Prebuilt PCs

[Tumor]

6 months is a lifetime. Same with cars, it's old right when you drive it out of the store.

Only if you're into keeping up with the Joneses... and have the expendable cash to support the lifestyle.

[Spikes]

No offense intended, also sometimes I forget that not everyone has given a thought for a simple rule of remembering the Intel Core i# generations (applies to Android versions as well): Simply add 10 to the build number to get the year of launch. Or distract 10 from the year to get the build number of that era. Unfortunately I haven't figured out similar "rules" for Ryzens or any of the GPUs, or the cheaper CPU models.

Regarding the lifetime of electronics, 6 months is a lifetime. Same with cars, it's old right when you drive it out of the store. But that isn't synonymous to "obsolete". The usability depends on many other variables than just the latest quirk - a perfect example of that is how processors are made: They are "baked" as a disk of some 1½ ft in diameter, the individual chips being the size of a fingernail or so. And all chips are identical by design, for Intel that means that they only make i9-14900KS CPUs! However, the closer to the edge the chip is from, the less perfect it is. But as long as parts of a chip work, it can be used for tasks with reduced performance. They simply disable the non-working sections. Thus most of use CPUs that are second-rate, or third or fourth or...

For longevity the best time to get a new computer would be around halfways of the expected life span of the current Windows so that the system would be compatible with the upcoming OS. Windows 10 was launched 2015 so based on history that halfway point would have been around 2020. Windows 11 can be run on systems from 2018 and up but they didn't tell that until 2021. That makes guessing a hit and miss game.

My thoughts exactly. Electronics cycles are quick but doesn't necessarily make them obsolete after 6 mos.

I'd also venture to say that 1080p 60fps isn't really the standard in the gaming world anymore. Be it higher refresh, higher resolution, or both...

[AKIron]

Many young people believe you won't be competitive in FPS (First Person Shooter) without at least 100 FPS (Frames Per Second) and that's low end. They will spend a lot and sacrifice screen size for refresh rate. I know this because I have 10 grandsons.

[AKIron]

Of course a monitor capable of 240hz refresh doesn't mean your system can draw new frames that fast.

[Meatwad]

anything over 60 fps i cant tell the difference on. They are using the crutch of anything under 100 fps is making them die because of skill issues

[AKIron]

Have you watched a 17 year old play FPS? Most of my grandsons play or have played them. There are practice apps for shooters. Their reflexes are amazing. I can still beat them all at foosball though. I'll be 70 in Sept.

[Bizman]

anything over 60 fps i cant tell the difference on. They are using the crutch of anything under 100 fps is making them die because of skill issues

I've got a friend who's been playing FPS games for decades. A few years ago he was tight on budget so we built him a cheap system of used parts, i7-4670 and GTX 970 plus a 1080p 60Hz monitor. It seemed to work well and he explained his poor performance by his age and Russian hackers. Some time later he managed to get a used GTX 1080 for "buddy price" and also got a 1440p 144Hz monitor. That improved his playing by a margin. Then it became obvious that the old parts of his rig were bottlenecking so a few years ago we rebuilt the system to feature an i7-10700 which further improved his reaction speed. As he put it, it was not about frame rates per se as they didn't change. Input lag might be the closest guess as he said that he seemed to see the enemy a tad earlier than before. So apparently it's not about the base clock speed alone, it's also about how fast the calculations of the CPU reach and go through the GPU to the monitor.

There's studies that claim that the human eye can't see any difference past 60 fps. A few decades ago similar researches put the limit to 30 fps. I wouldn't be surprised if AKIron's grandsons could see 100 fps or more.

And the reaction speed of young gamers is incredible indeed. They don't seem to look at games as simulations of real life, instead they may look at changes in a bunch of pixels and react accordingly. Some 15+ years ago the godson of my wife tried AH at the tender age of 14 or so. He had been playing computer games since early childhood, practicing platform games with his friends to get the rhythm right to be able to bounce through tunnels and over obstacles. He got bored of AH in a year after having learned the mechanics. For him it wasn't about history or aerodynamics, it was just about learning how to manipulate the joystick in a manner that would bring the enemy to his crosshair. No thinking about the accuracy of flight modeling or need for immersion, just learning how to move the objects in this particular game with the controllers he had. Compare that to us who'd like to see the most life-like views and use historically accurate controllers for immersion.

[Meatwad]

There has been plenty of games where if I was getting 35 fps I was happy

[hazmatt]

I've got a friend who's been playing FPS games for decades. A few years ago he was tight on budget so we built him a cheap system of used parts, i7-4670 and GTX 970 plus a 1080p 60Hz monitor. It seemed to work well and he explained his poor performance by his age and Russian hackers. Some time later he managed to get a used GTX 1080 for "buddy price" and also got a 1440p 144Hz monitor. That improved his playing by a margin. Then it became obvious that the old parts of his rig were bottlenecking so a few years ago we rebuilt the system to feature an i7-10700 which further improved his reaction speed. As he put it, it was not about frame rates per se as they didn't change. Input lag might be the closest guess as he said that he seemed to see the enemy a tad earlier than before. So apparently it's not about the base clock speed alone, it's also about how fast the calculations of the CPU reach and go through the GPU to the monitor.

I knew an guy that played Counter Strike at a high level back in the day, winning competitions traveling around and stuff. He told me that any network latency will get you killed. He said if you connection goes bad for a second you're dead. I found that interesting as I could die easily with a good network connection.

[AKIron]

I enjoyed Flight Simulator on a Commodore 64 back in the day. I was happy getting 4 FPS, it was usually less.

[icepac]

There has been plenty of games where if I was getting 35 fps I was happy

I flew my entire aces high career with never more than 25fps and a 400ms ping.

It flew fine and nobody accused me of warping.

I’m not sure any other flight sim could do that.

[RichardDarkwood]

.

I’m not sure any other flight sim could do that.

depends on the server host

[hazmatt]

I flew my entire aces high career with never more than 25fps and a 400ms ping.

It flew fine and nobody accused me of warping.

I’m not sure any other flight sim could do that.

400ms. Wow. where are you located?

[Tumor]

400ms. Wow. where are you located?

Given the evidence, I'm gonna guess, Svalbard.

[AKIron]

For me, a consistent frame rate is more important than a high frame rate. But getting both is best.