Consider the following hypothetical scenario. You’re upgrading your gaming equipment and are second-guessing your hardware choices.
In fact, I’m so fed up with the performance of my old hardware that I feel an overwhelming urge to splurge on the most expensive hardware I can find to maximize the specs. It’s a 4K curved gaming monitor, the Intel Core i9-14900KS. It achieves a maximum boost of a whopping 6.2GHz.
There’s just one problem. The new prices are stomach-churning. Sound familiar?
This is a scenario that all gamers face from time to time, including me. However, the performance of my gaming hardware is likely the single most important factor that determines whether I shine on the leaderboards or just crash and burn on the list.
But please don’t do that. It takes all your mental strength to resist the temptation to always buy the best hardware. You can also apply a self-soothing mantra, meditate, or ask a friend to intervene if needed. Please don’t do that. why? After all, it’s not worth it. Let me explain…
balancing act
My reasons are twofold. The first point is that using the highest spec gear will not necessarily give you better performance than if you choose lower spec gear. You often end up spending more money. In other words, it is important to offer value for money. By the same logic, you don’t want it to be so cheap that it significantly degrades performance. Therefore, it is important to choose wisely.
Take Intel Core i9-14900K CPU as an example. It may have Intel’s Raptor Lake refresh ’14’ designation, but it shares the same architecture as the previous generation Intel Core i9-13900K, with only slightly better base and boost clocks. Benchmark comparison shows only a 2% speed increase compared to its predecessor.
Additionally, some reviewers found that the Core i9-14900K runs a little hotter, uses more power, and, even more surprisingly, costs $60 more than the Core i9-13900K (at Newegg). did. Granted, this isn’t a lot of money, but when you consider that the same is true for each hardware component you upgrade, you’re getting very little performance and the hardware price difference is between $250 and $500. There is a possibility. advantage.
Instead, with a little smart research, you can find the Core i9-13900K at a significant discount from its original retail price. But that’s just the beginning… There are countless products that outperform their price point in value and performance. Two that come to mind in the gaming peripherals category are his HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Wireless gaming mouse and SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7X gaming headset.
Another great example is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX desktop graphics card. According to benchmark comparisons, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 performs around 3-10% better than this card in 4K gaming benchmarks. But again, you can only really benefit from that if you’re gaming in 4K, which I rarely do. In fact, the AMD RX 7900 XTX performs better than the RTX 4090 in some benchmarks run at lower resolutions. Plus, it’s $700 cheaper.
time the market
I’m not criticizing the RTX 4090. This is a great card to thank your lucky stars for. But there’s probably another reason not to go all-in on the RTX 4090 and other similarly expensive hardware, which brings me to my second point. This means that while they may be good now, they won’t be top dogs for long.
Indeed, it takes less than a year for almost every product in a gaming brand’s line to be dethroned by a better product, so you really need to keep that in mind.
Sure, the RTX 4090 might guarantee my performance for years to come, but if the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 GPU comes out next year, it’ll probably show very similar performance. . In fact, between releases he found that upgrading to midrange hardware at intervals of a year or so significantly improved PC performance.
In fact, using this humble GPU as an example, I resisted the urge to buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 when it launched at an MSRP of $1,599, and instead waited a bit before purchasing the RTX 4070. You saved $900. I then upgraded my monitor and other hardware components to improve my PC’s overall performance.
We now have not only GPUs that can shred, but monitors that can handle the fast frame rates that GPUs can throw at.
Justifying that decision is also the fact that the RTX 3090 performs just 11% better than the RTX 4070 in some benchmarks, which is acceptable to me.
So here’s something to think about. Your budget will determine whether you can afford high-end hardware, but even then you can shop around for hardware that offers great performance for the money you’re willing to pay.
