When did the PC hardware scene get so crazy and stressful?

[Psycho Sonny]

I'm starting to suspect people are upgrading to cpus they don't need and games will never make use of them before they are obsolete but benchmarks.

you don't need 16 cores for gaming and by time games need 16 cores there will be way better cpus for cheaper.

same as people who need 32gb of ram to only play games.


to me it feels like hardware is moving along way faster than software/games need especially with consoles holding everything back as always

I've been saying that for ages but they always come back with future proof or next gen consoles will boost development as they have 8 cores.

I'm rocking a 3600x with only 6 cores and I bet it lasts me 5 years minimum from purchase.

Games are always gpu limited. The GPU makes the biggest difference and it's worth upgrading that every 2-3 years.

People are paying £1200 for Ps5 on gumtree so it's not like consoles are cheap either if your too dumb to wait or pre order.

 

[Richdog]

Its still a very enjoyable hobby for me, i really do enjoy reading about new hardware and seeing peoples builds, and youtube videos. But i have learnt to be very patient over the years, and while i do plan on getting a 5950x with a 3080/6800xt i am happy to wait another 12 months for it.

Patience is indeed a virtue, but I am currently stuck with a 1660 Super and to carry on gaming how I want to for the next 12-18 months I really want to stick a 6800XT or similar in my desktop and then forget about it.

 

[Kenai]

I've been saying that for ages but they always come back with future proof

Gotta get that futureproofing in so you can last the 6 months until the next incremental increase you need to purchase to stay future proof

 

[Richdog]

Gotta get that futureproofing in so you can last the 6 months until the next incremental increase you need to purchase to stay future proof

I think the term "future proof" should formally be changed to "future resistant".

 

[shadow_boxer]

Its still a very enjoyable hobby for me, i really do enjoy reading about new hardware and seeing peoples builds, and youtube videos. But i have learnt to be very patient over the years, and while i do plan on getting a 5950x with a 3080/6800xt i am happy to wait another 12 months for it.

Same. It's enjoyable but frustrating too esp when you see prices of the latest consoles. Still running an i7 6700K clocked to 4.5GHz and had been thinking about getting a Ryzen 5000 series but happy to wait. Will let the price gouging settle for now.

 

[Brutal biff]

I've been saying that for ages but they always come back with future proof or next gen consoles will boost development as they have 8 cores.

I'm rocking a 3600x with only 6 cores and I bet it lasts me 5 years minimum from purchase.

Games are always gpu limited. The GPU makes the biggest difference and it's worth upgrading that every 2-3 years.

People are paying £1200 for Ps5 on gumtree so it's not like consoles are cheap either if your too dumb to wait or pre order.

I'm rocking a r5 3600 and a radeon 5600 xt and its playing everything I throw at it ok so I'm in no rush upgrade just yet it is crazy how much people are wanting the latest tech to play guinea pig

 

[chrcoluk]

Its consoles that stress me, they too complicated.

As an example.

PS4 can only store recorded media internally so bigger internal storage headaches.
Xbox has unspecified reserve storage by default, auto deletes old recorded content without warning or prompts. External storage has to be formatted for either games "or" recorded media, but cannot be used for both, cannot make both partitions on one physical volule like a PC, want external games and DVR, then buy 2 external storage. NVME storage is propriety only overpriced.
Consoles removed optical out for audio and require a new controller on each update. These controllers may be unsatisfactory such as the super noisy dpad on the xbox one/series.

PC meanwhile is more flexible and a open system.

 

[Chojin]

The current situation is quite poor I would say.

I've had the core of my system since early 2009 (i7 920 with 12GB ram). I upgraded the disk to SSD and the graphics card from a 4870 to a 290 Pro. There isn't a single component in the machine that cost me more than £250. Even adjusting for inflation that price point appears to have disappeared.

I'm still keeping my powder dry as I have a backlog of Steam games to play. There are so many great indie games with low system requirements. The lack of good value hardware upgrade options is easily keeping temptation at bay. I think it would take something like an 8k per eye VR headset to get me to do a full upgrade now.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

I’m over the whole pc scene tbh. Ridiculously expensive gpus, lack of supply, unoptimised games that only require the expensive hardware to attain barely improved visuals over their console counterparts. Now that I’m getting older I just want to sit back in my lounging chair in front of a big 4K tv

Gotta get that futureproofing in so you can last the 6 months until the next incremental increase you need to purchase to stay future proof

Heh, bingo.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Gotta get that futureproofing in so you can last the 6 months until the next incremental increase you need to purchase to stay future proof

It is wise sometimes to wait for better or more refined versions if flaws are apparent. However just buy and enjoy. Too many people care about numbers in benchmarks rather than enjoying the reason why they bought the hardware in the first place.

