What exactly is the problem with low/middle-line PC Gaming Hardware?

[CrankyCorvus]

If your PC performs at what you consider an acceptable level, good for you. My point being this is what YOU consider an acceptable level. A rig of your spec may satisfy someone else just as much (maybe even more) but another person may want more. This, as most things, is entirely subjective.

I haven't seen much of this supposed hatred toward budget hardware, though. Usually people just want the other person to have the best rig they can get within the specified budget (if one hasn't been specified, they ask for one). I have only read these kinds of threads on PC-related forums, so that may be why I haven't encountered this supposed hatred of low/middle-end components.

 

[veloper]

i think its more a case of building for the long term. somethign built to high specs will last longer before needing to be upgraded

Or you could just upgrade when you need it and save yourself some money.

I think thats what hes saying, getting high end components means they wont need to upgraded for a long time, heck i had a computer that last from 2007 (it was second hand from my uncle and built before that) till 2013 and the only thing i changed in that entire time was GPU (brought one that was descent enough at the time) because the original one broke.

Would you have replaced the CPU one year earlier if it had been 5% slower? The diminishing returns in the high end market, make it that you pay through the nose for a little extra performance, but the gamer still end up replacing that stuff almost just as quickly.

Gamers with meanstream hardware haven't needed to upgrade for a long time either, because the requirements to run the software have barely increased with time, after the 360's debut.
There's little reason to shell out $800 for a CPU (or GPU), when a $500 alternative performs almost just as fast and even a $300 unit still does very well.

In regards to your first paragraph, im not saying something should be upgraded the moment something better comes out, i merely meant that if you have high end stuff now, it will take alot longer before it becomes low end

And this is where we've differed right from the beginning. The period lasts about as long. That $800 Titan will need replacement shortly after that $300 GTX will need it, because the performance difference is not so great as the ongoing technological progress being made. Both will also lack the lastest directx features within a couple years.
There is no future proofing for PCs.

The new CPU probably didn't matter at all, if the old one's worth $200 or more, because even modern games (like metro or c3) with all their bells and whistles switched on, are almost entirely bottlenecked by even the fastest GPUs on the market. A core i5 will be idling, waiting for the titan to finish it's instructions.

The only worthwhile remaining question is how much a few extra percent in performance is worth to the player right on the day of purchase.

Well i dont know the exact percantage difference between my two machines is but i can tell you this, going from a
Windows XP
2Gb Ram
2.7 (roughly) Ghz Dual Core (over clocked btw)
Nvidia GTX 460 768 mb

to a

Windows 7
8 Gb Ram
I5 3570k 3.4 Ghz Quad Core
Nvidia Gtx 660 Ti

made one hell of a difference. And look im not saying it was 100% critical that i upgraded but i had the money to do so and it has made a huge difference for me. My old one was only just able to run Skyrim on lowest settings with at 30 FPS with lots of graphical glitches and no chance of modding with out frying my machine. The new beast is running Skyrim maxed at 60 FPS ive only encountered one graphical glitch (it is a bethesda game) and i have modded the hell out of it.

And no one here has said that a high end PC is 100% future proof and will never have to be upgraded, im just saying that higher end components will likely be lasting that person a bit longer, while providing a better performance now.

Going by those specs, you're not even following your own expensive advice!
A core i5 and 660ti are hardly high end units. You went for something more sensible and affordable in the mainstream-performance area instead. The CPU + GPU you bought cost roughly about $200 + $200.

 

[spartandude]

I haven't seen much of this supposed hatred toward budget hardware, though. Usually people just want the other person to have the best rig they can get within the specified budget (if one hasn't been specified, they ask for one). I have only read these kinds of threads on PC-related forums, so that may be why I haven't encountered this supposed hatred of low/middle-end components.

Sadly you do get some elitist ass holes out there who do believe that if you dont have the most up to date stuff you shouldnt be PC gaming. I don't know why. However most people are helpful although they almost always believe you should spend more money than your budget. When i upgraded my rig i asked for some advice on steam, i showed them what i was thinking on getting and told them my budget then all of a sudden people were surgesting builds £100 and more over my budget with some saying its the only way to play current games maxed (they were wrong).

 

[spartandude]

i think its more a case of building for the long term. somethign built to high specs will last longer before needing to be upgraded

Or you could just upgrade when you need it and save yourself some money.

