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How often do gamers upgrade?

post #1 of 30
1/8/07 at 11:58pm
Thread Starter 
I upgraded around 13 months ago. At the time I had to cut some corners do to lack of $$ at the time, and the corner I chose was the processor. I picked up the AMD 64 3000+. Well, that little processor is pretty much maxed out now and most the games lag due to it (it runs at 100% according to the task manager)

I'm just curious how often other gamers upgrade?

I am debating getting the AMD x2 4600+, which means I'd get the ASUS AM2 mobo and 2 gigs of memory. That will range around 550$ on newegg I believe. I currently have the Nvidia 7800gt 256meg video card. I'm wondering if I should also upgrade that. That got me thinking ... I'm basically upgrading the most expensive parts of the PC.

Are there any HUGE advancements coming out in the next 6 months that I should wait on. I read a little little so far on DX10 and such. I'm not really looking to upgrade to Vista anytime soon. I'm just reading up on some reviews and benchmarks to determine if I should do a full system upgrade and go the whole crazy SLI or 7950x2 route, or if I should just upgrade the processor, motherboard and memory and wait another year to do a full system upgrade.

The main games I play on PC are World of Warcraft, City of Villians, Battlefield 2142 and most of the newer RTS's (BFME2, Company of Heroes, etc). As it stands now, Battlefield runs ok, the RTS's lag all to hell when I play online and City of Villians is almost unplayable. I assume this is due to my processor since it never drops below 100% once I start these games up.
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post #2 of 30
1/9/07 at 5:25am
Generally I do a major upgrade every year, usually about August. That upgrade includes the motherboard, CPU, and RAM. I upgrade my video card every six months or so. Last tax season I bought a 7800GT and I just recently bought a 2nd 7800GT to get me through till DX10. I'll keep Drives and Power Supply for quite a while...cases even longer. My Lian Li is on it's fourth motherboard since I bought it. Here's the run down on when I've upgraded.

2000....700Mhz PIII, PC133 ABit BE6-II
2001....1.2Ghz AMD Athlon, PC2100, Soyo K7V Dragon (first board for Li Li)
2002....upgraded to an Athlon XP1800+
2003....Pentium 4 3.0Ghz, PC2700 DDR, Intel D865GBF
2004....No upgrade (didn't have the money)
2005....AMD 64 3200+, PC3200 DDR, ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe
2006....Intel Core 2 Duo E6400, PC2 6400 DDR2, ASUS P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe

I don't think I spent more than $500 on any of those upgrades. And I have never had much trouble running any games. However I did spend a nice chunk of change on video cards in between major upgrades.
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post #3 of 30
1/9/07 at 5:51am
I'm going to upgrade soon, and only due to the sudden death of my PC. I hold onto my computers for way too long

I've been using the same motherboard in my favorite gaming computer since 2001, an ECS K7s5a with a Athlon XP 1700. I put 1 GB of RAM in it 2 years ago, and a year ago put a GeForce 6800 in it. But those were the most recent upgrades.

Edit: Unless you want to count the PCI to USB 2.0 card I added
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post #4 of 30
1/9/07 at 10:06am
Thread Starter 
MrEvil, did you notice much difference when you went from one 7800gt to two? Also, what resolution do you run your games at? I also have a 7800gt and I was curious how much more performance I would get by going SLI with it by getting a 2nd one.

I would have probably waited towards the end of this year to upgrade fully, but I'm finding my current setup is making some games unplayable. At minimum, I think I have to upgrade the processor...I think that's the main part that is slowing things down.

I currently have a 939 socket motherboard/processor. I see I can get a dual core AMD x2 processor, around a 4200+ I believe for 200$+ off the web. How much performance increase would I see by going with the AM2 motherboard/DDR2 memory over just sticking with my socket 939/DDR memory? I'm just wondering if I should just get an upgraded 939 processor, or upgrade that whole processor/mobo/ram combo.
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post #5 of 30
1/9/07 at 5:50pm
Every year at tax refund time. And it's going to be a major upgrade this year, proc mobo, gpu's cooling blocks. I suspect I spend about $3500 a year on my gaming rig.
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post #6 of 30
1/9/07 at 6:09pm
Skeletor, how much RAM do you have? If you have only 1GB, upgrading to 2GB could net you some performance increases.

