Mega Oh-No!

So I've had this PC for more than 5 years at this point.  I bought an all singing all dancing computer for games because A: I like playing games and B: Half-assing a computer build means spending the remaining life of the PC upgrading here, changing there, and generally dicking around with it.  Something I wanted to avoid like the plague.

I have changed the motherboard once (the old one had dodgy hdd controllers, a flaw in the design that I was too slow to reclaim through the manufacturer), but that's the only modification I've made.  This PC has done me pretty well, all things considered.  I can't remember exactly how much I paid for it, way back when I was living in korea, but with the screen, speakers, mouse and keyboard, it was probably a little over 1,000 USD (stuff is a lot cheaper in korea, probably on account of half the stuff being made there or in Taiwan which is basically just up the road).

For the first time since I bought this PC, I came across a game that I can't play.  The new Doom game (yes they are still making them) won't run on this PC.  It'll boot to the menu, load into a game, but I can't do anything, it's too slow.  Too few frames.

So this year I'm going to buy a new PC.  There's no point 'upgrading,' the parts, because everything will have to go (it also makes it easier for compatibility purposes to do it this way).  I will keep the peripherals like the mouse and keyboard, screen and whatnot, but I'm thinking of getting a new case, and I'll definitely get a new power supply (this one has fits every now and again).

So, having said that, I'm torn.  I don't have nearly as much money as I did when I was in Korea, but once this thing is built, I want it to last another five years.

I managed to get in at the perfect time with this PC, because the old consoles held PC games back in the sense that there was almost zero software innovation, games in 2008 looked pretty much the same as they did in 2013, and until recently, this computer played games incredibly well.  Now, looking forwards, VR is going to completely change that.  The requirements for games in VR are astronomical, and for the first time in more than a decade there's going to be an arms race with regards to graphics hardware, which leaves the consumer back in the old annual or biannual upgrade grind.  This isn't set in stone of course, it's just my prediction, but Sony have recently announced that they're going to release a new PS4, one with upgraded innards - essentially a playstation 4.5.

That may not sound newsworthy to people who buy a new phone every year (which is the way of the world now, unfortunately), but to games people, it's enormous news.  It's the biggest news in gaming since the introduction of consoles.

Aside from being incredibly anti-consumer (in the footsteps of apple) it's a tacit admission that they can't afford to take a hit up-front on tech, and the recoup via other means.  In fact, inside sources have indicated that they broke even on every console sold from the get-go.  This is unheard of, every other console in recent memory has been a loss-leader, the companies making money up on software and more recently internet services.

What does this lengthy diversion have to do with me buying a new PC?  Well, firstly, it's the basis for my theory regarding the future of PC hardware.  CPU's will continue trudging along as they have done for decades.  Memory will, bar natural disaster, be cheap enough that you simply buy as much and as fast as is available, the overall percentage of your budget devoted to RAM will always be negligible even if you opt for top-of-the-line stuff.  Hard disks have stalled in a major way, and SSD's are still too unreliable for my needs (frankly, I find it worrying that so few resources online mention that they aren't reliable enough for use beyond a couple of years) so I'm going to buy a 4tb drive and just be done with it.

PSU's are slightly more efficient now than they were 5 years ago, but not the the point of being noteworthy.

So, as it always does, it comes down to graphics cards.  4K and VR are the new frontiers and the next wave of cards coming out around September won't be enough to see me through for another 3 years, let alone 5.  So do I buy a mid-range card, live with it for a couple of years, then upgrade when they've figured out the new architectures, or do I just go big now and live with it?

I still need to save up the money, which is going to take a long time, so at least I have the luxury of being able to wait and see how the early stakes pan out.