I think thats what hes saying, getting high end components means they wont need to upgraded for a long time, heck i had a computer that last from 2007 (it was second hand from my uncle and built before that) till 2013 and the only thing i changed in that entire time was GPU (brought one that was descent enough at the time) because the original one broke.

Would you have replaced the CPU one year earlier if it had been 5% slower? The diminishing returns in the high end market, make it that you pay through the nose for a little extra performance, but the gamer still end up replacing that stuff almost just as quickly.

Gamers with meanstream hardware haven't needed to upgrade for a long time either, because the requirements to run the software have barely increased with time, after the 360's debut.
There's little reason to shell out $800 for a CPU (or GPU), when a $500 alternative performs almost just as fast and even a $300 unit still does very well.

In regards to your first paragraph, im not saying something should be upgraded the moment something better comes out, i merely meant that if you have high end stuff now, it will take alot longer before it becomes low end

And this is where we've differed right from the beginning. The period lasts about as long. That $800 Titan will need replacement shortly after that $300 GTX will need it, because the performance difference is not so great as the ongoing technological progress being made. Both will also lack the lastest directx features within a couple years.
There is no future proofing for PCs.

The new CPU probably didn't matter at all, if the old one's worth $200 or more, because even modern games (like metro or c3) with all their bells and whistles switched on, are almost entirely bottlenecked by even the fastest GPUs on the market. A core i5 will be idling, waiting for the titan to finish it's instructions.

The only worthwhile remaining question is how much a few extra percent in performance is worth to the player right on the day of purchase.

Well i dont know the exact percantage difference between my two machines is but i can tell you this, going from a
Windows XP
2Gb Ram
2.7 (roughly) Ghz Dual Core (over clocked btw)
Nvidia GTX 460 768 mb

to a

Windows 7
8 Gb Ram
I5 3570k 3.4 Ghz Quad Core
Nvidia Gtx 660 Ti

made one hell of a difference. And look im not saying it was 100% critical that i upgraded but i had the money to do so and it has made a huge difference for me. My old one was only just able to run Skyrim on lowest settings with at 30 FPS with lots of graphical glitches and no chance of modding with out frying my machine. The new beast is running Skyrim maxed at 60 FPS ive only encountered one graphical glitch (it is a bethesda game) and i have modded the hell out of it.

And no one here has said that a high end PC is 100% future proof and will never have to be upgraded, im just saying that higher end components will likely be lasting that person a bit longer, while providing a better performance now.

Going by those specs, you're not even following your own expensive advice!
A core i5 and 660ti are hardly high end units. You went for something more sensible and affordable in the mainstream-performance area instead. The CPU + GPU you bought cost roughly about $200 + $200.

Dude i never said people have to buy the top of line stuff or that they should, merely that there are advantages in buying high end stuff. What i brought is still Mid-High end and was within the price range i could afford. Yes idealy i would like something a bit more but this is serving me very well, maxed out most games out there inclduing The Witcher 2 (without ubersampling as it drops my frame rate to about 40).

 

[veloper]

i think its more a case of building for the long term. somethign built to high specs will last longer before needing to be upgraded

Or you could just upgrade when you need it and save yourself some money.

I think thats what hes saying, getting high end components means they wont need to upgraded for a long time, heck i had a computer that last from 2007 (it was second hand from my uncle and built before that) till 2013 and the only thing i changed in that entire time was GPU (brought one that was descent enough at the time) because the original one broke.

Would you have replaced the CPU one year earlier if it had been 5% slower? The diminishing returns in the high end market, make it that you pay through the nose for a little extra performance, but the gamer still end up replacing that stuff almost just as quickly.

Gamers with meanstream hardware haven't needed to upgrade for a long time either, because the requirements to run the software have barely increased with time, after the 360's debut.
There's little reason to shell out $800 for a CPU (or GPU), when a $500 alternative performs almost just as fast and even a $300 unit still does very well.

In regards to your first paragraph, im not saying something should be upgraded the moment something better comes out, i merely meant that if you have high end stuff now, it will take alot longer before it becomes low end

And this is where we've differed right from the beginning. The period lasts about as long. That $800 Titan will need replacement shortly after that $300 GTX will need it, because the performance difference is not so great as the ongoing technological progress being made. Both will also lack the lastest directx features within a couple years.
There is no future proofing for PCs.

