Ha,same here. Yet,gonna migrate to Win7 64 though.   

My Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0Ghz that was mid-high-end when I bought it in early 2008 is still one of, if not the best bang-for-buck processor on the market. Actually, it's even still quite high in performance for these days, too.

My Nvidia 8800GTS, now six graphics card generations old, still chugs along too. Not always with all the bells and whistles of the newer games, but there's no game yet that's forced me to turn the graphics all the way down either.

I've been messing around with Apophysis - There's some good scripts out there that give you a 2.5ish simulated 3D appearance. What are you using the 3D renders for? Do they specifically have to be 3D or just look 3D?

I can do a render about every ten minutes on my 2.33 Quad.

People, it doesn't MATTER if your rig can "run" a certain game!  It's about running it on MAX that's the point!   THAT'S why you need to upgrade!

I can't understand people who are satisfied with medium graphics lvls in games. I don't want to play them if I can't max them on atleast 40FPS. I've had StarCraft II for two weeks now but getting 5FPS in 1920x1080 on High/Ultra (in the tutorials) doesn't cut it. I want 60FPS nonstop!

If you got enough horsepower, try running Metro2033 maxed out. You can't!   Even two GTX580 can't. They get under 10FPS at the minimum!!

"But I play other games with more modest requirements that are already maxed out"

Ok, then get Eyefinity (three screens for MUCH higher resolutions). Then you'll REALLY need the topend videocards.

At the very minimum, you should max out the resolution.

Kitkun

LOL! I also got a E8400 and a GeForce GTS 512MB (G92)                 Enjoy your 5 FPS in StarCraft II    Myself I'm gonna get a GTX 560, GTX 570, Radeon HD 6950 or a Radeon HD 6970.

Are you kidding me? I stick everything on high and the only thing that noticeably affects framerates is lots of water.

I have no plans to upgrade my PC anytime soon.  Maybe another stick of RAM or something, but it runs everything just fine so aside from something breaking it's going to serve its purpose for a while.

Amen

Macbooks are a waste of money if you look at the specs they can be almost double for the same GPU and CPU. Anyway CPUs are pretty much done due to fundumental laws of phyisics being that they cant go as faster then the speed of light no matter how much power you throw at it. So if you have one from the last 3 or even 4 years ago your probably fine. Graphics cards are still increasing but not at the speed they were. I think we are just waiting for the next leap in technology to come along. As soon as they realise more cores(as we all know mulit-threading applications are hard as hell to make) and higher clock speeds really wont get you to the top someone will come up with a much better alternative....

On the topic of SSD...right now those are a waste of money too in a couple years you will get twice the capacity for the exorbinate prices they are now. So your comp boots in 6.8 seconds....cool?

The xbox ps3 argument has merit aswell. It has its benifits too as games like crysis and other computer games were so poorly optimized they still run sluggishly on computers that were not even concived yet. But games like that make companies push towards faster tec so someones just going to have to make something that needs the next gen power.

Crysis has a terrible stealth system. Who cares what it looks like?

I think that one of the things that keeps dragging down the specification of PC that developers have to target, are budget or refurbished PCs.  Take this for example:

Now I probably shouldn't throw stones when even my PC is filled with old stuff that I got on the cheap, but you can plainly see that although a budget or refurb PC is fine for the basics, it is woefully inadequate and a complete waste of money if you want to play something that was released recently.  Nobody in their right mind should buy a PC for gaming with only 1GB of RAM.  A 160GB hard disk will have you constantly uninstalling stuff to install new things.  And the integrated video card surely can't offer a lot of performance.  You'd get more entertainment from a caveman trying to figure out what to do with an iPad.

When decent hardware becomes commonplace and rubbish not so much, then it will be economically prudent to take advantage of it.

I wouldn't say a 160GB disk is that small, unless you buy a ton of AAA games.  I have on my 160GB SSD on my current laptop 7 games and have used under 50 Gigs of the HD space.

I have plenty of room.  I do have a second laptop so some things do go there which I move on a flash drive, and I don't keep unnecessary fluff on this comp, but the real problem is bloat from the AAA guys.

Seeing that Dragon Age 2 will use DX11 gave me hope.

Other than that...my system seems overkill 95% of the time.

I'm doing fine with my PC, although it IS running a bit behind now - not the least because the hard drive is on life support and failing. (Nearly 90% of the error correction sectors are used and it sometimes has trouble opening files.).

And I bought it back in 2006, and even then it was a fairly cheap machine (1500$ range) with components selected more for low noise levels than max performance. The screen was state of the art at the time, it's still decent enough (Samsung 226BW) but I'm thinking bigger.

I think another part of the explanation for the lack of noticeable performance increase is Microsoft. One thing is consoles - I don't quite buy that, though - but the other is Dx 10 and 11. 10 in particular required that you got Vista in order to use the Dx 10 support of then new graphic cards... and gamers didn't. XP stayed the baseline OS, meaning the new bells and whistles on graphic cards didn't get used.

