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[64bitmodels]

What upgrade to your PC did you make that DRASTICALLY improved performance in every facet?
I have only been doing this PC gaming thing for a year now... but going from a 5600g to a 5600x + 6650 XT was AMAZING. So many games that i ran at sub FHD could be maxed out at 1440p with good performance, it was great.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Dropped out of PC gaming with a Phenom II/HD4850 build. Returned few years later with a GTX970/4790k.

 

[AGRacing]

You're going to get some humble braggin' in here.

I had some serious gains upgrading to an Intel from an FX processor back in the day.

Way back in the day the ATI 9800 Pro from a GeForce Mx. That was ridiculous.

And I do own a 7900XTX and love that card. The performance bump in Unreal 5 (fortnite being the best current test of that) made this card feel a little more future proof.

Good thread idea!

 

[StereoVsn]

Going from 1080 to 3080Ti was quite a jump.

 

[winjer]

Probably when I upgraded from a GeForce 2 MX DDR, into a Radeon 9700.
It wasn't just the matter that these were from very different generations, but also that the 9700 was a beast of a GPU for the time.

 

[IlGialloMondadori]

3DFX voodoo, boyyyyy.

 

[64bitmodels]

3DFX voodoo, boyyyyy.

they both run at 30fps,both are shit

... jk, the extra colors really add a lot of clarity to the image

 

[Braag]

I think it was back in 2006 when I slowly started to get more and more into PC gaming. I had a pre-built low level PC with a integrated GPU, i mainly played WoW back then so it worked for that. Eventually I bought a GeForce 7600 GT and slapped that on it and the difference was massive.

 

[calistan]

I had the original 233 MHz Bondi Blue iMac with 2 MB ATI Rage IIc GPU, which was a pig for gaming, but a year later they brought out the DV SE edition with 2x faster CPU and an ATI Rage 128 GPU with a massive 8 MB vram. It was my gateway to online gaming with Unreal Tournament and Myth II over dialup.

 

[Pedro Motta]

486 to Pentium 233 MMX with a Diamond Monster 3D. Playing P.O.D and Ultimate Race Pro and Quake 3Dfx was mindblowing.

 

[MikeM]

Building a PC in general.

Started with a 5600/6700xt combo. Very good machine, but upgraded to a 7900xt for 4k gaming.

I still play a lot on my PS5 though even with PC.

 

[BossLackey]

That's easy.

Going from HDD to SSD.

Completely changes the PC experience.

 

[64bitmodels]

Dropped out of PC gaming with a Phenom II/HD4850 build. Returned few years later with a GTX970/4790k.

i wouldn't call 6 years a few.... It's no wonder the jump was so massive when there were so many gens you skipped.

that being said, that's awesome!

That's easy.

Going from HDD to SSD.

Completely changes the PC experience.

No lie deteced. Windows was completely unusable on an HDD, on SSD it's great

I actually reinstalled Windows on an HDD, it's painful as fuck. I need to get an SSD quick because i can't stand using that

 

[Black_Stride]

AlderLake gave my PC a new lease on life cuz I was severly CPU bottlenecked for years.
I upgrade my GPU every 2 generations so I dont consider those big upgrades cuz I expect them.
1070 -> 3070...mining craze got me a 3080LHR....first time ive had a "range topper" since the 8800, I try to stick to xx70s.


The actual biggest one piece upgrade?
Probably going from an HDD to SSD, the general smoothness of doing everything was mindblowing.
During the early days of Sata SSDs it was the number one upgrade I would recommend for day to day PC usage.
I dont know how people today could possible survive with HDD only machines.


Other big upgrades?
6800GS(Ultra) with an AMD Dual Core -> 8800GTS with an Intel Q9550.
(In the interim I was a huge console gamer)

I still have my 6800GS, cuz it was the first PC I built with my own money.

 

[Calverz]

Going from a shitty 45" benq ultrawide lcd to a LG42C2 was impressive. Going from a GTX 1660 to an RTX 3070 was good too.

 

[BossLackey]

i wouldn't call 6 years a few.... It's no wonder the jump was so massive when there were so many gens you skipped.

that being said, that's awesome!


No lie deteced. Windows was completely unusable on an HDD, on SSD it's great

I actually reinstalled Windows on an HDD, it's painful as fuck. I need to get an SSD quick because i can't stand using that

I can't even imagine going back to Windows on HDD. Especially in the Windows 10/11 era.

 

[AV]

GPU? Genuinely don't remember, I was a kid, it was the first time I bought a GPU on its own and installed it and it blew my fucking bollocks off.

First SSD was a massive one too.