I run one benchmark to make sure everything is working okay and then uninstall to game on. Don't care about memory tweaks or overclocks bar a quick and dirty one on the GPU.

The new Ryzen auto clocking tool is the future. Click a button. Input settings into bios from tool and job done.

 

[Smokey Deza]

I'd like to upgrade and replace my 2500k with a 5600x. Can't though, since every clown with a 3600x wants one too.

 

[Curio]

As somebody who got into PC building / gaming during the 3dfx v nVidia fanboy wars of the late 90's, I can say it's always been horribly toxic. I've been done with PC's for a few years now. Built a new one recently for MS Flight Sim 2020 and it's barely been turned on. It's just too much hassle. I don't want to have to mess around with drivers, patches and crashes on a weekly basis. I did really enjoy speccing it out and building it though. As usual, if you concentrate on the low-to-mid-range stuff, you get tons more to choose from, get great value, and avoid all the fanboys arguing over benchmarks. I just enjoy the simplicity of my Nintendo Switch a lot more. And I can sit in bed and play Diablo III, which is awesome.

 

[V F]

you used to be able to build a top spec pc including the case for like 1k with spending like a 100 on a case.

I think it was about 7 years ago that everything suddenly got covered in RGB leds and tripled in price,

even motherboards are ridiculous prices these days.

if ram went up in price as much as everything else we would be spending like 300-400 on decent ram.

barely any games come out to even make it worth upgrading for me as well.
I'm still on a i5 4670k @ 4ghz and a 980ti..

I'll probably just wait until next year or so

The parts I ordered came to 2.1k and that was no PSU or graphics card which is in the other PC. I'll need to at some point order another PSU for that computer after its PSU comes out.
However, the case that was ordered was only £115 for the Lian-Li.

I've really started now feeling the performance hit on 3770K, DDR3 16GB 1600Mhz.

Its still a very enjoyable hobby for me, i really do enjoy reading about new hardware and seeing peoples builds, and youtube videos. But i have learnt to be very patient over the years, and while i do plan on getting a 5950x with a 3080/6800xt i am happy to wait another 12 months for it.

Yep, it's still very, very enjoyable for me. I'm finding no stress. I was tempted to wait until the next generation of CPUs but then I decided I'll be waiting forever. Another 3 - 6 months of waiting. So screw it. Researched the parts I was after, done, ordered.

Overall it felt no different to 2012, 2010, 2006, 2004, 2003 and 2001. Only difference was the massive spike in prices from 2012 to 2020.

 

[Werewolf]

When did enthusiasts start selling perfectly good high-end cards BEFORE they’d actually got their shiny new one in their hands?

This time around, there appears to be a bunch of people who’ve managed to find themselves without an GPU...

That's a thought that occurred to me.
But I'm the sort of idiot who likes to hang on to old hardware for troubleshooting/friends.
I'm also running a PC that apart from the video card and hard drives is something like 5 years old, I'm hoping to upgrade it next year, but I'll keep the old one complete bar the drives (I always build in a new case, specifically so I have a working machine).

I have a lot of sympathy for people waiting for parts, but at the same time understand that it's not the retailers fault and suspect that the buyers for every company are probably fed up of things (I was watching Airplane the other day and the moment I saw the old controller with the "I picked the wrong week to give up.." I thought of Gibbo and the CS guys).
Nowhere near the same value, but I've been waiting on an order of model parts/paints for ~3 months now because some of them have been held up by a little ongoing worldwide health issue.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

When did enthusiasts start selling perfectly good high-end cards BEFORE they’d actually got their shiny new one in their hands?

This time around, there appears to be a bunch of people who’ve managed to find themselves without an GPU...

Thats easy they want to sell them while the price is still high and before the new cards launch because after the value will plummet everyone selling 2080TI's being a prime example, they also thought they'd be able to pick up a new card easily and thats where it all fell apart. So basically they gambled and lost. I've still got my old card its worth less now but at least I'm still able to game

 

[WantoN]

I've just watched it all unfold with a smirk on my face. I find the whole thing faintly ridiculous.