The new CPU probably didn't matter at all, if the old one's worth $200 or more, because even modern games (like metro or c3) with all their bells and whistles switched on, are almost entirely bottlenecked by even the fastest GPUs on the market. A core i5 will be idling, waiting for the titan to finish it's instructions.

The only worthwhile remaining question is how much a few extra percent in performance is worth to the player right on the day of purchase.

Well i dont know the exact percantage difference between my two machines is but i can tell you this, going from a
Windows XP
2Gb Ram
2.7 (roughly) Ghz Dual Core (over clocked btw)
Nvidia GTX 460 768 mb

to a

Windows 7
8 Gb Ram
I5 3570k 3.4 Ghz Quad Core
Nvidia Gtx 660 Ti

made one hell of a difference. And look im not saying it was 100% critical that i upgraded but i had the money to do so and it has made a huge difference for me. My old one was only just able to run Skyrim on lowest settings with at 30 FPS with lots of graphical glitches and no chance of modding with out frying my machine. The new beast is running Skyrim maxed at 60 FPS ive only encountered one graphical glitch (it is a bethesda game) and i have modded the hell out of it.

And no one here has said that a high end PC is 100% future proof and will never have to be upgraded, im just saying that higher end components will likely be lasting that person a bit longer, while providing a better performance now.

Going by those specs, you're not even following your own expensive advice!
A core i5 and 660ti are hardly high end units. You went for something more sensible and affordable in the mainstream-performance area instead. The CPU + GPU you bought cost roughly about $200 + $200.

Dude i never said people have to buy the top of line stuff or that they should, merely that there are advantages in buying high end stuff. What i brought is still Mid-High end and was within the price range i could afford. Yes idealy i would like something a bit more but this is serving me very well, maxed out most games out there inclduing The Witcher 2 (without ubersampling as it drops my frame rate to about 40).

There are small percentile advantages for a big price, yes, and those advantages apparently weren't enough to sway even you. You're not even in the 300 range.
We shouldn't be arguing, we should be agreeing that high end(as in 500 and up) isn't worth it.

 

[CrankyCorvus]

Sadly you do get some elitist ass holes out there who do believe that if you dont have the most up to date stuff you shouldnt be PC gaming. I don't know why. However most people are helpful although they almost always believe you should spend more money than your budget. When i upgraded my rig i asked for some advice on steam, i showed them what i was thinking on getting and told them my budget then all of a sudden people were surgesting builds £100 and more over my budget with some saying its the only way to play current games maxed (they were wrong).

Well, asking for advice from the Steam community on this subject was your first mistake. I've never read a good discussion there, not about hardware anyway. As I said, I only really browse forums on websites specialized in PC hardware. The people there are usually much more helpful.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

I've got a fairly decent machine and I've been able to run a lot of my games maxed out. However I am now hitting the limits of my 550ti where I am not able to get consistent 60frames+ at max 1080p settings.

Anything CPU intensive I can handle, its just my GPU holding me back.

 

[aozgolo]

Now I won't go so far as to say there isn't a graphical limit on my own specs that can be pushed to the point of making things shaky. Even my go-to example of Skyrim I have slowed to a crawl with mods that affect the water detail in the game, I'm sure with a more powerful rig that would be playable, however that's a mod, not a game feature.

I'm sure there's ways to further maximize my game performance, but the performance I currently get is easily acceptable to any current gen console players because it is superior in every regard, and I haven't looked at all the specs for PS4/XB1 but it's probably on par or superior to them as well in terms of performance.

I may have been a little too strong with my choice of the word "hate" but the reason I care and the reason I mention it is because it generally comes across in one place, as others have mentioned, which is when people ask for advice building a rig on a specific budget. I've got nothing against people suggesting a better set-up with the money you allot, but by and large every time I see one of these threads I'm seeing people trying to suggest builds way outside the budget the OP stated with the excuse of "they won't be satisfied with anything less and won't get the kind of performance they want out of the games". As I mentioned before I built my rig almost 2 years ago for about $500, I probably could have done a little better but in general what I ended up with is something I don't feel I'll need to be replacing anytime soon.

