Does Future Proofing exists.....?

[AnkitJha]

Just now i was going through a post

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/403197-i5-vs-i7-gtx-970-vs-980ti/

 

I found a number of people giving their views for or against future proofing your RIG,actually it transformed into a heated argument between 2 sides.

 

So what is the exact no of years a person should put his money into  a RIg to last(Play at ultra or High only at a given resolution).

 

Should we put only that much amount of money on components that will let us play at a given resolution and setting for now(1-1.5 yrs) and the cash saved can be used to buy more advanced components(GPU,CPU) in near future( > 1.5 - 2 yrs and after )

 

or think about the future and spend more by buying expensive stuff that may be overkill for now but will last for 3-4 yrs(does it really last for 3-4 yrs ,some people even said 6 yrs).

 

I need some views on this topic.

 

can somebody please share the links to posts with similar topics in the past....

 

I'm posting this because i didn't find any definite answer in the post above and this looks more like a subjective topic.

 

What does linus have to say on this topic...

[Atmos]

Linus has historically been a proponent of the "Buy the best you can now, so you don't end up spending that same amount or more in a year and a half, or two years from now" field. 

 

I generally agree with that kind of a point.

 

 

And, future proofing does not exist. Simple as that. Future preparedness does exist though. You can never be 100% certain that one technology is going to be 100% viable x number of years from now. For example, you buy 4 980ti's, and a 5960X, so you can run 3 4k panels at medium settings in games. 8 months from now an alien spaceship crashes in the middle of L.A. and the technology from it advances computing 100 fold. Now suddenly, you're out of money thanks to spending it all on that computer, and every other computer is 100 fold faster thanks to quantum computing and advanced bio-organic storage and relays. You've just been bamboozeled by the "future proof" scheme. 

 

You can however, be prepared for the future, which is an assumption that technology is going to advance as it has for the last 15 years, at a steady rate and you buy parts according to what you want to do, 2-3 years from now assuming that tech continues down that path of advancement. It can be a bit tough at times, but it's far better than buying just enough to let you do what you want today, and then not being able to do that thing a year from now, and having to buy a whole new computer.

[BoredErica]

The more money you spend now, the worse price/performance it will be compared to what you will get in the future. So, just buy what you want for your performance target and stop worrying about the future.

 

My sentiments are echoed by Linus back in his NCIX days.

[chicksoup]

I think it's smarter to get a second or third best GPU and then playing 2 year old games

[theereal]

Just now i was going through a post

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/403197-i5-vs-i7-gtx-970-vs-980ti/

 

I found a number of people giving their views for or against future proofing your RIG,actually it transformed into a heated argument between 2 sides.

 

So what is the exact no of years a person should put his money into  a RIg to last(Play at ultra or High only at a given resolution).

 

Should we put only that much amount of money on components that will let us play at a given resolution and setting for now(1-1.5 yrs) and the cash saved can be used to buy more advanced components(GPU,CPU) in near future( > 1.5 - 2 yrs and after )

 

or think about the future and spend more by buying expensive stuff that may be overkill for now but will last for 3-4 yrs(does it really last for 3-4 yrs ,some people even said 6 yrs).

 

I need some views on this topic.

 

can somebody please share the links to posts with similar topics in the past....

 

I'm posting this because i didn't find any definite answer in the post above and this looks more like a subjective topic.

 

What does linus have to say on this topic...

Maybe, to some extent, if you buy an old crappy pentium you know its not gonna last very long compared to a brand new i7.

[Razarza]

Maybe, to some extent, if you buy an old crappy pentium you know its not gonna last very long compared to a brand new i7.

But until more games start taking advantage of hyperthreading an i7 will not perform much better than an i5.

[theereal]

But until more games start taking advantage of hyperthreading an i7 will not perform much better than an i5.

Thats correct, just making a spitball example

[TheMcSame]

[MEC-777]

It depends how you define "future proofing". 

