If someone can only upgrade every 2-4 years because of money issues, then buy cheaper is still a good option because then they could upgrade more often, and be ahead of where they would be at the end of the 4 years, at half the price. As for the vid card thats a choice. I'm getting an x1900xt or maybe x1950xt now, then in about a year and a half or less upgrade that, and the 4600 EE to a K8L. That seems to be the best thing right now to do.
Ahh, but that is the enthusiast's perspective. You are neglecting the fact that there a lot of people who don’t
want to upgrade every six months. Imagine buying a car and bringing it back to the dealer every six months to put a new motor in. That would be a colossal pain in the arse. Now, tearing the motor down yourself to port match the heads, or put a set of high compression pistons in etc, that’s a hobby (unless your racing professionally). Some people are into this, but not most. Personally, I don’t want to upgrade every six months. Long term, based on your theory, it is a waste of money. If you by a mid range CPU costing $300 every six months for 2 years, versus a one time buy of a $1000 chip, your losing money. Yes, you keep your performance level up, but,
if as you stated in your first post, the high end CPUs are a waste, then there’s no point to upgrading every six months anyway.
If tweaking your system is a hobby, that’s fine. Hobbies cost money, so your going to spend it any way, and what you are getting in turn is not really performance, but relaxation, satisfaction, pleasure etc, that which a hobby gives an individual. But you have to remember, that computers themselves as a "hobby" are limited to the minority. For the majority of people, computers are a tool, whether its word processing, communicating (e-mail) graphics or even gaming etc. Just as a baseball bat is a "tool" of baseball, so is a computer a "tool" of video gaming. These people don’t want to fiddle every six months. Hell, they don’t even want to fiddle every 2-4 years. They want to make a one time investment. They don’t even want to have to buy another system ever again. The reasons they do replace their systems vary. For some, it’s when software outgrows their systems capabilities, for others they may believe they have to buy a new computer because their hard drive is "filled up" (its true). These people don’t care what’s inside, as long as what’s inside is going to last more than six months. That’s just the ways it is.
For them, the most performance they can buy at the time is best. I’ve been building systems since 95. Believe me, I would much rather have made a one time investment of $3000 in 1995, than $600-$1200 every 2 years. A one time buy is not realistic due to improvements in software and hardware, but it’s the way I feel. I don’t like spending money or time tinkering with a system, I want to use it. I hate having to dig through MS's registry blocking, altering or deleting the crap in there. I hate spending time researching how to do it, and what little secret surprise’s and security hazards MS has hidden in their dam OS's. I hate upgrading drivers. I hate configuring software. To me, all of this is wasted time, but it has to be done. I could easily find other more pleasurable ways (for me) to spend my time. I fall into the category of user, not enthusiast. Most people do
Peace