Computers?

[Rand]

Just built a gaming rig for myself. So nice being able to play games on Ultra settings.

[SentientTootsieRoll]

You must've gotten lucky! I've been looking to do a build for a few months now but can't because all the video cards are out of stock and RAM is very expensive due to the high demand. I'm either thinking about going the prebuilt route (the Dell XPS line interests me) or just waiting. Either way, it's just a computer and it's certainly not an emergency.

[ironwarning]

Video cards are due to miners

[carlosflar]

I just put a Ryzen on mine
About the ram, try getting it from. Second hand, ram rarely goes bad... It usually has a lifetime warranty, and for a reason... It's pretty safe to buy second hand, as for the gpu... I think he new generation will come out in a couple of months, so the prices will drop... But going pre-built its a good idea too, after that you can start upgrading it by yourself when you need it..

[JediMindTricks]

I have a Desktop, I built it, 4 Gig GPU. 16 Gigs DDR Ram. 4 TB Hard drive space. I geek out with Fallout 4 and Skyrim on it.
Also have a gaming laptop.

[jfko6]

Having dealt with PC's for some time I can tell you the technology has plateaued. Sure oodles of RAM has been place into PC's (am referring to the Home PC) and HDD space has increased dramatically, but there still has been a technological wall concerning the GPU. The 5Ghz GPU having been implied to people for a long time has not reached that clock speed. Its risk factor is high -- mainly cooling problems. And the other side concerning large amounts of RAM and terabytes of HDD space. Neither is adequately used by most people raising the cost for something not even used or even usable. Large amounts of RAM used to slow PC's down but WIN10 now seems to manage it better.

[carlosflar]

Well right now the focus on Gpu is no longer of more megahertz but rather of more processing units and different types of processing units whithin a gpu for more specific tasks like the RTX lineup... An well as for ram, and cores too, you should buy a product with knowledge of what you are going to use it... For example, AMD has the thread ripper processors that have so many cores that games don't run as well on them because they are not programs designed for 16 cores or 24... And the same thing with ram, not every OS will behave with 124gb of ram, and if you want even more, which is possible, you have to go for special OS versions for servers...
If you choose the tools for your job properly you will have problems, too much or too little... :/
Although usually it's just people wasting their cash

[carlosflar]

I have a Desktop, I built it, 4 Gig GPU. 16 Gigs DDR Ram. 4 TB Hard drive space. I geek out with Fallout 4 and Skyrim on it.
Also have a gaming laptop.

Might want to check this! https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzar ... ovember-18 good stuff!

[jfko6]

Well right now the focus on Gpu is no longer of more megahertz but rather of more processing units and different types of processing units whithin a gpu for more specific tasks like the RTX lineup... An well as for ram, and cores too, you should buy a product with knowledge of what you are going to use it... For example, AMD has the thread ripper processors that have so many cores that games don't run as well on them because they are not programs designed for 16 cores or 24... And the same thing with ram, not every OS will behave with 124gb of ram, and if you want even more, which is possible, you have to go for special OS versions for servers...
If you choose the tools for your job properly you will have problems, too much or too little... :/
Although usually it's just people wasting their cash

That reiterated the point somewhat. There is technological overkill. Some people use CAD programs but most still use email, internet, Skype and Office. Some very young people use Adobe Premier multimedia programs ( I’ve seen it) and the various iterations. From what I see now 3D printers only print so fast.

And no matter who you are, you’re usually subject to market forces dictating the components you buy and some crafty salesman hawking the latest Intel processor.

The point with the GPU was this. It was a promised item and Intel was caught lying (found out today) this year saying they had one for computers.

[SentientTootsieRoll]

I have a friend that likes to upgrade his computer every two years. The most intensive thing he does is play games, but feels a need to purchase the latest i7 CPU every other year. For gaming, it's really not necessary to upgrade that often. At that point, it turns into a "more money than brains" situation. A lot of the technological improvements centered around the PC is astonishing to me. For example, AMD released a new CPU with 32 cores / 64 threads. I can't speak for how the PC market has changed for the last 10+ years, but I personally think it's impressive and notice a lot of progression being made year by year. I've been into computers since I was about 5 years old, but I actually built my first PC in 2010 and things have improved a lot since then.

The thing is that computers have become so fast, that even a machine from 5+ years ago will suffice for most people. As far as I know, it wasn't feasible to keep a computer for that long in the 1990s or 2000s. I don't have anything newer than 2013 and I'm getting by. That said, I am still interested in purchasing a high-end computer because I participate in some distributed computing projects. I'd encourage anyone to look into BOINC if contributing your computer's power to some scientific projects sounds interesting. If you choose to participate, please let us know what project(s) you're contributing to.