To be honest, building PCs and gaming on them is a personal thing. You ask "Why would I?" - I say that's a question only you can answer mate. Until last month, I hadn't touched my previous machine for a grand total of 10 years (the only thing I changed was a graphics card that died, that's it). If the machine does the job you want it to do, then there is no reason you need to do it if you're not an enthusiast like others on bit-tech and other sites mate. My advice? Don't. If it's working, don't fix it.
Using a PC for gaming is a personal choice, just like using an Xbox 360 and a Mac is your choice. Personally, I love gaming on the PC, I prefer the keyboard and mouse for most games and I enjoy the superior graphics over most console games. I also prefer having a dedicated monitor, although if I wanted to game on a big screen, then I could hook it up to my 46" TV quite easily. For Internet browsing, I prefer to use my Linux laptop. It's all down to choice at the end of the day. If you don't want to spend money on your PC, then don't.
If you can get along with the xbox and mac book then why would you even "need" to build, or even ask this? I hate the console controllers for FPS, I play RTS which will never work on consoles and I also hate OSX and Apple products in general. That, combined with the fact that I actually NEEEEED a PC are the reasons for me. If you can cross none of these boxes then building a PC would probably only be waste of time.
I think a lot of the reason to upgrading, overclocking etc is the fun of doing it. I love looking at potential new kit, maybe buying it and tweaking it and at the end of the day having a powerful rig to play games on. If you're happy as you are then carry on. There's no need to start building a new rig if you don't need to.
The problem I'm finding is that it's hard to stop continually upgrading a PC once built and it becomes a real money sink. On the other hand, gaming at beyond 1080p kicks ass. So yeah, the OP has to evaluate what he wants: continued cost effective gaming with a console (but reduced image quality) or really high quality gaming at high expense.
This man speaks the truth. After spending around £1000 on the last upgrade I just did. I'm already looking at the spare i7 940 thinking about building another one
Does your pc do what you want it to fast enough? if so then dont upgrade... if not then upgrade. for some of us decreasing a work task from 1 hr to 20 mins is a valuable difference... heck from switch on to running from 2 mins to 20 seconds is worth 100 quid if its pissing you off (not sure if its worth 300 for me though ;-) for gaming - well 360 (and ps3) have always dissapointed me as they couldnt even match my xps laptop of the time let alone the desktop... still my 360 satisfies the needs of the living room (now its got the codecs at least - prior to that it had a umpc kicking its ass) on the main side for me it was 3d vision that prompted the upgrade... hl2 was great but other games were struggling.
Its all about computers for me, there so versatile. I have my 'Game' box which is actually more of HTPC really, might play the odd game once in a blue moon.... Whilst at uni, computers were key, and having multiple machine in my final year made the most sense to me, as money is tight if something goes down and key move and carry on working in under 5 minutes, and not have to think about repairs. Also rendering is part of my trade/skills so more than one machine helps in that case. so basically consoles don't really appeal to me at all anymore. My PS2 is used as a DVD player only, lol!
Looking at my sig you can clearly see that i'm constantly upgrading (throw in a 955 and i have 5 quad core computers) some of those upgrades are fed from necessity (dev box, home server) others from want (gaming and HTPC) the 955 should have held the basics for a great HTPC but i wanted a little bit more so will be selling it later this week to fund the recent dev box upgrade. I now find myself in the nice position of being fairly balanced my gaming PC can handle everything i throw at it (Global Agenda, Pro evo and DA:O + few more steam games) my HTPC runs JC2 great and is near silent when playing Movies and my server and dev box are near as quick as you can currently buy the last two should hold me out for a few years, and i cant see myself needing a htpc upgrade for a while, which means that when i'm tired of Global Agenda, and pick up a new game i may need a gaming box upgrade but thats a while off yet. which moves me on to peripherals, my home network is gb upstairs and 100mb downstairs so an upgrade may be required there. i currently game on a 20'' screen so may need one there. my dev box has 4 monitors so that is fine. oh and i would also like a few (3 i think) SSDs, but i flat out refuse to buy them until they fall in price. as you can probably make out it is an project that i undertook a number of years ago. and i think i should be set for the next 2 years or so (bar maybe a new monitor) but only in the last 2 weeks do i feel that i have gotten on top of my habit
If you have to ask that question, then you probably have no reason to build a new gaming PC. Just like you have no reason to pick up cycling as a hobby or collect stamps. Entertainment electronics are never a need, they're a want and can't be logically justified.
Because first person shooters with controllers is WRONG!!! On a more serious note, if you dont feel the need to upgrade dont.
