[occurrini]

You know for PC parts, it's okay for most of you but a poor guy like me it's just frustration.

Am on 775 socket still and I'd be happy to stay on it but I need to upgrade to a quad core, at least a Q6600 and even one of them second hand is going to fork out at £70. And then to go from a 9600gt to something decent and future proof looking at over £80 again.

Now might not sound much but ealisticly will have to spend £200 for a worthy upgrade when I have tummies to feed, bills to pay and a music studio to keep in shape (which requires hardware upgrades etc)

There was a time when I could upgrade for allot cheaper then this.

[VIAGRA-]

There was a time when I could upgrade for allot cheaper then this. I don't think so TBH. Graphics cards have risen, for sure, but processor prices, disregarding inflation/deflation, are around the same really. In real terms, by far cheaper. Same with motherboards, RAM.

[LongaDonga]

Motherboard prices though, if you want top of the range, have grown very expensive though - although you do get what you pay for in this day and age.

[Licacivelip]

excuse me when i say this, but consoles ftw !!

I could afford better hardware, but why should i ?
my 360 and ps3 absolutly fulfill my gaming needs, whilst my 939 pc still does everything else very well.

[b3JOkwXL]

excuse me when i say this, but consoles ftw !!

I could afford better hardware, but why should i ?
my 360 and ps3 absolutly fulfill my gaming needs, whilst my 939 pc still does everything else very well.

lol ftl.. They don't look too good, you have a controller and they lag. Besides, the games are usually shorter, simpler and more expensive.

Anyway, I can't say I agree. Hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper, at least that's how I got the impression.

[occurrini]

I don't think so TBH. Graphics cards have risen, for sure, but processor prices, disregarding inflation/deflation, are around the same really. In real terms, by far cheaper. Same with motherboards, RAM.

I upgraded from an Athlon 64, with 7900gs to a e4500 775 machine with 8800gts for cheaper then what I can upgrade right now and getting a less performance gain now to!

Hardware is not getting cheaper and cheaper, I been waiting for over a year for a very good GPU for around £50 to be a good upgrade from a 9600gt, but nothing worthwhile. For people on a mega low budget it's generally not got cheaper. You know earlier this year everything went up 25%, there was a post here about it.

[AmfitNom]

I don't think so TBH. Graphics cards have risen, for sure, but processor prices, disregarding inflation/deflation, are around the same really. In real terms, by far cheaper. Same with motherboards, RAM.

With regards to GFX cards I don't think we've had such great bang for buck

[occurrini]

I kind of agree but if your on a super tight budget and allready have a system such as a 9600GT with 775 socket dual core then upgrading is difficult. As to get something thats a worthwhile upgrade to a 9600gt need to spend £80+ which is hard for someone like my self currently, ideally need at least a 5770 which are around £100 f. Add that much for a CPU upgrade also and it gets a bit much. I could upgrade a few years ago for half of what I can now and got more of a performance boost with the upgrade also.

[QbCp7LaZ]

Seems like Harddrives are the only thing you get more for your money as time passes.
If you cant afford to upgrade just dont worry a C2D cpu and 9600gt isnt exactly crap just lower a few settings on the handlefull that need it, then enjoy the game.

Im glad i bought my 2x2GB PC8500 at the low point of DDR2 as it cost twice as much not long after, i think my PSU also costs more now then when i bought it.

[occurrini]

Yeah Hardrives and PSU's can pick up cheap.

Don't get me wrong either, if your upgrading from something very old, like a 7600gt or lower, P4, Athlon 64, you can get a new system with a big improvement of performance cheap, and be happy. Just if your already on a C2D, 8800gts/9600gt etc then it's more difficult if your real poor.

Am just pissed of also to be honest, one of my memory sticks just died after we had a power surge in the area, I've had to put my back up sticks in which don't clock for **** and now I cant clock my cpu past 2.7 which is a problem in today's gaming world as get low frames. Even so clocked at 3.4 did not get the best frames either. If I had a GTX460 or something similar in performance allong with the e6400@3.4ghz with new ram Id be more then happy for quite a long while I think. But for my audio work am really needing 4 cores to maximize what am working on.

Am currently on a 7300LE for a few weeks while the 9600gt is in RMA though.

[Mark_NyB]

Well back in the day to get a 9800pro it was £140 and that was a particularly cheap point in the past.

So I dispute your claim.

[occurrini]

Was doing other things in life back then with the 9800pro rather then pure PC stuff. So don't know how it was that far back, I did have old PC's though back then but never really took interest in it that far as was to busy with other commitments.

Just talking from personal experience though from when I have got into the PC world properly, mainly from the P4, Athlon 64 days and GPU's such as 6600GT, X1650, 7*** etc, what I had in the past.