I mean I get it, people that have these high end rigs may not want to settle for less but they invariably try to argue to others that any standard less than the one they have is not going to work fine, and I simply don't see that as the case. There may be some people out there that will only eat choice cut grass fed filet minon but for someone who can usually only afford to buy hot dogs, an 8$ thin as cardboard diner steak is a rare treat. Not that I'm comparing low-mid end rigs to subpar steak, but basically it comes down to how tech enthusiasts tend to treat these and those looking to buy them.

Perhaps I'm just more unlucky about running across this, but one of the reasons I keep throwing out Skyrim so often is because back when I built this rig in 2012 I specifically asked about it's specs in regards to how well it could play that game and repeatedly was told that I'd be lucky to get it to run well at low end settings. So what I'm really more "annoyed" with is the misinformation perpetuated by certain tech enthusiasts claiming that anything less than the best is not worth it.

 

[spartandude]

i think its more a case of building for the long term. somethign built to high specs will last longer before needing to be upgraded

Or you could just upgrade when you need it and save yourself some money.

I think thats what hes saying, getting high end components means they wont need to upgraded for a long time, heck i had a computer that last from 2007 (it was second hand from my uncle and built before that) till 2013 and the only thing i changed in that entire time was GPU (brought one that was descent enough at the time) because the original one broke.

Would you have replaced the CPU one year earlier if it had been 5% slower? The diminishing returns in the high end market, make it that you pay through the nose for a little extra performance, but the gamer still end up replacing that stuff almost just as quickly.

Gamers with meanstream hardware haven't needed to upgrade for a long time either, because the requirements to run the software have barely increased with time, after the 360's debut.
There's little reason to shell out $800 for a CPU (or GPU), when a $500 alternative performs almost just as fast and even a $300 unit still does very well.

In regards to your first paragraph, im not saying something should be upgraded the moment something better comes out, i merely meant that if you have high end stuff now, it will take alot longer before it becomes low end

And this is where we've differed right from the beginning. The period lasts about as long. That $800 Titan will need replacement shortly after that $300 GTX will need it, because the performance difference is not so great as the ongoing technological progress being made. Both will also lack the lastest directx features within a couple years.
There is no future proofing for PCs.

The new CPU probably didn't matter at all, if the old one's worth $200 or more, because even modern games (like metro or c3) with all their bells and whistles switched on, are almost entirely bottlenecked by even the fastest GPUs on the market. A core i5 will be idling, waiting for the titan to finish it's instructions.

The only worthwhile remaining question is how much a few extra percent in performance is worth to the player right on the day of purchase.

Well i dont know the exact percantage difference between my two machines is but i can tell you this, going from a
Windows XP
2Gb Ram
2.7 (roughly) Ghz Dual Core (over clocked btw)
Nvidia GTX 460 768 mb

to a

Windows 7
8 Gb Ram
I5 3570k 3.4 Ghz Quad Core
Nvidia Gtx 660 Ti

made one hell of a difference. And look im not saying it was 100% critical that i upgraded but i had the money to do so and it has made a huge difference for me. My old one was only just able to run Skyrim on lowest settings with at 30 FPS with lots of graphical glitches and no chance of modding with out frying my machine. The new beast is running Skyrim maxed at 60 FPS ive only encountered one graphical glitch (it is a bethesda game) and i have modded the hell out of it.

And no one here has said that a high end PC is 100% future proof and will never have to be upgraded, im just saying that higher end components will likely be lasting that person a bit longer, while providing a better performance now.

Going by those specs, you're not even following your own expensive advice!
A core i5 and 660ti are hardly high end units. You went for something more sensible and affordable in the mainstream-performance area instead. The CPU + GPU you bought cost roughly about $200 + $200.

Dude i never said people have to buy the top of line stuff or that they should, merely that there are advantages in buying high end stuff. What i brought is still Mid-High end and was within the price range i could afford. Yes idealy i would like something a bit more but this is serving me very well, maxed out most games out there inclduing The Witcher 2 (without ubersampling as it drops my frame rate to about 40).

There are small percentile advantages for a big price, yes, and those advantages apparently weren't enough to sway even you. You're not even in the 300 range.
We shouldn't be arguing, we should be agreeing that high end(as in 500 and up) isn't worth it.

