About 3 years ago I stopped playing PC games as I couldn't afford to upgrade my PC each year to keep up with the requirements. More importantly I could buy a PS3 and an Xbox 360 witha bunch of games for the same price as one upgrade :) So I was wondering, how much do you all spend, on average, each year on your PC? If you could post your countries currently with your avg $$$ value that would be great (I'm in Aus and I'm assuming most of you are UK/US).
Usually upgrade the gfx card once a year and the other main components after about 3 years. I'd say for my 2007-2009 pc a total of ~$1800, so $600 a year. That's excluding all peripherals. Current build would average out to significantly more with watercooling and expensive parts, but my income has also increased significantly :D.
I just did a complete upgrade in July of '09 for my system, turned my old system into a WHS server. Other then upgrading to a better sound card for my system I don't have any plans until next year. That is unless DDR3 drops and we see more interesting prospects from SATA3 and USB3.
I only do a major overhaul when I get really annoyed at my computer's performance lol. I upgraded this past summer after using my old rig for about 5 years.
Built my pc 2 years ago, this year did some upgrades about $270 CAD for a new gpu and some more ram, I got a gaming mouse and keyboard but I dont count that since my old mouse and keyboard was 7 years old and was pretty crusty and ghetto.
As far as actual REQUIRED upgrades go, around $150 over the course of three years. I upgraded to a ~$110 9800GT from my aged (and possibly dying) X1900XT, and I spent another ~$40 to go from 2x1GB to 2x2GB of RAM. Other upgrades I made were far from required for a good PC gaming experience, and were done mainly to appeal to my own eclectic taste.
Last year I bought a new CPU, MB and hard drive (since my main one was dying on me). I spent around $300. This year I purchased a new tower (long over due) and a new heatsink - spent around $200. Other then that, I've had the same GPUs and power supply for the past 2 years. Same with the RAM, and DVD drives I have. I don't plan on spending anything else this year on my computer and depending on how games go and the technology for GPUs, I might be good without having to buy anything next year.
I spent $300 last year upgrading my HDD, PSU, RAM, and CPU cooler. I'm putting money towards a 5870 for this year, hopefully it'll be 100$ cheaper by Christmas.
About 3 years ago I stopped playing PC games as I couldn't afford to upgrade my PC each year to keep up with the requirements. More importantly I could buy a PS3 and an Xbox 360 witha bunch of games for the same price as one upgrade :) So I was wondering, how much do you all spend, on average, each year on your PC? If you could post your countries currently with your avg $$$ value that would be great (I'm in Aus and I'm assuming most of you are UK/US).Chickan_117
Every year? None for hardware, maybe 4-6 games a year. Every 5 years....... ~US $800 for hardware. The old PC gets handed down to my daughter or nephews/nieces which they normally use for another 3-5 years. We have old PCs dating back to 1998 still being used for internet and other pc tasks.
$0, buy a good PC, upgrade when it's necessary, and upgrading once a year is very necessary. A new vid card after two years or so, some more ram when needed.
[QUOTE="Chickan_117"]About 3 years ago I stopped playing PC games as I couldn't afford to upgrade my PC each year to keep up with the requirements. More importantly I could buy a PS3 and an Xbox 360 witha bunch of games for the same price as one upgrade :) So I was wondering, how much do you all spend, on average, each year on your PC? If you could post your countries currently with your avg $$$ value that would be great (I'm in Aus and I'm assuming most of you are UK/US).jun_aka_pekto
Every year? None for hardware, maybe 4-6 games a year. Every 5 years....... ~US $800 for hardware. The old PC gets handed down to my daughter or nephews/nieces which they normally use for another 3-5 years. We have old PCs dating back to 1998 still being used for internet and other pc tasks.
Don't you find 5 years a long lifecycle for a gaming PC though? I'd imagine you'd run into performance issues after 2 or 3 without upgrades. I certainly used to.
$0, buy a good PC, upgrade when it's necessary, and upgrading once a year is very necessary. A new vid card after two years or so, some more ram when needed.Im_single
So lemme get this straight. Your answer is $0 a year, but then you say upgrading every year is necessary and a new video card every 2 years. Wow where do you get that for $0 ?? ;)
Based on my spendings last year, it's probably around the US$250 mark. I don't know if that'll hold up for this year. Depends on how much money I get and whether or not the next 8800 GT hits the market. (By that, I mean the next card costing around US$250 or so that performs like something twice the price.)
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