I think you are worried too much about what a chart says
I am not a pro like some of the other people that post here, but I have been building my own computers for many many years.
IMO if you want to do incremental upgrades then its your money to do as you wish. But its a waste of money in the end and your only getting a small upgrade each time. Your money is better spent actually buying something decent from the start instead of upgrading an old cpu with a slightly less old outdated cpu ( or gpu for that matter).
You posted asking for advice and dont seem to want to listen to what anyone else advises lol.
Its your money so spend it how you wish, throw good money after bad is your right.
Originally posted by jdnewellBut its a waste of money in the end and your only getting a small upgrade each time.
Yeah, that 120 USD spent on E2160 serving me well for 6 years is surely wasted money. Instead, I should have been spending +300 USD and needed to upgrade today anyway...
But its a waste of money in the end and your only getting a small upgrade each time.
Yeah, that 120 USD spent on E2160 serving me well for 6 years is surely wasted money. Instead, I should have been spending +300 USD and needed to upgrade today anyway...
If that served you well for 6 years then you must have low needs & expectations out of a computer. And with that in mind the $300 better cpu would probably still be serving you well with what little needs you do have.
If your happy with that kind of performance and it fits your needs then all good But for most of us incremental upgrading is not a viable or cost saving way to spend money on computers. And when it comes down to it its your money and time. You asked for advice so people gave it. Sorry most of it does not agree with you.
Originally posted by jdnewellIf your happy with that kind of performance and it fits your needs then all good But for most of us incremental upgrading is not a viable or cost saving way to spend money on computers.
Yep, my "low needs & expectations" make me fine with 80 FPS instead of 200(yes, I care that you can't tell a difference) but then do not speak about cost savings, please...
Originally posted by jdnewellAnd with that in mind the $300 better cpu would probably still be serving you well with what little needs you do have.
Q6600 was priced just around those 300 USD in 2007 when I bought E2160 for 120 USD. That means that I have 180 USD left in this time span where I can:
1) Purchase same Q6600 today for 100USD(or less), saving 80 USD. 2) Buy again new gen cpu for 120 USD, save 60 USD and last another 6 years.
I was looking for 120 USD range card upgrade such as Radeon 7770 but then I dunno what CPU+MB to get along since CPU is getting a bit behind.
Also, any use for my DDR2?
Out of my experience, you need the following:
CPU:
4 cores or more is absolute a must !
AMD is cheaper, Intel is not essential needed, im on a amd-8150, 8-core at 4,2ghz, but im compiling a lot on Linux, gamers dont need 8 cores, 4 cores is perfectly fine.
Intel CPUs are real powerpacks. For my AMD8150 i payed 199.-€, a comparable intel chip is 350.-€ upwards.
Mainboard:
Dont go with the ultracheap, you get mobo's for 25.-$, avoid that, its shit.
Instead try to find the right mainboard for the CPU you selected, speak to your e-tech dealer.
Plan on 60-120.-$ for a mobo.
Memory:
Common is DDR3-1600mhz.
I use a 1866mhz Corsair Dominator because my CPU supports the ram speed and the mobo (Bios!) does as well.
Have a look at what your upcoming CPU supports as well as your motherboard.
You are on the line with your PC, to get over it, you need to get rid of the shit.
Dont use hybrid mobo's supporting DDR2 and DDR3, go for the native new way of life.
8GB is pretty mutch enuff, while 4GB is a little low on 64bit systems, your game wants 4GB already.
PSU:
Well, you propably need a new PSU as yours may miss some needed wires.
While 500w might be enuff, you should drop some bucks to a new one because PSU's tend to have losses over the years.
Calculate another 60.-$ for that.
Cooling:
Im using an Arctec water cooler for the first time and i think thats a cute little piece.
The standart fan's can barely deal with the (AMD) CPU heat, mine has 7°C as i write this now.
It has ~30°C under full load. I think it was ~80.-€ for the watercooler.
Grafix:
Oh well yeah, thats a evergreen, people discuss for ages between Nvidia and AMD(ATI).
I had bad experience with the only ATI card i ever had, so i was using Nvidia for at least the last 15 years.
Now, i got a 560ti what i bought for ~180.-€ but i bet, the new 6xx cards are cheaper, so if you choose Nvidia, go absolutly with a 6xx because of the new FXAA.
One more reason i use Nvidia is, they are very Linux friendly.
HDD/SSD:
Everything works incredible faster from a SSD.
The effect is that big, that i copy the game im actually playing the most, to my SSD.
Classical HDDs slow down the whole PC significantly !
-/-
All that is a little more expensive then what you may have in mind.
For me, it was not doable in one go, i collected all the parts over about 6 months.
All that is stored in a 30 years old and pretty solid IBM bigtower, the ones with 1,5mm sheet metal instead of 0,5mm like todays 20.- bucks cases.
My PC runs perfectly fine with everything.
Try to avoid using the healthy but old parts.
It has cost about 800.-€ and ruffly 10 hrs education as i had to learn what i need and what was realistic.
Then, there is this new 27" 2ms Tera screen for cheap 200.-€. Full and real native HD1080, its bombastic!
The problem you are running into is, you cannot use your old parts on your new computer and you cannot use the new parts on your old computer.
Money seems to be a marker, so i really suggest you get the (slightly better) parts over the time instead of carry 1k dollars to your dealer.
If your happy with that kind of performance and it fits your needs then all good But for most of us incremental upgrading is not a viable or cost saving way to spend money on computers.
Yep, my "low needs & expectations" make me fine with 80 FPS instead of 200(yes, I care that you can't tell a difference) but then do not speak about cost savings, please...
Originally posted by jdnewell
And with that in mind the $300 better cpu would probably still be serving you well with what little needs you do have.
Q6600 was priced just around those 300 USD in 2007 when I bought E2160 for 120 USD. That means that I have 180 USD left in this time span where I can:
1) Purchase same Q6600 today for 100USD(or less), saving 80 USD. 2) Buy again new gen cpu for 120 USD, save 60 USD and last another 6 years.
No worries, I blame your education system...
Now I know you are trolling.
Getting 80 fps on what game exactly? baldurs gate ? and at what settings? lowest?
Nothing released in the past 4-5 years for sure. If your fine with what your getting then good for you I say.
If you want to get pissy and throw insults then thats on you friend. The only one who looks like a dumbass is you.
Originally posted by jdnewellNow I know you are trolling.
No, you just do not know what you talk about...
To measure an impact of your CPU on games, you fit the best VGA you can get and then run games at minimal settings. That way you completely rule out VGA and all measurement will be related to CPU.
When you do so, you will find out that regardless of CPU used, your frame rate is pretty high.