Ok im going to lay down my thoughts on this all here and make it easy to understand and then i am simply walking away.

1. There is nothing wrong with low end PCs, assuming it is running the games you want to play
2. There is nothing wrong with mid end PCs, assuming it is running the games you want to play
3. High end PCs are expensive, however they do offer certain advantages such as higher performance and future proofing
4. If you are upgrading a computer or buying a new one set your self a budget
5. Buy the highest end thing with in your budget
6. Do keep in mind high end expensive stuff today will be lower end and cheaper in a few years, but you do have to uprgade eventually.

 

[spartandude]

Sadly you do get some elitist ass holes out there who do believe that if you dont have the most up to date stuff you shouldnt be PC gaming. I don't know why. However most people are helpful although they almost always believe you should spend more money than your budget. When i upgraded my rig i asked for some advice on steam, i showed them what i was thinking on getting and told them my budget then all of a sudden people were surgesting builds £100 and more over my budget with some saying its the only way to play current games maxed (they were wrong).

Well, asking for advice from the Steam community on this subject was your first mistake.

There are some mistakes we all make, releasing the Kraken (steam forums) was mine.

 

[CrankyCorvus]

So what I'm really more "annoyed" with is the misinformation perpetuated by certain tech enthusiasts claiming that anything less than the best is not worth it.

More like people who call themselves "tech enthusiasts" but they really aren't. An actual enthusiast knows better. This is certainly an annoyance I can totally relate to.

 

[veloper]

i think its more a case of building for the long term. somethign built to high specs will last longer before needing to be upgraded

Or you could just upgrade when you need it and save yourself some money.

I think thats what hes saying, getting high end components means they wont need to upgraded for a long time, heck i had a computer that last from 2007 (it was second hand from my uncle and built before that) till 2013 and the only thing i changed in that entire time was GPU (brought one that was descent enough at the time) because the original one broke.

Would you have replaced the CPU one year earlier if it had been 5% slower? The diminishing returns in the high end market, make it that you pay through the nose for a little extra performance, but the gamer still end up replacing that stuff almost just as quickly.

Gamers with meanstream hardware haven't needed to upgrade for a long time either, because the requirements to run the software have barely increased with time, after the 360's debut.
There's little reason to shell out $800 for a CPU (or GPU), when a $500 alternative performs almost just as fast and even a $300 unit still does very well.

In regards to your first paragraph, im not saying something should be upgraded the moment something better comes out, i merely meant that if you have high end stuff now, it will take alot longer before it becomes low end

And this is where we've differed right from the beginning. The period lasts about as long. That $800 Titan will need replacement shortly after that $300 GTX will need it, because the performance difference is not so great as the ongoing technological progress being made. Both will also lack the lastest directx features within a couple years.
There is no future proofing for PCs.

The new CPU probably didn't matter at all, if the old one's worth $200 or more, because even modern games (like metro or c3) with all their bells and whistles switched on, are almost entirely bottlenecked by even the fastest GPUs on the market. A core i5 will be idling, waiting for the titan to finish it's instructions.

The only worthwhile remaining question is how much a few extra percent in performance is worth to the player right on the day of purchase.

Well i dont know the exact percantage difference between my two machines is but i can tell you this, going from a
Windows XP
2Gb Ram
2.7 (roughly) Ghz Dual Core (over clocked btw)
Nvidia GTX 460 768 mb

to a

Windows 7
8 Gb Ram
I5 3570k 3.4 Ghz Quad Core
Nvidia Gtx 660 Ti

made one hell of a difference. And look im not saying it was 100% critical that i upgraded but i had the money to do so and it has made a huge difference for me. My old one was only just able to run Skyrim on lowest settings with at 30 FPS with lots of graphical glitches and no chance of modding with out frying my machine. The new beast is running Skyrim maxed at 60 FPS ive only encountered one graphical glitch (it is a bethesda game) and i have modded the hell out of it.

And no one here has said that a high end PC is 100% future proof and will never have to be upgraded, im just saying that higher end components will likely be lasting that person a bit longer, while providing a better performance now.

Going by those specs, you're not even following your own expensive advice!
A core i5 and 660ti are hardly high end units. You went for something more sensible and affordable in the mainstream-performance area instead. The CPU + GPU you bought cost roughly about $200 + $200.

