For those who always look to future proofing: Do you actually follow through?

[happy medium]

Buy a good motherboard and skimp on the rest till you need it.
I went from a e5200 @ 3.4, to a e8400 @ 3.6, to a q9550 @ 3.6.

My next upgrade will be a new socket, 2011, 1155 or a new Am3/ Am4 socket with a lower end 6 core cpu overclocked and upgrade it to a 8 or 12 core in the future.

 

[f4phantom2500]

personally, i usually end up upgrading cpu and mobo at the same time, and reuse everything else. ddr2 ram has been around for long enough now, and i've been using the same 2GB ram kit for a few years. works well enough for me. PSUs typically last awhile, since the pin layouts for motherboards is more standardized now. the success of pci-e means you can get any modern video card you like. usually, if the rest of your system is older, the video card is more likely to be bottlenecked by the cpu, but it makes a good stopgap upgrade for the rest of the system, as that same video card will be usable in a new motherboard. basically, these days it seems that any part you're looking to replace, there will likely be a modern solution for you (provided your system came out relatively recently). in the case of cpu's, even if your motherboard can't support a modern cpu, the low cost of high performance, multi-core cpu's these days means you can afford a new cpu and motherboard for a comparable amount of money to a new cpu a few years ago. i remember when dual core cpu's first came out and were several hundred dollars for the cheap ones. nowadays you can get an athlon ii x4 and motherboard for under $200 easily. of course, the higher end stuff is always going to be more expensive, but especially when you look at amd's lineup, it's ridiculous how cheap good processors are. i remember when you'd have to drop a couple hundred dollars for an extra 200MHz cpu speed. nowadays it's $10~$20 for an extra core and $5 for 100MHz.

 

[Hacp]

To me, futureproofing means buying the best price/performance at the low end then riding it out. Then 2 years later, buy the new best price/performance at the low end. To me, a cpu should never cost more than 100-125 dollars.

 

[taltamir]

years and years ago I tried to future proof, I found that most of the time the future arrived and said "future proof" hardware was incompatible with the future...

Nowadays my future proofing involved buying cheaper hardware and putting the rest of the money in the bank, that way when the future arrives I can buy future hardware in the future.

The new policy works perfectly!

To me, futureproofing means buying the best price/performance at the low end then riding it out. Then 2 years later, buy the new best price/performance at the low end. To me, a cpu should never cost more than 100-125 dollars.

well... sometimes you need a little more performance than what a 100$ CPU gives...
And you CAN resell your last year hardware.

Basically I view computer upgrades as a monthly cost

 

[manimal]

Only thing I ever worry about future proofing is my house. Its future proof in the sense that 20 years from now it will still be a house. PC hardware wise I just try to get my money's worth. Few upgrades I have done over the years haven't given me enough satisfaction or use that they were a waste of money. I usually sell at that point and make some money towards the next upgrade.

I do wonder if I should have kept my q6600s and sli 8800gtx and 8800gt SLI rigs from three years ago. Have the upgrades I have done really been worth it? Then I turn on my eyefinity setup and I think it was

 

[ShawnD1]

To me, futureproofing means buying the best price/performance at the low end then riding it out. Then 2 years later, buy the new best price/performance at the low end. To me, a cpu should never cost more than 100-125 dollars.

Depends what you are doing. For games, $300 seems like the highest anyone should ever spend. $200 is good enough. $100 may or may not play games.

If you don't play games or anything crazy like that, $100 goes a long way. My dad's computer is using something terrible like E2140 and it works great. Youtube works good. The integrated video seems to work great for aero desktop, movies, etc. That computer was something like $400 CDN like 2 years ago (?) so it would be about $300 US at the time. It doesn't get any cheaper than that, and it's still a fast computer for what it does (internet, excel, quicken).

 

[Hacp]

Depends what you are doing. For games, $300 seems like the highest anyone should ever spend. $200 is good enough. $100 may or may not play games.

If you don't play games or anything crazy like that, $100 goes a long way. My dad's computer is using something terrible like E2140 and it works great. Youtube works good. The integrated video seems to work great for aero desktop, movies, etc. That computer was something like $400 CDN like 2 years ago (?) so it would be about $300 US at the time. It doesn't get any cheaper than that, and it's still a fast computer for what it does (internet, excel, quicken).

100 may not play games? Depends if you overclock or not. A 100 dollar CPU(Athlon II x4) can def play games very well.