That is because games simply do not need much CPU power to run(exception are RTS games that use AI heavily, stressing CPU a lot and to some extent FPS games because of their complex physics modeling).
CPU are vastly outperforming resource demands. This trend is going for years...
I appreciate all advice given but when I point you out why some advice is bad or I disagree with, either discuss or leave it. There no point trying to make me look like an ass/stupid when it's you who's arguments and assumptions are fallacious.
I"ve been watching this thread and at times I felt like offering advice but to be quite frank the OP seems to already knows what is best for him/herself and any sensable advice given is treated as if those providing said advice are the ones who dont' know what they are talking about, regardless of their proven past history of logical sound advice for others (here is a hint, you can look up EVERYONE's post history), so I refrained. Which leads to wonder, why ask for advice if you yourself aren't willing to accept perhaps your own thought process might be whats wrong to begin with?
While I don't actually think the OP is a troll it's obvious they are not at all interested in becoming educated on the most cost effective way to purchase computer parts thanks to some preconceived notion that completely ignores basic economics. That is all...
P.S. OP you do realize not all games are actually optimized for GPU's over CPU's don't you? While that number is significantly smaller than the other way around there are enough well known games that easily get bottlenecked by the CPU long before a GPU upgrade would provide any benefit you can't just ignore it and make blanket statements like your last one. And now I am done...
The best value for money CPU in whole test is Intel G860 which is just slightly slower and more expensive G2020 thus should get even better ratio.
The best solution is probably to purchase G2020 now and then upgrade for i5 or similar later(about +4 years). The question is, how long will 1155 socket last, it's already 2 years old, and whether CPU will be still available on the market.
The best value for money CPU in whole test is Intel G860 which is just slightly slower and more expensive G2020 thus should get even better ratio.
The best solution is probably to purchase G2020 now and then upgrade for i5 or similar later(about +4 years). The question is, how long will 1155 socket last, it's already 2 years old, and whether CPU will be still available on the market.
Anyone can provide some insight?
The best you could do to prove your point is a chart in some foreign language in which your processor of choice (an Ivy Bridge Pentium dual core) gets crushed by a bunch of AMD models? If there was any doubt before that you were trolling, that pretty much settled it. At this point, I'm more concerned with preventing some forum lurker who is too shy to ask for help himself (which is what you should do, Mr. Forum Lurker) from thinking you're serious than with helping you.
Anyway, if you can always upgrade a processor without needing a new motherboard, memory, or OS license, then why are you looking to replace the motherboard and memory this time?
While you may be able to find a Core i5-3570K used in four years, it won't cost much less than buying it new today. And it will be crippled by the cheap junk motherboard you're looking at, as that will disable overclocking entirely and probably even throttle back turbo boost.
LGA 1155 in particular is set to be replaced by a different socket for Haswell in about two months. The entire industry will move to DDR4 memory in about a year, and that will mean a new socket for everything.
The best value for money CPU in whole test is Intel G860 which is just slightly slower and more expensive G2020 thus should get even better ratio.
The best solution is probably to purchase G2020 now and then upgrade for i5 or similar later(about +4 years). The question is, how long will 1155 socket last, it's already 2 years old, and whether CPU will be still available on the market.
Anyone can provide some insight?
The best you could do to prove your point is a chart in some foreign language in which your processor of choice (an Ivy Bridge Pentium dual core) gets crushed by a bunch of AMD models? If there was any doubt before that you were trolling, that pretty much settled it. At this point, I'm more concerned with preventing some forum lurker who is too shy to ask for help himself (which is what you should do, Mr. Forum Lurker) from thinking you're serious than with helping you.
Anyway, if you can always upgrade a processor without needing a new motherboard, memory, or OS license, then why are you looking to replace the motherboard and memory this time?
While you may be able to find a Core i5-3570K used in four years, it won't cost much less than buying it new today. And it will be crippled by the cheap junk motherboard you're looking at, as that will disable overclocking entirely and probably even throttle back turbo boost.
LGA 1155 in particular is set to be replaced by a different socket for Haswell in about two months. The entire industry will move to DDR4 memory in about a year, and that will mean a new socket for everything.
Thanks for that bit of info, I am looking to get a new computer for my wife, with no huge rush, but sometime this year, and while I usually buy higher end stuff so it use to last a good 2-3 years (3 usually), but the current one has lasted and given her good performance for about 5-6 years...So I usually do not change out parts, as I usually give the old computer to my mom, her parents, or a friend with lower requirements, I will probably wait for the new chips/motherboards, so it will atleast be a little more capable for the upgrade....Unless they try to kill you on price. I knew the chips were coming out from reading here, but I missed the new socket.
Thanks for that bit of info, I am looking to get a new computer for my wife, with no huge rush, but sometime this year, and while I usually buy higher end stuff so it use to last a good 2-3 years (3 usually), but the current one has lasted and given her good performance for about 5-6 years...So I usually do not change out parts, as I usually give the old computer to my mom, her parents, or a friend with lower requirements, I will probably wait for the new chips/motherboards, so it will atleast be a little more capable for the upgrade....Unless they try to kill you on price. I knew the chips were coming out from reading here, but I missed the new socket.
Intel Haswell will use a new socket, and be a little faster than the Ivy Bridge processors that you can buy today, but not a lot faster. Furthermore, that's likely to be a short-lived socket, as it's still going to be DDR3.
Intel Ivy Bridge-E is coming later this year, and will presumably use the same socket as Sandy Bridge-E, but will be very expensive.
AMD Kaveri is coming late this year, and it's not known whether that will use a new socket or not. AMD might decide to have both a Socket FM3 version with DDR4 memory and also a Socket FM2 version with DDR3, much like what they did with having both DDR2 and DDR3 versions of Deneb (Phenom II). But half of the point of Kaveri will be the integrated graphics, so that's probably not what you want.
Intel Broadwell is coming next year, but rumors say that it may or may not even have a socketed version at all. Rumors also say that it's not going to offer much PCI Express bandwidth, either, which makes it sound like an Ultrabook chip, not an interesting desktop chip. Broadwell is going to be the first chip on Intel's upcoming 14 nm process node. That's a much bigger shrink from the previous 22 nm than foundries are normally willing to try in a single jump, so it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if process node troubles delay it considerably.
While AMD hasn't announced this, I'd expect them to make a chip with a bunch of Steamroller cores (same cores as Kaveri) and no integrated graphics next year. That will probably have DDR4 memory and use a new Socket AM4 or some such. AMD might also offer a Socket AM3+ version of it that would drop into current motherboards. AMD is promising big performance gains from Steamroller cores, though I doubt that they'll catch Intel in single-threaded performance. Even so, if they're not that far behind, say, Ivy Bridge, in single-threaded performance, getting 8 or 10 of those cores without having to spend a fortune could be a very nice product that will last a very long time. Thus far, Intel hasn't been willing to offer more than four cores without charging an arm and a leg for it, and they aren't rumored to change that approach anytime soon.
