Is it just me....

[old.trekker]

Is it just me or is the whole PC market becoming a joke.
2 years ago I paid £1200 for what was a fairly good system. 200 Mhz processor, 32 megs ram 2.4 gig Hd etc etc.For about 6 months everything is looking good.But the speed of progress is such that I am soon looking at a system that is becoming increasingly inadequate.You start toying with the latest games and your "fairly good" system is becoming "fairly cr*p".So you spend the best part of £100 on a 3D graphics card and things improve.Not for long.
Where does it end?
To upgrade to a decent spec I am looking at shelling out another £200 to £300 which in another 6 to 12 months will again be woefully inadequate.
It's just not right.....

trekker

 

[old.TUG]

yea its a bit of an arse, but i kinda look forward to it...

I mean, it cost me next to nowt really to get a kikass PC... 578MHz CPU for 55 quid is good stuff

But technology advances, and so does the software we run... so everybody has to upgrade sometime or other... its the same with any goods but the arsey thing is the PC industry advancements are immensly accelerated... good if we were all millionaires i spose

Ahh well, i dont let it get to me... i just shell out the cash - bit like phonebills - they get bigger all the time ;-P

 

[old.rockhard]

lo m8,

I know how you feel m8!

Reckon forward planning is the key?

Heres an example for ya:

You get BX mobo for £75-£90
P3 450 @ 600 £145
Cooler (Alpha) £40
128mb PC133 memory £150
Geforce Annihilator £150
TOTAL = £500 ish

This i reckon will last you 12 months!! LOL
Then you may want to change vid card and processor?
Another £300 (ouch!)

After that its another 12months probably then new mobo, processor and graphics card and if your unlucky? new memory!! (again!)
Another £350 - £500!

What im thrying to say is that if you add the two together and average over say two to three years your lookin at a minimum of £266ish (high end) and up to £500ish (top end) quid a year to keep your system up to date.

Oh by the way m8 - Dreamcast on the net ten times worse than PC with modem? ROFL!

Soz i couldnt join ya last night but had an attack of Zzzzzzzzzz!

Catch ya Sunday?

Cyas,

Rockhard

 

[lynchet]

I agree its a bummerbut then the alternative would be asking the manufacturers to cut down on research and deliberately hold back new technologies -- not really the way forward either !

I think you can get too taken up in what you "need" however, and I'm as guilty of this as anyone. Older systems can actually cope with most games if you turn details down etc but after you've had a new system you never want to do this, and always want the best and high details, so you start believing you HAVE to buy new stuff far earlier than you actually do.

Basically its much cheaper to stay a bit behind - the latest stuff is always disproportionately more expensive that the next product down which in most cases will work nearly as well, and will almost certainly have better driver support etc.