How bad is your upgrade itch?

[kapone32]

For the first time in at least 10 years, when it comes to my PC I am sated. I have been into PCs since I was a young boy. When i jumped into DIY it was AM3. Those were the days of $99 CPUs, $89 MBs and RAM as an afterthought for $20. All of those are Canadian prices. Then I jumped into AM4 when that came out. It was great as I was able to sell more than a few systems while on AM4. That allowed me to try most AM4 CPUs from APUs to gems like the 3300x. My last purchase for AM4 was the MSI X570S Ace Max. It was $450 but wow what a MB. Can we call it TR light? That was paired with a 5800X3D and it was great for Gaming with my 6800XT but did not feel as snappy as the 5950X or as smooth as the 5900X. Speaking of Threadripper I was happy to jump to X399 and if you are into I/O that is just pure porn. Helped me to learn that with Intel 660Ps, 3 is the maximum you can use with RAID 0 before dimishing returns. Getting back to the thread. So my Company does an iniative where we get $250 to spend on an office upgrade. I decided on the Gigabyte FV43U. That is 4K Mini LED 1000 nits VA panel that runs at 144hz. I was using it with my 6800XT and had to run a good percentage of Games at 1440P to get high Frame Rates. Then AM5 launched and the first thing was the CPU. People can rag all they want on the 7900X3D but the fact remains that the raw specs of the chip belie the narrative. Anyhow. Then I bought the Asus X670E E Strix and though I was bummed about the PCIe allocation initailly 4 5.0 slots is insane. Then I got the 7900XT. I might not have been in that exact order but for the first time my PC (with 28.5 TB of NAND) is so fast to me that upgrades are meh. Of course the fact that X870E are arguablly worse than X670E (If you are into PCIe) also influenced this position but I will probably buy a 9900X3D if the Specs are right on launch day. I myself love to have all of those CPU cores and when City Skylines 2 shows 85% CPU usage you would understand. Yep that is played at 4K too.

 

[harm9963]

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No itch here, cause I have no need to upgrade , my needs are met !

 

[umeng2002]

I'm on the verge of becoming a hitman to buy a LG OLED panel

Yeah, I think an OLED monitor is my next upgrade. I do like to game in the dark.

 

[DaemonForce]

Is this an actual issue for you? It's not common to fully load several SSDs at once.

It's also not uncommon to load up one of these systems with tons of networking and storage once they're EOL.
Nobody really expects to run these as a single system. The ones that do get I/O locked by sata ports and PCI-E lanes.
One of the things that I tend to measure in new boards is when I want to get out of something before getting into it.
The Pentium 4 was a pretty good example with the IS7. Told myself it's fine until 64-Bit quad core computing took over, which was 2009.
Went from a board with 2x sata to 5x sata II, then 6x sata III. That was all from one jump straight to the Phenom II X4.
I don't need all that power to run a storage server, which is why I now server main literal eWaste in the form of a single core Athlon 64.

The day I turn a Ryzen system into a server is going to be absolutely insane.
There will be a single NVME because MicroSD is NOT the way.
Probably none of the 8x sata III getting used, some 2x10GbE SFP card like the SolarFlare and dual accelerators with LOTS of FP64.
For anyone actually running a single system, yeah those kind of options are exactly the way to go now that everything older is scarce.
If I ever need to load up on tons of SSDs and HDDs I already have a rack for it that can be optioned with the Phenom II or the FX.
Honestly it's hard to see what kind of future has me retiring another system as a full time server. Even the FX still performs how I want.

A part of upgrading is retiring old systems to a more central role or phasing them out of duty entirely. Ryzen in retirement is gonna be wild.

if the RX 8800 XT about 250W with RTX 4080 performance I might do a upgrade of my RTX 4070

Is it presumed to be such a big deal coming from a 4070?
If that's the case then I need to expect instant shortages or action (6900/7900) now.
The sneakerheads and scalper trash need to get gone for good. I'm so tired of it.

 

[Launcestonian]

I got so annoyed how Asrock have blocked HVM for RAM oc in my X670E Steel Legend, I removed this board for good & now have my "old" Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite board in the gaming rig. But only temporarily until B850 boards are released early in 25' & then I'd love to see 2 DIMM boards with strong VRMs on them... I can only dream.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

Idk if I had an itch. I switched hardware often in the AM2/AM3+ days, but I was still a kid so I couldn't just buy what I wanted. I had to slowly ask for stuff when it went on sale. Asking mom for a $100 item now and $150 later had a higher chance of success than $250 upfront. When I started working, I got a used LGA1366 motherboard and used that for a while. I swapped CPUs and RAM a lot, mainly because I liked binning cheap CPUs and RAM. I still use it as a secondary PC.

Going from LGA1366 (Xeon W3680 with DDR3) to AM4 (5700X3D with DDR4) killed any upgrade itch I had. Games that ran decent previously saw a huge performance boost, but since they already ran good the higher fps didn't change my experience. Games that ran poorly still run poorly.

