[Vitoethiche]

Well we always seem to have nostalgic threads where people speculate about why FM was so much better in its days of yesteryear. I would like to propose another point of discussion. I got out of the Performance PC building game when my Geforce 6800GT went up in smoke and melted the AGP port on my NF7-S. Since then I've had newer systems, just nothing that's been so cutting edge. I've been much more interested in non-traditional use PC's (HTPC, SFF netbooks, Home automation, etc) and modding (for silence, coolness, passive PSU, passive system, etc) in the last few years.

I remember coming onto these forums "back in the day" and reading about all of the crazy things people were doing - setting up folding farms, extreme case mods, LN2 cooling, water cooling, etc etc. It blew my mind what some people came up with on these forums and posted about. Now, though, it seems like there are far less "pioneers" on here who talk about and actually work on pushing the envelope of computing. I feel like there are a lot more people on here who are entirely content with keeping their system build easy, untouched, and un-tinkered/modded, or stock. It seems like a few years ago, a thread about a non-traditional PC topic, like wiring managment, water-cooling, case-modding, or even a general "hey look what we could be using a PC for, I'm going to try and do it and let you all know how it turns out, thread would garner a lot of attention and response from readers. Today, though, I feel like most of that discussion has left these boards. I feel much more at home reading SilentPCReview or AVS HTPC forums than I do reading threads here. 3 years ago someone could have made a thread on FM discussing an innovative computing topic and gotten lots of feedback/support/discussion on the idea. I don't think that happens very much at all on these forums today. Anyone else feel this way too?

[xresultsearch]

Yes, and I can think of a few reasons:

- 3Dmark is no longer viewed as the "ultimate benchmark"
- Overclocking has become easier. Motherboard BIOSes have come a long way, and the cooling peripherals industry as well.
- Performance gains from overclocking are less meaningful nowadays with so few killer game apps out there to take advantage of it.

[k5wTvu9f]

It's also much harder to impress people with 3D benchmarks than it was ten years ago.

[Virosponna]

Performance gains from overclocking are less meaningful nowadays with so few killer game apps out there to take advantage of it that's it in a nutshell, and it's why I don't bother tweaking too much, although i have some moderate overclocks. anyways, back in the day, overclocking a P3 or an 1800xp, your internet would be faster, office would load faster, ect.. nowadays, you really only see benefits when encoding video and similar.

[GitaraMoya]

If it is a decently coded game, it will run at 60fps, if it is not, it will run like **** regardless how much I tweak/oc my rig, so why bother really

[bug_user]

Yes, and I can think of a few reasons:

- 3Dmark is no longer viewed as the "ultimate benchmark"
- Overclocking has become easier. Motherboard BIOSes have come a long way, and the cooling peripherals industry as well.
- Performance gains from overclocking are less meaningful nowadays with so few killer game apps out there to take advantage of it.

Spot on with the second and third points. Those are the two critical components, although I'd generalize the third point away from killer game apps. It's even simpler, IMO. Hardware is just crazy powerful these days so you're looking at an elementary problem of spending effort on diminishing returns. It's less a dearth of games and more that they run fine so why bother.

Another point is, perhaps, that members from then are 10-odd years older now. I'm an old man. I just want a quiet computer that doesn't crash and I can build one that's ridiculously overpowered, practically silent and reliable with virtually no effort. Many members are at the points in their lives where they might be more willing to spend money simply buying higher-end parts than spending time on extracting the most value out of their lower-end components.

[k5wTvu9f]

Very true. Ten years ago I had a vacuum cleaner for a computer. As in the noise levels. Now that I think about it I can hardly believe I didn't mind sitting beside such a loud PC for hours on end.

For the last five years I have had to own that silent computer because silence is beautiful. I'm only 28, but was 18 when I started playing with 3DMark.

[ruforumczspam]

Along with what Inept said, this is one of the older enthusiast forums out there. You guys were doing it before it was "mainstream" and when amazing gains could be had. Really, this is one of the places that helped to make things the way they are now. Easier for more people to become Power users. Thats a more broad term than it was 10 years ago. People just getting into it now wouldn't be able to work some of the magic people were 10 years or more ago.

