Anyone feel that they DONT need to upgrade?

[ExcaliburMM]

Thanks to people like Aigo, I never feel like I have enough.

 

[Gillbot]

Thanks to people like Aigo, I never feel like I have enough.

And you just got what we call "Aigoed".

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Argh, the upgrade bug is biting me. My main PC (in the sig) is fine, but I want to upgrade my HTPC. The problem is that I don't use it much right now and my plan for the future HTPC would be as more of a DVR and a streaming TV server with a more traditional use of the system as an HTPC down the road. I've got a spare Athlon64 board and an X2 4600+ laying around that I was thinking about using, but it isn't new and shiny.

I was seriously considering a Phenom X4 905 series (4 cores would be great for BeyondTV's Showsqueeze feature) and an AM3 board, but I am not if I can keep it quiet enough. I was thinking about a board with integrated HD4200 to eliminate having to cool a video card, but I am not sure if I can quietly cool the Phenom. Time to research.

 

[tokie]

I run a Pentium E5300 @ 3.0 that I plan to take to 3.6 when I can afford a good cooler. Don't feel the need to upgrade my video card (4830) either, because my monitor is only 1440x900 and everything runs fine on it.

I will upgrade when either:
- everything gets dirt cheap, i.e. when AMD 32nm/ATI 28nm comes out and is competitive with Intel
- games and applications take full advantage of multithreading so going from 2 to 6 cores doesn't seem so pointless
- when Intel releases its 160GB SSD @ the price of its current 80GB
- when a good 1080p LED-backlit IPS display other than the Apple LED Display comes out

 

[aigomorla]

Upgrade Upgrade!!!

*pouring gas on this fire*

I dont only upgrade because of performance... theres also looks!

Big difference in how it looks from This...

vs. this..

If you guys water, its a crack addiction to upgrade...
So many pretty CPU blocks.. :O

 

[tno]

I brought this up in another thread and in the Clarkdale article's comments, which was backed up by Anand himself, that in a way, Intel shot themselves in the foot by creating such a huge jump in performance (Prescott -> Conroe). They will not, in the near term have an equivalent jump in overall performance. It just won't happen. So will I upgrade my Q9300@3Ghz or my HD4890? Nope. Not till at least Sandy Bridge.

But what seems to be driving a lot of upgrades lately? Features. More and more, computer component companies are driving sales through features which is stratifying computer usage and leading, often, to more components. Want a hugely portable handheld computing device? Get a smart phone (soon to be featuring an Atom derivative). Need a lightweight, road warrior small scale work platform? Get an Atom based netbook. Need a power efficient desktop that will handle MOST of your everyday needs? Get an Atom based NetTop. Need an ultra quiet, ultra efficient, media crunching HTPC? Get an i3 rig, that will even handle your audio encoding. It goes on and on. I can make good arguments for everything up to the i3. Anything in the i5 and i7 camp suffers from the fact that your real world performance increase will be in the 10-30% range, not enough to make me want to make a big time platform jump.

Indeed, as another poster mentioned, the best argument for making the jump is actually the performance/watt ratio provided by these new designs. An i5 rig with a 5850 on a P55 mobo will offer equal performance to my rig with a decent power savings.

So, what am I doing with my time? Aigo will appreciate this; I am going water! Woot!

tno

 

[Kraeoss]

well... my system need's a whole lot more compared to some of the systems here... i need to upgrade...

 

[djnsmith7]

I plan on keeping both rigs in my sig for a while. I don't see a reason to upgrade either MB / CPU / RAM scenarios at this point, as my system doesn't feel sluggish enough to warrant the associated costs. I did upgrade one rig to a 5850 though, which was a nice upgrade. There's no way I want to get rid of both of these boards & 16 gigs of RAM when it isn't necessary.

 

[Ksyder]

I have to admit the irrational side of me wants an i860 system now. Even though my old Conney at 3.2 is doing fine. I've just got the itch.

I'd love to upgrade my HTPC to i3 with that really power efficient MSI board too.

Been thinking about it a lot lately... must resist.

