Battlestation: PC Acquired
About 10 years ago, I bought my current PC. In that time, I pretty much only added a few extra SSDs and upgraded the graphics card from 560ti to 970 to 1060 (via warranty). I have had the same i5-2500K processor, the same 8GB of RAM, and the same motherboard the entire time.
Well, I just put in an order for a new prebuilt when a good deal presented itself:
- Intel i7-11700KF
- 32GB RAM
- RTX 3080 (10GB)
After tax, the total came to $1842. That’s more than the $1260 I spent on my rig back in 2011… although inflation means it really cost ~$1600 in today’s dollars.
The decision was tough. In fact, I have been mulling over the thought of canceling the order and getting a similarly beefy machine with a 3060ti instead for ~$400 cheaper. The idea would be to save that money and put it towards a replacement GPU in the Fall when the 4000 series cards come out and presumably obsolete the 3080.
But you know what? I kinda want to be done.
Assuming it arrives in working order, this PC will meet all the needs of every game that I had been putting off for the last few years. Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, FFVIIR. All of which I am planning on purchasing during the next Epic Summer Sale where they should be 50% off + $10 coupon. Having a 3060ti would make them playable at 1440p but otherwise put me in that awkward scenario in which I either play them with the hardware I have at the time, or sitting on them until I get the 4000-series card. Not that that is even guaranteed to be widely available! If I’m waiting until the Fall, I may as well wait for the Winter Sale instead… and so on and so forth.
If you think that’s exhausting to read, imagine being me.
So, yeah. It’s done. And that is certainly worth X dollars all by itself.
Posted on May 2, 2022, in Commentary and tagged 3080, Battlestation, Parsimonious, PC Shopping, Upgrade. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
In An Age 
That’s a good price for the hardware listed. Did you go multi-SSD or one larger one?
Also what is your monitor situation? Now that you have the hardware…
LikeLike
Just one 1TB NVMe or whatever the current hotness is. The plan is to just hook up my two additional 1TB SSDs from my current machine into the new one, as all my games are on them already.
Already have a 27″ monitor at 1440p 144Hz IPS. The color and clarity difference has been amazing compared to my 1080p 60Hz VA, but it unfortunately has cause some of my games to run worse due to the increased resolution. Guild Wars 2, for example, drops below 40fps. I could always downgrade the resolution, but… I don’t really want to. So I’ve been playing other games in the meantime.
Once the PC arrives, the last major piece would be a better desk. Current setup is “fine” but I do not have the desk space for a 2nd monitor, if I choose to have the old monitor off to the side or whatever.
LikeLike
It’s pricy and a bit much, but I love the Secret Labs desk. It’s nice and deep, the back shelf for cables is real clean, and the whole ‘everything is a mousepad’ is more handy than I expected.
Of course Amazon and other places have far cheaper desks, but for me it came down to either getting a ‘furniture’ desk that easily goes north of 1k, or the Secret Lab. At that point it was an easy choice.
LikeLike