But yeah, I think most of the folks around here just want a good, stable, well running machine anymore. There is so much knowledge in many of the members here, it really is amazing. What you guys (and others like you) were doing then, has been bottled up and made easier for the masses today.

[Kuncher]

I think the fact that for quite a while now I have underclocked my cpu so it runs as cool and quiet possible goes with this theory. It is still plenty fast enough for general usage. I see no reason to upgrade.

[natahololll]

I agree with YCH.

Watercooling back in the day involved me buying a waterblock from an obscure source, going down to autozone to buy a radiator and wetter water, going to an aquarium to buy a pump and tubing and spending hours assembling the damn thing.

Watercooling today involved me walking into best buy and 10mins later had the H50 cooling my comp for $60.

I don't even feel wasting my time pushing my system to it's limits. I'm not going to see any real benefits from getting this i7 past 4ghz.

[Rqvtwlfk]

Tweaking your PC, watercooling, among others are much more accessible these days everyone's doing it. It's not just for the elite anymore. With the exception of SSD HDs, has anyone bothered tweaking Windows 7 to the point you gained 10%+ performance? I left mine stock because the speed doesn't matter anymore as I have enough.

[ptolerezort]

I now only edit games .ini where theres a real issue, years ago it was mandatory to try and tweak it.

[LarpBulaBus]

There is nothing pioneering about making existing hardware / software run faster.

[Pa33anger]

There is nothing pioneering about making existing hardware / software run faster.*

*Unless nobody has made it run that fast before. Then it's pioneering.

[Siliespiriulk]

Tweaking your PC, watercooling, among others are much more accessible these days everyone's doing it.

Agreed. I remember years ago reading some of the water cooling threads (something I have never tried) with interest and amazement at what some people were doing; custom water blocks, DIY radiators etc. etc.

Now, even my local PC store here in Hull, which sells all sorts of stuff from second hand laptops and systems from £80 upwards, sell custom built water-cooled cases all ready to go for about £200.

No need to learn anything yourself these days, if you have the cash.

[Heopretg2006]

For me it was the high, because of the potential danger involved, every overclock felt like climbing a mountain nobody'd climbed before [thumbup], made me feel "unique" too, which was very important for me in my teenage years. Now everything's "safe", there's a million web pages and even motherboard manuals describing in detail how to overclock, man everybody can do it, and there's barely any risks involved.

It's boring and way too accessible for everybody. That's it for me in a nutshell (of course agree with everything posted before, just the emphasis is slightly different for me)

[LarpBulaBus]

*Unless nobody has made it run that fast before. Then it's pioneering.

No it's not. It's skillful. You don't think nVidia / ATI already know which point their chips will catch fire at? They are the pioneers, FM is full of skillful modifiers and hobbyists.

[Zwnkkvle]

I think because 3Dmark doesn't receive so much interest anymore, not so many enthusiasts come here. A lot of people who used to overclock can't be bothered anymore and defiantly there is less to gain from day to day use by it.

[Rqvtwlfk]

I think because 3Dmark doesn't receive so much interest anymore, not so many enthusiasts come here. A lot of people who used to overclock can't be bothered anymore and defiantly there is less to gain from day to day use by it.

It's not that, it's just that we've seen it all before, and usually done better, in games.

Games like Quake had benchmarking in them, but 3DMark was in a different era in terms of graphics; now practically every game does benchmarking and graphics on par or better.

The 3DMark2003 backlash started the whole dwindling appetite on this forum IMHO.

[JetePlentuara]

Seeing as you can run Crysis on a laptop these days, there's not really much point in an overpowered desktop PC for gaming purposes anymore.

No real point in overclocking a 2Ghz CPU to 4Ghz if it means your game goes from 200fps to 300fps, likewise for graphics.

For web browsing and general day to day use, a nice quiet average C2D laptop with intergrated graphics is totally fine for me these days, and if I want to play games I've got a PS3...