Have you ever wasted money on useless future proofing?

[Lays]

Probably lol.

 

 

Sometimes I wonder why people think 2x VRAM cards are good, for instance the 780 6gb:  I get around ~40-80 FPS when I use close to 3gb, and that was with my cards at 1320 on the core and 7600 on the memory.

 

To use THAT much vram there's so many things happening and so many textures on the screen I just don't think GPU's can handle that much yet, maybe in 2 gens, but certainly not now

 

After seeing 4x titans with a 3930k @ 5ghz barely holding 60 FPS at 4-5gb of vram in multiple AAA games, I wonder why people think getting those cards will benefit them :q

http://www.overclock.net/t/1415441/7680x1440-benchmarks-plus-2-3-4-way-sli-gk110-scaling

[elecxonica]

I have an ATX case for an MATX Motherboard. I'm probably not even gonna upgrade this machine's motherboard

[nicehat]

Swiftech H220 paired with an 8350. I leave my CPU at stock most of the time or with a 100 mhz oc. waste.

[deafboy]

Have I ever wasted money, arguably yes.

 

Was it based on "future proofing", not really, but that could be argued I suppose.

[ericlee30]

Have you ever wasted money on useless future proofing?- ( ericlee30 )Every single day of my life but hey you only live once, right.

[Puma911]

my two 780s are future proof. I have decided this. Do not poke holes in my logic. They will last FOREVER!

 

I also have an 8350 with a AIO water cooler (H100i) at stock speeds. I got it for the silence though. Bought it for the silence and the stock fans sound like (someone on the corsair forums put it best) a tractor idling. buhh. Ordering a pair NF-F12s but they don't match my green/black build sadly

[rashdanml]

Most of what I bought was well within my budget, and good enough to last me for at least 3-4+ years. The only thing I went all out nuts on was a Seasonic 560W 80+ GOLD PSU. $150 or so, iirc. 

A good PSU is worth every penny. 

[Hidden Orange]

Well, I bought a 1080p monitor for future gaming uses a while back. If nothing goes my way - it will go horribly - then at least I have a larger screen to use for other productive uses, like reading TV Tropes and watching cat videos at the same time.

[nohuevos]

I bought a 780 for gaming at 1080p. No regrets though

[Hoppa]

I've actually made pretty good use of my hardware.

There were times where I've been thankful that I had more than 16gb of ram

And when I'm not really using my pc (browsing the net) it does folding @ home

[Guest]

Yes, I definitely did by trying to futureproof. Back in 2012 when I needed to replace my then-9-year-old Gateway POS, I didn't have any knowledge of the enthusiast community whatsoever so I looked at a bunch of HP and Dell models and thought a 3770 + 12GB DDR3 + 2TB Barracuda + GT 640 OEM GDDR5 was pretty good at $999. I thought the i7 + GT 640 was a great way to future-proof. I was being outrageously stupid and ignorant because the GT 640 is not a great card, but it's special all the same (I'm still debating whether I should spend the 5 minutes explaining the GT 640 OEM GDDR5 every time I get asked, or if I should just keep it at 1058mHz core and call it a GTX 650). The $999 was really not worth it. Plus, did I mention that Dell makes horrible cases, fans and coolers?

 

Had I decided to actually learn about building computers, I could have been rocking a 3770K/660 [Ti] build for just a little more (don't get all worked up, stuff was amazingly cheap that time of year for some reason or another). Instead, while I've been trying to put that build behind me, but I'm still stuck with this GTX 650 (yep, that's what I'm going to call it from now on).

[cae]

I just make sure to re-up my future-proofing with a new future-proof build every two years or so.

[NinjaStyle013]

Spent 15 dollars for 2 gigs so i had a total of 10gb

 

not bad

[qwertywarrior]

 

future proofing works but it only happens at unique moments

i bought my first pc in 2007

 

it had a QX6700 its was the first ever quad core cpu it lasted me from 2007- 2011 it could have lasted me longer if i only could overclock it but it wasnt stable anymore because of its long age .The GPU was a 8800GTX it was an insanely powerful GPU at the time it would max out everything ATi at the time got destroyed nothing could even touch the 8xxx series GPU not to mention it was the first dx10 GPU normally buy a GPU when a new DX is supported. at the time i also had a 30 inch 1600p IPS monitor which i still use the only thing i kept upgrading was the GPU every ~3 years i would upgrade i jumped from a 8800gtx to a 570 and soon i will jump to a maxwell 

 

currently i have a 2600k which is a great overclocker and also 8 threaded for future proofing since in some years 8 threads might be used a lot

[Paralectic]

Theres no such thing as "future proofing". Technology only improves everyday. So, you can only make upgrades in the future to compensate for new technology. (I hope that sounds right )

Not everyday, it's been years since a new GPU architecture and everything delays.