 

[64bitmodels]

I can't even imagine going back to Windows on HDD. Especially in the Windows 10/11 era.

on SSD desktop is usable within a couple seconds of signing in
on HDD it takes like 5, 10 minutes for everything to become fully responsive

 

[crackajack]

Probably when I upgraded from a GeForce 2 MX DDR, into a Radeon 9700.

probably when I upgraded to the GF 2 MX. from an SIS6326
almost same path then 9600Pro though. Also quite a nice jump, but going from 640x480 software rendering, or whatever was even possible, to some decent 1024x768 was huge.

 

[rofif]

3dfx voodoo 1
Then GeForce 2

Crazy gains in both cases

 

[RayBoy]

 

[Mister Wolf]

Probably the 4090 and getting access to frame generation when available.

 

[jshackles]

I had some serious gains upgrading to an Intel from an FX processor back in the day.

There will be a lot of answers here that will be upgrades from 30+ years ago. Back then it wasn't uncommon to see PC performance double in a year's time - CPU clock speeds, RAM speed and capacity, 3D expansion card memory pipelines, the works. Put all of these upgrades together, and you have a perfect storm around 1993-1994 that resulted in the actual performance gains year-to-year being an actual night and day difference. If you were like most people enthusiasts and only ever upgraded your PC every couple of years (mostly due to the cost of these beasts), then you could easily replace your 2-3 year old PC with one that was 3-4 times better by most performance metrics at the time.

Contrast that with today, and most PC components that get released are (at best) a 10% performance boost over last year's models. Intel's CPU upgrades are generational now, with each generation typically lasting 1.5-2 or so years - the 12th gen release being in 2021. Even if you replaced your entire PC every 3 years, it's likely you'd see very little practical increase in gaming performance. The time it takes to double a modern consumer-grade PC's performance has slowed to about 8 years.

Moore's Law is still alive and kicking - the difference is that most of the "new tech" that's being developed scientifically isn't making into the hands of the consumers, in favor of sticking with high production output creating a commodity product.

 

[Black_Stride]

That's easy.

Going from HDD to SSD.

Completely changes the PC experience.

First SSD was a massive one too.

I think everyone who was on PC pre SSDs can agree this has to be one of if not the biggest upgrades unless you go back way way back.

Even relatively shitty PCs suddenly dont feel so shitty once they have an SSD installed.
From boot to opening a program its like the PC was running with brakes on the whole time and youve finally let the PC breath.
For anyone who worked with programs like 3DS Max or even Photoshop, it on an HDD vs on an SSD......its a completely different beast.
Max is still pretty shitty with open times, but on an HDD you double click the icon and go make lunch, by the time youve finished your meal, and if you are lucky, it will actually be open.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Definitely the 4090, at least in recent memory. Also the single most expensive part I've ever bought. Before that, probably the jump to a Geforce 256 (or so, the first one), coming from no GPU at all (software rendering ftw).

 

[GymWolf]

Before the 4080 i always had series 70 gpu, 770, 970, 1070, 2070super and never spended mire than 400 euros for a gpu.

Being able to bruteforce most problem is a bless during these days...

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Spent my 4 years of college with a Pentium 3 450 MHz + Voodoo 3. Then after I got a real job I went to Athlon64 3400+ + Radeon 9600 XT. Holy shit that was a big bump.

 

[64bitmodels]

coming from no GPU at all (software rendering ftw).

on my dad's super old PC from way back when i actually used to use software rendering for some older games because my GPU didn't support openGL. needless to say even getting a crappy modern laptop improved my performance exponentially

 

[Lucifers Beard]

Dropped out of PC gaming with a Phenom II/HD4850 build. Returned few years later with a GTX970/4790k.

This sound similar to me. Dropped out of PC gaming around 2005 with a GeForceFX (which I remember being shit) and a Pentium 4. Then grabbed a PC with a 970 and i7-4790 in 2014. That thing lasted me until 2021 and could have gone longer.

Now I’m rocking a 12700K and 3080. Hoping to upgrade to the 5XXX series cards when they appear (providing they offer good value!).

 

[A.Romero]

Dropped out of PC gaming with a Phenom II/HD4850 build. Returned few years later with a GTX970/4790k.

Oh shit, I did something similar.

Other than full architecture upgrade an SSD made the biggest difference.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

i7 4790K / 1070 > 5950X / 3060

 

[RagnarokIV]

This sound similar to me. Dropped out of PC gaming around 2005 with a GeForceFX (which I remember being shit) and a Pentium 4. Then grabbed a PC with a 970 and i7-4790 in 2014. That thing lasted me until 2021 and could have gone longer.

Now I’m rocking a 12700K and 3080. Hoping to upgrade to the 5XXX series cards when they appear (providing they offer good value!).

GeForce FX 6200 w/ Pentium 4 3.06ghz was also my build around 2005-ish (from my foggy memory). We're twinning on the builds

 

[Chastten]

Probably going from a P1 166Mhz with no graphics to a P3 500Mhz with a dedicated 16MB graphics card.

Although going from that P3 to a P4 1.4Ghz, with 128 MB superfast Rim memory and a 64MB graphics card was a pretty big step as well.

