Your upgrade fettish

[JAG87]

Definitely GPU. When a new GPU is announced I am like a child at Christmas morning.

My fetish is to have a non-budging vsynch'd 60 FPS in every game, maxed out settings, 2560x1600, 4x AA 16x AF.

Considering I rarely encode CPU does absolutely nothing nowadays, especially with DXVA, all HD content is delivered straight to my GPU.

GPU is the future no matter how you put it. It is many magnitudes faster then CPU, in both memory architecture and parallel processing. The software just needs to be coded to take advantage of it.

 

[MustangSVT]

for every cpu upgrade I do about 2 gpu upgrades.

exception was when frys had crazy sale.

 

[n7]

CPUs.

I do both alot, but i tend to get new CPUs more often, though it does depends on various factors.

 

[hclarkjr]

i buy more new video cards than i do CPU's. the margin isn't that big though

 

[pm]

Normally, I do a CPU and a GPU upgrade at about the same time.

But, my latest upgrade: SSD. I have a feeling that CPU's and GPU's are not going to be the only two computer related upgrade fetishes this year.

 

[AmberClad]

I'm more of a gamer than an enthusiast, but I somehow end up upgrading both CPUs and GPUs almost equally as often . If I had a budget constraint and had to choose though, I'd pick the GPU upgrade.

Right now though, I'm in the same boat as pm -- I don't really feel like upgrading either my CPU or my GPU, and I'm looking at hard drive upgrades instead. Course I don't get the benefit of an employee discount if I want to get an Intel SSD ...

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
I'm more of a gamer than an enthusiast, but I somehow end up upgrading both CPUs and GPUs almost equally as often . If I had a budget constraint and had to choose though, I'd pick the GPU upgrade.

Right now though, I'm in the same boat as pm -- I don't really feel like upgrading either my CPU or my GPU, and I'm looking at hard drive upgrades instead. Course I don't get the benefit of an employee discount if I want to get an Intel SSD ...

I have a feeling prices will drop and sizes and performance will go up as we move into 2009 so I think SSD's are going to be the next big thing to upgrade repeatedly. The performance of the Intel drive is still quite a ways off from the theoretical max. I'll make my 2009 prediction - 2009 will be the year of the SSD as a large variety of manufacturers release very, very fast, and somewhat spacious (for an SSD) drives at prices that are much lower than what we are seeing now.

 

[VI3L]

Upgrade both imo!

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: RaptureMe
E6600<E6700<Q6600<E8400<Q6600GO<Q9450<x3350EO<E8600<Q9650 and it ends from

You're nuts.

Incidentally, I voted GPU because its usually an easier upgrade than a CPU, being to remove the old card than it is to remove a heat sink, especially if you're also changing the cooler and it requires a mounting place on the underside of the mother board.

 

[roid450]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: Martimus

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: Concillian
GPU, I'm a gaming guy.

Anything I do nowadays that I really notice CPU performance on is something I setup and walk away from the computer and go do something else (mp3 encoding or video encoding) while the computer does it's thing. I only upgrade my CPU when it's not cutting it for whatever game I'm interested in at the moment.

CPUs seem to last like 2-3 years for me. GPUs see significantly more immediate gains in games.

You can see FPS without a ticker or benchmark running? That was my point, you can see that it only takes 2min to encode that file when before it took 5. FPS? Well, if you go from 40 to 60 you might not even notice it. That is unless you waited over a year+ to upgrade at all in which case you went from a slideshow to playable.

I would assume that most people do take over a year between upgrades. There aren't a whole lot of scenarios where it would make sense not to.

Well, there are many people who upgrade for the sake of the upgrade and to have the next new card. There are many who will buy the next Nvidia card no matter what and they may have a GTX260 now. Simply because they don't ever feel satisfied.

That's me right there, I never feel satisfied enough although right now I'm pretty satisfied, probably the most I have been in years. I would still like to have a GTX280 tho or the next nVidia card when it comes out.

 

[nyker96]

another fetish of mine I neglected to mention is HD fetish. I just had to replace all drives once a year.

 

[aigomorla]

First would be h2o cooling...
So much they made me into an adverb in Cases and Cooling...

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/DSC00512.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/DSC00516.jpg

Second is CPU's. I love cpu's...

Last would be IO Sector. I just got back into the game on using independant controller cards... and its a lot of fun.

Dangerous but powerful fetish i have right now with computers is SSD's. I just got my first intel SSD in my notebook and it ROCKS.

Now i want 4 more for my desktop. :\

 

[dwell]

I average two GPU upgrades per CPU. Had my E6400 for two years this Christmas and at 3.2Ghz it still does not need to be upgraded. The 7950GT I got at the same time was hurting on todays games.

Still might get a Q6600 seeing how cheap they are.

 

[NoSoup4You]

GPU's, no question. Though my old X2 is starting to show serious signs of age, it still gets the job done and will hold me over awhile longer. 32nm Core i7 is probably the next cpu I'll upgrade to. And I envision that lasting me at least another 4 years like my X2.

 

[Qbah]

GPU. My Q9450 is plenty fast and does really nice clocks on stock voltage. It will last me for years!

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
First would be h2o cooling...
So much they made me into an adverb in Cases and Cooling...

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/DSC00512.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/DSC00516.jpg

Second is CPU's. I love cpu's...

Last would be IO Sector. I just got back into the game on using independant controller cards... and its a lot of fun.

Dangerous but powerful fetish i have right now with computers is SSD's. I just got my first intel SSD in my notebook and it ROCKS.

Now i want 4 more for my desktop. :\

What the heck are you doing putting an Intel SSD in a freakin netbook?!?!! That thing belongs in a Q9x50 system overclocked to 3.8Ghz and 4GB of RAM and an amazing graphics card.
It does NOT belong in a netbook.

 

[Cheex]

I'm a gamer so definitely GPU for me!!

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

What the heck are you doing putting an Intel SSD in a freakin netbook?!?!! That thing belongs in a Q9x50 system overclocked to 3.8Ghz and 4GB of RAM and an amazing graphics card.
It does NOT belong in a netbook.

6 Raptors on Controller > 1 SSD on controller

http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_1145.jpg

(anymore questions? )

So until i get 3 more SSD's that single one stays on my laptop where it does the best job.

Only when i get 3 more of its sisters to join her in a big ass toga party will i switch,
Otherwise i'll keep the raptors in raid 0 on my intel IOP348 controller

 

[Adam8281]

GPU's. Nothing more fun than firing up a game right after putting in a new vid. card and watching that framerate soar.

 

[brencat]

I've been using the same monitor for the last 10 years lol -- it's an oldie but a goodie...a 19" IIYama VisionMaster Pro CRT. I'm going to cry when it finally dies, but until then I won't need to have the latest and greatest vid card to push 19x12 maxed out. As far as upgrades, I'd say I tend to do both at the same time or certainly within 2 mos of each other, but for purposes of this poll I selected 'CPU' because it's so much more exciting going through the overclocking process and the hope/anticipation/excitement of getting a good chip!