A thing that's off putting is the massive size of GPUs. The high end from AMD is 3+ slots wide, and Nvidia is kinda limited on options. I'd have to ditch the 10gb NIC or move the capture card. This will prevent me from adding future upgrades, like USB4 or whatever standard comes out.

 

[tpa-pr]

After the initial build of my current gaming PC (my first one in over a decade) I:
- Went from 32 to 64GB of RAM.
- Went from DDR5-5200 to DDR5-6000.
- Went from a 6950 XT to a 7900 XTX
- Went from a 7700X to a 7800X3D

And apart from a recent "should I swap from CL40 to CL30 RAM" itch (which TPU answered for me, thank you!) my need for upgrades has been scratched This build plays everything I want to throw at it and then some. Even with the 9800X3D coming out I just don't feel the need to go any further. I'm hoping this build will last me 10 years. Words can't really express how happy I am with it.

 

[Hyderz]

After the initial build of my current gaming PC (my first one in over a decade) I:
- Went from 32 to 64GB of RAM.
- Went from DDR5-5200 to DDR5-6000.
- Went from a 6950 XT to a 7900 XTX
- Went from a 7700X to a 7800X3D

And apart from a recent "should I swap from CL40 to CL30 RAM" itch (which TPU answered for me, thank you!) my need for upgrades has been scratched This build plays everything I want to throw at it and then some. Even with the 9800X3D coming out I just don't feel the need to go any further. I'm hoping this build will last me 10 years. Words can't really express how happy I am with it.

Was there a noticeable difference? Besides looking at benchmark numbers?

 

[Outback Bronze]

Y'all need to pick some of this stuff up to stop it.

Where do I get a carton of those?

 

[Arctucas]

I really would like a good 4K HDR monitor.

Other than that, I am good for couple years.

 

[Flanker]

With crypto then AI, GPU prices are just so awful I can justify spending that much on them. The games I play are not CPU bottlenecked so I don't need to upgrade these either.

 

[esserpain]

My upgrade itch is always horrible. Being an impulsive spender will do that to you. Even if the products currently available are unappealing to most people, they'll be appealing to me because I always want the newest of whatever it is. For example, even though my current 5700X3D/4070 SUPER system is more than good enough for the games I play on it, I still have the urge to upgrade to AM5 just for the sake of the 9800X3D and "future-proofing" (whatever that means). But I need to stop myself before I get into an insurmountable amount of debt, of course.

 

[mb194dc]

Use case determined and budget orientated. Still very happy with my 4790k machine.

Upgraded my b350 1600 to a 5800x3d after 7 years because found one for 220 and next upgrade planned for 2032 when Windows 10 iot LTSC goes out, or later.

 

[avidgamer121]

i want to upgrade my gpu, 1050 ti has really started to show it's age in last couple of years.

 

[Assimilator]

I have eczema IRL (not a joke), so pretty bad.

On a more serious note, I'd love to replace this TR system with something that draws a little less power and puts out a little less heat. I don't need 24c/48t and 128GB RAM, but I do need a pair of full-speed PCIe x16 slots and that isn't something currently available on a consumer board. Was hoping that Arrow Lake would change this but so far the Z890 boards seem to only offer PCIe 5.0 x16 plus PCIe 4.0 x4 slots, so guess I'm gonna itch a bit longer... sigh.

 

[Frick]

I have eczema IRL (not a joke), so pretty bad.

On a more serious note, I'd love to replace this TR system with something that draws a little less power and puts out a little less heat. I don't need 24c/48t and 128GB RAM, but I do need a pair of full-speed PCIe x16 slots and that isn't something currently available on a consumer board. Was hoping that Arrow Lake would change this but so far the Z890 boards seem to only offer PCIe 5.0 x16 plus PCIe 4.0 x4 slots, so guess I'm gonna itch a bit longer... sigh.

What are you using the second slot for?

 

[bug]

What are you using the second slot for?

Backup

 

[Apocalypsee]

Upgrade itch is always there but because I have other commitment, I have better control over it. Hard to justify upgrading when game is not as good as it used to be, plus I don't have much time to play.

 

[ty_ger]

My upgrade itch is at 0%. It's at the bottom of my priorities. Everything else, daily. Upgrade itch, every few months, maybe.

 

[AusWolf]

I admit, it's been really bad since COVID. I've bought lots of hardware that I didn't/don't need in the last couple of years. But it's got to stop now. My 7800X3D will be good for many years, and I'm planning on trying RDNA 4 if it's any good, and that's it. I'll have to force myself to go back to my routine of upgrading only when I need to (about 3-5 years time) afterwards. PC is an increasingly costly hobby, so my purchases will have to be a lot more sensible than they have been recently.

That's it, I've said it. I feel like I've just introduced myself to alcoholics anonymous.

 

[eidairaman1]

I admit, it's been really bad since COVID. I've bought lots of hardware that I didn't/don't need in the last couple of years. But it's got to stop now. My 7800X3D will be good for many years, and I'm planning on trying RDNA 4 if it's any good, and that's it. I'll have to force myself to go back to my routine of upgrading only when I need to (about 3-5 years time) afterwards. PC is an increasingly costly hobby, so my purchases will have to be a lot more sensible than they have been recently.