Your processor may be causing some slowdowns but theres some things about upgrading. Right now you have a perfectly good motherboard and RAM. You could just expand the RAM to 2GB and put in a new processor and be done with it and extend the life of your current rig for another year.

Or you could hop into the AM2 barge. That'll probably be a little more costly, right now, but you'll still be able to upgrade again in 1 year and beyond (maybe) instead of having to build again sometime next year.

For the processor though, I'd recomend you choose the route of an Opteron processor and do some extreme overclocking with the thing. Opterons can do that easily. This would be a decent buy for the processor.

Also, I play BFME2 and CoH on my radeon x700 and Pentium M laptop with no problems at all. An x700 is weaker than your 7800 and the processors are probably on about the same level. Are you sure that your system is slowing it down? Maybe its your internet connection, or maybe you have some kind of malware slowing down your system?
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post #7 of 30
1/10/07 at 6:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Time-Pilot
Every year at tax refund time. And it's going to be a major upgrade this year, proc mobo, gpu's cooling blocks. I suspect I spend about $3500 a year on my gaming rig.

$3,500 Is INSANE! Do you basically build a new high end water cooled comp every time or what?
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post #8 of 30
1/10/07 at 10:07am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwilightVampire
Skeletor, how much RAM do you have? If you have only 1GB, upgrading to 2GB could net you some performance increases.

Also, I play BFME2 and CoH on my radeon x700 and Pentium M laptop with no problems at all. An x700 is weaker than your 7800 and the processors are probably on about the same level. Are you sure that your system is slowing it down? Maybe its your internet connection, or maybe you have some kind of malware slowing down your system?


I currently have 2 gigs of RAM, 7800gt 256 video and the AMD 64 3000+ processor. I thought it might be something odd running on my pc, so I did a format/fresh install of XP. I also thought it might be due to a failure of a fan and causing it to get hot, but all that checked out ok when I opened the box. I wonder why it runs so smooth on yours, but I'm having these problems. I did a speed test and it received good ratings as far as my net speed goes.

I think I'm going to go with this processor and keep my mobo/ram:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2.0GHz Socket 939 Processor

I figure I'll get this off newegg. If this doesn't fix the problem, I can always pay the restocking fee and return it. I have the option to do a full upgrade/build in a month or two, so if this processor upgrade doesn't fix it I may do that. I've always wanted to have an extra machine to use as a movie box for my tv ... if all else fails I can just use my current one for that purpose.
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post #9 of 30
1/10/07 at 1:54pm
well looking at your rig the CPU is the only thing thats really dated in the system. Consider something a tad better either a higher clocked single core or something a bit better than the x2 3800 unless you intended to overclock it.
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post #10 of 30
1/10/07 at 1:55pm
Skeletor, if you are planning on upgrading your video card...then I'd highly suggest getting a DX10 compliant card such as the 8800gtx instead of the going the SLI 7950gx2's. I have a single 7950gx2 and it handles everything out now without a problem, but with Crysis and some other games coming out....you should think about getting a DX10 card, besides 1x8800gtx would be cheaper than 2x7950gx2.
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post #11 of 30
1/10/07 at 4:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DELL-Machina
well looking at your rig the CPU is the only thing thats really dated in the system. Consider something a tad better either a higher clocked single core or something a bit better than the x2 3800 unless you intended to overclock it.

I'd also highly recommend this.

If you want to go the low cost route, (I dont blame you )the 3800 is a little slow but can overclock decently. But the Opteron I linked you to is only a little more expensive and overclocks much better.
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post #12 of 30
1/10/07 at 6:04pm
Skeletor when I dropped in the second 7800GT My 3DMark06 Score went from 3800 to 6800 at 1280x1024. So that's a significant improvement right there. Also my single card was having problems keeping the frames going in BF2142 when I was right in the middle of an orbital bombardment or being shot at by a walker. The particle effects were really slowing me down. That was running a 1280x1024 with details at max and FSAA at 4x. When I added the second card in I forced BF to run at my 2005FPW's native resolution (1680x1050) and there is no longer any slowdown at all.

It's a worthwhile upgrade if you already have an SLI motherboard and are waiting to see what exactly DX10 is going to do for you (according to John Carmack of id software, there's no compelling reason right now to have DX10) Plus, the card is $135.99 now and carry's eVGA's Lifetime warranty despite being refurbished. You can find it at newegg here Don't worry about your cards being the same brand either. My first card is a BFG 7800GT and the second is the eVGA and they get along just fine.