What is this really power efficient MSI board you speak of?

Can't seem to find out what you guys are talking about, I google'd it and stuff. Reviews? Thanks in advance.

 

[Martimus]

I have a S939 4200+ X2, and yet nothing seems like it is running too slow. Also, my Radeon 3850 seems to run all my games just fine. I may still build a new computer if I have some extra cash left over from my tax refund, but I don't feel a real urge to update.

 

[toyota]

I have a S939 4200+ X2, and yet nothing seems like it is running too slow. Also, my Radeon 3850 seems to run all my games just fine. I may still build a new computer if I have some extra cash left over from my tax refund, but I don't feel a real urge to update.

you must not play very many newer games. there are several I can think of that would be a slideshow at times if you didnt run them at lower settings.

 

[bigboxes]

I upgraded about 5 months ago when my power supply died in my main rig (X2 4400+). I swapped in another power supply and gave the old rig to the wifey (she's very happy now). I purchased an i7 from Microcenter for $200 and the rest was history. If you have a Q6600 then you really have no reason to upgrade unless you are insane or aigo. Anyways, my video encoding was four times faster than my old dual-core. Can't argue with results. The only real improvement I could still do would be to move to an SSD. I'm happy.

 

[hotpursuit]

First rig :
Pentium 4 2.4GHz
512MB RAM DDR400
40GB HDD
nVidia 6600 inno3d
(Bought maybe 6 years ago)

Upgraded to a :
Core i7
XFX HD4870
3GB corsair dominator DDR3 1600MHz
Gigabyte EX58-UD4P
1TB HDD

Big upgrade for me!

 

[ShawnD1]

you must not play very many newer games. there are several I can think of that would be a slideshow at times if you didnt run them at lower settings.

Borderlands is pretty slow. I run at the native 1680x1050 but every graphical setting is set as low as possible. Even then it still can't maintain 60fps with a GeForce 8800 GTX.

 

[Martimus]

Borderlands is pretty slow. I run at the native 1680x1050 but every graphical setting is set as low as possible. Even then it still can't maintain 60fps with a GeForce 8800 GTX.

I have a CRT, so I don't have a native resolution. I spent nearly $500 on this Mag 19" monitor 10 years ago, and it has been a good investment thus far.

 

[bamacre]

I've had my Dell XPS 410 for 26 months now, and recently decided not to upgrade to a new system. It's got a Q6600 and 6GB DDR2. I did upgrade the 512MB 8800GTS to a GTX 260 last month, but I had an odd opportunity to do so at basically no cost. All of my games are running smooth, and at 1080p.

 

[Axon]

Well, I have an i7 920 at my apartment, but I'm rarely there...so I mostly use the E8500 hand me down I gave to my girlfriend. It's a nice system, but she whines when I mess with it, and of course, one day, my trash Arctic Cooler 7 (never, ever buy this, btw) craps the bed on me and the PC shuts down, causing her to lose an extended work email. Of course, now the system isn't stable, let's get a Dell, blah blah blah.

Right now it's just not worth the banshee-esque squealing when I spend time OCing or upgrading, etc, even though my technolust calls to me each day when I'm there . I'm thinking of getting an i5 and swapping it without her knowledge. I would anticipate four or five days before she even notices that the graphic during the BIOS boot up is different.

The E8500 is still strong, so it's hard to justify going in $450 deep for the new CPU/MoBo/Ram combo.

 

[Pantlegz]

I'm not going to be upgrading for a year at least. I've kinda lost intrest in gaming, too busy, so there's not really any reason to upgrade. my computer can browse the web and do homework with the quickness don't need anything more at the moment. e8400, gtx260 sli, raptor, 4gb 1066 DDR2... it's a little overkill for what it does but thats ok.

 

[Jeff7]

For all of you that are hanging on to their existing systems, and not upgrading to i5/i7/AII/PhII, here's your thread.

Tell us why you're not upgrading. Don't be shy.
...