I've had a good chat about it now and then, and I'm absolutely delighted AMD has a horse in the race, but honestly I think most people are like us, and it's a very select few who are acting like crazies.

I mean imo, buying multiple GPUs so you can pick one, or so you can game on the next gen a few days earlier, is absolutely mental, but it seems quite common place.

Hype has definitely built over the years, and I think part of that is us getting older, and seeing younger people join the scene. I also think you're right; the socio-political landscape is tense, people are bored, and they desperately want something to be excited about.

I'm very much in the hang back, buy second hand camp. Almost my entire rig is second hand, and it performs wonderfully at 3440x1440. Im also about 4 years behind the times on AAA titles. I just buy them on sale and play a lot of Indies, old favourites and top titles from a few years back. I play at almost Ultra, get great frames and a very enjoyable experience.

I look at all this the same way I do pre-orders, especially digital ones; people are crazy, let them get on with it.

Many of us benefit directly from the madness the moment £1200 cards start selling for £500

 

[Derek W]

Forward note: when I say "stressful" it is all in the context of a hobby. This isn't life or death or something that I spend my time worrying about and this is more of an amusing reaction to what I've seen over the last few months.

I am generally a patient man and have sat back throughout all of this FOMO hype crap of the last months leading up to the new generation of GPU and CPU reveals without pulling the trigger on anything. However, now that everything is finally revealed from both the Nvidia and AMD camps, does anyone else just want to get this all over with and start enjoying their games again? I mean seriously, when did generational hardware reveals become this draining?

The manufacturers are so desperate to sell, and users are so desperate to buy, that in their haste to be first at all costs, some manufacturers are almost purposefully screwing up their precious launches and many users are purposefully whipping themselves up into a frenzy by checking rumour sites 5x per day and attention-seeking techtubers 5x per day. Then on top of that people are torturing themselves by pre-ordering at crazy gouging prices and then literally waiting for weeks, or even months, to get their products. Amongst all this we then of course have the forum ****-posting that we all somehow seem to get drawn into to some degree, some more 'passionately' than others. I mean yeah, we always had fanboys to some degree, but now it's like a nerdy version of football hooligans.

I have spent the last or so years out of the desktop PC hardware race as I have been gaming mostly on laptops, so I reduced my demands accordingly. I remember that even when I was at the bleeding edge of PC upgrading, that it used to be a comparatively relaxing and harmonious as far as hobbies went, you just waited for a release and then bought it. Now, it seems to have turned into a stress-inducing ****-show for many people and the level of impatience, compulsion and FOMO I have seen are often veering towards the irrational.

Am I looking back at previous generational hardware launches with rose-tinted glasses, or have things really got so bat-**** crazy over the last 5-10 years?

Well, I think the 6800 launch is a final **** you to the consumer in 2020. Every major launch this year has been terrible. Instead of just a hit to the wallet, consumers now face a hit to the dignity and self-respect in the process of trying to get one. You sit there refreshing a page , put something in your basket, hope you are quicker than someone else... only to find you weren't and it went to someone else instead? That's the new normal... intense feelings of frustration for hundreds of thousands of people when truing to part with their money for what should be a mass-produced product releases with the proper stock and supply to at least stay in stock for more than 15 minutes? We are not talking about an exclusive Rolex or a rare car here... it's a damn piece of PC hardware.

Add in all of the dodgy stuff such as price gouging and employer-grabbing of stock from unscrupulous webshops and sellers and I think I will never buy a product at launch again unless large stocks are guaranteed and well publicized in advance.

Patience is indeed a virtue, but I am currently stuck with a 1660 Super and to carry on gaming how I want to for the next 12-18 months I really want to stick a 6800XT or similar in my desktop and then forget about it.

Do you guys suffer from any particular reading difficulties? Or it a more of a general IQ thing.

I think its more of an IQ thing, but not on our part. I've highlighted a few gems from your posts which summed up my earlier post. Just in case you missed it

Spoiler

My go to answer to situations where people are involved......because people are idiots.

So to sum up, toys out the pram cos he has no patience, posts on a forum to vent his 'stress' and is acting irrationally! However, after all..................

Spoiler

it's a damn piece of PC hardware.

