I got my laptop for going to college overseas (so a desktop was out of the question, unfortunately) way back in the good old days of Feb' 2011 


The only good thing I can say about it is that I got it for a great price. Cheap even for what it was.

It's an Acer Aspire 5552G-5828

AMD Phenom II X4 N930
15.6 monitor
ATI Mobility Radeon DH 5650
6 GB DDR3
500 GB Hard drive



I keep thinking I'd like to upgrade but I like to be wise with my money so I'll probably keep using it until either it dies or a game comes out that I rally want and literally can't play. (like less than 15 fps with all settings as low as possible)

Depends on the laptop.  Some allow for replacement of that stuff.

 

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My gaming rig I built in 2009, let's see if I can remember most of the specs:

Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz

4GB RAM

2x nVidia Gforce 8800GTS 512MB

EVGA MoBo using nVidia 790i Ultra SLI chipset

Win 7 64-bit

Bout all I can remember... although anything else was run of the mill stuff, anyway.  Course, earlier this year one of my vid cards fried.  Got lucky and managed to get my hands on a new laptop for nothin', so just switched over to that for now until I can afford to upgrade my main.  It's meant as a workhorse computer (ie, not gaming), but seems to be doing fine by me for now.  But to be honest, most of the stuff that's coming out now a days that actually tests the limits of a computer have been holding no interest to me.....

HP EliteBook 8570w

i7-3630QM 2.4 GHz

16GB RAM

nVidia Quadro K1000M

500GB Hybrid Hard Drive

Win 7 64-bit

Just built one on Monday, but the laptop before that was my college laptop.now that I've got a desktop, it'll only be used as a secondary.

My PC is like that wooden pot still in the Guyana rum distillery - parts of the still get replaced all the time, and the still lasted for centuries.

 

I upgrade like that from 1995, and while none of the original components remain, there is a continuous chain. Recently, the cycle has slowed a lot, but I am on 

Core i5 3570K @ 4,4GHz

MSI GTX 670 with 4GB of VRAM (best investment, since I can enjoy extreme texture quality even on games designed for the newest gen consoles)

8GB of 2100HZ RAM downclocked to 1600HZ (for lower latencies)

Samsung 830SSD HD 

Noctua Coolers to keep my CPU and GPU under 70 degrees Celsius even on heavy load. 

I am quite satisfied, last upgrade was the hard disk last year. 

I used to buy a new pc every year, but now that money is tight (got down-sized in '09) I have cut back to once every 3 years. Several years back I switched to laptops instead of desktops. I got my new one about 2 months ago because I had bought Age of Wonders III and it would bog down badly. The new one seems to handle it all in stride.

Model:                                     HP Pavilion 17

OS:                                         Windows 8

Processor:                               AMD A10-5750M APU with Radeon HD Graphics 2.50 GHz

GPU:                                       AMD Radeon HD 8650G

System Memory:                     8GB  Micron Technology 1600MHz

Anyway, it does the job for me.

 

My rule of thumb has always been:

- Graphics card replacement every 1-2 years (150-200$ card)

- CPU replacement when it starts bottle-necking the graphics card, only had to do this once or twice.

- Power/RAM/HDD/SSD as needed.

I could probably get away with upgrading it less, but if something comes out and I can't run it on medium-high with good fps I usually start looking at an upgrade! 
 

Well; hell has officially frozen over, and I have acted out of dire necessity (frivolous compulsion justified by rationalization of the highest order) and built a box of latter day future-proofing standards of customized performance specifications.

Here is the scoop -

• MSI X99 SLI PLUS
• INTEL I7 5820K 3.3GHz 15MB Cache, LGA2011V3 6 Core
• 24GB (6X4GB) DDR4 2400MHz Patriot VIPER EXTREME
• (2X) 240GB Patriot BLAZE SATA III 6GBps SSD (Striped in Raid 0)
• (1X) 1TB WD SATA 7200 RPM 64 MB Buffer
• MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4GB 1279 MHz Boost Clock
• CORSAIR HYDRO H100i Liquid CPU Cooling
• EVGA SUPERNOVA 850W (Bronze)
• ANTEC P-280 Case
• WIN 7 ULTIMATE 64 BIT
• NET NET Under $1800 (okay, $2100 with the 16Gigs of DDR4 I added)

Believe it or not, this was a Bare-Bones build from Fry's.  I did an item by item comparison on everything on NewEgg and it came out to only $40 less even without tax.  As an entry level DDR4 box, the MSI classic proved to be an exceptional value/performance choice for the motherboard.

I run 3-23", monitors so the 970 (I couldn't justify the $550 for the 980) uses an HDMI to DVI adaptor for one of the monitors.

I actually got the P280 case from Fry's as a price match for $64.  I can't believe Antec has discontinued this case.

The EVGA Bronze will get replaced with a 1000W Platinum soon.

Just need 2 more sticks of the Patriot DDR4 to fill up the last of the 8 slots (top picture only shows 2 sticks installed before I got the additional 16GB when it went on sale today).