Apart from that, you'll likely be waiting until 2015. By then, everything new should be using DDR4 memory. DDR4 was originally supposed to be widely used last year, but got delayed for a variety of reasons.
The best you could do to prove your point is a chart in some foreign language in which your processor of choice (an Ivy Bridge Pentium dual core) gets crushed by a bunch of AMD models?
In that case, you either cannot read graphs or posts you reply to, or both...
Originally posted by Xthos I usually buy higher end stuff so it use to last a good 2-3 years (3 usually)
You do not buy "higher end stuff" to last, you buy it for performance it provides. In that case though, be prepared to pay.
Q6600 CPU case above is exemplary. Buying expensive, yes I mean expensive, not just higher price tag, hardware to "last" is not working, despite dogmatism and ill advice you will get on these boards.
If I was following the advice given in this discussion, I should have been spending 300 USD just on CPU alone while in same 6 years time span, all my upgrades cost me 480 USD total - providing decent and at the end of the cycle mostly equal performance for about half the cost, still leaving plenty of room if I wanted to be more performance.
I am not saying either path is better or worse, it all depends on what you want from those upgrades.
If you want affordable decent rig, then aim for lower mainstream/low end, upgrade only as certain parts need to be upgraded and at the same time you will get better value for your money.
If you are more concerned about performance, you will have to accept that FPS/$ won't be as favourable and it will be more expensive deal.
If you are interested in value & performance then I would take a good look at some of the AMD cpu's. IMO intel is a bit better for the most part, but for the $ AMD has some really nice budget friendly cpu's that should last awhile.
It seems like you have made up your mind already tho so I am not sure what the point of asking others points of view are. If you already know what direction you want to go with the upgrade then go for it.
I usually buy higher end stuff so it use to last a good 2-3 years (3 usually)
You do not buy "higher end stuff" to last, you buy it for performance it provides. In that case though, be prepared to pay.
Q6600 CPU case above is exemplary. Buying expensive, yes I mean expensive, not just higher price tag, hardware to "last" is not working, despite dogmatism and ill advice you will get on these boards.
If I was following the advice given in this discussion, I should have been spending 300 USD just on CPU alone while in same 6 years time span, all my upgrades cost me 480 USD total - providing decent and at the end of the cycle mostly equal performance for about half the cost, still leaving plenty of room if I wanted to be more performance.
I am not saying either path is better or worse, it all depends on what you want from those upgrades.
If you want affordable decent rig, then aim for lower mainstream/low end, upgrade only as certain parts need to be upgraded and at the same time you will get better value for your money.
If you are more concerned about performance, you will have to accept that FPS/$ won't be as favourable and it will be more expensive deal.
Well yes, I buy it for the performance, and my best example for the computer that my wife is using and the one I had (it was replaced with a warranty, graphic card went out and the warranty replaced the whole computer, kind of silly, but thats what they did.), was Vanguard. It was not coded well, people had a ton of problems with it, we spent a good deal of money and got a pretty much top of the line computer, and it seemed like we had at most 10% of the problems that other people did. We had the stutter while panning, but not to the extent most had it seemed, and a lot of the other bugs that made people quit, rarely hit us. So instead of ruining our gaming experience, like it did many, we enjoyed Vanguard a good deal for a long time.
I do not know if EqNext/ArcheAge and those era mmos will be the next big one we play, but that is about the time frame I am looking to replace our computers. So their is a decent chance we would take a decent performance hit if we didn't get something decent or more expensive. I am not buying bleeding edge, but a higher end card and workhorse intel chip most likely that I live near a microcenter and can get pretty much at cost.
Last time I had something that was below par, performance wise was for DAoC, and it was horrible for us, we had like a pentium 3 for its launch and a graphics card that was one below the 'supported' card list for the game. My computer had a little better processor than my wifes (girlfriend at the time) and I wasn't hit real hard except for bigger battles it would be lag lag lag...dead heh, but my wife had to follow people on her cleric and look at the ground so the computer didn't have to render the scenery while running with 'bard' speed, and then if we got into a fight, she would then look up and try to function...She did well with the limitations, but I am sure we would of had a much better time playing if our computers would of been better.
I couldn't afford it back then, and while I don't have money falling out of my pockets, I find we get good value out of buying a higher end machine. I can see where you do not, but my wifes computer has served her well, which we got her literally the week before Vanguard launched, and I think it has the Q9550, 8 gb ram, and GTX 260, which was pretty decent for Jan. 2007.
"You get what you pay for!" Seems appropriate here. Before my latest upgrade, it was five years between major rebuilds. Until about a month ago, I had as follows
Intel Core2Quad Q8200 @ 2.9gHz four gigs of OCZ ultra low latency (for the time anyhow)RAM MSi P5M motherboard. EVGA Nvidia GTX 260 1gb video card
all in all with this build, I spent maybe $600
Other than swapping out to a HD 6970 about two years ago (because I wanted to, not needed to), this set up lasted me five, almost six years. And probably would have lasted me even longer, but I had the opportunity to get some good parts at a good price and jumped on it. But, with the changes in prices, especially how DDR 3 has came down in price compared to older DDR versions, my new build is considerably more powerful and still considered a budget build
FX-8350 8 core @ 3.9gHz Asus Sabretooth R2 FX990 mobo 16 gigs of Corsair Vengeance RAM and still using the HD 6970
total investment - $446 (still have the receipt)
Granted, I didn't need to upgrade power supply (Thermaltake Mod 750 watt), case (custom built), or accessories (dvd, floppy, digital control panel).
With hardware improvements slowing down, a computer is likely to last longer than it used to. Single-threaded CPU performance increases have slowed to a crawl with single-digit annual percentage gains. That's a far cry from the 40% or so annually that we used to see. You can still add more CPU cores, but putting them all to good use gets harder the more cores you have.
Meanwhile, video card performance has become limited more by power consumption than transistor count, at least outside of low end desktop cards. That means that you can expect annual gains on the order of 20% rather than 40%. There are rumors that future die shrinks might not even give as big of power savings as they used to, in which case that could slow even further.
Graphics APIs are mostly there, so that's not going to be much of a reason to replace a video card in the near future, either. What's left for DirectX 12 or OpenGL 5 to add? Better order-independent transparency options, certainly. And then? Unless you're going to replace rasterization by ray-tracing or some such, nothing else is glaringly missing from the latest versions of DirectX and OpenGL.