Those were the days. Going from not even be able to launch something to being able to play it super smooth. These days there's no excitement in PC upgrades for me anymore. back in December I upgraded from a Ryzen 5 2400G with 16GB of RAM and a Radeon RX5500, to a Ryzen 5 5600X with 32GB of RAM and a Radeon RX6600 and I went from being able to play everything just fine, to being able to play everything just a little bit more fine. Mind you, there's a 4 year gap between both computers. Back in the 90's, those 4 years would've been huge. Nowadays, not so much. Any 5 year old computer will play pretty much anything just fine.

 

[Skifi28]

Going from not having a PC to having a PC back in 99 was quite the upgrade.

 

[64bitmodels]

Going from not having a PC to having a PC back in 99 was quite the upgrade.

.... well that makes a lot of sense.... lol

 

[IlGialloMondadori]

they both run at 30fps,both are shit

... jk, the extra colors really add a lot of clarity to the image

The image is weird, because I absolutely went from 320x200 with kind of crap framerate to 800x600 and what felt like 60fps.

 

[64bitmodels]

The image is weird, because I absolutely went from 320x200 with kind of crap framerate to 800x600 and what felt like 60fps.

i used to play ps1 games with dithering and native resolution, now it's 4k 60fps full color range baby

 

[bbeach123]

i5-2500k to 11700f .

The reason for this upgrade was not the cpu at all , the motherboard only had 2 ram socket 2x4g so its has to go . Thanks to the switch and ps4 I actually doesnt mind 30fps that much .

 

[MadchesterManc]

I usually upgrade here & there from work so don't notice big leaps often (Went from 3700X/2080ti to 5800X/3090 just a few months ago) but thinking back there was that one time I went from a GTX 960 to a Fury Nano. That was quite the upgrade from what I remember and I still have that Fury Nano today as a backup. Can't let the little beauty go

 

[k_trout]

going from AOL dial up to broadband, blew my simple little mind

 

[poppabk]

3DFX voodoo, boyyyyy.

Yeah going from nothing to a GPU was easily the biggest jump.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

i7 7700 GTX 1070 to a 5950x 3090 as I skipped the 2000 series cards

Still have the 7700 1070 prebuilt and still like to put games on it and see how they hold up most recently running the Diablo 4 server slam on it in ultrawide and that damn PC still holds up somewhat ok

 

[Ironbunny]

Easily the best were as many have said going from hdd to ssd. Second was going from 60hz monitor to 144hz gsync monitor. Latest upgrades in the past few years havent really been anything that special.

 

[nikos]

Historically? I forget how much of an upgrade one thing was over another since I've been building systems forever.

Recently, probably the 4090. I think it was a more significant improvement than 20 to 30 series.

In 2018 I did a build with the newly released 9900k and 2080 Ti that was significantly better than the mid-range system I had before that.

Upgrading to ultrawide and super ultrawide monitors was really significant, as was upgrading to G-Sync and SSD back in the day. Good peripherals and accessories also make a big difference.

 

[BlackTron]

Going from 4690k/1060 to i7/3070 was quite a jump.

As big as a leap from my beige Pentium II with Riva graphics to first PC build Athlon64/Radeon 9800XT? NO

 

[64bitmodels]

Moore's Law is still alive and kicking

moore's law was dead, but then Nvidia revived it with the jump from 3090-4090

 

[OmegaSupreme]

That's easy.

Going from HDD to SSD.

Completely changes the PC experience.

Yep. That was the biggest one for me back in the day. It felt revolutionary. Other than that, getting a qd oled monitor recently was huge for image quality. Had a slow va panel prior to it.

 

[small_law]

I just replaced my elderly 27" 4K 60 HRz non-HDR monitors with 32" 4K 160 HRz HDR monitors. I didn't mean to keep my old monitors as long as I did, they were supposed to be just a stand-in, but I kept them 7 years, way too long. More screen real estate and double the frame rate is one thing, but HDR is such a game changer. Ever since I moved out of the living room into the man cave, I haven't gamed in HDR. It's night and day.

Graphics cards are a big deal. Moving from a 1080 TI to a 3090 made a big difference. It's generally the biggest game changer.

I'll throw one out there though: upgrading your network. If you are still using the bullshit router your ISP gave you, upgrading to even a middle tier router makes a big difference. There's a big learning curve when it comes to configuring everything properly. I still make goofs here and there. But when it's all humming, it's a pretty extreme difference.

 

[OverHeat]

3090 to 4090!!! It was glorious

 

[64bitmodels]

moore's law was dead, but then Nvidia revived it with the jump from 3090-4090

3090 to 4090!!! It was glorious

my point exactly

the card is huge, it's expensive, DLSS3 allows nvidia to make downgrades and claim 'better performance...' but the 4090 is a masterpiece of a card for what it does. It's ridiculously strong