The Corsair Liquid Cooling fit nicely in the dual fan top area that I configured as an intake, with the original fans I took out from up there placed on the hard drive racks, also as an intake.  This allows the rear fan to create a push-pull flow through.

Not that it matters, but the Windows experience is 7.8 out of possible 7.9 where everything but the CPU calculations per second rating of 7.8 was at 7.9.

I'm happy with auto-turbo OC setting native to the MSI Bios that is estimated at 3.8 GHz, as well as the EXTREME DRAM speeds, and with the SSD's striped, my boot time acts like it is just waking up from sleep

I have the OS on the raid drive, and I'm going to experiment with migrating the steam folder, and other apps to the 1TB WD.  So far though I am quite pleased with the performance.  I will probably get another 970 when prices come down, but I found out this board limits the 2nd Card to 8 channels.  I would need the MSI Gaming board for that, but I suspect I will have plenty of time to strategize getting approval from the wife for that little operation before I actually need it.

So, all is right with the world now.  No more tech envy induced OCD about not having proper equipment.

And, yes, that is my cat asleep in the basket.

   

 

That looks like something I'll 'need' sooner or later.  First gen i7-920 doesn't cut it anymore...and I often see the limits of 12gig of ram [VMs]...

Hopefully the next can still use the GPU [it wasn't cheap] .....ASUS GTX 590 3gig ...;)

The ASUS GTX 590 3gig DDR5 is still a power house (& power hungry), but you should be fine with its dual GPU's.  And, with 3-DVI's, it's perfect for triple monitors!

Prices are only going to drop for the 2011 sockets, as well as DDR4 so I'd say you're on par for a build within the year

 

I have that one too...its not great these days for gaming sadly - i mean for the latest, most demanding ones - luckily i dont play those though. I actually think that i7 920 OCed to cca 4GHz does cut it more for gaming that this card.

But if i was in the money, i would replace it with Titan Z at once. 

Anyway, i built my current rig in August 2010 and then added said GPU in May 2011. Just considering to replace one of my Intel 80GB SSD i use for games to replace with a new 240GB one, since they are so cheap today and out of blue games started to require 30-40GB of space to install.....

@Protoplazm - congrats to that rig, its pure sex.

My current desktop is three and a half years old. The previous computer lasted for ~3 years before it stopped working entirely. The computer before that had the infamous "capacitor plague" and had its first hard failure while I was playtesting Twilight of the Arnor, although I think Hellgate: London had more to do with the breakdown.

I hope to get a new machine next year, since recent games are starting to overpower my video card, and I don't have enough ram (6 gb).

My previous system lasted 3-4 years, backed by a 2500k @4GHz and 16GB ram. I upgraded to a GTX 780 Ti in January for a little extra muscle. I sold that system recently and bought a modest gaming laptop and haven't looked back, and likely never will. I have a PS4 for graphically demanding titles and mostly play strategy games and indies on my laptop.

I think my FSX is still about 200gig ....and I pared it down already...removing 'inferior' aircraft...;)

I just replaced my GTX580 with a 970.

 

Biggest disappointment is that the room is so cold now

I could sell you some servers to fix that problem.  

My main PC has been neglected a bit as I've gone crazy on my home lab.  48 Cores, 208Gb of RAM, 22TB of Storage.  THAT heats up the room.  LOL.

Gaming PC is a 3770k, 16Gb RAM, R9 290.  It gets the job done.

Kryo send that heat blaster to my house i`m always cold I could use the heat!

Then i am lucky i am not into that kind of shit. But i still skipped on games like Titanfall or Max Payne 3 cause of the lack of space on that SSD - and i have forbidden myself to install games elsewhere (regular HDDs)... not that i regret much, at least i saved some money 

What qualifies as inferior aircraff anyway?

'ports' from FS2004 ....most [not all] are relatively 'basic', particularly with virtual cockpits/details.

'Stick insect' pilot figures tend to be a turn-off in particular...;)

My Dell xps 8100 is 3.5 years old.  I still have the original equipment - 8 gb, 3.2 ghz i5, (it says multicore 2, hyperthread 4) 1 Tb HD, AMD HD 5700 video.  I still can't see any reason to update it.  It would be nice to have a SS drive but its not necessary.  I don't play "twitch" games like action shooters, so I don't need max frame rates.  My reflexes are such that I just get frustrated with those types anyway.  When I decide it is time to get a new one I will probably get another Dell as I have generally been very happy with them for 15 years or so.   I am just too old to "build my own" any more, sad to say.   30 years ago I did.

 

 

i bought mb in 2008 with geforce 8300 integrated,

500w psu,

athlon2 245 2.9 ghz

6 gb ddr2,

some coolers

+radeon hd 7950 to do some opencl things.

i think that 3d in games is a bad thing.

Because devs say: "Let's do fancy graphics, who needs the gameplay? Just do nicy picture and sell it for over 50$".

For example, gta2 had nice gameplay, and cool multiplayer.

And what is new gta? Same planar movement. Aircrafts and etc? I would better play some real aero-sim... Just a polygonal mess.

How Sim City 2013 is heating up my room while it has nothing inside? max 16 regions, 50 buildings each, virtual cars, 2+2 economics.

