This article needs a clearer title. I agree that upgrading from a 6000 or 3000 series card right now is almost completely pointless, and even going back another generation it's still not a great proposition. But I know people with "gaming PCs" rocking 1650s or even 1050s. Lots of folks with medium or low end several generations old hardware out there, for whom great upgrade options exist.
I still use a 1070, so the GPU comparisons here aren't relevant.
The main issue I hit was deciding between DDR4 and DDR5 RAM since we're in an awkward transition phase - and that affects motherboard and so CPU choices too.
Well, I've had the same CPU/Mobo/RAM for over ten years and only upgraded my GPU once from a GTX660 to a 5700xt at the start of the pandemic. I'm finally seeing some issues with some modern AAA content. Hogwarts legacy won't really run at all, for example.
I also haven't wiped my system in the same amount of time, so that may be more the culprit than the system itself. Still going strong!
The CPU becomes the real issue though - which then means changing motherboard, which means changing RAM, etc. and then you might as well get an NVMe too etc.
I used to upgrade every generation, and yeah, it was stupidly expensive. But it was my only hobby, and you could actually seen performance increases each time.
But for the last 10 years or so, there's much less point. Sometimes there are major advances (Cuda, RTX) that make it worthwhile for a single generation upgrade, but mostly it's just a few FPS at highest settings. So now I just upgrade every few years.
Back in the 90s and early 00s, frequent upgrades were kind of required to stay up to date with new games. The last 10-15 years have been muuuuch slower in that regard, thanks to consoles I guess. I'm not complaining, but I miss the sense of developers really pushing boundaries like they did in the old days.
Well, like some, I am still on the 10xx series (1060 3gb 🤣🥲) and starting to look to the futur full system upgrade for a Rx79xx or 78xx when out.
Targeting Black Friday sale jump
I would be curious to know if many others are on a refresh cycle up to 4-5years