That's it, I've said it. I feel like I've just introduced myself to alcoholics anonymous.

I've got priorities to take care of so I have no itch.

 

[tpa-pr]

Was there a noticeable difference? Besides looking at benchmark numbers?

The biggest jump was definitely from the 6950 XT to the 7900 XTX. I try to avoid upscaling when I can so I went from average 90fps at native 1440p in most games maxed out to 120-144fps.

It's why I was so confused at all the "RDNA3 is a total failure" comments I kept seeing. This card smashes through so many games and won't get over 85C at the hotspot, it's very impressive.

As for the rest of the parts, not so much in terms of noticeable difference. Some benchmarks were a bit lower (CPU) even. But I felt like my rig was more future-proofed

 

[Dr. Dro]

The biggest jump was definitely from the 6950 XT to the 7900 XTX. I try to avoid upscaling when I can so I went from average 90fps at native 1440p in most games maxed out to 120-144fps.

It's why I was so confused at all the "RDNA3 is a total failure" comments I kept seeing. This card smashes through so many games and won't get over 85C at the hotspot, it's very impressive.

As for the rest of the parts, not so much in terms of noticeable difference. Some benchmarks were a bit lower (CPU) even. But I felt like my rig was more future-proofed

Everything that card will do, a 4090 will do faster without any of the bugs, half baked features or stability problems. Nvidia's card is faster, more efficient, more stable, more feature complete - you name it, it's better than the AMD card at it. That's why it's expensive, and it sells even being expensive. The 5090 is going to widen this gap even further, and AMD has already said that they aren't even going to try to compete with it. Ouch.

It's barely even holding its own against the much smaller and leaner 4080 barely 5% faster at raster - and gets absolutely humiliated when you put both to do anything with raytracing. The vanilla 4080 is at least 20% faster at a lower power budget.

 

[Frick]

Everything that card will do, a 4090 will do faster without any of the bugs, half baked features or stability problems. Nvidia's card is faster, more efficient, more stable, more feature complete - you name it, it's better than the AMD card at it. That's why it's expensive, and it sells even being expensive. The 5090 is going to widen this gap even further, and AMD has already said that they aren't even going to try to compete with it. Ouch.

It's barely even holding its own against the much smaller and leaner 4080 barely 5% faster at raster - and gets absolutely humiliated when you put both to do anything with raytracing. The vanilla 4080 is at least 20% faster at a lower power budget.

The 4090 cost 80% more than the 7900xtx where I live and is what, at avarage 20% faster in raster (looking at TPU 4K) and 40% in RT? The 4080 got better with the Super as the prices came down so it's now basically priced identically to the 7900xtx, but the 4080 used to cost about 25% more than the 7900xtx.

Plus several things can be true. The 7900xtx can be a good card while the 4090 can also be a good card, and even the 4080 super can be a good card atvthe same time!

 

[Dr. Dro]

The 4090 cost 80% more than the 7900xtx where I live and is what, at avarage 20% faster in raster (looking at TPU 4K) and 40% in RT? The 4080 got better with the Super as the prices came down so it's now basically priced identically to the 7900xtx, but the 4080 used to cost about 25% more than the 7900xtx.

Plus several things can be true. The 7900xtx can be a good card while the 4090 can also be a good card, and even the 4080 super can be a good card atvthe same time!

I mean, naturally. Nvidia's problem is and has always been pricing. But the primary thing to keep in mind is that Nvidia charges what they do because they can; and it's specifically because they have no competition that they do so. The 4080 Super's price cut was pretty much entirely designed to target the 7900 XTX, since it effectively closes the gap on whatever little realistic potential advantage it had on the original 4080.

We're talking about a card that had a pre-launch price cut because it obviously failed to meet its performance target. Anyone that was really willing to could see the thinly veiled "mea culpa" there, particularly since the 999 and 900 for XTX and XT price targets meant that at the time they were probably cutting almost completely into their margins to make these appealing. The 7900 XT's original price literally didn't make any sense at the time, being quite possibly the worst deal anyone could make back then, and for good reason, it was likely the one intended to cost 999 and the XTX 1200 - had it the ability to perform like the 4090 does.

Factor in the studio drivers, support and validation for pro apps, etc. - it's not even a contest anymore. The only scenarios where the XTX even barely keeps up are where raw memory bandwidth is needed:

DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.6 - Consumer GPU Performance Analysis

With the recent overhaul of our DaVinci Resolve benchmark, we thought it was a good time to do an in-depth analysis of the current consumer GPUs on the market to see how they compare and handle multi-GPU scaling in DaVinci Resolve Studio.

www.pugetsystems.com

And let's not forget that it took it 2 years of driver updates to reach the state that it is today. I guess i'm just not "nice" and "forgiving" when it comes to this, but I bet anyone who like me had an RTX 3090 in 2020 is going to share my view on it: they're 4 years behind at a minimum. Probably more, since I could run DLSS 2 back then and it still looks better than anything with FSR today.