 

I would say, buy the best you can now that suits your budget and needs (within reason). Obviously if a new line of graphics cards or CPUs are about to be released within a month or two, it's wise to wait. 

 

Also, it's wise to think and plan ahead. If you think you might want to run a multi-GPU setup later on, then it makes sense to spend a little extra now on a board that has SLI/CF support and a bigger PSU. Otherwise, you'll just have to upgrade those components later on, which will end up costing you more money down the road.  

[Toddwjp]

To some extent yes, buying 8gb of ram when 4 was the standard has helped dodge certain issues same with getting a decent monitor or keyboard, GPU and cpu though, hard to say since if you spend 400 more today there no real way to figure out if that 400 saved is going to let you upgrade to better price performance. Just buy the best you can for what you want to do know and then when you can do so again do so

[Tim Drake]

It exists to a certain point but anything past that point gives diminishing returns for more money.

[Guest]

The PC future-proofing cycle is like a car's own cycle for enthusiasts like us 

 

It starts off with the base or the starting point; most people start out with a "beast" rig or car (the cycle ends here sort of)

If you simply can't afford all the parts you start off small or right around the middle

 

The next step would be the struggles with the car or PC

It's the time when you see problems with the capability of your system

You then proceed to see what you can do about it, the first thing that pops-up or recommended by a colleague would be upgrading

 

Now that's where most people debate at

Whether to upgrade or wait

 

Most people who love the experience of having a capable machine would simply go through impulse buying (The cycle ends here, again sort of)

While the others are left with no money or a confused mind

 

3-6 months pass and a new generation of parts arrive

Everyone is pumped up for the product and most upgrade their system or car

Some get a new Exhaust Pipe or Water cooling block while the others simply get a new paint job or in this case...well a case

 

The problem is with the people who simply can't afford the upgrades

They are left with the decision to make

Hence, the cycle repeats because some people accumulate enough money to buy after choosing not to upgrade during the span of the cycle then the cycle repeats

While some who used to have enough money have lost theirs because of the upgrades so they're the new batch of strugglers who can't afford any upgrades 

[othertomperson]

you buy 4 980ti's, and a 5960X, so you can run 3 4k panels at medium settings in games.

 

I'm going to ignore the point in your post where it got absurd and focus on this. I would say that you are mixing up future-proofing and the penalties for early adoption. 4 980 Tis will do badly at 4K surround. Partly because those third and fourth GPUs aren't doing an awful lot. However, spending a few thousand on a ridiculous setup now is not nearly as bad as spending the same amount in the hope that you can be keeping the same mediocre setup for 10 years, which is what futureproofing is.

 

I use myself as an example here. When I was a noob in 2011 I bought two 3GB 580s, SLI'd them and I was still using them for 1080p at about 90 fps back in October 2014. Were they futurepoof? Evidently so, I was still getting 780-like performance four years after I bought them. Was it sensible? Not really. Firstly the 580 lasted about two years as a very strong card that didn't need to be SLI'd for about two years. The investment only made sense a long time after it was initially made. If you consider that I spent £800 on these cards, if I had spend £300 initially (on just the 1.5GB version), and then waited for the 780 or 290 to be released and then spent £350 I could have had the same result for nearly £200 less overall.

 

Factor in as well something akin to your aliens scenario: my use case changed in October 2014. I was no longer satisfied with how blockly 1080p looked and wanted a new monitor. Something that even if my 580s were powerful enough for, they didn't have ports with the bandwidth to provide. If 1080p had remained enough for me I would still be using them possibly two years in the future from now, but something I hadn't anticipated happened that cut that short. As a result I cannot recommend spending a lot in the aim of keeping your system going without upgrades for a prolongued period. Spend what you can now on the experience you want. When what you have no longer fulfils your requirement (and your requirements will evolve, and you will have to consider if your hardware is staying relevant to them) then you should upgrade.

