Ugh, how do some of you do it? :( ("it" is explained inside!)

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

I havent upgraded since 2008, and that was for 2gb of ram and another 8800GT for sli.

Job and refund checks

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

Xeros606

[QUOTE="Xeros606"]

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

RayvinAzn

People have jobs. A lot of PC gamers work in IT, take a look at IT saleries and you'll quickly see why people can upgrade so much. A good developer job in London for instance will earn you $65k + bonus + benefits, a senior developer/team leader in London earns about $135k + bonus + benefits.

For the people who don't have a full job, you can get a long way by just sacraficing what you don't really care for. A lot of people buy TVs and cable subscriptions (and in the UK TV liscences), if you take a look at the polls on TV in OT you'll see that a lot of people don't watch it and a PC enthusiast is unlikely to need one for consoles. Just sacraficing that along will save you $535 per year in the UK + the cost of the TV.

I think you are referring to me... I upgrade once a year(that time has come(actually I have has my GTX 260 for a while, and I am giving to my dad... since he bought it in the first place)) I ran into some money, have a job, live at home(going to college down the road), dont have a life to spend money on hahahaha... but seriously, just have money(should I be upgrading? probably not but, who cares?)

Still rocking 2007 components... still works fine for me...

My server on the other hand, I have put a lot of money into it... in fact too many hard drives

cough cough

I think you are referring to me... I upgrade once a year(that time has come(actually I have has my GTX 260 for a while, and I am giving to my dad... since he bought it in the first place)) I ran into some money, have a job, live at home(going to college down the road), dont have a life to spend money on hahahaha... but seriously, just have money(should I be upgrading? probably not but, who cares?)

mitch2411

[QUOTE="RayvinAzn"][QUOTE="Xeros606"]

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

IvanElk

Still rocking 2007 components... still works fine for me...

My server on the other hand, I have put a lot of money into it... in fact too many hard drives

cough cough

JigglyWiggly_

You managed to fill a stacker :|

Damn... have you really got all 12 HDD bays filled?

Yes a monitor would probably be Ideal for me, but I like the one I have... so why replace it. I am not getting rid of my GTX 260... its just going in my dads rig...

I dont do anything but game on my computer... so I dont really need a bigger hard drive(Will get one eventually but not at this time).

As far as I am concerned, I never just stop using parts after I replace them... they just go into other rigs for LAN partys and stuff(I never bring my main rig to a LAN party).

What make you think they had the money?.... Im sure they broke right after every upgrade. Dogswithguns

well i for one dont have money, my last rig was a HP with 6600gt and pentium D. so dont think its everyone that always upgrades

I upgrade every 3 years.

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]

Still rocking 2007 components... still works fine for me...

My server on the other hand, I have put a lot of money into it... in fact too many hard drives

cough cough

markop2003

You managed to fill a stacker :|

Damn... have you really got all 12 HDD bays filled?

I plan on getting 10 years out of my rig with only harddrive upgrades.

I think anyone with a decent paying job can upgrade every 2-3 years easily, 500-600$ isnt too much, unless your just have to have the best and greatest once it comes out which is stupid, then it becomes a expensive habit but for what its worth, there are always bargain cards that can last you a few years if you dont mind playing on medium or high, PC gaming isnt expensive as people think, and I do own a PS3 and 360

[QUOTE="markop2003"]

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]

Still rocking 2007 components... still works fine for me...

My server on the other hand, I have put a lot of money into it... in fact too many hard drives

cough cough

gmaster456

You managed to fill a stacker :|

Damn... have you really got all 12 HDD bays filled?

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

Xeros606

I'm a professional Hitman, the money is good but the hours are lousy. Although I tend to only upgrade every 2 years or so, really its not that expensive. I probably spend more on games during that period than hardware.nutcrackr

I plan on getting 10 years out of my rig with only harddrive upgrades.

left2live4ever

[QUOTE="Xeros606"]

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

i5750at4Ghz

Upgrading regularly doesn't cost much if you throw your old parts up on ebay. Within a year I went from an ati HD4870> GTX275> GTX280> HD5850.

Upgrading regularly doesn't cost much if you throw your old parts up on ebay. Within a year I went from an ati HD4870> GTX275> GTX280> HD5850.

andyroo08

Some people are pretty crazy about upgrading their machines often. The reality is that anyone with a relatively fast dual core, 2 GB of DDR2, and a Geforce 8800GT/8800GTS 640/Radeon 3850 with WinXP still has a pretty competent machine even though those are pretty old graphics cards (relatively speaking). Hell I game more on my secondary machine than my "gaming rig" which has just an Athlon II x2 3.0 GHz, 2 GB DDR3, Radeon 5570 1 GB with WinXP and Win7. At 1600 x 900 (the monitor's native res) it's a perfect set up for BF2, BF2142, Mount and Blade: Warband, Dead Space, Source titles, FEAR 1/2, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Rainbow Six Vegas 1/2, CoD1/2/4 and plays Crysis at high settings in DX9 at the same resolution quite decently. Far Cry 2 runs well just about maxed out at 720p, as well as all the STALKER games. Truth be told, it seems like only GTA4 and Metro 2033 really need a quad-core (and maybe Bad Company 2). Anyone with a fast Athlon x2 or Core 2 Duo will be fine in most cases. It's funny, as Win7 seems to do quite fine on 2 GB of RAM even with RAM intensive games. But basically the machine I just described is relatively "weak" for a gaming machine though it's actually more than powerful enough to run most games quite nicely, even newer titles. Also, it wasn't very expensive to build (the CPU and RAM were recycled from before I upgraded my gaming rig). All in all I could build that machine with stuff from newegg for under $600 easy even with the OS, but no monitor or mouse and KB. The machine is readily upgradeable though, and I'm thinking about dropping an Athlon II x4 or more RAM into mine.

