All at once or upgrade over time, how do you build yours?

[JCgames]

Im just upgrading a comp i built in 2021, that only cost me 650 at the time. I pulled the vid card 1060 6gb and 2 tb hdd. Old comp kept the sata ssd and the 550 ti rejoined the 3350/8gb, a fine back up.

new comp had a 1tb boot, 32 gb ram 10600 and a 650 ps, 240mm cooler, fractile case, with dvr. Awesome build/upgrade for 650 dollars and swapping parts. I really had planned to go all in on an entire build this time. But that comp is still hilding strong wirh what i play and i dont like the 200 chips and even the 1060 gives me smooth stutter free frames in outlaws albeit low fps on low settings, but im ok with that. Everything else is over 60 on high and records/edits just fine i decided to upgrade.

So upgrade time! Added a 2tb evo 980 plus a a year or two ago as back up but thats going to boot for 130, I was running out of room and price was right. Then jan 90 for another 32 ram, perfect for large edits to large vide files, plus a 4 bank of rgb looks sweet. This month 70 on 3 noctuna fans to keep the new OC cool bringing my chip to 5.1 ghz, extra power for edit/record. Till now 4.3 was fine but ill squeeze the cpu for a couple years verse all 6 to extend its life. Lastely 4 tb ssd for main edit and 8tb hdd for storagea of 100s of hours of vintage moto-x racing encoded from vhs vid camera to post online.

a 5060 ti 16 might see its way in eventually as my poor 1060 is loosing driver support, but maybe it can hold out till 6060s, but for some reason i feel i might have to cave and grab a 50 series.

So basically a 550 upgrade to what became an 800 dollar comp/upgrade. Anyway you slice it, its all great upgrades for the aging comp, but even better, all but the ram is just going to get swapped into my build. Which will just be board chip ram. Then this old rig turns into back_up cd ripper and kitchen recipe surfer. But hey, it will have a good run.

I know lots of folks prefer total builds, but i find i get better vaule, and my comps work longer for what i need while spreading out the cost over far longer. i get 2k+ dollar systems, but only shell out a bit at a time.

Maybe i should of made this its own post as a how do you build your comps
But im on my phone now and not sure i want to loose this whole thing in an errant copy paste

 

[Colif]

My last pc had so many replacement parts in it that by time I stopped using it, only 5 parts were original.
You can go a long way with the same PC if you want to. It was actually a good PC at the end... still is.
When it comes to replacing motherboard/CPU/ram you might as well make a new PC. That was my chain of thought. Going from AM4 to AM5, I had no choice. If I didn't have another use for my old PC, I could have just put new parts in old case. But the old one is going to my mother as hers needs to be retired before it stops working completely

I would make these last two posts a new thread if I could. I wonder if @Frindis or @Kaamos_Llama can do it, I could give them hints (or just merge into the https://forums.pcgamer.com/threads/random-hardware-topics.133648/ thread since its a good place)

 

[JCgames]

True you could but if i built that comp in 2020 it would cost well over 2 grand, not sure they even had 4tb ssds or 8tb hdds then, youd of been stacking a whole bunch of drives or spending a grand on just a single storage. Like my ram was 260 i think when it came out i think 64gb banks were in 500 range, i waited a bit, got the first set for 140, added the next for 90 and saved like 300.

Basically i make a build with planed upgrades, that way u end up with a comp that costs far more, but for a lot less and got to use it before it was 5 years old. Like i always alternate vid card and base sys. Some people like to match, but i find vid cards as long as the render what you want well, they hold up well. Honestly this comp was suppose to be a place holder as i didnt think ray trace was worth it then, but the way the editing worked out i thought this was the better route.

But afterbuying a vid card to extend the old sys, you then build a faster base to push the card. Then that card lags a bit and you get and then fresh card that isnt truely optimized, but you repeat and your back in the sweet spot for a while. Besides, doing this with the mid range chips it ends up working well. Say the 10900 paired with the 3060, is very similar to it paired with the 12600 2 years later you know?

Basically i try to power game budget systems and spread the cost and build over time. Maybe if i had 2500 id do it another way. My way is a bit more fun though i think. Deal hunt, wait, find the parts, upgrade, tweak... its like restoring a car, its more satisfying over time or at least thats how i feel.


Btw i agree, maybe a mid could do something about seperating these posts and merge them to a new header, this got way off track lol

 

[Colif]

The first sata 4tb ssd was sold in 2018, 4tb nvme was announced in late 2020.
The first 8tb ssd released in 2020.
First 8tb hdd in 2014 although it was for NAS and might have taken a while to get to consumers. More likely 2016.

I only had a 1tb nvme and a 3tb hdd in last PC, I added a 4tb ssd about 2 years ago.

My current PC recycled my GPU as its too expensive to buy them all at once, I find I start to make do with less capable parts if I have to weigh up cost of a GPU and the rest of system. Its why the previous system had a hdd at all, I had intended to put two nvme only in that system. Not buying the GPU this time let me get the storage I actually wanted.

Every pc I have owned had at least two GPU in it.
I remember one having three but I did use that PC for about 8 years.

1. One was replaced as it wasn't good enough for a game I was playing,
2. its replacement was from the 1st family of Nvidia cards that were DX 10. Just like 1st gen RTX cards, it was a bit underpowered - https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-gtx-260.c217 - it was killed when my PSU died,
3. I don't recall what next card was, all I know is it was AMD.

I did swap my CPU in the last system to make better use of my GPU. That increased my frame rate by about 40fps.

