New setup intervals and budget

[Protomesh]

My plan of action is to upgrade my whole system every 7 years.

 

I think 5 years is too short because of costs, but 10 years is too long because hardware gets obsolete.

 

With each upgrade replacing the whole system for ~$2000 as long as inflation doesn't go crazy. 

 

Does this seem like a reasonable upgrade interval and budget?

 

Should allow me to always have pretty high end system for 1440p.

 

"If you can afford it, who's stopping you?"... I mean yeah. That's not really the answer I'm looking for. Of course I have to always think about my financial situation first and foremost. 

 

PC hardware just gets obsolete pretty quickly. So mostly asking if it's worth to invest $2000 every 7 years? Am I getting my money's worth? Is 7 years too long? 

 

You can always spend as much as you, well, can afford... But even if you can afford the top of the line doesn't mean you should. 

 

Just trying to create discussion here. Not trying to flex or anything since I know many people can't afford a $2000 system. I just don't spend money in anything except the essentials so over time in a 7 year period I do save about enough for a new $2000 system. 

(Before you think that's a crazy amount... No it's really not. If you put aside $25 every month, every year for 7 years, that's $2100).

 

Almost anyone can do that as long as they have a job. I hope that didn't sound "toxic" I didn't mean it like that. If you can't afford to save $25 a month, I totally get it.

 

Idk. Maybe a bit of saltiness from myself towards people who make me look crazy for buying a $2000 system when I'm not upgrading every single year.

 

 

[YellowJersey]

Yeah, I know what you mean. There are a lot of people posting with everything but the answer to the question you actually asked.
 

 As for your question, I think your approach is fairly reasonable, so I'd say go for it.

 One bit of advice I might give is potentially leave yourself some upgrade room so that you could maybe do a drop-in CPU or GPU upgrade that gets you a few more years out of it, since performance that's top-of-the-line now will be fairly midrange after a few generations That's what I did with my current build. My RX 6600XT suits me fine for now, but I'll probably put something more powerful in it in a few years as right now I'm really GPU bottlenecked. So for me, I'm currently looking at 6-8 years with a GPU upgrade around the 3-4 mark. Ideally, something like an RX 6800 would pair nicely with my CPU, but I didn't want to spend the extra money. So I figured I'll go with the RX 6600XT now and then get something with RX 6800-ish performance in 3-4 years without having to pay the higher price the RX 6800 demanded at the time I built my machine, then flip the RX 6600 XT to help absorb  the cost. I dunno, maybe I'm over complicating things, since if I spend $400 CAD on a GPU now and then another $400 CAD on a GPU in 3-4 years I'll have spent roughly the same amount as I would have had I just put up the $800 CAD to get the RX 6800 from the get go. So maybe it makes sense to splurge now and get the higher end stuff and then not worry about it for 7ish years.

 I wouldn't say there's any right or wrong way of doing it so long as your computer does what you want it to do without breaking the bank.

 There are lots of approaches you can take. One thing I grappled with for my last build was "Do I spend $1000 CAD and replace in five years or spend $2000 CAD and replace in 10 years?" Which would give me the better overall experience?

 

[Protomesh]

5 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

Yeah, I know what you mean. There are a lot of people posting with everything but the answer to the question you actually asked.
 

 As for your question, I think your approach is fairly reasonable, so I'd say go for it.

 One bit of advice I might give is potentially leave yourself some upgrade room so that you could maybe do a drop-in CPU or GPU upgrade that gets you a few more years out of it, since performance that's top-of-the-line now will be fairly midrange after a few generations That's what I did with my current build. My RX 6600XT suits me fine for now, but I'll probably put something more powerful in it in a few years as right now I'm really GPU bottlenecked. So for me, I'm currently looking at 6-8 years with a GPU upgrade around the 3-4 mark. Ideally, something like an RX 6800 would pair nicely with my CPU, but I didn't want to spend the extra money. So I figured I'll go with the RX 6600XT now and then get something with RX 6800-ish performance in 3-4 years without having to pay the higher price the RX 6800 demanded at the time I built my machine, then flip the RX 6600 XT to help absorb  the cost. I dunno, maybe I'm over complicating things, since if I spend $400 CAD on a GPU now and then another $400 CAD on a GPU in 3-4 years I'll have spent roughly the same amount as I would have had I just put up the $800 CAD to get the RX 6800 from the get go. So maybe it makes sense to splurge now and get the higher end stuff and then not worry about it for 7ish years.

 I wouldn't say there's any right or wrong way of doing it so long as your computer does what you want it to do without breaking the bank.

 There are lots of approaches you can take. One thing I grappled with for my last build was "Do I spend $1000 CAD and replace in five years or spend $2000 CAD and replace in 10 years?" Which would give me the better overall experience?