Originally posted by jdnewell If you are interested in value & performance then I would take a good look at some of the AMD cpu's. IMO intel is a bit better for the most part, but for the $ AMD has some really nice budget friendly cpu's that should last awhile.It seems like you have made up your mind already tho so I am not sure what the point of asking others points of view are. If you already know what direction you want to go with the upgrade then go for it.
Quizzical made me look at AMD CPUs and they did not impress me at all.
1) Very high power consumption. 2) Higher mainstream Intels are powerhouses that will be very cheap in a few years, I do not see this option upgrade for AMD. 3) Their performance in games isn't matching Intel CPU for the price and that is only performance factor I am considering.
I know what I am looking for but I do not know the market products, I am not following it much thus I asked for VGA in price range of Radeon 7770 and CPU that could go along with it in similar range. Instead, I got handful of ill advices(I know some got good intentions though) and got flamed...
1) AMD's desktop processors do have higher load power consumption than Intel's. But that raises the question of whether this matters, and the answer to that is, not particularly. Even 125 W is pretty easy to cool in a desktop. Nor will it have much effect on your electricity bill, as processors only use a few watts at idle, and are nearly always idle.
But if you were absolutely obsessive about saving on power consumption, then the way to go is actually still AMD. Get an A10-5700, use the integrated graphics in it (not needing a discrete card saves a ton of power), and undervolt it as far as you can go without losing stability. No, I wouldn't actually recommend that to more than a tiny handful of people. But if you're particularly bothered by AMD desktop processors using somewhat more power than Intel under gaming loads, then you're likely to be in that tiny handful of people.
Even so, the power consumption gap probably isn't as big as you think. A 125 W FX-8350 will use more power under heavy loads than a 77 W Core i5-3570K. But under heavy loads, you're using 8 cores of the former as opposed to four cores of the latter--and getting more performance in return for the extra cores. If you only use four cores of each, will the FX-8350 still use more power? Likely not. At the same performance level, an AMD processor will use more power than an Intel one, but it's not as big of a gap as you might think.
2) No, a Core i5-3570K will never be cheap. Intel doesn't make old processors cheap after a while. They discontinue old processors and introduce new ones for the same price as the old ones used to be. If you want to upgrade in the future, your choices will be buying a used processor you could have bought today for not much less than it would have cost to buy it new today or else replacing the motherboard, memory, and OS license yet again in order to get something newer. If you get a Socket AM3+ system from AMD, then there's a chance (though it's far from a certainty) that they'll eventually offer Steamroller cores for it.
3) There's a lot more going on than a naive average frame rate from different CPUs in older games that are mostly limited by the video card. You don't know how to interpret the charts and don't want to learn. So just buy something and be done with it. If you're actually considering buying something new, which for all I know, you likely aren't.
4) The modern video card in the price range of a Radeon HD 7770 is the Radeon HD 7770. That sounds like a tautology, and in fact, it is, but there's really nothing more to be said about it. If that's the amount that you want to spend on a video card, then that's the video card to buy. For you, it doesn't make a bit of sense whatsoever to buy that card, but that's a problem of looking in the wrong budget range. If you want to buy it, then buy it, and don't complain that you bought a card that made no sense at all for you.
You asked a question in the beginning and wanted help, people assisted you and now you are upset they are suggesting things you don't want. I don't understand why you even asked here in the first place if you already knew what you wanted to do. Was it to try to show up the people with extensive computer knowledge?
On a $120 budget the only option I would reccomend is used. Seriously, I'm all about cost savings. Anyway here is a true story to illustrate cost / performance. I got 2x5770's for roughly $100 well, more like $70 (used), swapped those for a 5850 and then sold the 5850 for $100. The reasoning behind selling the 5850 for $100? Someone was selling a 5970 black edition for $100 and I was like...oooooh, and I also got a 120GB ssd from the same guy for $30, and they all work!
So depending on your city population, waiting around for a used and cheap AMD 5800 or better series card and or a Core 2 Extreme CPU could be legit options. Having used and tested both the 5770 in Xfire and single configurations I believe The others are correct and that card is not your particular bottleneck, it runs both Skyrim and SWTOR smoothly on max on an i5 2400 setup. It struggles a bit with SC2 on max (ultra or extreme). Drops to roughly 15-30 FPS and some stuttering with a maxed out Mothership carrier army. But you don't care about RTS.
My 4870 512MB w/ E4400 was actually running SC2 quite well on medium / high - before UPS dropped it. Matter of fact, my woman's old E8400 with the Ep45-UD3L runs Skyrim quite easily on a 4870 and a 3870 (no mist on the 3870).
Side Note: After UPS dropkicked all 4 of our PCs off a 30ft ledge we were forced to upgrade. Before that I was in your position. I threw together a PC quickly just to have something to game on immediately but I didn't want to go all out seeing as I was not totally familiar with the tech landscape at the time. Had the PC's arrived intact I would have most likely found a cheap E8400 and OC'd to 4.0GHz(used).
Side side note: someone is selling a GTX260 here and I'm debating buying it to get the E8400 back up and running for no reason.
Conclusion:
Your bottleneck is your CPU for sure. Games like crysis will shit on your CPU ALL day. Going from your E2160 to an E8400 may likely fix all your current issues. Or even a cheap used Q8600 or a QX6700. In short, Quiz is not wrong, he's a really nice guy who is just trying to help you out long term. If you won't get the FX chip/ MB, then the Q or QX intel series is the next best thing, third and last on the list is upgrading the 5770 which may not help at all.
I don't outright recommend it for a few reasons, but I also don't advise against it so long as the buyer knows what he/she is getting into.
Caveat emptor
- Used gear often will have no warranty support (either expired or non-transferrable).
- Not always from a reputable reseller, so returns/exchanges are often impossible.
- The gear may not be what was advertised, not everyone out there is exactly honest, and some parts it can be hard to tell just looking at them (generic DIMMs, some CPUs, etc).
- If you are buying online (Ebay or some such), you don't get a chance to see the part run before you pay for it. That may be the case even if your in person: a CPU and the buyer doesn't have a motherboard available to test it in, for example. Now this is also true for new retail gear, but with new retail gear you have an exchange period and a warranty period that more or less guarantee that it will work, or you can get your money back.
- You have no idea how the part was treated before hand - it could be that it was also dropkicked from 30 ft, just happens to work the one time the seller tested it afterwards, and has a lifespan of exactly 15 more minutes before some part that got knocked loose finally explodes. A more realistic example are aggressively overclocked parts - there is no way of knowing how much an aggressive overclock has degraded the silicon, or even that it was done; only that will have somewhat diminished the lifespan of the product.