[Sauron]

I was in that discussion so you probably know my point of view by now ^^

 

In my opinion, future proofing does NOT in fact exist. The best one can do is buy exactly what one needs at the time of purchase and upgrade when it is no longer satisfactory. Depending on the person this could mean the following year or 5 years later, but it is extremely likely that by the time of upgrading there will be better solutions available than the best you could get when you bought the original part at a significantly lower price. Depending on how long you wait, it may or may not make sense to sell your previous part to be able to better afford the upgrade and it is very likely that you'll end up paying less and ending up with a superior product in the end, all the while not having felt the need for more power because you bought what you needed. A good example would be the 3960x, a 1000$ cpu that was matched and beaten in certain respects by a 350$ one less than 3 years later. It is important to note that not all parts get outdated as quickly, but it's just as important to realize it's a matter of blind luck and it cannot be relied upon. Maybe graphics cards performance will stall for 5 years starting now and buying the best card you can afford would ACTUALLY be worth it, but since we have no way of knowing that it would be a shot in the dark.

[Knaj]

There is no way to make your rig last forever, as technology is advancing crazy quick.

 

But if you buy a machine with an i7 extreme edition and 4-way Titan X SLI with custom liquid cooling, you know that machine is going to last much longer in the tech world than an i3 or i5 with something like a 750ti

[SteveGrabowski0]

I like buying a little overkill since I want my system to be pretty decent for 2-3 years. By a little overkill I mean I got a $330 GTX 970 for 1080p because I wanted something that kicked everything's ass at that resolution when I bought it but would still probably be good enough to play most games on a mix of medium to high 2.5 - 3 years later. Based on past history that seems like it isn't too bad a guess for a 70 series card, as a GTX 570 could mostly do that in early 2014, and a GTX 670 can do it pretty easily now. I'd imagine the GTX 770 should still be a relevant 1080p med/high GPU by this time next year since it's still a relevant 1080p very high GPU right now. But still, if the 970 had been more in the $400 range like the 770 and the 960 was as awesome as the 760 was for the time at $250 I might have gone with that instead.

 

By a little overkill I guess I should also include going with a Xeon E3-1231v3 instead of a $60 cheaper i5-4590 or an i5-4690k. There was a mix of 5 things influencing that choice:

(1) CPUs are tending to stay relevant a lot longer than GPUs, so I didn't mind spending a little more

(2) The games I play are almost all console ports, and thus are initially optimized for octacores. So I look at buying a HT CPU as a little insurance against bad ports since HT seems to handle core count deficiency better than clockspeed, see the G3258 vs i3 in quadcore optimized games.

(3) I already had an H81 board, and didn't want to buy a Z97 board and an aftermarket cooler to run an i5-4690k.

(4) The GPU I wanted (GTX 970) was pretty affordable and there was no better GPU for the extra $60 I put into the CPU

(5) DirectX12 could make a HT CPU more attractive. I put this last on my list since DX12 is still such an unknown though.

[othertomperson]

There is no way to make your rig last forever, as technology is advancing crazy quick.

 

But if you buy a machine with an i7 extreme edition and 4-way Titan X SLI with custom liquid cooling, you know that machine is going to last much longer in the tech world than an i3 or i5 with something like a 750ti

 

Even that assumption isn't true though. An i7 isn't better than an i5 in the vast majority of cases because its hyperthreading isn't taken advantage of. This would have to change in the future for this assumption to be true -- but it certainly hasn't so far made a 3960X a better investment than a 2700k.

 

And as for the GPU, yeah a 750 ti is not going to stay relevant for as long, but even comparing a single 980 Ti four of them if all games used four GPUs and it was simply a case of GPU horsepower then indeed four would stay better for longer, but really four is generally only marginally better than two (and in many cases worse) and so, again, there's a barrier between the hardware you have and how much it is utilised that is working against you, rather than it being simply "x is more powerful than y, so it should stay capable of what I want for longer"

[Tech_Dreamer]

This is actually a really good discussion, Good opinions & really good points..

