Anecdotally but several of my friends build a new PC and then slide their old one to siblings who game but don’t need high end
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
I’m surprised that so many (40%) have plans to build a new PC in next two years. Especially because we are talking about PC Gamers, who are already PC Gamers. I would assume that most either do not, or upgrade instead build a new PC. From those 40% of 1.5k tomshardware readers who participated in the survey, I wonder in what state their PC are and if they HAVE to build a new PC or they just have a lot of money around and can afford it. Do they sell the old system or parts of it? Unfortunately these are unanswered at the moment.
mushroommunk@lemmy.today 3 days ago
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s way easier to get rid of an entire computer second hand than it is bespoke parts that you’ve replaced, so this is what I do too. I used to be on a 4-year cadence with new PCs, but then I kept getting more and more mileage out of my machines, since graphics don’t leap forward so quickly like they used to. My current machine is 5 years old and still runs the latest games on high settings.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Heeeey, it’s me! Your sibling! You got any of that sweet sweet ddr5 ram??? Don’t hold out on me, boy!
virku@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I got my friends old box the same way. I’m into games that don’t require all that much. And will also use it to play minecraft with my kids.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Minecraft? MINECRAFT??? OH GOD NO!!! YOU WOULD NEED A $4,000 TOP OF THE LINE PC!!! 512GB RAM, 8 CORE, 16 THREAD AT 20GHZ EACH!!!
Gaming is too expensive. You should sell a kid.
sexhaver87@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Username checks out
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Domated mine to the after school “day care”.
They helped me so much, I wanted to repay it in some capacityluluberlue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Well… I did upgrade mine progressively, I don’t think it still has any original parts, maybe some sata cables? I was able to get a smaller pc offspring out of this, ended up as my nephew’s gaming rig, does it count as my old rig? are both the same rig? damn computer of theseus causing philosophical problems!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 days ago
that is the hand me down way, saves money to buy a new one. im not a heavy gamer but i do get hand me down from someone who games.
KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Yeah I found that strange too most of my gaming PCs have lasted me somewhere between 7 and 10 years. Would seem completely unnecessary for most people
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I just upgrade one or two parts every 2-4 years. seems to have worked fine for over a decade. dreading when I need to do a mobo update which will include ram
nahostdeutschland@feddit.org 3 days ago
The question is kind of weird. I want to build a new gaming computer, but that is nothing I’m doing at current prices and I can totally live without building a new one. If that one breaks, I might reconsider. But I really do not know if there are people around who are planning to build a new computer in May 2028.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I replaced my old PC only because I went from an i5 6600 to a ryzen 7800x3d and thus needed to replace the RAM as well.
Combone that with an old 4GB 960 and an older 2TB HDD and wanting another case the math was quite easy.It’s alao a quesrion how you interpret that? At what point is it a new PC vs upgrading? If you have replaced all parts from the original starting build?
Might explain the higher percentageSanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 days ago
I recently built new to pass my current rig to my kid who is only interested in Roblox and other smaller games. And I mean the entire rig, including the desk.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 3 days ago
i built a monster pc in 2024 and maxed out the RAM and CPU the motherboard could handle. New 4k monitor and a 32gb RTX video card. I think I spent about $1.5k
no way could I get that stuff for the same price. I could probably sell the parts for more
it’s still a monster and in Linux, I can tweak it just a bit more to get everything it can give.
I’m thinking that the way games have progressed in the last 5 years, there’s nothing on the horizon that says prepare for the new technology that will blow my mind
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
32g vram gpu for less than 2k is unlikely. A 4090 itself would be close to 2k
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
There… is only a single, mainline, broadly available RTX GPU with 32gb VRAM.
It’s the 5090 RTX.
Which came out in January of 2025.
At an MSRP of $2,000.
With many partner models considerably exceeding that, up to as high as $5,000.
Not only is the pricing ludicrous, the timing is not possible.
The only thing in 2024 or prior I can find with 32 gb vram is basically an unofficial mod or variant called the RTX 4090 D, that never left China, or, maybe it would be something like about as hard to find as a GRE variant AMD card in the US.
I guess unless this person’s uncle works at
NintendoNvidia, or something.Outside of that, we’re talking workstation/server type GPUs, generally with even more ludicrous pricing.
This person is either very confused or very bad at lying.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
“Oh yeah I got the video card for free”
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
That’s honestly the only explanation for that build at just 1.5k
Khrux@ttrpg.network 3 days ago
I finally got round to a significant upgrade to my PC last week. I’ve been running the same PC for 10 years, and it’s really been dying. Fans and HDDs were failing, and it couldn’t play new games at all.
