Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics' 4th)

[Opaque]

I mean, and this is an honest question, how am I wasting money if I'm happy with what I'm getting? I get that you think that I don't need a new card, but I don't need anything related to this hobby. I only need food and shelter, everything else is just shit that makes you happy. Sure I could buy the other stuff from Amazon, and I do, it's not really an issue.

Also, why wouldn't I spend $500 in credit then sell my old card for $250 and turn that into $750-$900 in credit? I can't think of a single reason other than getting bored of doing it, which I'm totally not.

[MechDeus]

I mean, and this is an honest question, how am I wasting money if I'm happy with what I'm getting?

Because you're buying something purely functional that gives little to no return. With cars, you can keep buying higher end awesome cars but unless you're competing in races there's eventually a point where you're purchasing vehicle power that does literally almost nothing for anywhere you drive, but you can still show them off and the general public still tends to gawk at such things. If nothing else you've got the penis envy thing going on. But no one gives a shit about what the video card inside your case looks like, the only reason it's there is to run stuff on your computer. I mean, we're only just now reaching some games where 2-3 year old cards can't do everything turned on high at 60fps, so what is a new card going to do? Run it at 200fps on a monitor that only displays 60?

Also, you're going to buy a card for $500 and that's somehow spending the same amount as people who skip a generation? Unless you're hanging around with people who are complete idiots about PC gaming or are just rich and don't care, no one should be spending $1000 on a card. That's just dumb.

[Opaque]

I mean you say we're only reaching that point, but when I crank options up to max on Crysis 2 for example my card gets maxed on load and hits like 15fps.

There is absolutely gains on these cards and it's just a matter of if you personally care. Yeah there are people out there running Crysis 3 on a 460 with mid settings getting 30fps and they're happy with that, but how could you possibly argue that doubling your FPS with settings maxed out wouldn't look better?

Also someone buying a $1000 card every two years and throwong out with old one spend $500 a year on cards. Someone who buys a $500 card every two years spends $250 a year on cards. Someone who buys a $500 card every year and sells their old one for $250 is also spending $250 a year on cards. How do you not see that? Not to mention that u got $250 for my 570 a few months back because it was only one generation back and used for only one year, in another year from now it will be two gens back and two years of use, I'll be lucky to break $100 if I can sell it at all. Most people shy away from used cards in the first place, two years old cards are hard to move. There is a limited window where you can get get the best return on your old stuff and have an effective price as low as what I'm talking about. You can call it retarded all you want, but however much you are spending on upgrades, you could spend the same and upgrade twice as often if you just sell your old card in a timely fashion.

Seriously though, keep telling yourself that I'm spending all this money for something I don't need and it's double what it actually is to make yourself feel better, or whatever.

[icarusfall]

This conversation is scintillating.

[Diff-chan]

Because you're buying something purely functional that gives little to no return.

I've always felt that a lot of people on sites like HardOCP build their PCs to benchmark them. That's what they want to do - that's the point of their PC. It's obvious Opaque cares more about this sort of thing than most, but that's why companies like Nvidia release so many cards.

[Opaque]

I build my PC to get the most out of it I can when playing games at a dollar amount I'm comfortable spending.

My personal amount happens to be about $500 every two years, but a few years back while half joking about wanting a 280 while I had my 8800 to a friend he offered me half the price of the 280 for my 8800 and I thought it was an awesome idea. I've been doing it ever since. I keep track of my money, the math isn't hard, every two years I spend the same on upgrading my cards and selling the old one as I would buying an upgrade every two years and not selling the old one. The biggeat difference isn't the money, it's that every year I get better performance out of my machine and I can push games further.

[MechDeus]

I've always felt that a lot of people on sites like HardOCP build their PCs to benchmark them. That's what they want to do - that's the point of their PC. It's obvious Opaque cares more about this sort of thing than most, but that's why companies like Nvidia release so many cards.

There should be some sites where the people who run it do exactly that and having some followers to back them up or disprove what they've found helps everybody, but unless you're specifically trying to contribute stats then it's not really serving a purpose.

[Will]

I tried the steam thing but my 2010 PC couldn't run Bulletstorm or Sine Mora even on the lowest settings.

While yes I could buy a graphics card and upgrade my PC it's just not a priority at this point in time so I just use my Xbox for gaming. For Tomb Raider I'm sure it'll look stunning on PC but honestly if it looks good enough on PS3 or Xbox and I don't have to spend money on a graphics card then I'll gladly settle.

[Opaque]

I dont think I'm wrong when I say that buying games on the Steam sale instead of paying console prices more than outweighs the cost of a video card.

I mean shit I got Skyrim for $30 a month after launched.

[Will]

I dont think I'm wrong when I say that buying games on the Steam sale instead of paying console prices more than outweighs the cost of a video card.

I mean shit I got Skyrim for $30 a month after launched.

Well if you have a good video card already sure Steam is great but Steam is hardly the only place you can get good sales prices and you also have to determine how much sense it makes to upgrade a card to play Steam games such as in my situation.

Bulletstorm on Steam is $19.99 right now but I just bought a physical copy on Amazon for $14, if Steam has a sale for it for $5-10 then great but if I can't run the game well on my rig and I have to pay an additional amount to be able to play it at medium or max settings then it doesn't make sense to do that if my Xbox can run Bulletstorm smoothly at 1080 just fine. As another example Steam has Shank 2 on sale for $4.99 but I got Shank 1 & 2 on an Xbox LIVE publisher sale for 800 MSP which is pretty much the same thing. A good gaming PC will always play console games at a higher fidelity but it's not like going from SF: Rush on the arcade to an N64 version unless you go into extreme examples and in most cases it just comes down to preference.

Oh and I got Skyrim basically for free digitally since it came bundled with the system :P