[Atmos]

I'm going to ignore the point in your post where it got absurd and focus on this. I would say that you are mixing up future-proofing and the penalties for early adoption. 4 980 Tis will do badly at 4K surround. Partly because those third and fourth GPUs aren't doing an awful lot. However, spending a few thousand on a ridiculous setup now is not nearly as bad as spending the same amount in the hope that you can be keeping the same mediocre setup for 10 years, which is what futureproofing is.

 

I use myself as an example here. When I was a noob in 2011 I bought two 3GB 580s, SLI'd them and I was still using them for 1080p at about 90 fps back in October 2014. Were they futurepoof? Evidently so, I was still getting 780-like performance four years after I bought them. Was it sensible? Not really. Firstly the 580 lasted about two years as a very strong card that didn't need to be SLI'd for about two years. The investment only made sense a long time after it was initially made. If you consider that I spent £800 on these cards, if I had spend £300 initially (on just the 1.5GB version), and then waited for the 780 or 290 to be released and then spent £350 I could have had the same result for nearly £200 less overall.

 

Factor in as well something akin to your aliens scenario: my use case changed in October 2014. I was no longer satisfied with how blockly 1080p looked and wanted a new monitor. Something that even if my 580s were powerful enough for, they didn't have ports with the bandwidth to provide. If 1080p had remained enough for me I would still be using them possibly two years in the future from now, but something I hadn't anticipated happened that cut that short. As a result I cannot recommend spending a lot in the aim of keeping your system going without upgrades for a prolongued period. Spend what you can now on the experience you want. When what you have no longer fulfils your requirement (and your requirements will evolve, and you will have to consider if your hardware is staying relevant to them) then you should upgrade.

 

Afraid I didn't mix up making an absurd rig with future proofing. the moral of that story was no matter how much you spend, there can always be unforeseen circumstances. That's why future proofing doesn't exist, the future isn't certain. Whether it's aliens, or your standards just becoming too heavy for you.

 

and i get what you're saying. I didn't mix it in there, but usually budgets don't flex that much. My point about buying the most you can with what you have does taper off quite hard at the very vyer high-end, where there is little performance:price ratio. You need to find that sweet spot for yourself. And i do understand the point not trying to make a system last 4-5 years. Which is why, even at the longest time stretch I had only mentioned 3 years give or take (which is already a bit of a stretch) However, spending just enough to get you to do what you want to do now, usually means that 8 months from now, you probably are going to see drops in performance for what you want to do. Meaning, you end up throwing in another mid-low range card. And 8-9 months later, another mid-low range card. And another, and another and another until you stop doing what it is that you're doing. Doing things like this, you actually spend more money than just buying a more powerful card. if you had bought a 570, and suddenly a year later it just can't compete with games anymore, and you upgraded to a 660ti, then on to a 760 a year later, and now a 960 or 280X, then you've just spent a lot more money than you would have, having bought a 580 or 680, into a 290. It's always good to have just a bit extra than what you need, rather than being just a bit short of what you need.

 

I think we can agree though that at least it would be baller as all hell if an alien spaceship crashed in the middle of L.A. and advanced tech by a 100 years. Suddenly we're living in Star Trek, and have to fight the klingons, before a brash youngster becomes captain of a powerful new ship, and with the help of an egotistical, emotionless jerk saves humanity.

[othertomperson]

Doing things like this, you actually spend more money than just buying a more powerful card. if you had bought a 570, and suddenly a year later it just can't compete with games anymore, and you upgraded to a 660ti, then on to a 760 a year later, and now a 960 or 280X, then you've just spent a lot more money than you would have, having bought a 580 or 680, into a 290. It's always good to have just a bit extra than what you need, rather than being just a bit short of what you need.