Overbloated and empty in same time. Just a crap.

So, I play kag2d alpha, FTL, some board games, because they're made right and looking really nice. 3d with ugly textures and too few polygons? Even now they can't draw smooth spheres in realtime, though raytracers working on cpu were made 10 years ago. No way.

And  devs should be using more GPGPU computing in games. It's really cool and can help to get market.

I built mine as well Island Dog. I built it in 2011 and expect it to last another few more years.

 

• I5 3570K Overclocked to 4.2
• 8 gigs ddr 3 ram, (will upgrade to 16 in January)
• 1 terrabyte HDD which I use intels cache drive of speeding it up. very nice of Intel to support this)
• Asus Z797 Extreme 6 mobo
• EVGA 670 GTX w/ 2gig ram (dx 11 card, was top of line 3 years ago)
• Win 7 Pro 64
• Corsair 850 watt Gold PS.
• I use an aftermarket cooling fan and heat sink on my processor. big bulky thing.
• Corsair full tower case. 
• ASUS 27" 1080p HD monitor. (cant remember name)
• ....crappy crappy speakers which need upgrading asap!

 

I can upgrade more ram and switch to a full SSD to extend life out of this rig. I doubt will will need more than 4 cores in the next two years but my mobo can upgrade to an I7 if needed for the extra threads. The I5 is not 'multi' threaded which is why its cheaper. 

My previous was 8 yrs and this multiuse laptop is just 1 yr.

Thx Tim! 

What turned out to be a "budget build" in "value build's" clothing was simply because I looked at Z97 (socket 1150) boards and all the associated accouterments relative to a new rig and it turned out to be less than $300 than the bare bones DDR4 route for a comparable setup (but including two (2) T770 Ti's with 2 GB DDR5).

I opted for the new platform (socket 2011 and DDR4 RAM) config because I couldn't resist the self imposed argument that for a couple hundred more I was stepping into THE FUTURE.  And, I just didn't want to do this again in a year - temptation of the "sex appeal" not withstanding, this was the right choice and timing for me.The latest graphics engines no longer are limited by processing power of the CPU for performance (for example; the latest i7 processors).  Frame rates aren't the only benefit today.

Quoting Bamdorf, reply 44

I am just too old to "build my own" any more, sad to say. 30 years ago I did.

I don't blame you for not wanting to re-experience building 1984 technology!  What did you build - a Commodore 64? 

I think anyone building a system again after a few years now will find the technology has gravitated to a much more streamlined process.  Even liquid cooling is fairly cut and dried nowadays. 

Case in point; used to be you had to browse tech forums all night to get answers and downloads to fill in the compatibility blanks for the "machinery" you had chosen.  And the broken English and grammatical errors in manuals could be very misleading. 

I must say I was quite impressed with the quality and layout of the MSI Motherboard and BIOS in particular.  There are still some broken English grammatical headscratchers in the manual, but the BIOS was amazingly robust, and its point and click interface was refreshing.  The fact that I didn't have to search endlessly for RAID, or other updated drivers since they were native from the DVD was a huge plus for me. 

Much easier build than I anticipated based on my 6 year old expectations of the last time I built a system.

My current Desktop is a, Medion:

Processor:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU 6600 @2.4GHz (4CPUs), ~2.4GHz

Operating System:

Windows Vista Home Premium (6.0, Build 6002)

Video Card:

NVIDIA GeForce 9300 GS

Memory:

3070MB RAM

Hard Drive:

1TB Hard Drive

 

I would like to buy a new gaming PC (or a least upgrade my existing one). My intention is to play GalCiv3 on the Biggest maps avaliable in the game with all the setting on high.

I was wondering if, people on the fourm could help me with the specs for my next pc. I was origanally going to go for the Surface Pro 3 and settle for all the setting on Low, because of the portabilaty of it.

Or as far as a desktop is concerned, an Alienware Area-51:

Processor:

Intel® Core i7-5930K Processor (6-cores, 15MB Cache, Overclocked up to 3.9 GHz w/ Turbo Boost)

Operating System:

Windows 8.1 (64Bit) English

Chassis:

Alienware 1500 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply

Video Card:

Dual 4GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 770 SLI

Memory:

32GB Quad Channel DDR4 2133MHz (8GBx4)

Hard Drive:

2TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive + 128GB mSATA Solid State Drive

Optical Drive:

Slot Load Blu-ray Drive (Reads and Writes to Blu Ray/DVD/CD)

Wireless:

Intel® 7260AC + BT4.0 [802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 2x2

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-area51-r2/pd?oc=d00aw51r249&variant=3:32G4X8&model_id=alienware-area51-r2&ref=2911xa#overrides=d00aw51r249:3~32G4X8

 

Because of work and other time constrants I'm not that much of a gamer, I only play Civilisation or GalCiv. other than that, I only use my PC for checking e-mails, googleing and the occasional youtube video.

Would the surface pro handle my requirements, because that would be great. I love the idea that I'd be able to play anywhere I go. If not would the desktop suffice? I suspect it may be a bit OTT, but I don't know to much about computers so I'm not sure.

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.