Legit Reviews

I probably already know the answer to this but,

I currently run a Powercolor 5870 PCS + with Catalyst 10.12 (I know I should update) with the rig in my signature. I am pretty happy with it for the games I play (except for Duke Nukem Forever, but that's the game ;( ).

So, would I buy anything by upgrading to a 6970 or would the money be better spent elswhere (like going toward building a Vail home server)?

Honestly I used to rebuild a new rig almost yearly but this one is going for a year and a half now. I did buy an SSD which did Wow me a bit but lately everytime I read reviews on new tech and get the itch the itch is less pronounced. I am starting to feel I could spend a couple grand building a new rig but the performance gain satisfied feeling is getting to be hollow.

Maybe I should start upgrading the GTO ;)

The problem here is console games. When I bought my first gaming card (Geforce 4 Ti 4400) in less than 6 months it was old news. Same thing when I replaced it with a 9800 Pro. Point here is the game development has stagnated a ton. There was no real reason for my purchase of the GTX 460. In terms of real world gameplay my GTX 260 was holding up fine at my monitor's resolution (1680x1050). So unless the money is burning a hole in your pocket or a number of games aren't running smooth with your desired res and settings I don't see why an upgrade is worth it at this point.

Major_A wrote:The problem here is console games. When I bought my fist gaming card (Geforce 4 Ti 4400) in less than 6 months it was old news. Same thing when I replaced it with a 9800 Pro. Point here is the game development has stagnated a ton. There was no real reason for my purchase of the GTX 460. In terms of real world gameplay my GTX 260 was holding up fine at my monitor's resolution (1680x1050). So unless the money is burning a hole in your pocket or a number of games aren't running smooth with your desired res and settings I don't see why an upgrade is worth it at this point.

That was kinda' my point Major_A and I agree 100%. Duke was a disappointment and I see more and more console ports rolling out. As well there just aren't many games due to release soon that are interesting me (I am itching for Diablo III, Torchlight 2, and Mass Effect 3). The games I play the most lately are "oldies" (still playing Freelancer for example) and run perfectly fine on this rig.

I just don't seem to be getting that "GAS" feeling anymore when looking at building a new rig and it kinda' sucks, I miss that feeling ;)

Maybe I'm just growing up (first PC modded was an 8088 in '83 and first build was a 386sx when the chip was first released in '88/'89 guess it's about time I grew up ;) ).

Maybe the Lounge is a better place for this post.

EDIT: Jeez I feel for the mods! This post was 14 minutes old before it got spammed

Major has the right of it. There just isn't any games out there that push the hardware. Which is why I think Nvidia and AMD are trying to push 3D and Surround gaming so you have to get multiple cards.

I spent $220 on my GTX560ti, which should be around as fast as your 5870 I believe, and I have been playing the DX11 update for Crysis 2, and it runs perfectly, everything does. Yes I felt odd buying this card because I usually go for a higher model.

You could upgrade now and you might gain 20% speed on the CPU and maybe more on the gpu if you spend the money on a 6970, but I dont think it will give you that much better of an experience.

Whats your monitor setup? Maybe move to a 27inc or 30inch 2560x IPS panel instead of a new tower.

Or whats your sound system? Or your chair even? I'd look at your setup past the computer for this year and upgrade there.

DaddyRabbit wrote:I just don't seem to be getting that "GAS" feeling anymore when looking at building a new rig and it kinda' sucks, I miss that feeling ;)

Same here. But I think most of that is due to a lack of money. At this point in time I'd rather update my HTPC than what I consider my main rig. It's nice getting that new hardware and putting it through the benchmarks after you get it setup. But eventually you just expect it to work and do it's job/function. Sure I'd like to have an i7 and a Z68 setup. But for what I do on my computer it isn't a necessity. I went from a P4 to an Athlon 64. It was a major upgrade over the P4 and it was 64 bit (even though there was no 64 bit support at the time)! From there it was an Opteron 170 a dual core processor with good overclocking potential. Then it was to a faster Core2Duo. Now I'm at my current quad core system. From here the only place to go is with more cores. But that's another issue. Less than 50% of the apps I use actually use 4 cores, so why do I need more? It seems like the industry as a whole is stagnating. Damn you smartphones and tablets!

DaddyRabbit, I feel your pain. What's the point in upgrading if you don't need it. I like the post about getting a better chair. The only reason I build new rigs is for F@H. Natasha who is a programmer(what she does for a living) is very happy with my first build. A intel QX6700 processor, 4 GB memory, and a 300 GB V. raptor hard drive. I think the video card is a Nvidia GTS 250 . I have a Nvidia GTX285 G.C. just laying around not being used. I did buy a new power supply, a corsair hx750 and a new case, a corsair 600t white edition. I have not even opened the boxes yet. I kind of am waiting to see what the new Intel and AMD processors are like. I might pull the trigger, but like you I don't feel the WOW factor anymore. Heck, Natasha uses her Apple I-Pad 2 more than the computers at home, we have three. I guess the point I would like to make is I agree with you and everyone else. I think that in the future, if we save our money, we can pull the trigger anytime we want. Time seems to heal all wounds.

okay so stop supporting devs who do crappy console ports... and dont pirate games. Buy games like Battlefield 3, and Arma 3 when they come out to support hardcore pc gaming. I know i will.

vbironchef wrote:DaddyRabbit, I feel your pain. What's the point in upgrading if you don't need it. I like the post about getting a better chair. The only reason I build new rigs is for F@H. Natasha who is a programmer(what she does for a living) is very happy with my first build. A intel QX6700 processor, 4 GB memory, and a 300 GB V. raptor hard drive. I think the video card is a Nvidia GTS 250 . I have a Nvidia GTX285 G.C. just laying around not being used. I did buy a new power supply, a corsair hx750 and a new case, a corsair 600t white edition. I have not even opened the boxes yet. I kind of am waiting to see what the new Intel and AMD processors are like. I might pull the trigger, but like you I don't feel the WOW factor anymore. Heck, Natasha uses her Apple I-Pad 2 more than the computers at home, we have three. I guess the point I would like to make is I agree with you and everyone else. I think that in the future, if we save our money, we can pull the trigger anytime we want. Time seems to heal all wounds.