 

Only because you're dropping a whole tier each generation. That doesn't make sense at the best of times -- often those cards are rebrands of eachother anyway, from AMD or Nvidia (eg 680 -> 770). 570 -> 670 -> 770 -> 970 would see steady gains in performance as time went on. You wouldn't have to do it each generation either, you could skip every other one.

 

In retrospect what I would have done is probably go 580 -> 770, or possibly 780/290. I fail to see that as being "just short of what you need".

[Blackwash]

There is no such thing as "future proofing" when deciding what your machine will be.

Technology will always be one step ahead of what you will be able to afford.

 

More so, there is the "smart" building factor - having longevity in mind.

Currently, 8 gigabytes of RAM suit my needs, but I've chosen a decent motherboard which can support up to 32 gigabytes - if so I decide to upgrade later on.

 

Seeing all the variables that computers can have, along with ever changing software requirements, you cannot simply expect to run things at the same optimal rate

at which you ran them - let's say, one year ago.

 

Another aspect you can look upon is what the actual user intends to use his computer for.

Typically, people who are into gaming, would often pay attention to their GPU, which is the main powerhouse behind demanding 3D applications.

 

Video editors will look out for stronger CPU's, additional storage and/or RAM.

 

Daily office tasks, which are handled with ease by most hardware - seem to have the truly "future proof" user base.

 

In my opinion, a well assembled rig would last you a good 2 to 3 years before starting to "crack" and require some upgrades.

In about 5 years time, maybe a bit more - the machine will start to lag behind the latest software.

Anything over 8 years - depending on the rate of which new tech is developed, for me, is an outdated machine that needs replacing.

 

This is of course all subjective and depends on the expectations and needs of the user at hand - some are more picky, like hardcore enthusiast gamers - some can run their machine for years on end and never have any true complaints on it's performance, like for instance your dad watching YouTube videos or using Microsoft Office.

[mr moose]

Yes you can future proof your pc, the problem is you can't do it and stay relevant for ever.  So it's a good thing forever is not what future proofing is about. 

[Blackwash]

If you don't care about future proofing then you are probably one of those guys that buy's 50 dollar power supply to power your 1000 dollars of hardware, you really wanna risk your hardware on a 50 dollar gamble ? same if buying power suply like 700w when system uses about 700w you putting 100% load on the psu, wearing it down faster, while buying 1000w psu will last you probably 5-10 years.

 

Not mention power suply if it dies can cause a fire.

 

My power supply is more than adequate for my current rig.

[manikyath]

future proofing exists, only if you know what you'll be proofing for.

 

i know i'm a heavy multitasker and a resource hog, so i "future proofed" my build with an i7 and 16GB ram, where an i5 and 8GB ram would have been fine.

 

so now if my multitasking habits get worse, or if the stuff i use gets even more of a resource hog, i'm ready for it.

[Blackwash]

If you don't care about future proofing then you are probably one of those guys that buy's 50 dollar power supply to power your 1000 dollars of hardware, you really wanna risk your hardware on a 50 dollar gamble ? same if buying power suply like 700w when system uses about 700w you putting 100% load on the psu, wearing it down faster, while buying 1000w psu will last you probably 5-10 years.

 

Not mention power suply if it dies can cause a fire.

 

Anyway if that ticks you off, then really i do not care, it does't effect you that i'm buying super awesome system, if it does then its probably just jealousy and no one cares about jealosy.

 

Things that do not effect you in anyway you should just ignore.

 

Mate, you are on the offensive side on this one - first you suggest that I am incapable of making proper component choices, then you accuse me of jealousy, and then you act like you do not care on the subject.

 

Apparently, we have different concepts of what "future proof" means.

 

For me, something being future proof is to purchase a computer today, that runs the latest games at the maximum graphical settings, and after 3 years, it will still run the latest games in the exact specific manner - pumping the settings to the max.

 

If this is the proper definition of the term - then no - no such thing exists.

 

Let off some steam, pal.