 

Yeah. Spending $1000 every 5 years would probably lead to more consistent experience, but you could only play at mediocre settings. Or you could spend $2000 now and enjoy max settings for everything but the latest titles until next upgrade. Bouncing the question of do you want to enjoy more in short term and pay the price later when it becomes obsolete or have a more meh but stable experience overall.

 

 

[Protomesh]

5 hours ago, Spazthe magician said:

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A video reply! Interesting. I think 12 years is too long no matter what hardware you get. No matter how overkill your system is. 

 

Also interesting note on DDR5, somehow I never even considered that game developers will start optimizing games for DDR5 itself in mind.

 

Currently, I would say DDR5 is bad. It's poor value, games are not optimized for it, and even $350 top of the line DDR5 kit won't actually increase your performance by more than maybe 3-5%.

 

I think CPUs are lacking behind RAM advancements to be quite frank. The memory controllers in CPUs typically aren't built to daily drive the best possible RAMs on the market.

 

For 13900KS the official RAM MHz standard is 5600Mhz. That is terrible. We know DDR5 can push over 8000Mhz. Realistically you can daily drive 6800-7200Mhz afaik without instability etc. if you get unlucky bin. But anything past 7200 starts being iffy. No guarantees it won't be unstable or degrade your expensive processor.

 

I do admit, I overspent on RGB and it was a mistake. I was overcome by compulsivity. But I also don't my expensive system to be an eyesore. 

 

I think people regret underspending more than overspending.

 

I spent 250€ extra for RGB. Could I have allocated more to other parts? Yes. I could've bought an i7-12700KF instead of i5-12400F.

 

Would I have needed the CPU upgrade? I would say no, I didn't. I plan to play on 1440p. My GPU will be the limiting part in the future. I got myself a 6900XT btw as I didn't need the features Nvidia will demand more money for. And I prefer AMD's software.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by LogicalDrm

[rikitikitavi]

You are overthinking it. Given your preferences (i.e. 1440p) choose good value (sensible products) and when the time comes and you require a different machine (performance) - repeat.

[Lurking]

I would upgrade if needed at the time and based on what value you get. For example, when SSD showed up, you could speed up the daily use experience quite a bit with just a cheap SSD. Or a new GPU. Especially hardware you can use for future builds you could buy as needed. If you have access to that saved money, you can move up some purchases instead of suffering 3 more years till the full replacement.

 

But really, no one but you can decide. But I personally would tie myself to a strict schedule since over 7 years much can change.

[Spazthe magician]

Everything you replied with is correct and the overall issue is that it's a catch 22 situation no matter which way you go.

 

On one hand DD4 is cheap but at the end of it's career because everything is going into the newer things as I explained in the video, on the other hand going the DDR5 way means spending slightly more now with nothing really made for it but the upside is everything in the DDR5 bracket can run anything under it. So for me I'd rather get everything upgraded and out of the way now and not have anything for it to use, then have the prices shoot up and not be able to upgrade when things are being made for it.

 

Regardless of which way you go you're either, a: going to be wasting money by going the cheaper route and hanging on then spending more to upgrade, or b: investing slightly too much now and not being able to use it.

 

Things are in the middle of transition, at the present time, I don't really think there is a smart-savoy way of doing anything one way or the other.

I mean just look at how idiot the GPU market is (It's always been relatively bad, but it has never been as obnoxiousness as it is right now right now.

 

Nvida released the 30 series card, then not even 2 years later here come Nvidia with the 40 series (Which was a disaster in itself) and before the 30 series can even really get used, in pops Nvidia with the announcement of the 50 series card. This type of crap seriously needs to stop.

 

There really needs to be a cap on these companies to stop them from pulling this crap. Companies like Nvidia need to be forced to let the current tech get used before releasing the next segment.

 

This whole situation sucks for everyone right now, but that is nothing new.  Everything always tapers off down the road. What's most likely going to happen (And this is me being cynical) is the price now for the parts I'm getting are going to shoot up in price.

[Needfuldoer]

I don't plan upgrades out in advance, but it usually works out to around 7 or 8 years.

 

When games I want to play don't run adequately anymore, and there's a significant improvement between what I have and the current generation, I'll start shopping.

[Protomesh]

3 hours ago, rikitikitavi said:

You are overthinking it. Given your preferences (i.e. 1440p) choose good value (sensible products) and when the time comes and you require a different machine (performance) - repeat.

Well yes that's sort of how it goes. My current rig is a gaming laptop. *Gasp* I know laptops suck. But it served its time when I needed one. I've had it for 6½ now. And it's kicking the bucket. I can't even get stable 60 fps in League of Legends anymore with my 1060M, which constantly runs at 92°C, which is the thermal throttling limit. In many titles I see various drops to even 30 fps. And when I tried to play Tower of Fantasy, any combat scenario would lead to my fps tanking to 20 or even below.