Spoiler

it's a damn piece of PC hardware.

Spoiler

it's a damn piece of PC hardware.

Spoiler

it's a damn piece of PC hardware.

Spoiler

it's a damn piece of PC hardware.

 

[Richdog]

As somebody who got into PC building / gaming during the 3dfx v nVidia fanboy wars of the late 90's, I can say it's always been horribly toxic. I've been done with PC's for a few years now. Built a new one recently for MS Flight Sim 2020 and it's barely been turned on. It's just too much hassle. I don't want to have to mess around with drivers, patches and crashes on a weekly basis. I did really enjoy speccing it out and building it though. As usual, if you concentrate on the low-to-mid-range stuff, you get tons more to choose from, get great value, and avoid all the fanboys arguing over benchmarks. I just enjoy the simplicity of my Nintendo Switch a lot more. And I can sit in bed and play Diablo III, which is awesome.

There was alsways some toxicity but it was never this level of obsession and compulsion that I see today. There was the occasional nut, but people were mostly getting along and brand loyalty wasn't yet as vitriolic as it is today.

There's definitely a lot more choice in the lower and mid range, but I don't upgrade frequently so would prefer to put in a high-end part then forget about it and enjoy gaming for a couple of years.

That's a thought that occurred to me.
But I'm the sort of idiot who likes to hang on to old hardware for troubleshooting/friends.
I'm also running a PC that apart from the video card and hard drives is something like 5 years old, I'm hoping to upgrade it next year, but I'll keep the old one complete bar the drives (I always build in a new case, specifically so I have a working machine).

I have a lot of sympathy for people waiting for parts, but at the same time understand that it's not the retailers fault and suspect that the buyers for every company are probably fed up of things (I was watching Airplane the other day and the moment I saw the old controller with the "I picked the wrong week to give up.." I thought of Gibbo and the CS guys).
Nowhere near the same value, but I've been waiting on an order of model parts/paints for ~3 months now because some of them have been held up by a little ongoing worldwide health issue.

I used to always have a crappy CPU and GPU as a temporary solution inbetween upgrades as I used to buy and sell a lot... bit like what I have now in my rig. It was great passing down parts to my dad too. Ahh, simpler times.

Hype has definitely built over the years, and I think part of that is us getting older, and seeing younger people join the scene. I also think you're right; the socio-political landscape is tense, people are board, and they desperately want something to be excited about.

I'm very much in the hang back, buy second hand camp. Almost my entire rig is second hand, and it performs wonderfully at 3440x1440. Im also about 4 years behind the times on AAA titles. I just buy them on sale and play a lot of Indies, old favourites.

I look at all this the same way I do pre-orders, especially digital ones; people are crazy, let them get on with it.

Many of us benefit directly from the madness the moment £1200 cards start selling for £500

You may be right chap, I guess I just wasn't expecting this level of fubar surrounding the launches, having not had to worry about that for the last years with laptops it kind of surprised me. And yeah your upgrade strategy makes sense and I do miss the UK second hand market scene... it made upgrading so much easier!

 

[WantoN]

You may be right chap, I guess I just wasn't expecting this level of fubar surrounding the launches, having not had to worry about that for the last years with laptops it kind of surprised me. And yeah your upgrade strategy makes sense and I do miss the UK second hand market scene... it made upgrading so much easier!

I buy exclusively from the Members Market mate. The Trust system and the general awesomeness of members makes it worry free and fairly priced from people who cared for them I like I would

 

[Psycho Sonny]

It's only stressful if you chase pixels.

B450
3600
1650 super

Paired with a 144hz 27" 1080p monitor and you are golden and for relatively cheap too.

I've got 1080p,1440p and 4k screens and trust me you cannot see the pixels on a 27" screen unless you are using a magnifying glass with your face right on top of the screen. At a normal distance it's fine.

My normal screen is 32" 1440p 165hz and it's great but I could easily live with a 27" 1080p. Laptops on the majority are 1080p and crystal clear. I've downgraded my phone from a 4k screen to whatever it is now and I've not noticed any difference.

People are chasing resolution when in reality on such a small screen it makes no difference. The reason why it makes a big difference on TV also isn't the resolution but the bitrate of the content. Netflix 4k looks so much better than HD because the bitrate and compression is so much better. It's not because it's 4k. Give 1080p content the same bit rate and guess what it also would look a lot better.