- In a similar vein, you can only have a rough idea of what runtime the part has. All parts have a finite run time, silicon may last 10-20+ years, but mechanical parts maybe have an average lifespan of 3-5 years, even for high quality parts. Fan bearings, rotating hard drives, etc all fall under that category.
Most of the time, yeah, you get a really good deal. It's a lot like buying a used car though: sure you aren't paying the "depreciation tax", but there is also a much higher likelihood of getting ripped off, and there are very few lemon laws that can protect you. And there is a non-zero portion of the population that try to take advantage of just that.
Just be careful buying used, and don't spend more than you can afford to lose trying to get good deals. If your total budget is $500, and you spend it all on used parts, there's a good chance it'll all work out ok, but there's also a good chance something isn't going to work, and there probably aren't going to be any RMAs/Warranty repairs, like there would be if you were to buy new parts from a reputable vendor.
I don't outright recommend it for a few reasons, but I also don't advise against it so long as the buyer knows what he/she is getting into.
Caveat emptor
- Used gear often will have no warranty support (either expired or non-transferrable).
- Not always from a reputable reseller, so returns/exchanges are often impossible.
- The gear may not be what was advertised, not everyone out there is exactly honest, and some parts it can be hard to tell just looking at them (generic DIMMs, some CPUs, etc).
- If you are buying online (Ebay or some such), you don't get a chance to see the part run before you pay for it. That may be the case even if your in person: a CPU and the buyer doesn't have a motherboard available to test it in, for example. Now this is also true for new retail gear, but with new retail gear you have an exchange period and a warranty period that more or less guarantee that it will work, or you can get your money back.
- You have no idea how the part was treated before hand - it could be that it was also dropkicked from 30 ft, just happens to work the one time the seller tested it afterwards, and has a lifespan of exactly 15 more minutes before some part that got knocked loose finally explodes. A more realistic example are aggressively overclocked parts - there is no way of knowing how much an aggressive overclock has degraded the silicon, or even that it was done; only that will have somewhat diminished the lifespan of the product.
- In a similar vein, you can only have a rough idea of what runtime the part has. All parts have a finite run time, silicon may last 10-20+ years, but mechanical parts maybe have an average lifespan of 3-5 years, even for high quality parts. Fan bearings, rotating hard drives, etc all fall under that category.
Most of the time, yeah, you get a really good deal. It's a lot like buying a used car though: sure you aren't paying the "depreciation tax", but there is also a much higher likelihood of getting ripped off, and there are very few lemon laws that can protect you. And there is a non-zero portion of the population that try to take advantage of just that.
Just be careful buying used, and don't spend more than you can afford to lose trying to get good deals. If your total budget is $500, and you spend it all on used parts, there's a good chance it'll all work out ok, but there's also a good chance something isn't going to work, and there probably aren't going to be any RMAs/Warranty repairs, like there would be if you were to buy new parts from a reputable vendor.
Your not wrong on any point other than maybe getting some used parts from Amazon might have certain guarantee's, much different than rolling the dice with CList.
Certainly if he had a $500 budget we wouldn't be having this conversation BUT if he only wants to spend $120 and is looking for an upgrade THEN the CPU is what needs to get replaced, one way or another. Replacing the video card is just not cost efficient.
I can only say that I've better luck with used parts then with Newegg. My first 2 Newegg purchases (Brand New) were duds and I still haven't been burned by a used part from other sources including Amazon. Again, personal experiences will ibviously vary.
Comments
I think you are worried too much about what a chart says
I am not a pro like some of the other people that post here, but I have been building my own computers for many many years.
IMO if you want to do incremental upgrades then its your money to do as you wish. But its a waste of money in the end and your only getting a small upgrade each time. Your money is better spent actually buying something decent from the start instead of upgrading an old cpu with a slightly less old outdated cpu ( or gpu for that matter).
You posted asking for advice and dont seem to want to listen to what anyone else advises lol.
Its your money so spend it how you wish, throw good money after bad is your right.
Yeah, that 120 USD spent on E2160 serving me well for 6 years is surely wasted money. Instead, I should have been spending +300 USD and needed to upgrade today anyway...
If that served you well for 6 years then you must have low needs & expectations out of a computer. And with that in mind the $300 better cpu would probably still be serving you well with what little needs you do have.
If your happy with that kind of performance and it fits your needs then all good
But for most of us incremental upgrading is not a viable or cost saving way to spend money on computers. And when it comes down to it its your money and time. You asked for advice so people gave it. Sorry most of it does not agree with you.
Good luck to you with whatever you choose
Yep, my "low needs & expectations" make me fine with 80 FPS instead of 200(yes, I care that you can't tell a difference) but then do not speak about cost savings, please...
Q6600 was priced just around those 300 USD in 2007 when I bought E2160 for 120 USD. That means that I have 180 USD left in this time span where I can:
1) Purchase same Q6600 today for 100USD(or less), saving 80 USD.
2) Buy again new gen cpu for 120 USD, save 60 USD and last another 6 years.
No worries, I blame your education system...
Out of my experience, you need the following:
CPU:
4 cores or more is absolute a must !
AMD is cheaper, Intel is not essential needed, im on a amd-8150, 8-core at 4,2ghz, but im compiling a lot on Linux, gamers dont need 8 cores, 4 cores is perfectly fine.
Intel CPUs are real powerpacks. For my AMD8150 i payed 199.-€, a comparable intel chip is 350.-€ upwards.
Mainboard:
Dont go with the ultracheap, you get mobo's for 25.-$, avoid that, its shit.
Instead try to find the right mainboard for the CPU you selected, speak to your e-tech dealer.
Plan on 60-120.-$ for a mobo.
Memory:
Common is DDR3-1600mhz.
I use a 1866mhz Corsair Dominator because my CPU supports the ram speed and the mobo (Bios!) does as well.
Have a look at what your upcoming CPU supports as well as your motherboard.
You are on the line with your PC, to get over it, you need to get rid of the shit.
Dont use hybrid mobo's supporting DDR2 and DDR3, go for the native new way of life.
8GB is pretty mutch enuff, while 4GB is a little low on 64bit systems, your game wants 4GB already.
PSU:
Well, you propably need a new PSU as yours may miss some needed wires.
While 500w might be enuff, you should drop some bucks to a new one because PSU's tend to have losses over the years.
Calculate another 60.-$ for that.
Cooling:
Im using an Arctec water cooler for the first time and i think thats a cute little piece.
The standart fan's can barely deal with the (AMD) CPU heat, mine has 7°C as i write this now.