I haven’t replaced my GPU (still on a GTX 980ti) but I jumped to some decent DDR4 RAM, a better CPU, and moved into an SFF case, but I have no confidence any prices are set to stabilise, so I just gave in and built what I could.
alakey@piefed.social 3 days ago
I don’t believe in “just upgrading” at this point. If you built your PC with efficiency in mind, there’s like nothing you can even “upgrade”. Anything I can think of will get outdated by the time you need the next thing. A new GPU? Oh, you are still on Gen3… that means a new motherboard. Updating from AM4 to AM..4? Nah that feels like bad value, but AM5 requires DDR5, both of which have already been out for almost 5 years and will likely get replaced in a year or 2. Upgrading RAM? Again, just bumping DDR4 for a marginally better/larger cap DDR4 feels like bad value and unwarranted. Storage? Whoops, your old motherboard doesn’t support NVMe booting and it’s BIOS hasn’t been touched in over 5 years! You are lucky if you even have an M.2 slot.
And believe it or not, these prices are not even the worst they’ve ever been, so might as well just get a new PC every 5 or so years, maybe keep your old storage, CPU cooler, PSU and case, but that’s about it.
Meron35@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Don’t forget this market insanity started around COVID, and has basically been succeeded by consequent crises with few dips.
The typical release cadence of PC components is around 4-6 years, which requires new motherboard, CPU, and RAM.
Adding in the GPU basically results in a new build, and that’s being generous assuming no upgrades/changes to other parts like PSU and storage.My take is that a lot of these people wishing to upgrade are those who have simply been holding out since 2020 or earlier. This seems to vaguely match up with the Steam Hardware results, with a fair number of people still using RTX 3000 series or RX 6000 series, of which even the top end cards are starting to become par/outperformed by their modern mid level counterparts.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
The typical release cadence of PC components is around 4-6 years, which requires new motherboard, CPU, and RAM.
Not with AMD though. Usually the motherboard can be reused if you buy new generation of CPU and RAM (good luck if you have Intel, then you are screwed and need to change everything). But besides that, even after a few years upgrading graphics card and RAM is all you need to stay “competitive” to play top games. Maybe new SSD too. I don’t know how usual it is to upgrade parts along the way, not all at once. Especially in times like these just upgrading certain parts at a time is the only option for most.
IronKrill@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I think you may overestimate how many people build their PCs instead of buying a prebuilt.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
That’s not my estimation, that is the direct result of the survey.
Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
A survey based on the audience of Toms Hardware …
Katana314@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It can be people budding into the genre. They’ve heard about how nice Steam is, and maybe play some games on a cheap laptop, but recognize a genuine desktop is the better experience.
One streamer I follow is in that situation. She streams off her PS5 and Switch, but has a donation incentive to help build her PC.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Not really, as the article is about PC Gamers who already have a PC. Otherwise they are not PC Gamers who want to build their next PC. I don’t think this survey is meant for newcomers, as far as I understand.
Klear@piefed.world 3 days ago
I might fall in that category, depending on how they’d ask me. I have a solid PC I built after crypto stopped inflating the prices but just before the RAM shortage and I’m mostly good, but I’ve got the money and have been thinking I could upgrade soon as a treat. Not at these prices though.
So it all depends if the situation improves in the next two years somewhat. This year? No chance, IMO. next year? Maybe. Maybe I’m too optimistic. But I definitely wouldn’t rule out be building a new PC in that timeframe.
cRazi_man@europe.pub 3 days ago
In online communities at least, people seem to be keen to stay on the cutting edge and always have the best and shiniest. Toms Hardware is going to attract this very audience.
I accept that I’m probably too far the other way on the spectrum of patient gamers…but people don’t seem to think of the utility of the item and rather stay obsessed with “10% performance gains”. For the vast majority of people, phones, laptops and computers can easily last over 5 years (sometimes 10 years depending on use case).
Although these frequent upgraders do give a good stock of items for people like me to pick up and stay in the sweetspot of positioning behind the frontline of cutting edge products on the secondhand market.
NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 days ago
I just wish I could get my friends into ‘patient gaming’ for multiplayer stuff, rather than that 10% performance gain for the latest and greatest ‘’‘’‘AAA’‘’'. The patient gamers communities here seem a little slow for finding people who want to play the same genre, and linking the lemmy account to any other account, like steam, gog, epic, etc., just doesn’t seem kosher.
cRazi_man@europe.pub 2 days ago
I’ve abandoned any hope of playing multiplayer games, old or new, with people I know. No friends play indie/old games. Few people play games at all. I wish there were more asynchronous games to play. Turn taking at your leisure or progressing a shared game whenever you are able. It would be so cool if Don’t Starve Together could have a persistent server with a small group and everyone could dip in or out at any time to contribute to the farming and base building.
NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 days ago
I’d love to play don’t starve together just because I am trash at don’t starve. I think I get about three nights in and… starve.