Generally, I feel like PC upgrades aren't quite as exciting as they used to be. In the 80s and 90s, upgrading a computer processor, storage, RAM, etc. was significant because upgrades were usually a fairly big leap in what you gained with the upgrade. When running software, it was very easy to tell that you had upgraded something because things would run noticeably faster in general, or there was some other significant benefit (such as goign from a monochrome display to a color display). These days though, it's more difficult to notice the difference with an upgrade unless you're doing something that's fairly intensive (such as video processing, high-resolution gaming, etc.).

I had wanted to buy a Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics card since they were announced in late 2020. However, that has been fairly difficult with the supply chain problems and scalpers buying what they can and selling them at higher prices.

Months ago, I had put my name on EVGA's wait list for a couple of their RTX 30 series cards. My name came up a few weeks ago, and I decided to go ahead and buy one, since it was direct from EVGA and thus wasn't a scalper price. I bought one of their RTX 3080 Ti cards; and even compared to the RTX 2070 Super that I previously had, I'm impressed with the performance increase. One game I had tried a copule years ago was the then-newly released Quake 2 RTX demo. I had tried it with RTX enabled and at 4K resolution, though it was a bit slow with the RTX 2070 Super. A lower resolution helped. But with the RTX 2080 Ti, at 4K and with RTX turned on, the frame rate more than doubled for me. It was like playing Quake 2 all over again and feeling excited about the new graphics capabilities. The RTX lighting does look fairly cool.

Another recent PC game I've enjoyed is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. I just find it relaxing to fly around with it, and the visuals are quite detailed (it dynamically creates 3D scenery using data from Bing Maps). The 3080 Ti card helps with frame rate and an overall smooth experience with Flight Simulator 2020 too.

Nightfox
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I had wanted to buy a Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics card since they were announced in late 2020. However, that has been fairly difficult with the supply chain problems and scalpers buying what they can and selling them at higher prices.

Speaking of which, any chance you're willing to sell your old GPU? (^_^)

You know it's bad when...my 1060 3GB can be sold *used* for double what I
paid for it...It's still doing fine, for 99% of the games I play, especially since I only have a 1080p display...Cyberpunk 2077, though, not so much... ~\(-_-)/~

And I really want to trace some rays, dangit!

McDoob
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Re: Re: PC gaming hardware
By: McDoob to Nightfox on Mon Mar 21 2022 05:44 pm

Speaking of which, any chance you're willing to sell your old GPU? (^_^)

I've already sold it..

You know it's bad when...my 1060 3GB can be sold *used* for double what I

Yeah, it's a crazy market. I sold my old GPU on eBay, and the bids reached higher than I paid for it new, though toward the end of the auction, the 2 highest bidders backed out and asked me to withdraw their bids.. The first said he would be unable to pay in a reasonable time (seemed sketchy) and the other said he had already bought another when he was outbid (I suppose that's understandable). I withdrew both bids (I'd rather have a paying buyer), and the high bid ended up being less than what it would have been if the 2 high bidders hadn't backed out. It ended up selling for less than I paid for it new - and then eBay ended up charging about $40 of fees.. :/

The winning bidder was in another country (Canada), and eBay showed that they ended up paying about $44 in shipping (I didn't realize that as I shipped it via eBay's Global Shipping program) plus another $30 or so in import fees.. They ended up paying about what it cost new for me due to those fees. :/

Nightfox
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Generally, I feel like PC upgrades aren't quite as exciting as they used to be. In the 80s and 90s, upgrading a computer processor, storage, RAM, etc. was significant because upgrades were usually a fairly big leap in what you gained with the upgrade. When running software, it was very
easy to tell that you had upgraded something because things would run noticeably faster in general, or there was some other significant
benefit (such as goign from a monochrome display to a color display). These days though, it's more difficult to notice the difference with an upgrade unless you're doing something that's fairly intensive (such as video processing, high-resolution gaming, etc.).

I had wanted to buy a Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics card since they were announced in late 2020. However, that has been fairly difficult with the supply chain problems and scalpers buying what they can and selling them at higher prices.

Nightfox

That is something I've thought about too. In the 90s I went through a few computers in quick succession, and each time the upgrade was very noticeable. The difference between having 8 colours and 256 colours of a pallet of 256,000 is very noticeable. Going from having no digital sound to digital sound when I got my Sound Blaster Pro was a game changer, as was the first Hard Drive, the first Modem, Floppy Disk. Speed increases were significant because they made a big difference with what you could do, as did memory. Going from the C64 Vic chip to SVGA, huge difference.

My main desktop computer is over 12 years old, and while some games today look a lot more detailed, most monitors have the same resolution that mine currently has, and I wouldn't see any real difference in almost all my daily activities. I upgraded from a GTX 285 to a GTX 1030 graphics card and barely noticed any difference.

That is part of why I haven't upgraded, I won't see much benefit at all, except for a few games I wouldn't mind running, but even then, some I'm interested in (Dusk, Ion Fury) still run on that rig.