DDR3 is old yet the standard.

20NM isn't here.

 

1080p is the only affordable monitor standard and it's been for years.

[Heisenbleurgh]

Bought a 4GB 770

to be fair, I was only starting to get into hardware and I got very little input on it.

 

ps: i love how "future proofing" gets a worse reaction than Apple products, usually from people with very high end stuff

[xjohnny3589]

@qwertywarrior wasted so much money on trying to future proof:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/143895-is-this-build-ready-for-4k/?hl=%2Bthis+%2Bready

Are those the 4 gigaBITEs or 6 gigaBITEs version?

[vesper1001]

I also bought a 990fx sli ready board and haven't upgraded. I only bought it because I couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of my gtx 760 if I upgrade. STUPID!!

[-iSynthesis]

@qwertywarrior wasted so much money on trying to future proof:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/143895-is-this-build-ready-for-4k/?hl=%2Bthis+%2Bready

Hahaha

[-iSynthesis]

my two 780s are future proof. I have decided this. Do not poke holes in my logic. They will last FOREVER!

 

I also have an 8350 with a AIO water cooler (H100i) at stock speeds. I got it for the silence though. Bought it for the silence and the stock fans sound like (someone on the corsair forums put it best) a tractor idling. buhh. Ordering a pair NF-F12s but they don't match my green/black build sadly

Maybe get some Be quiet! fans.

[FireFox]

I wasn't trying to future proof (also no such thing) but I did waste money going from an MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti Power Edition to an MSI GeForce GTX 660 Gaming, most of the games I play I can't see much of a difference. The only thing I've really noticed is the GPU Folding but I fell in love with the 660 (sexy cooler) and had the £150 doing nothing so I bought it.

 

No regrets

[TheNinjaNextDor]

I bought an ST30 120 radiator for the back of my case because it would look nice.

[Ramzez]

What is future proofing? How would you describe future proofing?

 

If it means that you buy parts and intend to upgrade in small steps (for example buy one GPU now and another later) then that's useless most of the time. If your upgrade process takes too long, you never get to the point where the pc is finished because something is always out of date.

 

What I think of future proofing, is buying components that aren't outdated immediately. Of course there is going to be something more powerful eventually but if the older parts can still keep up, there's no need to upgrade and you have in a sense future proofed your pc. For example my current rig will probably last for me at least three to four years. It's now almost one year old and it doesn't feel outdated or slow and it can play all the current games at max settings (at least 1080p). The next step for me is probably skipping 2.5K and going straight for 4K. Obviously two 780's aren't enough for playing upcoming games at max settings but that's OK for me. I never intended buying parts that would run 4K properly (and even now there really isn't anything reasonable priced solutions for maxing out 4K).

 

So in the end it depends what you require from your pc. If you accept the fact that your components are going to get slightly outdated over time and you don't have to play games at max settings for the entire lifetime of your pc, then buying the right components can make your pc last longer.

 

And I think there are at least some components that can be "future proof". For example case, keyboard, sound card, mouse, speakers, headphones and even screens can last you for years if you buy the right parts from the start.

[sand0oski]

From an attempt at a fun discussion to video ram arguments, good ol' linus community. 

Maybe change "useless future proofing" to "failed grand ideas" lol, it's like walking on eggshells around here today!  But I went through like 3 different cases back in the X58 days with my i7-920 and GTX 480 with the plans of getting another 480 and water cooling everything.   

[Cwazywazy]

Well, I have a big case (NZXT Phantom) and I don't really use the extra space. (Single short GPU, 1 HDD, 120mm AIO, etc.) I guess I can't really count it since it was a present but one day I hope to have enough money to fill this case. (I don't plan on replacing it anytime for years.)