- Joined
- May 18, 2008
- Messages
- 600
Preface
From time to time on IRC, we get into discussions about the latest tech. Everyone wants to have a cutting-edge rig, but I have a very different philosophy on the subject and I'd like to share it.
I'll warn you - not everyone will agree with me. Heck, I bet quite a few won't. I hope this is moderately helpful to someone out there so that it was worth the time I invested. If you're concerned with maxing out your FPS in the latest titles at the highest settings, this guide is probably not going to work for you. I don't have anything against that kind of thing - if you have the cash and the time to invest in this, more power to you! Enjoy your gaming rig, you earned it!
The focus here, however, is getting the best value for every dollar spent, and spending as little as possible
With that in mind...
Some general lessons I've learned:
The Tech Price Curve - Tech of any sort goes through three phases in the market. In the first phase, the cost to the consumer is high, to recoup R&D costs and initial fixed overhead. The target consumer here is the 'early adopter.' As the tech ages, these costs frequently decline somewhat and the vendor typically cuts prices. At some point, the demand slows and/or the vendor moves on to the next generation of tech, which frequently causes closeout sales. Finally, the vendor stops production, and the tech becomes rare, as a replacement part, driving the cost to the end user up again.
Extreme value gamers don't want to be early adopters. We want to buy as cheaply as possible and maximize the hardware we get per dollar spent. Therefore, we want to come in as close to the end of the markdowns as possible. This generally means we want to buy the previous gen tech when the new tech comes on the market.
Tech Marketing - Marketing plays an important role in enthusiast markets such as the gaming market. Branding and bullet point features can jack up the perceived value of an item. Every year vendors must find some way to make their new product super exciting to people who shelled out for the previous gen product.
Watch out for marketing. They want to make you WANT the product. They want you to think it is sexy and awesome and soooo much better than last year's model. They also want to charge you extra for stuff you don't need but you think you do. Extreme value gamers know the differences between model years and know that not everything marked 'Gamer' or 'Extreme' is better than stuff that isn't.
Personal Perception & Peer Pressure - We like our rigs less as they age. We've all felt that new, fresh, faster than lightning feeling we get after we upgrade. But somehow, a few months down the road, it fades and we feel like things would run smoother if only we could upgrade one or two parts... After all, SuperL33tDude just bought a new Super 1000x Video Card++ and ours is only just a lame Super 1000x Video Card+
Extreme value gaming means getting the most out of our rigs without spending extra cash. This one can get hard - yes, over time, tech ages and if we want to play the latest and greatest, we have to upgrade. But sometimes we can extend the life of a rig through simple things like a reformat, or a new tweaked driver, or perhaps defragmenting. Remember also that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - people who have upgraded more recently, or spent more money, are going to have nicer rigs. We have to be happy with what we have and let them be happy with what they have
My recommendations on price & cycle
My personal goal is to spend less than $300/year on upgrades. Whenever possible, I actually like to keep it closer to $150 - $200. I don't want to recommend specific products, as the market changes weekly and keeping up with it is beyond my job description
. Shop around, read reviews, but try to inoculate yourself against the hype and pressure.
Upgrade group: Mobo/CPU/RAM
Budget: $200
Upgrade frequency: every 2 years (alternated with video card)
Guide: Generally these three items are locked together - you upgrade one and then have to upgrade all of them. I try to spend around $50-75 on the CPU, around the same for the board, and $40 or so on RAM. Depending on the deals/rebates you get, you might come in significantly under budget. Watch for the price break, you might be able to purchase some extra clock rate for just a tiny bit more, but be careful - clock rate isn't nearly as important to performance as the chip generation/family.
Upgrade group: Video card
Budget: $125
Upgrade frequency: every 2 years (alternated with mobo/cpu/ram)
Guide: I don't like to spend much on video cards. Watch for high-end heavily discounted parts from the previous generation to fill this slot. Failing that, many of the more mainstream parts work very well compared to their price point. You might have to wait a little while depending on where you are in the product cycle (as above).
Upgrade group: Case/PSU
Budget: $50/ea
Upgrade frequency: as needed, I generally can stretch a case or PSU for 3-5 years.
Guide: Cases don't need upgrading frequently, but occasionally you'll find a good deal on a particularly easy to work with model. Since we're not shooting for the highest end parts around, a good PSU can last a good while too. Be careful when upgrading the two main groups above that your current PSU can handle the load, or you may want to edit your budget to include a new one.
Upgrade group: Drives
Budget: $75
Upgrade frequency: as needed, every 3-5 years on average
Guide: "Buy what you need today, it will be cheaper tomorrow" - storage space is always getting cheaper at an insane rate. Buy reputable brands. I've run RAID0 at times, and found it to be pretty decent, if your board supports it. This is another area where you should shop for price breaks. You might be able to get a larger drive if you stretch your budget a bit, but don't go overboard.