Now mind you, you're more than likely going to be bottlenecked by your CPU. Remember, I'm running an overclocked Core 2 Duo which is a much beefier processor than a single cored AMD. If you were to also factor in a dual core CPU Upgrade I reckon that'll set you for quite a while.
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post #13 of 30
1/11/07 at 12:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SS21CA
$3,500 Is INSANE! Do you basically build a new high end water cooled comp every time or what?

That's nothing. I spend close to $5000 a year on upgrades to my PC. I consider myself an enthusiast, not just a gamer. So I enjoy my hardware, and am knowledgeable about it. I'd say I upgrade about twice a year, one major and one minor. The major upgrade is usually all the components, while the minor upgrade will consist of a part or two, like a video card.

Now, you may think that's an insane amount of money, but realize that I also sell off all the parts I am upgrading. So in actuality, I'm only really spending half that amount. And thus, that is the key to a 6 month cycle. Like the stock market you have to sell your parts while they still have value. If you wait 2 years to sell something, it will be substantially less. It's a hard cycle, but something you learn to manage.

My latest system build? Quad core QX6700, 2GB PC800 RAM, 8800 GTX, 2x320GB SATA drives (RAID 0), SoundBlaster Xi-Fi Xtreme Music, ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard (nVIdia i680), Antec Nine Hundred case, Dell 3007FPW 30" LCD monitor
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post #14 of 30
1/12/07 at 3:04pm
I normally upgrade every 1 to 2 years as I can afford it. After my latest purchase though, I doubt I'll be doing any full system replacements in a long time. My mainboard supports Crossfire, has an AM2 Socket and supports DDR2 RAM. I should be able to do minor $200-$500 upgrades for at least 3 - 5 years now. Thank god too, because spending $2000+ a year was killing me. 8P
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post #15 of 30
1/14/07 at 3:17am
ehh, I usually just sell and do a complete upgrade, because by the time you upgrade one part, the other needs to be upgraded...My 7950 is way to much power for my p4 dual core,,,I need to upgrade to a Core Duo 6600 and new Mobo, but thats about a 400-500 dollar upgrade and i'm not in the mood to spend it lol.
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post #16 of 30
1/20/07 at 3:35am
I just recently spent part of my tax return and did a complete system overhaul.

Spent almost 1300 from Newegg, including shipping to get:

- E6600 Core 2 Duo processor
- 2 Gigs 667 OCZ SOE memory
- Antec P180 Black case (I was very skeptical about this case, but a friend recommended it, and I am so glad I got it, I love it)
- Asus P5N-E SLI motherboad 650i
- EVGA 7950 GT 512mb
- ThermalTake ToughPower 750 watt PSU
- DVD Burner
- 52 in 1 Card Reader (for the wife and her digital photos)
- A 120 mm fan that I put in the top grilled portion of the Antec case. I'm a Matrix fan, so the black case and green LED fan go well together.

I already had 2 250 gig, 7200 RPM Western Digital HDDs and a Dell 2007 Widescreen monitor.

I think I'm set for a while now, and I'll upgrade to a DX10 card when the time comes, and my mobo is Quad ready.
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post #17 of 30
1/26/07 at 9:15pm
I upgrade when I can find the money to That would be around after January becasue of all the returned gifts.
I just got a C2Q and a 8800GTX and a Raptor X (150gigs! love the clear cover )
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post #18 of 30
2/1/07 at 10:39pm
I tend to upgrade when its necessary to play the latest games. With crysis coming out i might upgrade a year or two after when prices on DX10 cards go donw.
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post #19 of 30
2/5/07 at 12:34am
I'm gonna upgrade this year, and this will be my 1st upgrade in 4 + yrs...
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post #20 of 30
2/5/07 at 9:18pm
Once a year or whenever I can afford it. I just bought an 8800GTS couple days after it came out. I'm still trying to raise up some cash to buy an E6600 or E6300 for my PC, funny thing is I traded my 360 for a Mobo and RAM though my bro got ripped off by me, he thinks he ripped me off, but I got his $265 Mobo and $45 ram, I only gave em the 360 no power brick.
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