessary

Necessary:

AMD Athlon Barton core 2500+ > C2D E6750
A7N8X deluxe > P35C-DS3R
2gb DDR > 2GB DDR2
Ati X800 AIW > Asus 8600GTS
Asus 8600GTS > EVGA 8800GT
19" Sony LCD > 24" Samsung 245B LCD
250gb hd > 500gb Seagate 7200.10

Not necessary:

E6750 > Q9450
500w Coolermaster PSU > 520w Kingwin Modular PSU
Centurion 5 case > Antec 900 case
8800GT > 9800GTX
9800GTX > GTX260
addition of 2 x 1gb DDR2
4gb DDR2 > 8gb DDR2
addition of another 500gb Seagate 7200.10
500gb Seagate 7200.10 x 2 > 640gb WD x 2
addtition of Velociraptor
Dinovo mouse kb combo > Logitech Access 600 kb + Logitech laser MX400 mouse

Upgrade itch started to bug me since I got my E6750 system.

 

[GundamF91]

It seems that the leap from Barton to Core2 really is a turning point to get people back into overclocking again. I think the good ol days of Barton generated a lot of interest in tweaking due to its ability to overclock. Now when people went to Core2, you also have lots of headroom for being faster.

Of course, when your CPU went faster, then you feel the need to get other things to speed up as well, and unfortunately typically cannot be overclocked and we had to buy new ones.

 

[V3LCR0]

As my friend always said to me, "Why buy a Ferrari if you are only driving to school and back home?" Which made a good amount of sense to me.

 

[rjc]

I have an explanation, its not so comforting though.

More than 20 years ago an israeli field biologist was studying a group of birds and the way they interacted with each other. Particularly the way the birds determined who was in charge in the group and relative status of each bird. Alot of their behaviour was very difficult to explain with the current theories at the time, so a new one was developed:
http://books.google.com.au/boo...ult&resnum=1&ct=result
The theory was derided and first and bittterly fought over, but is now pretty much the mainstream explanation.

Roughly, buying excessive powered computer equipment is a "handicap" you take on to demonstrate your superiority to the people around you. The bigger the investment you make the more you can advertise it to others. This works for overclocking too, the investment being time and knowledge more than straight $$.

Ideally the handicap is supposed to advertise to members of the opposite sex. Sadly computers seem a far inferior investment in this respect to other handicaps say art, music, sporting prowess, acting ability etc.

 

[twjr]

Originally posted by: Hugh H
I guess everyone here that has the same addiction are able to actually spend money to do so. I certainly couldn't do this a few years ago when I was back in college... any pc that would get me to play my favorite games on low settings was enough. Now, there is always the opportunity to have a better 'puter'!

I tried to explain this to my girlfriend using the excuse of "well, it is a much cheaper hobby than if I was into sports cars, boats, etc..." I don't know if she is buying it completely.

I'm in uni at the moment and just upgraded to 2 HD4850's for no reason other than I could.

Now I am wondering where I am going to have to cut back to cover the expenditure.

Probably be living on 2 minute noodles i think. Guess it really is more like a drug addiction then. You give up on everything else just to get your fix.

 

[BerlinCB]

I need a vaccination quick!!!

I haven't upgraded in almost 4 years. I'm currently running an Athlon 64 4200+, 6800GT, 2GB DDR, original Raptor 74GB...

I told my wife that my buddies and I were all going to start playing Warhammer: Age of Reckoning when it was released and I would need to build a new system to run it well.

I spec'd out the system and it is all sitting in a Newegg wishlist right now.... C2D E8500, Asus P5Q-E, Radeon 4870, Velociraptor, 4GB G.Skill DDR2-1000, Antec 900, Blu-ray drive, OCZ EliteXStream 800W, OCZ Vendetta 2 HSF...

Mythic released the game requirements and I meet all of them with my current system. I'm even above the minimum floor by quite a bit, meaning it would play decent on this rig. Now I spend at least an hour a day reading these boards and staring at my wishlist and the "Add to Cart" button....

It would have been so much easier if WAR had higher requirements, damn them!

/whimper

 

[stuff311]

It may be a disease...but at least it keeps you out of trouble, right? I mean, it's better than blowing that money on something worse...like...I dunno...hookers? Of course that's assuming you're in a relationship...if not...disregard what I just said.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: BerlinCB
I haven't upgraded in almost 4 years. I'm currently running an Athlon 64 4200+, 6800GT, 2GB DDR, original Raptor 74GB...

Mythic released the game requirements and I meet all of them with my current system. I'm even above the minimum floor by quite a bit, meaning it would play decent on this rig.

Meeting minimums doesn't mean you can't run the game much better with some improvements. But you do have a pretty solid system there already, the only thing I'd say is OC your CPU (if not done already) and swap the 6800GT for a 3870/8800GT/4850 and you'll see a major improvement in games.

Save the major overhaul for mid next year when Nehalem is out, prices have falled a bit, and the cost of DDR3 has come down to acceptable levels.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I'm not addicted to computer toys

I think it's rather normal that:

1. I pulled cat5 cable to the laundry room and both bathrooms
2. I did a $4k upgrade to my central AC to improve ambient temps on my PC's
3. That I have a walkin closet dedicated to left over computer parts
4. The fedex,UPS,USPS, and DHL delivery guys all know me by name
5. I email my wife in the kitchen to ask if dinner is ready
6. I package all my christmas gifts with left over bubble rap and packing peanuts from newegg.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: MBentz
This thread is killing me...

I so need an upgrade. (Be warned if you click the link in my sig, some of you may have a heart murmur.) I went cold turkey on upgrading three years ago, and am anxiously waiting to upgrade. My only debate is a cheap(ish) Q9450 vs Nehalem.

Don't worry about it too much. Your system is great. I went from a 2.3Ghz Sempron 3100+ and 1.5GB ddr400 ram and 6800GT to my current rig, and the only thing that went faster besides games like UT3 of course was ...I don't know, watching 1080P video, and I don't have much of that to watch anyways. At all really.

So basically, in everyday tasks, unless you're running Vista (which has undone some nice XP optimizations like automatically pegging the task manager as highest priority), a new rig won't feel any faster for you in every day tasks (even 30 tab web-browsing).

I got to use new comps at school, and I thought it was kinda cool that my Sempron+mobo combo I bought from outpost.com for $40 ran as fast as I needed for everything except gaming. Felt efficient.

I ultimately upgraded because mine was making lots of noise--dying fans etc. Now with only 120MM fans, it's plain silent.

But I still have the upgrade bug. Now that I've been tinkering with the coolness of truecrypt, I want a quad-core so I can do triple-encryption with no bottleneck.

 

[soccerballtux]

You've got me thinking about upgrading my laptop now though, darn you.
It's so much fun.
I can't wait to go to a quad penryn if they can be had for cheap (If Deneb delivers).

 

[Dadofamunky]

Overclock madness
Upgrades consume my budget
Beans for lunch again