Dude i never said people have to buy the top of line stuff or that they should, merely that there are advantages in buying high end stuff. What i brought is still Mid-High end and was within the price range i could afford. Yes idealy i would like something a bit more but this is serving me very well, maxed out most games out there inclduing The Witcher 2 (without ubersampling as it drops my frame rate to about 40).

There are small percentile advantages for a big price, yes, and those advantages apparently weren't enough to sway even you. You're not even in the 300 range.
We shouldn't be arguing, we should be agreeing that high end(as in 500 and up) isn't worth it.

Ok im going to lay down my thoughts on this all here and make it easy to understand and then i am simply walking away.

1. There is nothing wrong with low end PCs, assuming it is running the games you want to play
2. There is nothing wrong with mid end PCs, assuming it is running the games you want to play
3. High end PCs are expensive, however they do offer certain advantages such as higher performance and future proofing
4. If you are upgrading a computer or buying a new one set your self a budget
5. Buy the highest end thing with in your budget
6. Do keep in mind high end expensive stuff today will be lower end and cheaper in a few years, but you do have to uprgade eventually.

Well, bye-bye then.
Still, it's a shame you wouldn't even make an effort to argue point 3.
Point 1, 2 and 6 were never in contention. Point 5 just isn't helpful: a gamer may still want lots of bang per buck above a choosen performance level, even if he's got a couple 1000 to spend. Oh well.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Some people buy stuff to use others buy it to gloat, and some were plain told expensive is future proof so they buy that.
Of course they are taken to the cleaners with that bullshit, highest end hardware offers few percent improvement and massive price jumps so the only thing you do with that is burn your budget for upgrades that will be dirt cheap in a year or two when they actually come in handy.

 

[Foolery]

Even being able to run games at higher resolutions makes console ports prettier on PC. But yeah, you definitely don't need to max. I've got decent specs, but what I really like is performance. A solid 60 fps is great. PC gaming is all about customization and the option to set games to your preferences.

 

[loa]

Yeah, it is pretty hard to get the most cost efficient, solid options cause people will generally suggest the most state of the art tech.
If you're looking for other qualities such as silent running, sturdy hardware that will never overheat and doesn't cost much while being decent for gaming, you'll most likely be out of luck asking.
I've been there.

 

[the doom cannon]

Just gonna throw this out there. A 550 Ti is not exactly low end hardware. It may be 2 generations old, but lets take a look at what a new game is requiring. BF4 has a minimum spec of an 8800GT and a core2 duo. the 8800 is 8 generations old (if I did my addition properly), which means your 2 generation old gpu is still on the high end of hardware. I personally run a 570 gtx, and it's been a lovely card, since as long as anti-aliasing and vertical sync are off I can play just about everything on max, even while recording video at the same time. The reason people recommend the best is usually because the person asking for advice has not specified a budget, which means people will recommend the best thing available. If the person asking puts a little effort into their request, such as what they want to play, how much they want to spend, etc, then people responding have something to work with other than "whats a good setup to buy for a gaming computer."

 

[Caiphus]

I haven't seen *that* many people being disrespectful to those who buy their PCs on a budget. At least not around here. Maybe on the dedicated tech forums. But in fact, a lot of people around here seem more than happy to help people set up new PCs on the cheap.

Now, I'm sure that, like with anything, elitist pillocks *do* exist. And maybe I just haven't noticed them. But I dunno, most of the time I've seen people actually criticise PC builds because they're *too expensive* for what the buyer is getting (usually because it's a pre-built), or because the buyer has made silly purchasing decisions, such as a poor PSU, or water cooling for a $700 PC or some other strange silliness.

But yeah, if you see someone being a prat because they can't understand that you need to stick to a budget then tell them where to get off (within the forum rules, of course). If they're legitimately helping and not going (lol, where's the SLI Titans?) then they're probably fine.

For example, the PC in the OP is actually pretty good. One might say that the OP has spent too much on RAM, and could have maybe put the extra 60bux into the processor, GPU, or hard drive. But whatever.

 

[votemarvel]

Core i5-3330
8gb of RAM
GT640 (2gb)
120gb SSD for the OS. 1tb traditional hard drive for the games.
Windows 7 (x64)

The above gives me very good gaming performance at 1680x1050.