 

Laptops obviously have a shorter lifespan because of beyond poor thermals but yeah. I feel like even if I had bought a desktop instead of a laptop, it would be time for upgrade anyway right about now.

 

So that sort of creates my theory and plan for upgrade every 7 years. 

 

Some people I've seen bring up that PC hardware becomes obsolete much faster than my 7 year theory. They claim you need to replace GPU like every 3 years. 

 

They bring up cards like GTX 1070, which back then was marketed as a 1440p card. I don't buy that. Even back then, it was never a 1440p card. Since launch the GTX 1070 was a 1080p card. And it can still play 1080p today just fine at like 120 fps even in more demanding titles, given you took good care of it.

 

1080p itself is starting to be a bit dated however. 1080Ti was like the deal of the century when it first came out. And it was marketed as a 4K card. 

 

I think when someone markets a card as a "1440p card, or a 4K card", it's safe to say, in future the 1440p card will be a 1080p card and the 4K card will be 1440p card.

 

So, 6900XT which was my choice of GPU, was marketed as a 4K card. Fantastic. I don't personally believe it is a 4K card. I play some competitive titles so refresh rates are still important for me. And I think 6900XT is perfectly made for a 165Hz 1440p monitor. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Can it 4K? Yes at like 60. But I think it's a fair general advice that the 4K card of today, is the 1440p card of tomorrow as games evolve and race to match the top end hardware.

 

There are exceptions of course. Like the 4090. With frame doubling, it's most likely going to stay as a 4K card for over 7 years. But yeah, that's why it costs so much.

 

I think it's always best to keep in mind that marketing lingo isn't always going to age well.

 

3 hours ago, Lurking said:

I would upgrade if needed at the time and based on what value you get. For example, when SSD showed up, you could speed up the daily use experience quite a bit with just a cheap SSD. Or a new GPU. Especially hardware you can use for future builds you could buy as needed. If you have access to that saved money, you can move up some purchases instead of suffering 3 more years till the full replacement.

 

But really, no one but you can decide. But I personally would tie myself to a strict schedule since over 7 years much can change.

Well nothing's ever chaining you down in terms of your choices unless you lack the capital.

 

Everything is always speculative when you try to future proof things. It's like buying a car. You obviously plan you will keep it for a long time. But maybe it breaks down in 10 years when you expected it to last 15-20. Plans can change depending on circumstances. 

 

But I don't think it's smart to buy stuff without really thinking how long it should realistically serve you.

 

"Upgrade as you need" while universally reasonable advice isn't really what I am trying to make a point about. Just trying to discuss what other people think would be a reasonable life expectancy for a brand new rig.

 

Answers I find from tech channels from YouTube vary quite a lot. Most of them being real doomers about it saying your hardware is useless when the next generation comes out.

 

I see a lot of tech YouTubers shill the new stuff and beg you not to even consider older gen. Really doesn't make sense to me. 

 

Is it bad to laugh in my seat when the people who upgrade every gen find out the new gen hardware has issues? Not sure. 

Obviously sucks for those who skipped many generations to upgrade to that same hardware because of all the shilling from every source. 

 

But I think skipping generations is pretty important if you have limited funds.

 

3 hours ago, Spazthe magician said:

Everything you replied with is correct and the overall issue is that it's a catch 22 situation no matter which way you go.

 

On one hand DD4 is cheap but at the end of it's career because everything is going into the newer things as I explained in the video, on the other hand going the DDR5 way means spending slightly more now with nothing really made for it but the upside is everything in the DDR5 bracket can run anything under it. So for me I'd rather get everything upgraded and out of the way now and not have anything for it to use, then have the prices shoot up and not be able to upgrade when things are being made for it.

 

Regardless of which way you go you're either, a: going to be wasting money by going the cheaper route and hanging on then spending more to upgrade, or b: investing slightly too much now and not being able to use it.

 

Things are in the middle of transition, at the present time, I don't really think there is a smart-savoy way of doing anything one way or the other.

I mean just look at how idiot the GPU market is (It's always been relatively bad, but it has never been as obnoxiousness as it is right now right now.

 

Nvida released the 30 series card, then not even 2 years later here come Nvidia with the 40 series (Which was a disaster in itself) and before the 30 series can even really get used, in pops Nvidia with the announcement of the 50 series card. This type of crap seriously needs to stop.

 

There really needs to be a cap on these companies to stop them from pulling this crap. Companies like Nvidia need to be forced to let the current tech get used before releasing the next segment.

 

This whole situation sucks for everyone right now, but that is nothing new.  Everything always tapers off down the road. What's most likely going to happen (And this is me being cynical) is the price now for the parts I'm getting are going to shoot up in price.

It is as you say. Overspending is rarely going to make you regret more than if you underspent.

 

With price to performance of course in mind, if you can afford to get hardware that's slightly more than what you think you'll need, you'll probably thank your past self in the future.