1) College happened. = No money = no reason to keep up on the computer scene, because I couldn't do anything with any of it.
2) Done with college, have money now, but I've been out of it for so long, I'd nearly be starting from scratch. I pretty much dropped out in the days of the nForce2 chipset.

I have a C2D system now, as my NF7-S rev2 motherboard died during college, but my roommate picked out the components. My videocard has an nVidia chipset, and I haven't even memorized what it is.

So I'd have a lot to catch up on....and I don't know what games are out these days.
Counterstrike was good, as was Half Life. COD4....not so much. I guess I don't like the experience of it feeling like you're in a warzone. Too serious, too realistic. Half Life, sure you can literally blow someone to bits with the various weapons, but the game's atmosphere was different. COD4 just had people yelling at each other all the time; it didn't suit me.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto: I loved the game. (Well, not so much on the Kabuto missions, but the Delphi/Meccs missions were good.) I don't know how many games are out now that are at all similar to that.

I saw Fairytale Fights on XBox, and that looks (simplistically) amusing; it won't be out on PC for a year or two though.

What I'm getting at there is, I'd mainly upgrade to have access to better games. I just don't know what's available in a genre I might like.
(And HL2 Ep3 is still nowhere in sight.)

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

I am currently still on my Athlon XP 1700+ overclocked to 2.4ghz. Rest of the specs include 1 gb ram, Abit NF7, Asus 9600XT, Windows XP and Antec True 430 power supply. I really only play Warcraft 3 and school/web browsing. I can do these things at a reasonable speed, so I will not be upgrading until probably December or so.

you will benefit greatly with an upgrade.
i went from a similary system (barton 2500+ @ 2.2GHz, 6800GT, abit NF7-S2, 1gb) to just a C2D e7200 and WC3 DoTA ran a lot smoother.
even surfing the web i noticed a big difference.

but yeah, if you've waited so long and you're fine, what's another 10 months.

 

[ExcaliburMM]

I'm actually experiencing a weird form of the upgrade bug:
Thanks to wiretap's project over in cases and cooling, I want to make an mATX rigg out of my current i7 setup, where as a month ago, I would've slaughtered an orphanage for the new CM RC 690 II Advanced.

Unfortunately that calls for a bunch of new parts since most of my stuff wouldn't work on a smaller build.

Oh well, there goes the next paycheck. :S

 

[JerYnkFan]

I am happy with my current system with is a e6750 with GTX260 card and 3GB of RAM. Runs all the games I play and blu-rays. The only thing I am looking to upgrade is my 2nd rig from a P4 2.8 to a C2D. Even for watching videos on the internet now it's starting to be a bit slow.

 

[Jimbo]

I have an overclocked Q9650 running at 3.6GHz. That puts me at a bit over 4% difference between my set up and an i7 920.
Spending $600-$700 for that little of an improvement just doesn't seem like a great idea.

I'll wait for the next die shrink.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Well, I bit the bullet and am upgrading my HTPC from an Athlon XP 2500+ to an Athlon II x4 630. Still no need to upgrade my main rig (see sig). I just don't game as much on the PC as I used to, though I really wish I could find a couple of games to get back into PC gaming like I was a few short years ago.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

I'm also still holding onto my Q6600 @ 3.6ghz, which is a gem w/ 1.2125VID. It made my first OCing very pleasurable. i also have my 8800gt, and i'd love to upgrade that but i pretty much stopped gaming, except for CS:S @19x12. 4gbs of ram is also enough for me. I know i'm still HDD limited even with my 150gb Raptor. So my next upgrade in 2010 may be a SSD.

On the other hand, i just threw together an AMD Quad Core PC for $240. Had some parts lying around. Looks like this system: (GB 785g-US2H + Athlon II x4 620 + 4gb) is going to go to my father, who is STILL USING MY PENTIUM 4 3.2GHZ PRESCOTT! He deserves it, even though my original intentions were to put the PC in the living room for net browsing and etc. OTOH, it does feel good supporting AMD, just to spite Nvidia who's been feeding their customers rebadged, old tech overpriced garbage and lying to consumers.