I think the bigger difference I've noticed is not from hardware, but software, using Linux to its full extent, using extensible software, doing things the "unix" way. Moving to FVWM, configuring it, setting up my system the way I like it, learning Emacs, these made more of a "productivity" improvement than uprading the hardware could ever do.

I do kind of miss those days when we went from CGA to EGA to VGA, when the next soundcard made the difference between mono or stereo, or FM synthesis only or FM synthesis with digital sound, or increases in memory and hard drives spaces which were much appreciated because things were so much tighter back then.

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Re: Re: PC gaming hardware
By: boraxman to Nightfox on Tue Mar 22 2022 10:40 pm

noticeable. The difference between having 8 colours and 256 colours of a pallet of 256,000 is very noticeable. Going from having no digital sound to digital sound when I got my Sound Blaster Pro was a game changer, as was the first Hard Drive, the first Modem, Floppy Disk. Speed increases were significant because they made a big difference with what you could do, as did memory. Going from the C64 Vic chip to SVGA, huge difference.

Yes, those kinds of upgrades were very significant. I was particularly happy with upgrading from monochrome to VGA graphics and adding a sound card to my PC. At the time, my PC was a hand-me-down PC when I was 12; when I saved up some money, I was excited about buying a Sound Blaster 16 to upgrade from the Sound Blaster Pro I had. Each new upgrade through the 90s was a very noticeable increase in speed and capability. It was an exciting time.

My main desktop computer is over 12 years old, and while some games today look a lot more detailed, most monitors have the same resolution that mine currently has, and I wouldn't see any real difference in almost all my daily activities. I upgraded from a GTX 285 to a GTX 1030 graphics card and barely noticed any difference.

Similar with me - Before I built my current desktop in 2019, I'd had my previous PC for about 8 years, and I probably could have kept using it for longer. These days, I think PCs can last longer because newer upgrades just aren't quite as significant as they used to be.

I think the bigger difference I've noticed is not from hardware, but software, using Linux to its full extent, using extensible software, doing things the "unix" way. Moving to FVWM, configuring it, setting up my system the way I like it, learning Emacs, these made more of a "productivity" improvement than uprading the hardware could ever do.

I've used Linux quite a bit over the last 20 years, mainly in work situations, but some at home as well. I've considered switching to Linux on my main desktop PC at home, but the thing that keeps me using Windows is the software I use. I think the main thing is I like playing PC games sometimes, and most PC games are developed for Windows first.

Nightfox
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Yes, those kinds of upgrades were very significant. I was particularly happy with upgrading from monochrome to VGA graphics and adding a sound card to my PC. At the time, my PC was a hand-me-down PC when I was 12; when I saved up some money, I was excited about buying a Sound Blaster
16 to upgrade from the Sound Blaster Pro I had. Each new upgrade
through the 90s was a very noticeable increase in speed and capability. It was an exciting time.

I got my first computer at the start of 1991, it was a VZ 200. Between 1991 and 1994, I had the VZ 200, a Vic 20, Commodore 64 and an XT. Then I was loaned in 1994 an Amstrad PC2386. So I saw some rapid changes with these second hand machines.

The most interesting was the 386, because of the great multimedia capability, the colour monitor, and all the potentials it had. These days, I kind of wax nostalgic about these old machines, in particular the XT which was kind of like a "classic car". Slow, clunky, but stylish. The monochrome monitor with the CGA text was also kind of unique.

Similar with me - Before I built my current desktop in 2019, I'd had my previous PC for about 8 years, and I probably could have kept using it
for longer. These days, I think PCs can last longer because newer upgrades just aren't quite as significant as they used to be.

I'm quite surprised how well this machine has held up. I can run a modern web browser, modern sites, Zoom, everything just fine. It used to be that software would overtake your hardware, but that hasn't happened, except for games. Oddly, the only non-game software which my machine doesn't support that I used to use regularly is a Gemini client!

This I think is also in part to Linux, and how it uses less resources. Even my Laptop, a Thinkpad T43 is still useful, though web browsing is one activity that can be slow.

The fact is, computers a while ago become fast enough to do what we mostly need them to do, with a good interface. I would argue this occurred 20 years ago or so, but really, there is an excess of computing power for most household computing tasks now.

I've used Linux quite a bit over the last 20 years, mainly in work situations, but some at home as well. I've considered switching to
Linux on my main desktop PC at home, but the thing that keeps me using Windows is the software I use. I think the main thing is I like playing PC games sometimes, and most PC games are developed for Windows first.

True. I was happy with a dual-boot scenario, using Linux most of the time, and using Windows when required. But the need to use Windows waned over time, even for games and now, I don't need it, even for games. Even if I did need Windows to play some games, I'd still rather dual boot.

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BY: McDoob(21:4/135)

You know it's bad when...my 1060 3GB can be sold *used* for double what
I

I still have a 1070 8gb.


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