It has ~30°C under full load. I think it was ~80.-€ for the watercooler.
Grafix:
Oh well yeah, thats a evergreen, people discuss for ages between Nvidia and AMD(ATI).
I had bad experience with the only ATI card i ever had, so i was using Nvidia for at least the last 15 years.
Now, i got a 560ti what i bought for ~180.-€ but i bet, the new 6xx cards are cheaper, so if you choose Nvidia, go absolutly with a 6xx because of the new FXAA.
One more reason i use Nvidia is, they are very Linux friendly.
HDD/SSD:
Everything works incredible faster from a SSD.
The effect is that big, that i copy the game im actually playing the most, to my SSD.
Classical HDDs slow down the whole PC significantly !
-/-
All that is a little more expensive then what you may have in mind.
For me, it was not doable in one go, i collected all the parts over about 6 months.
All that is stored in a 30 years old and pretty solid IBM bigtower, the ones with 1,5mm sheet metal instead of 0,5mm like todays 20.- bucks cases.
My PC runs perfectly fine with everything.
Try to avoid using the healthy but old parts.
It has cost about 800.-€ and ruffly 10 hrs education as i had to learn what i need and what was realistic.
Then, there is this new 27" 2ms Tera screen for cheap 200.-€. Full and real native HD1080, its bombastic!
The problem you are running into is, you cannot use your old parts on your new computer and you cannot use the new parts on your old computer.
Money seems to be a marker, so i really suggest you get the (slightly better) parts over the time instead of carry 1k dollars to your dealer.
Good luck on your voyage ^^
Now I know you are trolling.
Getting 80 fps on what game exactly? baldurs gate ? and at what settings? lowest?
Nothing released in the past 4-5 years for sure. If your fine with what your getting then good for you I say.
If you want to get pissy and throw insults then thats on you friend. The only one who looks like a dumbass is you.
Anyways
Good day
No, you just do not know what you talk about...
To measure an impact of your CPU on games, you fit the best VGA you can get and then run games at minimal settings. That way you completely rule out VGA and all measurement will be related to CPU.
When you do so, you will find out that regardless of CPU used, your frame rate is pretty high.
That is because games simply do not need much CPU power to run(exception are RTS games that use AI heavily, stressing CPU a lot and to some extent FPS games because of their complex physics modeling).
CPU are vastly outperforming resource demands. This trend is going for years...
I appreciate all advice given but when I point you out why some advice is bad or I disagree with, either discuss or leave it. There no point trying to make me look like an ass/stupid when it's you who's arguments and assumptions are fallacious.
I"ve been watching this thread and at times I felt like offering advice but to be quite frank the OP seems to already knows what is best for him/herself and any sensable advice given is treated as if those providing said advice are the ones who dont' know what they are talking about, regardless of their proven past history of logical sound advice for others (here is a hint, you can look up EVERYONE's post history), so I refrained. Which leads to wonder, why ask for advice if you yourself aren't willing to accept perhaps your own thought process might be whats wrong to begin with?
While I don't actually think the OP is a troll it's obvious they are not at all interested in becoming educated on the most cost effective way to purchase computer parts thanks to some preconceived notion that completely ignores basic economics. That is all...
P.S. OP you do realize not all games are actually optimized for GPU's over CPU's don't you? While that number is significantly smaller than the other way around there are enough well known games that easily get bottlenecked by the CPU long before a GPU upgrade would provide any benefit you can't just ignore it and make blanket statements like your last one. And now I am done...
Another chart for CPU performance in games I found, although it is a bit more difficult to read since it is in Polish.
http://pclab.pl/art51678-24.html
The best value for money CPU in whole test is Intel G860 which is just slightly slower and more expensive G2020 thus should get even better ratio.
The best solution is probably to purchase G2020 now and then upgrade for i5 or similar later(about +4 years). The question is, how long will 1155 socket last, it's already 2 years old, and whether CPU will be still available on the market.
Anyone can provide some insight?
The best you could do to prove your point is a chart in some foreign language in which your processor of choice (an Ivy Bridge Pentium dual core) gets crushed by a bunch of AMD models? If there was any doubt before that you were trolling, that pretty much settled it. At this point, I'm more concerned with preventing some forum lurker who is too shy to ask for help himself (which is what you should do, Mr. Forum Lurker) from thinking you're serious than with helping you.
Anyway, if you can always upgrade a processor without needing a new motherboard, memory, or OS license, then why are you looking to replace the motherboard and memory this time?
While you may be able to find a Core i5-3570K used in four years, it won't cost much less than buying it new today. And it will be crippled by the cheap junk motherboard you're looking at, as that will disable overclocking entirely and probably even throttle back turbo boost.
LGA 1155 in particular is set to be replaced by a different socket for Haswell in about two months. The entire industry will move to DDR4 memory in about a year, and that will mean a new socket for everything.
Thanks for that bit of info, I am looking to get a new computer for my wife, with no huge rush, but sometime this year, and while I usually buy higher end stuff so it use to last a good 2-3 years (3 usually), but the current one has lasted and given her good performance for about 5-6 years...So I usually do not change out parts, as I usually give the old computer to my mom, her parents, or a friend with lower requirements, I will probably wait for the new chips/motherboards, so it will atleast be a little more capable for the upgrade....Unless they try to kill you on price. I knew the chips were coming out from reading here, but I missed the new socket.
Intel Haswell will use a new socket, and be a little faster than the Ivy Bridge processors that you can buy today, but not a lot faster. Furthermore, that's likely to be a short-lived socket, as it's still going to be DDR3.
Intel Ivy Bridge-E is coming later this year, and will presumably use the same socket as Sandy Bridge-E, but will be very expensive.
AMD Kaveri is coming late this year, and it's not known whether that will use a new socket or not. AMD might decide to have both a Socket FM3 version with DDR4 memory and also a Socket FM2 version with DDR3, much like what they did with having both DDR2 and DDR3 versions of Deneb (Phenom II). But half of the point of Kaveri will be the integrated graphics, so that's probably not what you want.
Intel Broadwell is coming next year, but rumors say that it may or may not even have a socketed version at all. Rumors also say that it's not going to offer much PCI Express bandwidth, either, which makes it sound like an Ultrabook chip, not an interesting desktop chip. Broadwell is going to be the first chip on Intel's upcoming 14 nm process node. That's a much bigger shrink from the previous 22 nm than foundries are normally willing to try in a single jump, so it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if process node troubles delay it considerably.