[medifastwoman]

You can get a 4850 for $100 (about 50pounds right?)which is much better then a 9600gt. and the 9600GT used to cost a lot more.

I guess i just don't see what your complaining about since HW has gotten cheaper, especially video cards.

You can get decent MB's for $50 and CPU's for $25-$100

[syptopsygieds]

My experience on upgrading. In the last 2 years, It seems to have slowed down a hell of alot. My rig isnt the most pimp out there.. Q9650, cant remember the price, but it was on an offer. It clock's ok, can get it over 4Ghz, but i just cant be bothered to these days, Used to overclock, but cant realy see the point now.

Also bought an ati 5850 on release for £220( had abit of spare cash at the time) cant belive the card is still selling for the same as the release price.

I'm realy not trying to brag here( my system isnt the best by a long shot. I feel my cpu is abit fail(stuff like video conversion)

what I'm trying to say is take your time, and maybe avoid the Q processors if you can, unless there cheap, cos the "I" range seems to pimp.

If your budget is only £70 or so. My Advice would be to save it until its abit bigger.

[medifastwoman]

what I'm trying to say is take your time, and maybe avoid the Q processors if you can, unless there cheap, cos the "I" range seems to pimp.

Also if money is an issue, why not AMD?

[b3JOkwXL]

I kind of agree but if your on a super tight budget and allready have a system such as a 9600GT with 775 socket dual core then upgrading is difficult. As to get something thats a worthwhile upgrade to a 9600gt need to spend £80+ which is hard for someone like my self currently, ideally need at least a 5770 which are around £100 f. Add that much for a CPU upgrade also and it gets a bit much. I could upgrade a few years ago for half of what I can now and got more of a performance boost with the upgrade also.

To get a card for 50£ that's better than med-end takes time. The point is, a med-end card is cheaper now than it was 5 years and it was cheaper than that one 10 years ago. At least, that's how it is here. Currently, I can get a GTX480 for 500$ which is ridiculously cheap for a high end GPU. For about 4 years ago when the 8800Ultra was new it had a start pricetag around 1000$ but it took at least a year or two to get around 600-800$ depending on the brand.

However, at the same time you need to spend exponentially more money to see a good gain from your previous setup. Just compare a mainstream CPU to a Extreme one and with some overclocking skills you will achieve almost the same performance anyway.

[RogHammon]

A year and 2 months ago I built a new pc for 420 bucks after tax (bought everything but the GFX card from microcenter).
Coolermaster PSU 550w
Cheap case
GTX 260 216
320gb sata WD HDD
e5200 (OCd to 3.8)
4gb ddr II
Gigabyte P31 matx mobo
dvd drive


I dunno but I think prices today are excellent. There may not be as many options/competitive prices but certainly there deals to be had with decent performance.

[occurrini]

You can get a 4850 for $100 (about 50pounds right?)which is much better then a 9600gt. and the 9600GT used to cost a lot more.

I guess i just don't see what your complaining about since HW has gotten cheaper, especially video cards.

You can get decent MB's for $50 and CPU's for $25-$100

4850 is not that much better then the 9600gt, as it's superclocked version + clocked further by myself makes it t faster then a stock 9800gt and close to a 9800gtx/4850. As said though it's generaly cheap if your upgrading from an older system then something like this but to make the jump from a 9600gt/4850 type performance when your pretty damn poor is a very hard thing to do.

I guess am just moaning to much, but it's hard being poor, and you do become frustrated in today's world when you need more performance out of your system. The 25% increase on all hardware over here earlier in the year kind of killed it a bit though, because when I was on my older old rig I could upgrade cheaper while getting more of a boost in performance.

A new CPU would help allot though, a quad clocked over 3ghz would open up the GPU more and with today's games it would boost performance quite allot, but it's not cheap even on a 775 to go to a quad from the c2d. Ideally would like a q9450, but meh they still go for £200 new and £140/£150 second hand, if going to upgrade to that might as well just go full out on a i5 or something but then comes all the added cost of that to.

Most frustrating part is I build allot of rigs each year, i7's and the like, and see friends/family on these sick machines I can't personally upgrade to do due my current real life situation, I'll be back on my feet in a few years hopefully.

[medifastwoman]

Again, if money is such an issue, why stay Intel, that cpu for ~400USD (are my exchange rates that far off?) when you could get so much more with that money (like a much faster AMD CPU/MB combo

[RokgroofeTeme]

excuse me when i say this, but consoles ftw !!

I could afford better hardware, but why should i ?
my 360 and ps3 absolutly fulfill my gaming needs, whilst my 939 pc still does everything else very well.

I totally agree with this. At least, I did up until about 2 months ago when I built a top of the line PC. Before I was still impressed by 360's visuals. Now, I'm disgusted by them