[QUOTE="nutcrackr"]I'm a professional Hitman, the money is good but the hours are lousy. Although I tend to only upgrade every 2 years or so, really its not that expensive. I probably spend more on games during that period than hardware.C_Rule

[QUOTE="C_Rule"]

[QUOTE="nutcrackr"]I'm a professional Hitman, the money is good but the hours are lousy. Although I tend to only upgrade every 2 years or so, really its not that expensive. I probably spend more on games during that period than hardware.freesafety13

Some people are pretty crazy about upgrading their machines often. The reality is that anyone with a relatively fast dual core, 2 GB of DDR2, and a Geforce 8800GT/8800GTS 640/Radeon 3850 with WinXP still has a pretty competent machine even though those are pretty old graphics cards (relatively speaking). Hell I game more on my secondary machine than my "gaming rig" which has just an Athlon II x2 3.0 GHz, 2 GB DDR3, Radeon 5570 1 GB with WinXP and Win7. At 1600 x 900 (the monitor's native res) it's a perfect set up for BF2, BF2142, Mount and Blade: Warband, Dead Space, Source titles, FEAR 1/2, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Rainbow Six Vegas 1/2, CoD1/2/4 and plays Crysis at high settings in DX9 at the same resolution quite decently. Far Cry 2 runs well just about maxed out at 720p, as well as all the STALKER games. Truth be told, it seems like only GTA4 and Metro 2033 really need a quad-core (and maybe Bad Company 2). Anyone with a fast Athlon x2 or Core 2 Duo will be fine in most cases. It's funny, as Win7 seems to do quite fine on 2 GB of RAM even with RAM intensive games. But basically the machine I just described is relatively "weak" for a gaming machine though it's actually more than powerful enough to run most games quite nicely, even newer titles. Also, it wasn't very expensive to build (the CPU and RAM were recycled from before I upgraded my gaming rig). All in all I could build that machine with stuff from newegg for under $600 easy even with the OS, but no monitor or mouse and KB. The machine is readily upgradeable though, and I'm thinking about dropping an Athlon II x4 or more RAM into mine.

mouthforbathory

Basically my point was that you can still get a better than console experience on a relatively cheap or older machine. DX9 Crysis in high settings looks pretty damn good. Only complaint is the object LOD. Most newer titles like Modern Warfare 2 play perfectly on those specs, and Far Cry 2 DX10 can be pretty much damn near maxed out as well as STALKER: Call of Pripyat in DX11 mode. It's also quite amazing to see how resourceful those gaming on laptops are, getting the most out of their systems, which pretty much can't be upgraded most of the time without special knowledge or skills. A lappy with an i3/i5, 4 GB of DDR3, and a Radeon 5650 is quite a bit of computing power, especially on the go. It's certainly alot more powerful than an Xbox 360. I have a Sony Vaio with an i3 2.13 GHz. In most benchmarks it'll beat even 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duos. It's Geforce 310M with only 256 MB of VRAM (GDDR3 though!) is rather paltry even in laptop terms, but it does play BF2 maxed out at 1366 x 768 well enough!

bought a 4850 in january. got a sweet deal on a 5700 buy selling the 4850 :0 so upgraded within 6 months :D

How do you people bare to upgrade your systems so often? I've seen three threads about upgrading from a GTX 260 today, that card isn't even two years old! Seriously, where do you all get the money?

Xeros606

Can't you squeeze some more like out of your GPU by playing at resolutions lower than the native resolution?

[QUOTE="andyroo08"]

Upgrading regularly doesn't cost much if you throw your old parts up on ebay. Within a year I went from an ati HD4870> GTX275> GTX280> HD5850.

C_Rule

If it's cheap and runs to spec, why not?

[QUOTE="C_Rule"][QUOTE="andyroo08"]

Upgrading regularly doesn't cost much if you throw your old parts up on ebay. Within a year I went from an ati HD4870> GTX275> GTX280> HD5850.

MaoTheChimp

If it's cheap and runs to spec, why not?

Work. I upgrade my rig on a near-montly basis :P Many upgrades aren't upgrades, though. They are interesting side-grades :D I'm "downgrading" in size and performance now. Core i3 fury! (OC's to 4.4Ghz+ btw ;))

I could easily take an unwanted/no longer used graphics card of your lots hands. if you wanted. :P