Remember 2005? The hottest CPU back then was the 120 dollar venice 3000+ that oc'd like a beast.

 

[lifeblood]

I rarely sell my old hardware, rather I re-purpose them.

My original AMD s939 with AGP motherboard still lives on as my wife's PC. It's sporting a X2 CPU with 2Gb or RAM running XP, and it works great for web, basic office productivity, and iTunes which is all she does.

My old s939 with PCIe motherboard got a TV capture card and larger hard drive and is now hooked to the TV and records my daughters favorite TV shows.

Does re-use count as future proofing?

 

[ShawnD1]

Remember 2005? The hottest CPU back then was the 120 dollar venice 3000+ that oc'd like a beast.

And a year later it was obsolete. You'll be really lucky if you can play Team Fortress 2 with that processor.

I probably paid something ridiculous like $300 for that E6600 back in November 2006. Batman Arkham Asylum came out in September 2009 and that game runs very smooth. We're more than 3 years into the life of this processor and it still runs everything. Its single threaded performance is better than budget processors that I bought as recently as last December. I built an Athlon 620 system for my mom, and my 3 year old computer still crushes it in terms of performance

We'll probably be saying the same things about the Intel i7 920 in a couple years. Anandtech's article is dated November 2008 and that processor is still one of the best processors around.

 

[Hacp]

And a year later it was obsolete. You'll be really lucky if you can play Team Fortress 2 with that processor.

I probably paid something ridiculous like $300 for that E6600 back in November 2006. Batman Arkham Asylum came out in September 2009 and that game runs very smooth. We're more than 3 years into the life of this processor and it still runs everything. Its single threaded performance is better than budget processors that I bought as recently as last December. I built an Athlon 620 system for my mom, and my 3 year old computer still crushes it in terms of performance

We'll probably be saying the same things about the Intel i7 920 in a couple years. Anandtech's article is dated November 2008 and that processor is still one of the best processors around.

It was really top dog since 2004 so I wouldn't call it obsolete. The current situation right now is different since the improvement has been so stagnant.

 

[nyker96]

It was really top dog since 2004 so I wouldn't call it obsolete. The current situation right now is different since the improvement has been so stagnant.

wait until 2011 comes around when amd really got something new to put up some competition the cpu should move forward a bit. come to think of it, even the gpu side seems pretty slow, 6 months after dx11 intro still not much price change.

 

[Rubycon]

Overclocking is the best future proofing tool there is.
Ask any D0/W3520 user that's got a daily box at 4+ GHz.
Single thread apps faster than 980X even if the 980 is o/c to the same frequency! Of course the Nehalem takes a beating in encoding but probably as bad as the buyer's checking account so...

 

[ehume]

To me, futureproofing means buying the best price/performance at the low end then riding it out. Then 2 years later, buy the new best price/performance at the low end. To me, a cpu should never cost more than 100-125 dollars.

Not a bad idea, but for me future-proofing is buying a notch or two back from the top end cpu, then add memory and HD space as it gets cheaper. I rode my 2003 Dell until it died, seven years after I bought it. A sister machine is still running. But then, we don't run games.

I agree with Rubycon that OCing is future-proofing. Building a machine that will benefit from future price falls in SSD's is future-proofing. But trying to buy a MB that you can put an advanced cpu into? Heh. The worthwhile cpu's cost more than decent MB's.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I been an enthusiast for like 10 years and there was never one time I felt that getting a new CPU without buying a new mobo is worth it.

 

[f4phantom2500]

I been an enthusiast for like 10 years and there was never one time I felt that getting a new CPU without buying a new mobo is worth it.

The thing that sucks is that, even if a future processor is pin compatible with your current motherboard, a lot of times it simply won't support it anyway. It's rather confusing to the consumer who doesn't do relatively in-depth research into the capabilities of their motherboard's chipset. After all, why should you spend more money on a motherboard now when they both support the processor you want now? The worst is when you're going to buy and the information on compatibility with future processors is purely conjecture, then you're just left to guess. I'm pretty glad that I got the board I did; it's a 785G and right now I'm running and Athlon II X3, and although I'm not sure if it will support Bulldozer, it's nice to know that, if I feel so motivated down the line, I can grab at least one of the current Phenom II X6 CPUs and drop it in if I want. That would literally double my computing power, as I'm pretty sure that by the time I think this chip is too slow, apps will be much more heavily multithreaded. Not to mention the possibility of Bulldozer support (although I'm not holding my breath).

