Why do people upgrade so frequently? When even lowend CPUs are fast enough for most?

[SparkyJJO]

I kept my 939 system forever, had my opteron 165 for a long time. Finally wanted more so I got a phenom 9600BE that turned out to be a defective chip. In the process of RMA I got my q6600. Had it since last summer. While it is quick I've had some issues with it here and there (mainly some heavy multitasking the MCM configuration has been a bottleneck on different occasions).

I'm planning on a Phenom II 955 rig this summer, money and job permitting.

 

[PaulieG]

Because I'm an inexcusable hardware whore

Perfect explanation for me. Sums it up, and I have no other excuse.

 

[MaxAwesome]

Settle down buddy. I know it seems like I got off track with my reply but it really wasn't that off track. I had to explain things a little to explain why I upgraded CPUs so much along with the other stuff.

I wasn't talking about you. just the thread in general.

 

[Steevo]

HEADS UP: THIS TOPIC IS ABOUT CPUS ONLY.
Why do most people get the upgrade itch so often?

Nowadays there is such an immense variety of CPU power, that even for people who render video/graphics an ultra-fast CPU is more of a luxury than a necessity.

I think this happens because people don't realise they DON'T have to upgrade. Most people are driven by the "OMG IT'S NEW AND SHINY!" argument. Some people just gotta have the latest and greatest.

Those people don't realize that in the long run, they are throwming money away.

For example, I spent money on a whole new system back in October 2008. I went with an E8400. I'm really, REALLY happy with it. Do you even think i'm considering upgrading in the next 2 years? Of course not! I want this CPU to exhaust its horsepower, I want to get to a point where I can say "ok, this CPU has served me well".

Core i7, or Core i5 simply isn't on my upgrade path. My E8400 will gladly carry me along until the next big thing comes (sandy brigde, most likely). This way, I will allow my current CPU to make up for the money I spent on it, I just think of it as an investment, and I want to milk it till its dry.

I'm a gamer, and I consider myself a gamer even if I don't have the latest and greatest. And I honestly don't believe that my current E8400 will leave me dry in the next 2 years. Especially when overclocked.

This may be just a matter of mentality, but it doesn't make any sense to me spending hundreds of dollars (euros in my case) on a computer, only to be upgrading in the next few months to a new CPU that may be newer, but isn't all that fast over the one you had.

Just let your hardware live its lifecycle.

Nowadays it seems people don't even keep their hardware long enough to enjoy it.

It boggles me why people with high-end Duos and Quads want desperatly to move to i7 for example. Don't they realise that their current CPUs is more than enough anything? This complements what I said earlier: a faster CPU is most often a luxury rather than a necessity. Unless you're a speed freak, I guess.

Opinions?

You have to have a hobby. Some have cars, some have boating, even a turbo nitrous snowmobile for one guy here. But I have gaming and PC's. The upgrade to a 940 cost me al of $175.00 and the difference is amazing, now I am looking at other items. But the same could be said for a chip on a car, or a new muffler to gain a few more HP.

 

[crazy pyro]

Let's be honest here, dumping money into our ATX shaped money pits is still a cheaper hobby than say, hardcore stamp collecting or doing crazy stuff with cars, hell I like hiking and I'm a MASSIVE kit whore for that (Own my own goretex jacket, proper warm kit used on arctic expeditions etc, sure I don't need it but it makes my life that much more cushty, my friend's dumped well over a grand into his kit in the last year) there are so many different hobbies that can cost a HELL of a lot more than gaming.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Let's be honest here, dumping money into our ATX shaped money pits is still a cheaper hobby than say, hardcore stamp collecting or doing crazy stuff with cars, hell I like hiking and I'm a MASSIVE kit whore for that (Own my own goretex jacket, proper warm kit used on arctic expeditions etc, sure I don't need it but it makes my life that much more cushty, my friend's dumped well over a grand into his kit in the last year) there are so many different hobbies that can cost a HELL of a lot more than gaming.

