

More to do with earlier boom in Windows 7 and netbook sales









Comments     Threshold


RE: Solved it
By Pirks on 5/12/2011 11:46:08 AM , Rating: 2
only the PC gamers upgrade frequently
It's a lie, most PC gamers don't upgrade frequently anymore since the game studios went console. No need to upgrade your GPU anymore (which used to be the only bottleneck in getting high enough FPS, unless you ran Atom which PC gamers never used to play games of course)

I have pretty old Radeon 5850 and it runs even the super duper rendering beauty monster Metro 2033 on 1980p monitor with highest graphics settings without breaking a sweat, all the other games like Consolized Crysis (AKS Crysis 2) gimme even higher FPS.

Just forget about that "frequent PC upgrades" myth already, ok? It's DEAD. Crysis was the last game people were buying GPUs for, and it was how many years ago? Four!

P.S. almost noone buys GPUs for Metro 2033 these days since noone knows about it, it's not a heavily marketed megablockbuster like original Crysis, hence it doesn't count.

RE: Solved it
By Gzus666 on 5/12/2011 11:53:36 AM , Rating: 2
Cool story.

RE: Solved it
By Pirks on 5/12/2011 12:21:01 PM , Rating: 1
oops, 1980p == 1080p

RE: Solved it
By Azethoth on 5/13/2011 1:18:55 AM , Rating: 2
I was totally gonna call BS but then you changed it to 1080p.

RE: Solved it
By AssBall on 5/12/2011 12:22:21 PM , Rating: 2
Depends what you mean by "frequently". The 5850 is still a 150$ card, and only about a year and a half and 1 generation old. That is plenty new, to "most" PC gamers. Again, depends what you mean by "frequently"? For me it is ~ every 2-3 years, for my buddy it is every 9-12 months, and we are both avid gamers with constrained video card budgets.

RE: Solved it
By Pirks on 5/12/2011 12:37:46 PM , Rating: 2
3 years is kind of normal (my pre 5850 card laster for 3 years, it was one of the first nVidia 8800 ones), but if your buddy replaces GPUs every 9 months - something is definitely wrong with him, there is no need to replace GPUs every 9 months these days, he could have bought a decent GPU, say one of the early 8800 from nVidia or later he'd get early 5800 series from ATI and stay with those for 3 years easily. he must be crazy or something...

RE: Solved it
By AssBall on 5/12/2011 12:52:44 PM , Rating: 2
Crazy? Yeah enthusiasts of any sort usually are a bit crazy. Some people upgrade their cell phone every year too, which is crazy to me. Some people collect coins... whatever floats your boat, right?

RE: Solved it



RE: Solved it




RE: Solved it
and now we don't need faster hardware,

I'm generally an enthusiast, so upgrades occur often.


RE: Solved it

RE: Solved it
By RjBass on 5/12/2011 1:59:17 PM , Rating: 2
Game makers are coming back to the PC market since the current generation of consoles are showing their age. I assume they will move back to the console side when the next generation comes out. A good example of how game makers have gone back to PC is Battlefield 3. Here is some more reading on the subject -,opinion-...

RE: Solved it
By hughlle on 5/12/2011 2:09:28 PM , Rating: 2
I'm on a 4850 i've had for years and years, and a silly little 2.4ghz q6600 and 4gb lowly ddr2, not a game out there that i can't play faultlessly. In the past i'd have been spending £500 a pop on new video cards, i havn't seen a single game that would require an upgrade in years, let alone one good enough to justify an upgrade.

RE: Solved it
By Smilin on 5/12/2011 2:13:10 PM , Rating: 2
I'm not sure if I would blame consoles but I agree.

For the last couple years hardware has been ahead of the software. I've switched from buying a new card every other generation to buying N-1 every other generation. A $200-$250 upgrade buys me what used to be a $600 upgrade.

But it's not black and white either..Gamers might not require the bleeding edge anymore but you won't find them with crusty old machines either.

RE: Solved it
By piroroadkill on 5/13/2011 4:29:34 AM , Rating: 2
I pretty much agree. The part of me that has hardware lust wants to get a new graphics card, but there's no way I can justify spending money on a new one (I have 4890). It still plays everything fine.