Another factor is LCD screens - CRT's could, at the time of their sudden demise, show better resolutions than even today's best LCD screens. The norm seems to be 1080p (1920*1080)

The latest Steam survey - which should show gamer trends mostly - shows Win XP still has a strong user base, but the share is dropping rapidly in favor of Win 7 64 bit - last january it was over 50%, now it's down to 25%. Which brings me to the subject: With the OS restrictions no longer creating an artificial lull in sellable graphic performance, I would expect interesting developments ahead.

One example is CCP's Carbon framework, which includes some impressive real-time environment, cloth, hair interactions. It is just a tech demo, but still... promising things to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf26ZhHz6uM

My home computer is a cheap Dell that cost me $800 2 years ago(hey, I'm a poor state employee, don't judge me )  and I play everything pretty well, or at least well enough.  I don't play online FPS or anything, usually stick to SP games, and it does fine.  I probably won't get a new one for a couple years. 

Hehe, these threads can make one laugh at times.  I use an old core 2 AMD, 3000 MGH...4 gig of ram...W7-64bit..GeForce 6150, 256 MB, 585GB HD.  Cost about $500US.   540GB free.  Guess one can tell I'am not a gamer.

P4 2.8 single core hyperthreading, AGP graphics.  A couple gig of RAM helps though.

I have a ASUS P6t V2 Deluxe MB 12 gig of Triple channel Mushkin 1600MHz red Lines a GTX 260 video card CPU is a 920 D0 which I can OC to 3.9 with no problem if needed. I am not a gamer. However if I were to upgrade I would change the Video card and if I could afford it I would get a 980 CPU. The only reason for a top of the line machine is for the inner gamer in you or if you render huge graphic jobs, or humongous number crunching jobs

The quad cores appeal to me just because of the mult-tasking.  I always said I might rebuild when I could get a 2.8 quad for the same price I paid for the 2.8 single.  I think we're there.  Alas, I remain a cheapskate on big ticket items. 

Very true and well said, chief. I think the fault here lays in the fact that most app and game makers aren't taking advantage of what the newer machines and hardware can do. Only the newest of programs and apps are even taking advantage of multi-threading and using all the cores available to them. For most casual users the true power of the newest hardware is going to waste, both in terms of normal CPU's and Gfx Processors. That was part of my reasoning for getting the 560 Ti recently and not spending the money on the 580. The GeForce 280 I have is still plenty powerful enough to run all the games on the market and the main reason for my latest upgrade was honestly that my wife's machine needed the upgrade.

I thought it far more prudent to spend the money to upgrade my machine and then take my 280 and put it in her machine. That way we upgrade both machines more or less for the cost of upgrading one.

I just went back home on vacation, and decided to leave the old laptop, took out the SATA hard disk which I figured to put in a new laptop. Mea culpa, I bought a new Dell laptop (i7, with ATI 1 GB graphics) in a hurry, didnt bother to look too closely under the laptop. When I unscrewed the small panel at the bottom, it was only the panel for RAM! the Hard Disk is inaccessible unless I remove *all* screws and figure out how to pop out the keyboard etc?? Then in a hurry, I managed to delete the first partition (100 MB) which turned out to be the boot partition.. Bye bye Win 7 Home Premium.

The goal was to run XP anyway, I love the Sygate Personal Firewall. Nasty surprise, XP image file re-burned onto the Hard Disk wouldnt load anymore.. SATA sucks.. after spending many hours trying to get XP to load.. I finally restored Win 7 from "Recovery Disk" and went online. Thats when I found out about "Press F6 to load Third Party Raid Driver" which has to be loaded *only* from a Floppy Disk.. Now floppy disks have stopped appearing in laptops since about 6 years ago.. Microsoft have purposefully neglected XP, not upgrading it to run on SATA Disks. Dell didnt have the drivers for SATA, turns out they were available from Intel. Then I found out about nLite and how it could be used to make a custom WinXP install disk incorporating the SATA drivers for XP. So I did manage to install XP.. then installed Sygate, but it crashed mysteriously again and again.. then the XP has to be re-activated within 30 days, but it seems it wont activate anymore. I clicked on some link there and the link is discontinued..

Deleted XP and decided to stay with Win 7. I thought I'll restore all the backups of Impulse games (elemental, Sins, and a few others). Now impulse says you can only restore backups to the operating system from where you backed up.. aggravations galore.

Currently downloading Elemental (2 GB) again, after getting the password reset for Impulse on my e-mail..

Moral: I should have stayed with my Old Laptop.. X-2010. Also, do much more research before buying.

XP runs fine on SATA. The SATA spec is software compatible with IDE.

XP does not include any AHCI drivers however, and most newer chipsets use that.

Thats the ipad talking frogboy, you've gone soft.

It starts with not wanting to upgrade.  Then the voice of Jobs will command you and next thing you know you are annoying people about mac products, wearing black turtleneck and jeans, and all your pcs are white.

The only reason games don't push the envelope is due to piracy and the 360/ps3.  With that said, their is still plenty of reasons for getting better cpus and more ram.