What gets bad is when you do both computers AND cars :shadedshu

 

[Steevo]

Let's be honest here, dumping money into our ATX shaped money pits is still a cheaper hobby than say, hardcore stamp collecting or doing crazy stuff with cars, hell I like hiking and I'm a MASSIVE kit whore for that (Own my own goretex jacket, proper warm kit used on arctic expeditions etc, sure I don't need it but it makes my life that much more cushty, my friend's dumped well over a grand into his kit in the last year) there are so many different hobbies that can cost a HELL of a lot more than gaming.

Fishing, I spent hundreds in the last couple years on stuff that is still inthe package.


Best investment was a goretex jacket, and good chest waders with insulation. Crocs on the feet, two layers of insulation, my chest waders, hoodie and them my goretex jacket and gloves. I can stand out in 10deg F snow and wind and feel fine. everyone else around me is shivvering and cold.

 

[Disparia]

What gets bad is when you do both computers AND cars :shadedshu

I've been neglecting my '69 Continental! But I'd really like more computer speed... damn...

 

[crazy pyro]

EXACTLY my point, I can't drop either of my hobbies so thank god I've finished kit whoring my hiking gear for the next few months, my bank account hurts BADLY from my gaming habit (Over £1000 since december, 250 repairing the lappy in my sig, 250 on my netbook 600 on my rig etc etc.).

 

[Error 404]

But we do needs it....that's why I'm typing this out on my dell 2.4 single core non HT 512Mb RD memory machine with a Geforce MX420 in it

Hey, that comp makes a great media PC!

The only reason why I don't have a quad core CPU in my comp is because I don't have a job yet. However, my rig was built on a budget. I don't mind if its slower than the highest end PC, and this is also the reason why I chose my E5200; it overclocks very well; 4 GHz no problem! But just because it performs so well doesn't mean I don't want something faster; I just can't afford it!
The next upgrade for my comp will probably be Windows 7 x64 anyway. And yes, I do consider that as a worthwhile upgrade.

 

[hat]

Well there are a few reasons...
* some people buy new stuff because it was cheap and they want to see how far they can overclock it
* some people must have the best hardware out there
* some people buy new stuff just because it's new

I believe I have plenty of CPU power. Yes it is just a single core but most programs (including games) don't support multiple threads at all, or, if they do, they do it very half-assed (Crysis? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. anyone?) so it's like it never had threading support at all. So my single core is just fine. The stock clock speed is 2.2GHz and yes that is a little weak, but this chip has to be the best overclocker I've ever had... ever. I got a 700MHz overclock out of it (2.9ghz) without touching the voltage. Stock voltage is 1.25v, so I'm at 2.9GHz at 1.25v. I would like to push to 3GHz and I can but I would have to change the voltage to at least 1.3 or 1.325v to get there and I'm not sure 100MHz is worth pumping .1 more volts through it.

 

[Reventon]

I agree with you MaxAwesome.

I had an AMD single-core 4000+ clocking 2.6Ghz (not overclocking) and even that thing wasn't bad at all for the time being. I have a 6400+ dual-core now clocking 3.2Ghz (not overclocking) and that coupled with my 4850 and my 4GB 667mhz (no, none of the 1600 fancy stuff) and I get anywhere from 80-230FPS on al of my games at max settings.

 

[Sir_Real]

Well there are a few reasons...
* some people buy new stuff because it was cheap and they want to see how far they can overclock it
* some people must have the best hardware out there
* some people buy new stuff just because it's new

I believe I have plenty of CPU power. Yes it is just a single core but most programs (including games) don't support multiple threads at all, or, if they do, they do it very half-assed (Crysis? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. anyone?) so it's like it never had threading support at all. So my single core is just fine. The stock clock speed is 2.2GHz and yes that is a little weak, but this chip has to be the best overclocker I've ever had... ever. I got a 700MHz overclock out of it (2.9ghz) without touching the voltage. Stock voltage is 1.25v, so I'm at 2.9GHz at 1.25v. I would like to push to 3GHz and I can but I would have to change the voltage to at least 1.3 or 1.325v to get there and I'm not sure 100MHz is worth pumping .1 more volts through it.

Hay am i missing something ! I av a dual core cpu & my son as around 150 games some from years back. Not had no probs running games or software. & your happy running crysis & S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on a 2.2 single core ! Well guess u av time time to look at the detail of each frame that way Just kidding shame more peps arnt more like you the world would be a greener place. Colder to

 

[DrPepper]

While low end CPU's are fast enough for most, we aren't the majority of people. We like to have fast ass pc's that make the average joe go wtf. Most of us do it to impress others over the internet as sad as that may sound its no worse than showing off a car you bought.