While AMD hasn't announced this, I'd expect them to make a chip with a bunch of Steamroller cores (same cores as Kaveri) and no integrated graphics next year. That will probably have DDR4 memory and use a new Socket AM4 or some such. AMD might also offer a Socket AM3+ version of it that would drop into current motherboards. AMD is promising big performance gains from Steamroller cores, though I doubt that they'll catch Intel in single-threaded performance. Even so, if they're not that far behind, say, Ivy Bridge, in single-threaded performance, getting 8 or 10 of those cores without having to spend a fortune could be a very nice product that will last a very long time. Thus far, Intel hasn't been willing to offer more than four cores without charging an arm and a leg for it, and they aren't rumored to change that approach anytime soon.
Apart from that, you'll likely be waiting until 2015. By then, everything new should be using DDR4 memory. DDR4 was originally supposed to be widely used last year, but got delayed for a variety of reasons.
In that case, you either cannot read graphs or posts you reply to, or both...
You do not buy "higher end stuff" to last, you buy it for performance it provides. In that case though, be prepared to pay.
Q6600 CPU case above is exemplary. Buying expensive, yes I mean expensive, not just higher price tag, hardware to "last" is not working, despite dogmatism and ill advice you will get on these boards.
If I was following the advice given in this discussion, I should have been spending 300 USD just on CPU alone while in same 6 years time span, all my upgrades cost me 480 USD total - providing decent and at the end of the cycle mostly equal performance for about half the cost, still leaving plenty of room if I wanted to be more performance.
I am not saying either path is better or worse, it all depends on what you want from those upgrades.
If you want affordable decent rig, then aim for lower mainstream/low end, upgrade only as certain parts need to be upgraded and at the same time you will get better value for your money.
If you are more concerned about performance, you will have to accept that FPS/$ won't be as favourable and it will be more expensive deal.
If you are interested in value & performance then I would take a good look at some of the AMD cpu's. IMO intel is a bit better for the most part, but for the $ AMD has some really nice budget friendly cpu's that should last awhile.
It seems like you have made up your mind already tho so I am not sure what the point of asking others points of view are. If you already know what direction you want to go with the upgrade then go for it.
Well yes, I buy it for the performance, and my best example for the computer that my wife is using and the one I had (it was replaced with a warranty, graphic card went out and the warranty replaced the whole computer, kind of silly, but thats what they did.), was Vanguard. It was not coded well, people had a ton of problems with it, we spent a good deal of money and got a pretty much top of the line computer, and it seemed like we had at most 10% of the problems that other people did. We had the stutter while panning, but not to the extent most had it seemed, and a lot of the other bugs that made people quit, rarely hit us. So instead of ruining our gaming experience, like it did many, we enjoyed Vanguard a good deal for a long time.
I do not know if EqNext/ArcheAge and those era mmos will be the next big one we play, but that is about the time frame I am looking to replace our computers. So their is a decent chance we would take a decent performance hit if we didn't get something decent or more expensive. I am not buying bleeding edge, but a higher end card and workhorse intel chip most likely that I live near a microcenter and can get pretty much at cost.
Last time I had something that was below par, performance wise was for DAoC, and it was horrible for us, we had like a pentium 3 for its launch and a graphics card that was one below the 'supported' card list for the game. My computer had a little better processor than my wifes (girlfriend at the time) and I wasn't hit real hard except for bigger battles it would be lag lag lag...dead heh, but my wife had to follow people on her cleric and look at the ground so the computer didn't have to render the scenery while running with 'bard' speed, and then if we got into a fight, she would then look up and try to function...She did well with the limitations, but I am sure we would of had a much better time playing if our computers would of been better.
I couldn't afford it back then, and while I don't have money falling out of my pockets, I find we get good value out of buying a higher end machine. I can see where you do not, but my wifes computer has served her well, which we got her literally the week before Vanguard launched, and I think it has the Q9550, 8 gb ram, and GTX 260, which was pretty decent for Jan. 2007.
"You get what you pay for!" Seems appropriate here. Before my latest upgrade, it was five years between major rebuilds. Until about a month ago, I had as follows
Intel Core2Quad Q8200 @ 2.9gHz
four gigs of OCZ ultra low latency (for the time anyhow)RAM
MSi P5M motherboard.
EVGA Nvidia GTX 260 1gb video card
all in all with this build, I spent maybe $600
Other than swapping out to a HD 6970 about two years ago (because I wanted to, not needed to), this set up lasted me five, almost six years. And probably would have lasted me even longer, but I had the opportunity to get some good parts at a good price and jumped on it. But, with the changes in prices, especially how DDR 3 has came down in price compared to older DDR versions, my new build is considerably more powerful and still considered a budget build
FX-8350 8 core @ 3.9gHz
Asus Sabretooth R2 FX990 mobo
16 gigs of Corsair Vengeance RAM
and still using the HD 6970
total investment - $446 (still have the receipt)
Granted, I didn't need to upgrade power supply (Thermaltake Mod 750 watt), case (custom built), or accessories (dvd, floppy, digital control panel).
With hardware improvements slowing down, a computer is likely to last longer than it used to. Single-threaded CPU performance increases have slowed to a crawl with single-digit annual percentage gains. That's a far cry from the 40% or so annually that we used to see. You can still add more CPU cores, but putting them all to good use gets harder the more cores you have.
Meanwhile, video card performance has become limited more by power consumption than transistor count, at least outside of low end desktop cards. That means that you can expect annual gains on the order of 20% rather than 40%. There are rumors that future die shrinks might not even give as big of power savings as they used to, in which case that could slow even further.
Graphics APIs are mostly there, so that's not going to be much of a reason to replace a video card in the near future, either. What's left for DirectX 12 or OpenGL 5 to add? Better order-independent transparency options, certainly. And then? Unless you're going to replace rasterization by ray-tracing or some such, nothing else is glaringly missing from the latest versions of DirectX and OpenGL.
Quizzical made me look at AMD CPUs and they did not impress me at all.
1) Very high power consumption.
2) Higher mainstream Intels are powerhouses that will be very cheap in a few years, I do not see this option upgrade for AMD.
3) Their performance in games isn't matching Intel CPU for the price and that is only performance factor I am considering.
I know what I am looking for but I do not know the market products, I am not following it much thus I asked for VGA in price range of Radeon 7770 and CPU that could go along with it in similar range. Instead, I got handful of ill advices(I know some got good intentions though) and got flamed...
1) AMD's desktop processors do have higher load power consumption than Intel's. But that raises the question of whether this matters, and the answer to that is, not particularly. Even 125 W is pretty easy to cool in a desktop. Nor will it have much effect on your electricity bill, as processors only use a few watts at idle, and are nearly always idle.