 

[mv2devnull]

I think I have "future proofed" in the past.

On 486DX33 I did replace the original ISA motherboard with a VLB/PCI hybrid. The PCI did catch on. Furthermore, the board had a BIOS for cheap SCSI HBA. The next computer, a Pentium Pro, had PCI and the same SCSI BIOS too, so it did start with no IDE devices on it. Much later, a 80 GB PATA invisible to BIOS was added and worked fine thanks to OS booting from the SCSI.

The next new system was no earlier than when PCIe became available.

 

[evolucion8]

And a year later it was obsolete. You'll be really lucky if you can play Team Fortress 2 with that processor.

I probably paid something ridiculous like $300 for that E6600 back in November 2006. Batman Arkham Asylum came out in September 2009 and that game runs very smooth. We're more than 3 years into the life of this processor and it still runs everything. Its single threaded performance is better than budget processors that I bought as recently as last December. I built an Athlon 620 system for my mom, and my 3 year old computer still crushes it in terms of performance

We'll probably be saying the same things about the Intel i7 920 in a couple years. Anandtech's article is dated November 2008 and that processor is still one of the best processors around.

Unless if your E6600 is heavily overclocked, in multi threaded scenarios, an Athlon II X4 620 will crush a E6600.

 

[ShawnD1]

Unless if your E6600 is heavily overclocked, in multi threaded scenarios, an Athlon II X4 620 will crush a E6600.

Theoretically it should, but it doesn't. The E6600 is much faster in World of Warcraft (very cpu bottlenecked game), slightly faster when making zip files, slightly faster when encoding in window movie maker.

 

[AdamK47]

No such thing as future proofing for me. Something or some things will be upgraded in my system in 6 months or so.

 

[f4phantom2500]

No such thing as future proofing for me. Something or some things will be upgraded in my system in 6 months or so.

Yes I can understand why your Core i7 980X, 6GB of RAM, and trifire 5870's would hold you back.

 

[J3S73R]

I consider "future proofing" to be more of a wise investment decision. As in, decide exactly what you want... what you may need in the future and purchase upgrades that way. I have always spent a little more than I wanted but when i look back at a dollars/year spent its always worth it.

 

[evolucion8]

Theoretically it should, but it doesn't. The E6600 is much faster in World of Warcraft (very cpu bottlenecked game), slightly faster when making zip files, slightly faster when encoding in window movie maker.

Then something is wrong with the AMD setup like high latency timers in the RAM, or low HT speed. My GF has an Athlon II X4 635 and runs like a champ in multi threaded scenarios, WinZIP isn't even multi threaded and proves that AMD barely catched up with Intel's last generation in single threaded scenarios.

There's some games that always will run better on Intel like Far Cry 2. Use a real multi threaded video encoding software like Nero Vision or Sony Vegas and then you will see a boost in performance.

 

[djnsmith7]

When I built both of my rigs in sig, I did so with the intention of future proofing. I upgraded to the 5850 (gift), which didn't cost me a dime.

Rig 1 OC's like a beast @ 4.0 without even a sneeze, but Rig 2 has anger management issues, so I've gone back & forth between 3.5 - 4.0.

Money wise, the only upgrade I've done since I built these 2 in January of '08 was add the BR player to Rig 1 ($60).

Considering I don't feel the need to upgrade anything at the moment (now that BF2 finally runs in SLI, Rig 2), it appears as though my future proofing attempt has been successful thus far.

 

[ShawnD1]

Then something is wrong with the AMD setup like high latency timers in the RAM, or low HT speed. My GF has an Athlon II X4 635 and runs like a champ in multi threaded scenarios, WinZIP isn't even multi threaded and proves that AMD barely catched up with Intel's last generation in single threaded scenarios.

Anand's benchmarks show the E6750 (slightly overclocked E6600) as being slightly faster than the Athlon 620 in most tests.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/60?vs=106
E6600 = 23 wins
Athlon 620 = 6 wins

 

[richierich1212]

Anand's benchmarks show the E6750 (slightly overclocked E6600) as being slightly faster than the Athlon 620 in most tests.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/60?vs=106
E6600 = 23 wins
Athlon 620 = 6 wins

Eh I guess you missed the multi-threaded argument