I like to look for ways to make my PC stand out from the average pc and I did that by sticking blue lights on it and making it big and in your face. Anyway the reason for faster cpu's are for example alot of people use photoshop professionally and the faster pictures or whatever they do is rendered the more they can do. Also I use terragen to create pictures for desktops and it takes hours to do so a faster cpu lets me get more done in less time. There is also the benchmarkers who "play" 3dmark etc and faster cpu's make them better at that.

I'm glad I got a quad instead of a 4th dual core because most games today are multithreaded. I play crysis alot and through my own testing I can see it uses multiple cores and alot of games today do so the advantage of that is I can have all my crap running on the 4th core while the other 3 are working away at a game.

 

[blaster318]

Well you see it's the human nature to compete with each other. That's the reason why most people upgrade so much. When we see that someone has a better peace of hardware than you or I have and they have overclocked the hell out of it, of course you want to rush right out and try to beat their scores. And if you have a lot of disposable cash lying around what else are you going to spend it on. When your a hardware junkie.

 

[hat]

Hay am i missing something ! I av a dual core cpu & my son as around 150 games some from years back. Not had no probs running games or software. & your happy running crysis & S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on a 2.2 single core ! Well guess u av time time to look at the detail of each frame that way Just kidding shame more peps arnt more like you the world would be a greener place. Colder to

Well honestly I get about 60 frames solid in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I have to set it to Static Lighting (which I feel actually looks better than dynamic lighting for some strange reason). Crysis parties up just fine on all medium settings. This is all on my monitor's native res 1440x900. However this is my video card holding me back, not my cpu. The 8600gts just doesn't cut it for trying to run high-end games at high-end settings. However my 2.2GHz single core is just fine for running even Crysis. People get caught up in the CPU race and think they need a 4GHz quad core to run Crysis smoothly when honestly even my phony balogna sempron runs it beautifully. However I am not running it at 2.2GHz I am running it at 2.9GHz (with no voltage increace from stock voltage: 1.25v!). I mostly did this not for actual game performance but to speed up load times (and quite considerably at that).

Me and my uncle were playing BF2 last night. He has two 150GB Raptors in Raid 0, 4GB DDR2 800 RAM and the origional 3GHz Windsor core 6000+. When the map changed and my game was fully loaded I checked to see who all was in the game yet... it was just me and my other buddy xm20k (he has an uber high-end machine as well). How is it that a 2.9GHz single core beats a guy with a 3.0GHz dual core with 2 Raptors in RAID 0? Well, his memory is probably actually running at 750MHz or so because of AMD's funky core speed/some number formula used to calculate the memory speed and my memory is running at 960MHz. Even though his processor is dual core and running 100MHz faster than mine (let's not forget to mention that Windsors are faster than Brisbanes clock-for-clock because they have double the L2 cache) AND he has two raptors in RAID 0, my computer is still faster than his. It's because I have much faster memory (we both have DDR800 but his is running slower than it should and I clocked the shit out of mine) and I defrag my hard drive religiously.

So you see, processor speed is FAR from everything, and that's just on the bare computation side. His computer is actually faster than mine when it comes to video games because he has two 8800GTS 512MB in SLI and all I have is a 8600GTS but that's irrelivent in BF2 since BF2 could probably run even off my phony onboard 8100

This is why I get kind of upset when I see people giving me a 4 out of 10 in the rate eachother's rig thread, because my rig that was rated 4 is actually faster than a rig that would be rated probably an 8 or 9 here until you get into video games (which I still do just fine in) or multithreaded programs (keep in mind there aren't too many of these around)

 

[DaMulta]

If you don't buy new CPUs you hurt the economy!

