raymac46 Posted January 3, 2018 Posted January 3, 2018 Just curious. Although I like speccing out new hardware and building a desktop PC I don't think I will be doing much this coming year. My reasons: I'm not much of a gamer. I play some train sims but the ones I like run on DX9 and 10. Not exactly bleeding edge. I find that a GTX 950 handles them quite well. Most of what I do involves, music, video streams, surfing the Web, some light Office stuff. The grandkids play some Web based video games in Chrome. Nothing too rigorous that demands the latest hardware. My machines run copies of the latest O/S - Windows 10 on an Intel machine, Linux Mint 18 on my AMD desktop. I have an even older desktop (AMD Athlon 64 X2) that is slow to boot but does fine with LM 18 playing Spotify in my work room. I have installed SSDs on the two better desktops - this in itself gave me a noticeable increase in response and snappiness. I might be missing out on the PCI based SSD, USB 3.1, DDR4 but everything seems fast and smooth to me. Both desktops feature high quality motherboards and decent enough quad core CPUs - they were not high end or bleeding edge when I got them, but they have aged well. They should keep on going barring any catastrophic failure. If that happens I have enough redundancy here to stay on the Internet. Both desktops have decent peripherals so there is no incentive to upgrade monitors and speakers and at the same time build a new box to go with them. Linux, Linux, Linux. A great O/S that keeps even a 10 year old Athlon dual core chugging along. No point in upgrading to the latest hardware and then running into issues. Maybe next year. But I won't hold my breath. Quote
mac Posted January 3, 2018 Posted January 3, 2018 Well, not new, but a new GPU and a new PSU. The PSU is from 2007, and though still performing well, I'll box it up and keep it as a spare. Same for the GPU, works well, but at 4 years old, I'm going to replace it with a newer board and keep it as a spare. Old PSU: PCP&C 750W PSU Old GPU: EVGA GTX650 Ti Boost w/2GB GDDR5 Ram PCIE 3.0 New PSU: Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-750FX 750W 80+ Gold ATX12V & EPS12V Full Modular 120mm FDB Fan Compact 140 mm Size Power Supply New GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti DirectX 12 GTX 1050 Ti 4G OC 4GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Most of my games are older - newest was from 2008 - but my son gave me COD WWII for Christmas, and I want to make sure I can play it with everything maxxed out. Happy New Year to all!!! Quote
raymac46 Posted January 3, 2018 Author Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) I had a GTX 650 Ti Boost which I replaced with my GTX 950. The GTX 650 is now in my oldest desktop which mostly plays music. It replaced an even older GT 440. I had to replace a Cooler Master 500 watt PS in my main desktop earlier this year because it got noisy and I wasn't sure how long it would last. I replaced it with an EVGA 600 watt. My second desktop (Linux) has a Corsair 430 watt PS and an AMD R7 360 video card. Not particularly powerful but fine for what I need. One of the best upgrades this year has been to my eyes - cataract surgery. It has made two already excellent monitors look even better. Edited January 3, 2018 by raymac46 Quote
mac Posted January 3, 2018 Posted January 3, 2018 I beat you to the punch with the cataract surgery - 2002. I agree that it was the best medical procedure I've ever had done! Quote
abarbarian Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 I am planning to build a shed/workshop out in the back garden this year..... does that count Quote
raymac46 Posted January 4, 2018 Author Posted January 4, 2018 I am planning to build a shed/workshop out in the back garden this year..... does that count Only if you include a wifi hotspot out there. 1 Quote
goretsky Posted January 5, 2018 Posted January 5, 2018 Hello, Last year, I was having problems with my then-current system—which I had not planned to upgrade until this year—and after failing to identify the root cause, I ended up doing an out-of-band (for me) system upgrade, which I wrote about here on the motherboard manufacturer's support forum. Because of this, I had not planned on replacing it this year, but with the current issues surrounding processor architecture security vulnerabilities I may end up performing another OOB upgrade depending upon how things turn out. Even if I don't perform a wholesale upgrade like I did last year, I still may perform some updates such as more RAM, a new Wi-Fi adapter and a larger HDD, if needed. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky 2 Quote
abarbarian Posted January 7, 2018 Posted January 7, 2018 I am planning to build a shed/workshop out in the back garden this year..... does that count Only if you include a wifi hotspot out there. I am intending to house a spare backup pc out in the shed so I will have some sort of internet connection out there. 1 Quote
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