Upgrade group: Monitors
Budget: ??
Upgrade frequency: As needed, much harder to put a time frame on this
Guide: Monitors are a longer term investment, so you may break your yearly budget to get a nice one. Shop refurbished (as long as it still has a good warranty) and you can get much better deals.
Upgrade group: Input
Budget: $40/ea
Upgrade frequency: As needed, for ergo reasons or if you have a failure
Guide: Really, go for comfort and ease of use here. There is a lot of what I believe is marketing hype when it comes to gamer input accessories. This, more than anything else, is a personal preference.
Resources/Links
Ars Technica has a good 'System Guide' that they publish from time to time. As of this writing, the latest is 9/08:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200809.ars
But you may want to search their site to find a more updated version. The guide is a good starting point for new builds, to allow you to jumpstart your research.
FatWallet stores coupon codes for a number of the major online retailers. Their forums are also a handy reference for various deals you can find in store and online.
Also, sign up for the email newsletters from a bunch of the major internet retailers, perhaps under a junk email address that you only check when you're in the market for a deal. Some retailers will mail coupons out to people who don't buy for a while (buy.com does this regularly) and you might get free shipping or $5 off. Plus, sometimes they advertise bigger deals in the newsletter than they do on the site.
For deals on games themselves, try:
Cheapass Gamer is a good site for their forums. They parse the weekly ads from a number of sources and give you the best info around on saving cash on games and gaming hardware.
There's also GoGamer - Sign up for their 48-hour madness mail! They almost always have multiple titles for less than $5! Even new games will sometimes go for $15-20 off their regular retail price.
Conclusion
I realize this is likely to be controversial. Please don't flame - I am not against spending more than this on a rig. This is just the way I shop, and how I game without dropping fat stacks. If you're on a budget, or you're a poor college student, or you're just cheap, perhaps you will find this info helpful.
I realize that if you follow this guide you will not end up with a dream machine. It may not play some games that have very high requirements as soon as they are released. I'm just cheap. I know it, now you do too This is my opinion. Opinions are like butts. Everyone has one, and they all stink.
Above all, feel good about your rig, whatever shape its in. Get in the servers, and have a good time! This hobby is all about enjoying yourself and playing on a team with your friends.
From time to time on IRC, we get into discussions about the latest tech. Everyone wants to have a cutting-edge rig, but I have a very different philosophy on the subject and I'd like to share it.
I'll warn you - not everyone will agree with me. Heck, I bet quite a few won't. I hope this is moderately helpful to someone out there so that it was worth the time I invested. If you're concerned with maxing out your FPS in the latest titles at the highest settings, this guide is probably not going to work for you. I don't have anything against that kind of thing - if you have the cash and the time to invest in this, more power to you! Enjoy your gaming rig, you earned it!
The focus here, however, is getting the best value for every dollar spent, and spending as little as possible
With that in mind...Some general lessons I've learned:
The Tech Price Curve - Tech of any sort goes through three phases in the market. In the first phase, the cost to the consumer is high, to recoup R&D costs and initial fixed overhead. The target consumer here is the 'early adopter.' As the tech ages, these costs frequently decline somewhat and the vendor typically cuts prices. At some point, the demand slows and/or the vendor moves on to the next generation of tech, which frequently causes closeout sales. Finally, the vendor stops production, and the tech becomes rare, as a replacement part, driving the cost to the end user up again.
Extreme value gamers don't want to be early adopters. We want to buy as cheaply as possible and maximize the hardware we get per dollar spent. Therefore, we want to come in as close to the end of the markdowns as possible. This generally means we want to buy the previous gen tech when the new tech comes on the market.
Tech Marketing - Marketing plays an important role in enthusiast markets such as the gaming market. Branding and bullet point features can jack up the perceived value of an item. Every year vendors must find some way to make their new product super exciting to people who shelled out for the previous gen product.
Watch out for marketing. They want to make you WANT the product. They want you to think it is sexy and awesome and soooo much better than last year's model. They also want to charge you extra for stuff you don't need but you think you do. Extreme value gamers know the differences between model years and know that not everything marked 'Gamer' or 'Extreme' is better than stuff that isn't.