I have a couple tablets, but I can't force myself to use them... I'm like you guys though and the wow factor has gotten less for me as well... I thought it was because I've been doing hardware reviews for nearly 10 years and just getting burnt out...

It seems obvious to me that most (if not all) of us here are tech junkies. We all would like to have the latest and greatest toys. But once you get the toy it somehow rarely leaves the box. I bought my netbook several years ago when I was working out of town all the time. I used it to watch movies on the plane rides. Since I quit that job I think I've used it a handful of times (that was 2 years ago).

It also doesn't help that as soon as you buy something it's already old news. There gets to be a point when you don't buy anything because "what's the point?".

I agree. I have not gotten real excited about tech, except for tablets, in a long while. I think the new core i7 is awesome but my core i7-920 sits here doing f@h while my q6700 is my main system. Video cards, you may laugh, I use an 8800GT in my main system and a GTX260 in the i7

It has gotten to be about the money for me. Tech upgrades are coming at ridiculously fast paces while the software is not even close to keeping up with the hardware. Why buy a new top of the line video card that costs $600 (guessing) to play a $50 game on a $1500 computer on a 24" monitor? Gaming on a big screen is cool but it is just too expensive to keep up anymore.

Apop - kinda funny as I was going to ask about tablet reviews and if you were going to be doing them lol

I bet if you looked at my old threads you would see me saying i would never game on a console cause the pc is better. I will change that viewpoint right now. I would rather play my ps3 because everything i buy for it works, without having to spend hundreds more to upgrade, not withstanding Move, which is 8billion times more a pain in the ass and more expensive than Kinect.

yeah, i got some tablets here... some reviews are half written on them... there isn't too much to benchmark on them, so it's mostly just all personal thoughts... boring reviews to me

What would you want to see on tablet reviews?

I just did a Windows Experience Index. It showed a 7.6 Windows Experience Index. The slowest part was my Intel 160GB SSD. I think that's fast enough for awhile.

Apoptosis wrote:yeah, i got some tablets here... some reviews are half written on them... there isn't too much to benchmark on them, so it's mostly just all personal thoughts... boring reviews to me

What would you want to see on tablet reviews?

I would really like to see a 2500Mhz GSkill Ram review of this: http://www.gskill.com/products.php?index=263 (I know it says coming soon but It is wrong - page not updated)

Wow, we are all in a bit of a tech funk at the same time, lol. I haven't read about squat the past couple of months and haven't even had the itch to buy anything. My water cooled rig needs some major TLC and an upgrade but I've put myself on a spending freeze for the rest of the year. Hopefully next year I can do some major upgrades on that rig. I guess it doesn't help that my sis-in-law is living in my computer room indefinitely.

As far as the tablets go nothing really excites me about them. A lot of money for what (seems to me at least) not a lot of hardware. My netbook from 3 years ago still does everything I need it to, and has freaking keyboard. Anyway, I agree with most of the above comments.

Like I said in this post - http://forums.legitreviews.com/about35419.html

It appears PCs are really slowing down... With NVIDIA delaying their Kepler GPU architecture another year could that be the death for mainstream Gaming PCs? It appears that kids under 14 aren't big into PC gaming or desktop PCs... With the next generation consoles all coming out next year and desktop graphics from NVIDIA being delayed could that be the one two punch needed to knock PC gaming out?

Everything right now is all smartphone, tablet PC and notebook oriented...

For example last summer in June/July Legit Reviews wrote 11 desktop video card reviews and on this day last yet the GTX 460 came out... This June/July we've only done one video card review... No real enthusiast or gaming graphics cards have come out this summer and this is the back to school shopping season...

I don't know that I agree 100% although I can see the shift away from the desktop. My 15 year old has a 360 hooked to a 61" DLP with surround and still prefers Steam and PC gaming (along with most of his friends). Other than FPSs he likes classic emulators and casual gaming which all point to the versatility of the PC over dedicated consoles.

That said, the hardware performance these days has far surpassed the software. Part of my recent jaded viewpoint is that I can't get that geek WOW feel from a new build when it doesn't gain me anything but a few numbers in some benchmark. Software development seems to keep leaning toward console ports and "tiny" apps (read smartphones and tablets) and less time is being spent on development of mainstream software like games. I still play Freelancer (circa 2003), Diablo II LOD (graphics suck on a 24" monitor) frequently and they certainly don't require my rig ;). The only two games I am looking forward to are Diablo III and Torchlight 2 (Okay I'll add in Mass Effect 3). It just seems so lackluster lately.

Even business apps seem to be going the way of mobile and the cloud except for CAD/CAM and high end needs.

I've even found myself occasionally GASing for a tablet (it passes quickly ;) ) but it does seem that the era of the PC isn't dead but is going "softly into the night"

My niece and nephews have a Wii. It is never on, but good luck getting on a computer at their house. They're either playing games on the net or ones that I've provided for them.

I don't see PC gaming as dead, just in a rough patch. I imagine there was a sharp increase in hardware purchases after Crysis came out. We need a few more Crysis games to get people back in the buying mode. Maybe Valve will make HL2 Ep. 3 a hardware monster? I doubt it since they see what people are rocking when they login to STEAM.