Question What do you look for? PCI-E 5, Futureproofing even possible, etc.?

[UKTone]

I was hoping to upgrade to new everything since everything was upgrading, but the gpus decided to stick with pci-e 4 and not sure if any m.2 ssds can use pci-e 5 yet. And not sure if motherboards have pci-e 5 for future gpus and m.2 and not sure if there's a way to tell if a motherboard supports pci-e 5 for both gpus and m.2s through pcpartpicker.com at least, so i am looking for another site(s) to help with this. Are pci-e 5 m.2 ssds worth it? (thinking of getting 2 m.2 ssds)

A lot of people are telling me not to worry about futureproofing, not sure what has changed over the last 5-7 years since most people would be telling me the opposite (before i was somewhat a minimalist, i'm happy playing games even at 720p, but now i want to do a lot more with my computer). Why have people switched to basically being against futureprooofing now?

 

[Math Geek]

because future proofing is a fools errand. there is no such thing.

what is going to come out next year? 3 years from now? how will we use systems differently then vs now? what in game features will we be using and how much power will they need? and so on and so on.....

all you can do is get what you need now, perhaps a bit more to be safe, and then enjoy it until it stops doing what you need it to do. there is no way to build a system now that will still be top notch years from now. it does not work that way.

i know i will use a cpu for a number of years. so i get a good mobo for that cpu and know it will be there until i upgrade the cpu. i get more gpu than i need and know i'll drop settings as time goes by until i get a new one.

you'll lose your mind trying to buy something now that will work for 5 years with anything and everything that comes between now and then

 

[Aeacus]

Are pci-e 5 m.2 ssds worth it?

IMO, as long as your have M.2 NVMe PCI-E 3.0, you're good.

The speed gains between PCI-E 3.0 and 4.0 are unnoticeable. E.g comparison between two drives,
link: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...ng-980-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-2TB/m798635vsm1454302

970 Evo Plus 2TB is my current OS drive and it runs on PCI-E 3.0. 980 Pro is newer/faster and while on paper, the PCI-E 4.0 it uses, is twice as fast compared to PCI-E 3.0, the real practical increase is just ~27%.

If i were to compare my current OS drive (M.2 NVMe SSD) to my old OS drive (860 Evo 2.5" SATA), then practical difference between the two is whopping 207%,
link: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...2-2TB-vs-Samsung-860-Evo-1TB/m798635vsm423831

In real world usage, speed difference isn't that noticeable, between 2.5" SATA and M.2 NVMe PCI-E 3.0.
So, when even 200% gain isn't that noticeable, you can think how noticeable the 27% increase is.

Why have people switched to basically being against futureprooofing now?

Very difficult to future proof when new hardware releases basically every year.

Best you could do, is getting the current top hardware, e.g i9-13900K, RTX 4090, 64/128GB DDR5 RAM, 1600W PSU, several M.2 drives. <- This will cost you an arm and a leg, but if given nothing dies, can last you for the longest of time, before hardware is obsolete. And it only will be the "top", as long as new hardware hasn't been released. ~1 year or so.

E.g once RTX 50-series launches, your GPU won't be on the top anymore. Same when Intel 14th gen CPUs are released.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Why have people switched to basically being against futureprooofing now?

I've always been against futureproofing for a few reasons:

• What you want out of a PC can change over time. By building a "futureproofed" PC, whatever that means, you've basically committed to its core specs for the next 5+ years.
• Interfaces and features change over time. For example if you bought a "futurerpoof" PC in 2013, the storage interface went through a handful of interfaces over the next three years. And you're missing out on every one of them.
• Even if you buy something overbuilt on the idea that "I might use that"... chances are you won't unless you've always used every last thing out of every computer you had. Members of Linus Tech Tips looked back on whether or not they used their HEDT computers after AMD basically abandoned the concept and most of them said they never really used their computers to the fullest.
• Buying the "best utlimatest computer ever" is also brings the worst value for most people. Imagine buying a $1400 Threadripper and then throw on an RTX 3090 Ti for $2000. You could've bought two reasonably high end systems at different times or had enough for a major upgrade or two.

 

[UKTone]

Ok thank you, these are all great points, i also was thinking futureproofing was to an extent being committed to the computer for years, trying to make it similar to a console to which they last about 7 years, but yeah it's probably not worth it overall to futureproof, but maybe futureproofing your motherboard/cpu may be good, and just upgrade everything else until it becomes necessary to upgrade the cpu and motherboard? Or is that not a good idea either?

 

[Math Geek]

you should upgrade a part when it stops doing what you need it to do. no need to set a schedule or plan ahead of time what to do when.

build it and when the gpu is not good enough, look for a new one. if you need more ram, add it. if the cpu is too weak look for a stronger one (obviously means new mobo as well)

i have used systems for over 10 years and i have upgraded after a year. all depends on what that system is supposed to do and if it does it still.

dom't let FOMO dictate your decisions. let logic and "does it do what i need it to do?" decide when/what to upgrade

 

[Aeacus]

but maybe futureproofing your motherboard/cpu may be good, and just upgrade everything else until it becomes necessary to upgrade the cpu and motherboard?

This is what most (gamers) do.

E.g my main rig is running Intel 6th gen Core i5, that i bought way back in 2016. Now, 7 years later, my CPU is still good enough for me, and i have no reason to upgrade it. Despite it only having 4 cores and 4 threads.

Over the years, i did add more RAM, since in the beginning, i only had money for 8GB of RAM. Now, i'm running 16GB. And upgraded my GPU down the line as well. Since i upgraded my monitor to 144Hz one, my old GPU wasn't good enough, so, i got better GPU. Oh, over the years, i've also phased out all HDDs in my system, while moved my OS from 2.5" SATA SSD to M.2 NVMe SSD. For faster read/writes (didn't have a need for faster read/writes, but had a need for more storage space).

The rest of the components, PSU, PC case, case fans, MoBo, CPU, CPU cooler, are from 2016 and i haven't had a need to upgrade/replace them.

For example, if i would "need" better CPU, i could either update my MoBo BIOS and install i7-7700K into it, gaining ~27% performance and 4 additional CPU threads, over my i5-6600K. Or going with new CPU-MoBo combo.
Thus far, i haven't had a need.

Once 2025 rolls around and Win10 ends, then i need to look into, if to go with new CPU-MoBo combo, that supports Win11 or if i can put Win11 on my current hardware (e.g Micro$oft drops the stupid Win11 requirements).

 

[Nighthawk117]

I've found 4 years of good performance in the latest games relatively easy to achieve so 5 years should be quite doable. Whether you would get to 7 with the performance you want in your games is impossible to predict because it would depend on the games you want to play and what performance you find acceptable. Something like FIFA for example will happily run on 7 year old hardware but Cyberpunk with all the trimmings won't. Most games for example will run on a Nvidia 1080 at 1080p with pretty good performance and that's nearly 7 years old. It does show it's age though in some of the most demanding titles like Cyberpunk.

I wouldn't worry about PCI-E 5 SSD's personally, your better off with a larger PCI-E 4 drive. Even PCI-E 3 drives are not properly utilised in games right now but that should start to change.