Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
There is another one: durability. That can be affected by single 5-cent-components on a PC card, by a single switch, by the material that is used for building a piece of something. Durablity also refers to the effects that can influence the longevity of the system, namely what increases or decreases heat levels. Finally: product design (chip architecture for example) , and production quality both affect durability.
One word of advise: check the RAM bars you end up with, run full (=time-consuming) RAM tests with them, individually. i know its a pain in the azz, but the ammount of erratic RAM leaving the factory, no matter the brand, is hilarious. In my current system, replacing and also increaisng my RAM had me going through 10 bars - 5 of which showed to be broken while being new. My then new system was already delivered with broken RAM, I later found out. In winter 2017, when I bought my system, the status was that experts estimated 35-45% of the produced RAM Bars and chips of any kind (SD cards, USB sticks) being erratic and technically flawed. The producers definitely do not have full control over their quality assurance there. I would also test any SSD throughly. RAM bars are an item to buy that is very high-ranking of my risks-list.
I recall times when it was exciting and fun to buy a new system. To me at least that is no more. Its a burden. My last system before the current one lasted for almost 7 years, and I still would use it if it would not have become techncially unreliable (breaking apart): not for VR, but else: the performance was enizgh for my gaming needs. My current one now is 2 years 2 months old. I hope and expect and demand it to last as long, with the excpetion of the graphcis card, maybe, or the HD/SSD. Dont they know we live in times of progress? Progress it is not if stuff you produce lasts shorter and shorter.
|
Believe me,we're on the same page here.
I look for a desktop to have a minimum five year life span. My last tower ran for eight years before I bought a replacement (and its still sitting in a closet in case I need to borrow some parts).
If I bought a 1070 or 1080 series GPU for the current rig, I could never fall asleep. I'd be worried the GPU would call a cab so it could move in with a richer family.
All kidding aside, parts that use a lot more power can be tricky.
More power equals more heat which you'll have to deal with in terms of cooling. More heat also means that someone is going to have to pay for that extra power (in a bill at the end of the month).
One of the things that makes me cringe is seeing a big tower full of top-line hardware sitting on the floor because it sounds like an industrial plant. Trust me, towers
hate sitting on the floor or, worse yet, on a carpet.
In my case, I play old games.
That's why I really don't need a GPU.
I run flight sim (2002) with the frame rate locked at 60 FPS. I see online where folks are perfectly happy with 20 or 30 FPS and I don't get it.
Running at 30 FPS would tell me something is wrong on my system.
I pulled up the display numbers for Dangerous Waters on this rig only once. It was reporting something over 250 FPS so I figured that was good enough.
Would I trade 30 FPS for a 4K display? Man, it would really have to knock my socks off to consider it. For the record, I've never played a game on an XBox or Playstation so I never had to get used to 20 FPS.
With RAM, yeah its tricky. My current rig shipped with a single 8 gig stick and I started to worry about what would happen if it failed (this was more of a supply problem). The system ran fine on 8 gigs and I tried it with 16 Gigs and didn't see much to write about, so the new stick is back in its box and sitting on the shelf in case its ever needed.