 

Of course budget builds are as the name implies. Perfectly good in their own right, especially in circumstances when you can't buy a better PC. Maybe 5 years later you're financially more stable and you can then afford to build a better system with the money you saved in the past by avoiding splurging on high end stuff.

[Spazthe magician]

3 hours ago, Protomesh said:

Of course budget builds are as the name implies.

Yeah the term budget build is subjective. Some people are so arrogant and can't wait to show off they say here is my budget build, which turns out to be a 6k-9k build

[Protomesh]

 

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

Trying to schedule upgrades and predict the advancement of computer technology will not work. Consider the random chain of events in the last 21 years, 3 of those 7 year intervals.

So you build a high end system in 2002. You have an early 478 Pentium 4, 1gb of ddr 400 and a geforce4 ti 4600.

Some other facets to note, this is pre pcie so your psu doesn’t have a 24 pin or pcie power connectors.

By 2003 your gpu was obsoleted by DirectX 9 which was rapidly adopted (this is why low end FX cards were so popular). Your CPU has no hyper threading and its 32 bit and by 2004 the Athlon 64 has outclassed it.

Your DDR is still holding on but DDR2 is now a thing. And then it gets more fun. Surprise, hardware transition era, agp is being phased out by pcie and now power supplies have another 4 pins and pcie power connectors.

So we’re 2 years into that 7 year period and this high end PC is now struggling to keep up both in actual performance and overall features. By 2006 to 2007, core2duo, 8800 GTX, high speed DDR2, pcie 2.0 is a thing.

 

Jump to 2009, now it’s time to build again because your PC was limited by DX9 support a year in, your cpu was outdated in 2 years and your platform didn’t even support any upgrades to current gen tech because even the agp slot was outdated.

In 2009 $2000 would put you on early X58, an i7 960, 6/8/12gb of ddr3, and an HD4870x2 in single card crossfire. Within that budget you’d also have an early SSD though for boot only as it would be 80gb or less.

And now we have a problem, now the 7 years basically doesn’t matter because by 2016 you’d still be fine, and at most would need a gpu upgrade. You could in 2016 buy a Polaris or Pascal video card as a drop in replacement and change nothing else in the system and still be using that system right now in 2023 for Cyberpunk 2077. You’d be sitting with another $1500 in your hands after dropping in a gtx 1080.

And then go another 7 years, now it’s 2023, and you’re still fine. The cpu is barely holding on, but an upgrade isn’t vital. An early i7 and GTX 1080 will play current games fine.

 

You kinda see the issue? Hardware changes are unpredictable at times. Even if in 2016 you said “nope it’s time to upgrade” you’d have an i7 6700k, you’d now be on early ddr4, and overall that’s not much of a performance jump at all. 
And it would be even worse because 2 years later with coffee Lake your 6700k would be shit on by cheap 6 cores. Shortly after 8/10 cores. But you wouldn’t be at the 7 year increment to upgrade.

 

Theres very little to make guesses on what’s going to happen over large periods of time. The next 7 years until 2030 could see the death of pcie, the atx standard as a whole, multi gpu may come back, CPUs could hit 64 cores on consumer products or stagnate where they are now. 2030 might be the jump from a P4 to an i7, or it might be the jump from a 4 core i7 to just another 4 core i7.

 

Well the thing is you have to understand that technological advancement will eventually stagger and slow down. 

 

20 years ago was like the dark age of computers. 

 

Nowadays new processing method costs are getting so high for these hardware companies that they cannot do huge jumps like that anymore. 

 

Intel has released the same crap with like 5% performance uplifts for 10% higher prices for years now. Similar things can be said about GPUs. Like 15% performance uplifts every few years for 30% higher prices.

 

I would say that's perfectly in line with a 7 year upgrade interval. You skip 1-2 generations at a time. 2 generations isn't that much. Game developers will still that in mind people still probably use stuff that's 2 generations old.

 

How much has the CPU nanometers really changed in 7 years? 

 

Intel has used the 14nm process all the way from 6th generation to 11th gen. 

That was from 2015 to 2021, so 6 years. Perfectly in line with the 7 year upgrade plan??

 

Sure. CPU nanometers are pretty useless metric in itself. But that's how long they took to change that process. 

 

The performance difference between something like 6700K and 11700K is about ~40% if you're CPU limited. 

 

I saw somewhere that a good general rule was to upgrade to stuff that has 30% performance uplifts. Not true in every use case of course. 

 

Let's look at modern day and let's switch things up. Let's look at AMDs side of the CPUs.

 

Comparing 1700X and 7700X. AMD has historically had a tougher time trying to compete thus they generally have had bigger generational uplifts. Performance difference between 1700X and 7700X in CPU limited games is like ~50%. 

 

Nothing crazy like suddenly something new shows up after 6-7 years and it's 300% better. That's not how it works.