I,kind of, agree with most of the above.
It all come down to what you want;
An uber tech (uber expensive) dedicated piece of hardware, with an inbuilt technological obsolescence (If you want the best it will only be the best for a very limited time and to stay current means a large expenditure for peak of the curve hardware). Its very possible; but lets have no complaints about upgrade cost, or frequency!
A closed box that is state of the art for only a few weeks then is surpassed (obsolete) in terms of technology but has a manufacturer that a dedicated to a rather long product life. The penurious choice.
Or a technologically unexceptional PC that has a broad application base, gaming is secondary, but adequate.
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This assumes a certain level of proficiency not inherent to the average Joe.
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I beg to differ; most people can do it but most people do not want to do it (a case of intellectual lassitude).
(BTW; Joes are exceptional!)
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honestly, upgrading once every three years is going to mean a degradation in overall visual quality
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Only compared to the state of the PC art. If compared to a console the graphic goodness will improve slightly (better drivers etc.) and the console will remain static.
One needs to ask the question; is gaming the fun part or are the bragging rights for machine benchies/stats more important. Don't get me wrong; there is a definite "Oh Wow" factor to gaming with good visuals but honestly, IMO, in the heat of combat there is no time to appreciate eye candy.
I too went from hardware to gaming however I have never been rabid or obsessed about either. At times overclocking has both allowed better gaming performance at no cost and been a source of hours of amusement, optimizing system parameters to get a slightly better clock or benchmark.
Now I game when a new (good) one comes out and use a PC for other purposes, most of the time. (I admit it; I'm a soft core gamer, (and have never even benchmarked the current machine))
Must be gettin' old I guess...
Enjoy!