But if you were absolutely obsessive about saving on power consumption, then the way to go is actually still AMD. Get an A10-5700, use the integrated graphics in it (not needing a discrete card saves a ton of power), and undervolt it as far as you can go without losing stability. No, I wouldn't actually recommend that to more than a tiny handful of people. But if you're particularly bothered by AMD desktop processors using somewhat more power than Intel under gaming loads, then you're likely to be in that tiny handful of people.
Even so, the power consumption gap probably isn't as big as you think. A 125 W FX-8350 will use more power under heavy loads than a 77 W Core i5-3570K. But under heavy loads, you're using 8 cores of the former as opposed to four cores of the latter--and getting more performance in return for the extra cores. If you only use four cores of each, will the FX-8350 still use more power? Likely not. At the same performance level, an AMD processor will use more power than an Intel one, but it's not as big of a gap as you might think.
2) No, a Core i5-3570K will never be cheap. Intel doesn't make old processors cheap after a while. They discontinue old processors and introduce new ones for the same price as the old ones used to be. If you want to upgrade in the future, your choices will be buying a used processor you could have bought today for not much less than it would have cost to buy it new today or else replacing the motherboard, memory, and OS license yet again in order to get something newer. If you get a Socket AM3+ system from AMD, then there's a chance (though it's far from a certainty) that they'll eventually offer Steamroller cores for it.
3) There's a lot more going on than a naive average frame rate from different CPUs in older games that are mostly limited by the video card. You don't know how to interpret the charts and don't want to learn. So just buy something and be done with it. If you're actually considering buying something new, which for all I know, you likely aren't.
4) The modern video card in the price range of a Radeon HD 7770 is the Radeon HD 7770. That sounds like a tautology, and in fact, it is, but there's really nothing more to be said about it. If that's the amount that you want to spend on a video card, then that's the video card to buy. For you, it doesn't make a bit of sense whatsoever to buy that card, but that's a problem of looking in the wrong budget range. If you want to buy it, then buy it, and don't complain that you bought a card that made no sense at all for you.
Does this technically count as thread necromancy?
On a $120 budget the only option I would reccomend is used. Seriously, I'm all about cost savings. Anyway here is a true story to illustrate cost / performance. I got 2x5770's for roughly $100 well, more like $70 (used), swapped those for a 5850 and then sold the 5850 for $100. The reasoning behind selling the 5850 for $100? Someone was selling a 5970 black edition for $100 and I was like...oooooh, and I also got a 120GB ssd from the same guy for $30, and they all work!
So depending on your city population, waiting around for a used and cheap AMD 5800 or better series card and or a Core 2 Extreme CPU could be legit options. Having used and tested both the 5770 in Xfire and single configurations I believe The others are correct and that card is not your particular bottleneck, it runs both Skyrim and SWTOR smoothly on max on an i5 2400 setup. It struggles a bit with SC2 on max (ultra or extreme). Drops to roughly 15-30 FPS and some stuttering with a maxed out Mothership carrier army. But you don't care about RTS.
My 4870 512MB w/ E4400 was actually running SC2 quite well on medium / high - before UPS dropped it. Matter of fact, my woman's old E8400 with the Ep45-UD3L runs Skyrim quite easily on a 4870 and a 3870 (no mist on the 3870).
Side Note: After UPS dropkicked all 4 of our PCs off a 30ft ledge we were forced to upgrade. Before that I was in your position. I threw together a PC quickly just to have something to game on immediately but I didn't want to go all out seeing as I was not totally familiar with the tech landscape at the time. Had the PC's arrived intact I would have most likely found a cheap E8400 and OC'd to 4.0GHz(used).
Side side note: someone is selling a GTX260 here and I'm debating buying it to get the E8400 back up and running for no reason.
Conclusion:
Your bottleneck is your CPU for sure. Games like crysis will shit on your CPU ALL day. Going from your E2160 to an E8400 may likely fix all your current issues. Or even a cheap used Q8600 or a QX6700. In short, Quiz is not wrong, he's a really nice guy who is just trying to help you out long term. If you won't get the FX chip/ MB, then the Q or QX intel series is the next best thing, third and last on the list is upgrading the 5770 which may not help at all.
Used gear is a double-edged sword.
I don't outright recommend it for a few reasons, but I also don't advise against it so long as the buyer knows what he/she is getting into.
Caveat emptor
- Used gear often will have no warranty support (either expired or non-transferrable).
- Not always from a reputable reseller, so returns/exchanges are often impossible.
- The gear may not be what was advertised, not everyone out there is exactly honest, and some parts it can be hard to tell just looking at them (generic DIMMs, some CPUs, etc).
- If you are buying online (Ebay or some such), you don't get a chance to see the part run before you pay for it. That may be the case even if your in person: a CPU and the buyer doesn't have a motherboard available to test it in, for example. Now this is also true for new retail gear, but with new retail gear you have an exchange period and a warranty period that more or less guarantee that it will work, or you can get your money back.
- You have no idea how the part was treated before hand - it could be that it was also dropkicked from 30 ft, just happens to work the one time the seller tested it afterwards, and has a lifespan of exactly 15 more minutes before some part that got knocked loose finally explodes. A more realistic example are aggressively overclocked parts - there is no way of knowing how much an aggressive overclock has degraded the silicon, or even that it was done; only that will have somewhat diminished the lifespan of the product.
- In a similar vein, you can only have a rough idea of what runtime the part has. All parts have a finite run time, silicon may last 10-20+ years, but mechanical parts maybe have an average lifespan of 3-5 years, even for high quality parts. Fan bearings, rotating hard drives, etc all fall under that category.
Most of the time, yeah, you get a really good deal. It's a lot like buying a used car though: sure you aren't paying the "depreciation tax", but there is also a much higher likelihood of getting ripped off, and there are very few lemon laws that can protect you. And there is a non-zero portion of the population that try to take advantage of just that.
Just be careful buying used, and don't spend more than you can afford to lose trying to get good deals. If your total budget is $500, and you spend it all on used parts, there's a good chance it'll all work out ok, but there's also a good chance something isn't going to work, and there probably aren't going to be any RMAs/Warranty repairs, like there would be if you were to buy new parts from a reputable vendor.
Your not wrong on any point other than maybe getting some used parts from Amazon might have certain guarantee's, much different than rolling the dice with CList.
Certainly if he had a $500 budget we wouldn't be having this conversation BUT if he only wants to spend $120 and is looking for an upgrade THEN the CPU is what needs to get replaced, one way or another. Replacing the video card is just not cost efficient.
I can only say that I've better luck with used parts then with Newegg. My first 2 Newegg purchases (Brand New) were duds and I still haven't been burned by a used part from other sources including Amazon. Again, personal experiences will ibviously vary.