Personal Perception & Peer Pressure - We like our rigs less as they age. We've all felt that new, fresh, faster than lightning feeling we get after we upgrade. But somehow, a few months down the road, it fades and we feel like things would run smoother if only we could upgrade one or two parts... After all, SuperL33tDude just bought a new Super 1000x Video Card++ and ours is only just a lame Super 1000x Video Card+
Extreme value gaming means getting the most out of our rigs without spending extra cash. This one can get hard - yes, over time, tech ages and if we want to play the latest and greatest, we have to upgrade. But sometimes we can extend the life of a rig through simple things like a reformat, or a new tweaked driver, or perhaps defragmenting. Remember also that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - people who have upgraded more recently, or spent more money, are going to have nicer rigs. We have to be happy with what we have and let them be happy with what they have
My recommendations on price & cycle
My personal goal is to spend less than $300/year on upgrades. Whenever possible, I actually like to keep it closer to $150 - $200. I don't want to recommend specific products, as the market changes weekly and keeping up with it is beyond my job description
. Shop around, read reviews, but try to inoculate yourself against the hype and pressure.Upgrade group: Mobo/CPU/RAM
Budget: $200
Upgrade frequency: every 2 years (alternated with video card)
Guide: Generally these three items are locked together - you upgrade one and then have to upgrade all of them. I try to spend around $50-75 on the CPU, around the same for the board, and $40 or so on RAM. Depending on the deals/rebates you get, you might come in significantly under budget. Watch for the price break, you might be able to purchase some extra clock rate for just a tiny bit more, but be careful - clock rate isn't nearly as important to performance as the chip generation/family.
Upgrade group: Video card
Budget: $125
Upgrade frequency: every 2 years (alternated with mobo/cpu/ram)
Guide: I don't like to spend much on video cards. Watch for high-end heavily discounted parts from the previous generation to fill this slot. Failing that, many of the more mainstream parts work very well compared to their price point. You might have to wait a little while depending on where you are in the product cycle (as above).
Upgrade group: Case/PSU
Budget: $50/ea
Upgrade frequency: as needed, I generally can stretch a case or PSU for 3-5 years.
Guide: Cases don't need upgrading frequently, but occasionally you'll find a good deal on a particularly easy to work with model. Since we're not shooting for the highest end parts around, a good PSU can last a good while too. Be careful when upgrading the two main groups above that your current PSU can handle the load, or you may want to edit your budget to include a new one.
Upgrade group: Drives
Budget: $75
Upgrade frequency: as needed, every 3-5 years on average
Guide: "Buy what you need today, it will be cheaper tomorrow" - storage space is always getting cheaper at an insane rate. Buy reputable brands. I've run RAID0 at times, and found it to be pretty decent, if your board supports it. This is another area where you should shop for price breaks. You might be able to get a larger drive if you stretch your budget a bit, but don't go overboard.
Upgrade group: Monitors
Budget: ??
Upgrade frequency: As needed, much harder to put a time frame on this
Guide: Monitors are a longer term investment, so you may break your yearly budget to get a nice one. Shop refurbished (as long as it still has a good warranty) and you can get much better deals.
Upgrade group: Input
Budget: $40/ea
Upgrade frequency: As needed, for ergo reasons or if you have a failure
Guide: Really, go for comfort and ease of use here. There is a lot of what I believe is marketing hype when it comes to gamer input accessories. This, more than anything else, is a personal preference.
Resources/Links
Ars Technica has a good 'System Guide' that they publish from time to time. As of this writing, the latest is 9/08:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200809.ars
But you may want to search their site to find a more updated version. The guide is a good starting point for new builds, to allow you to jumpstart your research.
FatWallet stores coupon codes for a number of the major online retailers. Their forums are also a handy reference for various deals you can find in store and online.
Also, sign up for the email newsletters from a bunch of the major internet retailers, perhaps under a junk email address that you only check when you're in the market for a deal. Some retailers will mail coupons out to people who don't buy for a while (buy.com does this regularly) and you might get free shipping or $5 off. Plus, sometimes they advertise bigger deals in the newsletter than they do on the site.
For deals on games themselves, try:
Cheapass Gamer is a good site for their forums. They parse the weekly ads from a number of sources and give you the best info around on saving cash on games and gaming hardware.
There's also GoGamer - Sign up for their 48-hour madness mail! They almost always have multiple titles for less than $5! Even new games will sometimes go for $15-20 off their regular retail price.
Conclusion
I realize this is likely to be controversial. Please don't flame - I am not against spending more than this on a rig. This is just the way I shop, and how I game without dropping fat stacks. If you're on a budget, or you're a poor college student, or you're just cheap, perhaps you will find this info helpful.
I realize that if you follow this guide you will not end up with a dream machine. It may not play some games that have very high requirements as soon as they are released. I'm just cheap. I know it, now you do too
This is my opinion. Opinions are like butts. Everyone has one, and they all stink. Above all, feel good about your rig, whatever shape its in. Get in the servers, and have a good time! This hobby is all about enjoying yourself and playing on a team with your friends.
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