Monitors have been more of a reason for me to upgrade GPU than base systems. Having had two that both needed more than my current GPU could deliver have been driving forces in two of my upgrades.

 

[JCgames]

I agree with the two gpu's, id say nrealy all my systems had two gpus, because i tend to carry them over. Though my first build was a 4mb matrox millenia, which played starcraft and diablo, but when i got baldur's gate, it couldnt handle it, so that became my first upgrade i ever did, a creatice labs 16 mb monster! I even modded it and added a small fan to the little heat sink.

Building my 2k dollar p166, 32mb ram, 200 ps, 1gb hdd and a 4mb vid card... and that was the budget build! My how times have changed.... affyer that i was able to order parts from a wholesaler using my dads tv business. To bad we didnt know about it prior, but still budget comps have come a long way.


Btw thanks mods for the move

 

[Colif]

Parts have become cheaper compared to the past

Spoiler

Quotation of PC’s from 1989 for local college

20 x 286 systems @ $2895

• 16 bit 286 CPU @ 12.5 mhz
• 1mb ram expandable to 5mb
• Ems 4.09 supplied and supported
• Real time clock
• 40mb HDD
• 1 3.5 inch 1.44mb floppy
• 1 5.25 inch 360k drive floppy drive
• Serial port
• Parallel port
• 80287-8 maths co processor
• 16 bit vga card and tystar vga high res monitor
• 1 optical mouse

Special features

BMS 386 sx CPU module at 16 mhz with socket for 80387sx. Price = $495
BMS i486 CPU module at 25 mhz available March 1990

Standard upgrades
From 1mb to 1.5mb = $145
From 1mb to 2mb = $290
From 1mb to 3mb = $495
From 1mb to 4mb = $990
Replace 5.25 360k drives with 5.25 1.2mb drives = $35 per drive
Upgrade from 40mb to 80mb hdd = $495.00



Ethernet card
8 bit Ethernet card = $235
16 bit Ethernet card = $255

Software
MS Dox 4.0 = $110
MS Word Education pack of 10 users = $625
MS Windows 2.11 Education pack of 10 users = $388
MS Works Education pack of 10 users = $405

You get way more for the same amount of money now.
Only one company comes close and that is Apple. Compare their upgrade prices for storage to the cost of more ram above... some things never change

 

[mjs warlord]

Their comes a point in every rigs life where upgrading can turn your rig into a money pit.
X needs upgrading but Y cant handle it and then Z aint powerful enough to run it.

Take my 9 year old rig for example.

The tower COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
The cpu is Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-6800K (3.4GHz) 15MB Cache.
The motherboard is ASUS® ROG STRIX X99: ATX, USB 3.1, SATA 6 GB/s.
The ram is 16GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (4 x 4GB) ....
The graphics card is 8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GTX VR Ready!
The main drive is 480GB HyperX SAVAGE 2.5" SSD
The second drive is 960GB HyperX SAVAGE 2.5" SSD
The third drive is Sandisk 2TB SSD
The power supply is CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET.
The cpu cooler is Noctua NH-D15S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler

The rig can handle anything i throw at it and yes i know my ram is the weak point and mr. google says the mobo cant handle more than 3333Mhz which on the face of it is not much higher than i am using now so this is where my money pit would start.

Replacement mobo , better ram , i would then have a cpu that probably wont let the new mobo show its full potential .... you get where i am coming from.

So i think my best option would be to stick with what i got .. no upgrades and then one day a kick ass rig with the latest must have parts. Then of course what card to go for and the reason i say that is because the nvidea 40 and 50 series drivers are having a bad day.

 

[JCgames]

Similar to mine, its a delema now
It plays what i want, but the drivers/cards are getting thier final drivers and win 10 is going to loose its security updates.

Im so torn about updating to win 11 with this system seeing vid drivers are now going to be stuck in the past going forward. If security support is really only 30 dollars for the year id serriosly consider it, while i ponder what to do.

My plan was build a new system, then do a formate/reistall and lock the comp in off-line mode. But now, with the storage updates and actively using the comp for this edit project, im not sure. A friend was saying just go to 11, but im such a retro person and i have so much indy software im worried abouthow it will all run on 11. Even my efiting software is like 6 versions ago, so im not even sure it ever had a win 11 update.

Edit, seeing i could alwaysgo back to 10 and the couple things im using now work on 11 maybe i should try. I guess i should double check my edit software to see if their are issues with 11 /end edit

I really wish tech companies did security for 20 years, it feels like there should be some sorta law. Instead it just feels like an eletronuc tax to pad thier bottom line for share holders and money makers, they arent billionares for no reason.

 

[Colif]

all cards get left behind eventually. I think AMD have legacy drivers they expect all their old cards to use, and they aren't specific to models. At least the last drivers for the 1080 still know what it is. At least Microsoft won't change their driver model again any time soon so win 10 drivers would work on 11 or 12.

Nvidia pretty good supporting the cards as long as they do. Other hardware makers aren't so giving. Some just don't release drivers for their hardware on new versions of windows, they use it as a way to force people to upgrade.

Keeping same PC too long can leave you open to parts dying from old age. And finding replacement parts 9 years later can be difficult.

The power supply is CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET.

I wouldn't still use same PSU for 9 years, it might have been fine until now but its warranty was probably 5 years so its now living on borrowed time. I would replace PSU if it is that age. Dying PSU can cost more than just cost of the unit, can kill other things on its way out door - I know you know that.
Motherboards can die as well. Longer you use a PC the more chance things start to fail.

If its good enough for you, thats all that really matters.