 

[DrPepper]

Well honestly I get about 60 frames solid in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I have to set it to Static Lighting (which I feel actually looks better than dynamic lighting for some strange reason). Crysis parties up just fine on all medium settings. This is all on my monitor's native res 1440x900. However this is my video card holding me back, not my cpu. The 8600gts just doesn't cut it for trying to run high-end games at high-end settings. However my 2.2GHz single core is just fine for running even Crysis. People get caught up in the CPU race and think they need a 4GHz quad core to run Crysis smoothly when honestly even my phony balogna sempron runs it beautifully. However I am not running it at 2.2GHz I am running it at 2.9GHz (with no voltage increace from stock voltage: 1.25v!). I mostly did this not for actual game performance but to speed up load times (and quite considerably at that).

Me and my uncle were playing BF2 last night. He has two 150GB Raptors in Raid 0, 4GB DDR2 800 RAM and the origional 3GHz Windsor core 6000+. When the map changed and my game was fully loaded I checked to see who all was in the game yet... it was just me and my other buddy xm20k (he has an uber high-end machine as well). How is it that a 2.9GHz single core beats a guy with a 3.0GHz dual core with 2 Raptors in RAID 0? Well, his memory is probably actually running at 750MHz or so because of AMD's funky core speed/some number formula used to calculate the memory speed and my memory is running at 960MHz. Even though his processor is dual core and running 100MHz faster than mine (let's not forget to mention that Windsors are faster than Brisbanes clock-for-clock because they have double the L2 cache) AND he has two raptors in RAID 0, my computer is still faster than his. It's because I have much faster memory (we both have DDR800 but his is running slower than it should and I clocked the shit out of mine) and I defrag my hard drive religiously.

So you see, processor speed is FAR from everything, and that's just on the bare computation side. His computer is actually faster than mine when it comes to video games because he has two 8800GTS 512MB in SLI and all I have is a 8600GTS but that's irrelivent in BF2 since BF2 could probably run even off my phony onboard 8100

This is why I get kind of upset when I see people giving me a 4 out of 10 in the rate eachother's rig thread, because my rig that was rated 4 is actually faster than a rig that would be rated probably an 8 or 9 here until you get into video games (which I still do just fine in) or multithreaded programs (keep in mind there aren't too many of these around)

I know what you mean about the loading speeds. My old windsor is incredibly fast at loading bf2. I had this excellent ram that was rated at 533 and goes all the way to 1000mhz and its faster than my current machine at stock when loading. I kept low timings defragged every day kept processes to a minimum etc and that pc could load stuff really quickly although with my current machine since I've done the same its even faster with this ram that goes to 1200mhz on 5-5-5-15.

 

[AsRock]

It's an addiction, love seeing the UPS man with my Newegg box.

Just what i am thinking as he's dropping of my 40" HDTV ..

I'm always in need of a CPU upgrade even now due to some of my game requiring it like DCS BS and Arma to some point although Arma 2 should be better as it's going to use up to 4 cores.

In the end it's because of the games i enjoy playing which are CPU intensive.

 

[Marineborn]

well for me nothing smells better and sexier then new computer hardware

 

[DaMulta]

Did you know God kills a puppy every time you could of upgraded and didn't?

 

[ShadowFold]

Woot I save puppies on a monthly basis

 

[MilkyWay]

Its not in my nature to compete but then again i dont feel like im an average human.
Most people like to boast and have the latest and greatest, that is just how it is; sure a perfect world would be different but its about social aspects of life which i have no idea about. For people to want to have better than they need is common, its about the way the social and cultural system is these days.

Its in human nature to evolve and better everything that is why we are constantly researching and developing, to want to compete tells a lot about ones character that you want to be better than somebody prove your a something and i dont like that arrogance some people develop rather than the aspect of competing for fun and because you are good at it, me id rather help someone out a little rather than compete with them.

For some it is a small thrill, me i just like tinkering and pc in general and i realise i dont need to spend a load to enjoy it. Some people are addicts to hardware, you can get just as addicted to hardware as you can dope or crack.

People have a choice they will want the best, but i think we need a choice because everyone has different needs but for most budget enthusiast is the best.

 

[iandh]

Well there are a few reasons...
* some people buy new stuff because it was cheap and they want to see how far they can overclock it
* some people must have the best hardware out there
* some people buy new stuff just because it's new

I answered: d) all of the above

Woot I save puppies on a monthly basis

Pffft... I save puppies on a weekly basis.

 

[HammerON]

I am a hardware junkie and I need a fix!!!