Poll: Your computer's weakest link...

[dyre]

Most of you are PC gamers, right? I assume a good portion of you have at least decent gaming rigs.

But if you're anything like me, the computers you've had have all had weakest links, or one part of the computer that just couldn't handle the latest games.

Mine's the processor on my laptop. I have a Dell Studio XPS 16, and it has a good video card, RAM, etc, but the processor is highly mediocre and struggles to support The Witcher 2.

edit: why does Escapist keep cutting text from my poll options?

 

[navyjeff]

My power supply. It's only 700 W, so it'll probably bite the dust before anything else. Next is probably the hard drive, since I have no RAID configuration or SSDs in my desktop.

 

[Nickompoop]

RAM. I'm rocking a whole 2 gigs of DDR2. I bet none of you can match that. My computer is a beast.

the processor is highly mediocre

Highly mediocre describes my CPU as well. Still better than my RAM.

 

[thick doona]

I bought an ATI graphics card. It has these horrible drivers. My screen will just freeze and sound keeps going in the background. My mouse cursor still moves. It's pretty weird.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Right now, my weak link is my computer's video card. I've finally given up on gaming on laptops because it's insanely expensive, so I'm building a new desktop and it already blows this computer out of the water. It's not finished, but it's getting there. Hopefully in the next few weeks I can turn it into my gaming rig and this laptop can retire to music and web surfing.

 

[Dragon_of_red]

My Video card.
My computer in general can run recent game's on the highest settings.
My graphics card, can just run portal, team fortress, League of legends and Psychonaughts on the Lowest settings...

-_____-

 

[enzilewulf]

Mine can hardly handle TF2 mate. So I just sit around playing half life and minecraft because it can support those just fine weirdly...well if fog is all the way turned on for minecraft.

 

[Nalfen]

Too bad that "bad internet connection" isn't an issue cause if it was I'd say that is the issue all day every day

Edit: Just noticed the "other" option, derp.

 

[OutcastBOS]

My video card. It fucking CHUGS along with Team Fortress...

 

[Eggbert]

RAM. I'm rocking a whole 2 gigs of DDR2. I bet none of you can match that. My computer is a beast.

the processor is highly mediocre

Highly mediocre describes my CPU as well. Still better than my RAM.

My last computer (updated end of 2010) had 1 gig. Current one, I haven't stress-tested, but I'll assume video card or heat distribution, it being a laptop and all.

 

[NightlyNews]

I'm not sure what you mean by HD memory. Like the space on my harddrive? I have 3 gigs so it's not that, but my harddrive is the weakest piece so I voted that anyway.

My hardrive is the weakest link because it's only 7200rpm and makes my boot times on my monster of a pc too slow. But, once I put a ssd in I think my pc can handle anything.

 

[USSR]

My processor.
I want to get a better one, but I'm afraid I'll get the wrong one and it won't be compatible.

Grr \:

 

[Aris Khandr]

My video card would be good (GTX 460), but I picked a bad model that is prone to frequent lock-ups. If it worked the way it is supposed to, my weak link would be my hard drive access speed, which is at 5.9 by Windows 7's scale. Everything else is in the 7s.

 

[dyre]

I'm not sure what you mean by HD memory. Like the space on my harddrive? I have 3 gigs so it's not that, but my harddrive is the weakest piece so I voted that anyway.

My hardrive is the weakest link because it's only 7200rpm and makes my boot times on my monster of a pc too slow. But, once I put a ssd in I think my pc can handle anything.

yeah, that's what I meant. what's a better term for it? HD capacity?

 

[Inconspicuous Trenchcoat]

My power supply. It's only 550w and it's some brand I've never heard of called ePower. That totally spells quality to me! (sarcasm)

I'm worried my 4870 or quad-core will cause it to explode one day...

Also, my HDD is fairly weak. I don't mind its average speed (7200rpm), but I'm running out of space and my boot times are a bit silly (i.e. long).

 

[NightlyNews]

I'm not sure what you mean by HD memory. Like the space on my harddrive? I have 3 gigs so it's not that, but my harddrive is the weakest piece so I voted that anyway.

My hardrive is the weakest link because it's only 7200rpm and makes my boot times on my monster of a pc too slow. But, once I put a ssd in I think my pc can handle anything.

yeah, that's what I meant. what's a better term for it? HD capacity?

I would call it hard drive transfer rate, but just putting hard drive would make sense in context with this question.

Edit: Wow I read your question wrong. Yea hard drive space would make the most sense. Memory normally means ram which is why it was confusing.

 

[evilneko]

I think with my system as it stands right now, its component parts are pretty much at parity with each other. When I first built it however it had only 2GB of RAM and the video card was fairly weak compared to the CPU.

As a whole it's no longer any sort of powerhouse but I think it'll keep up for a while longer, though I'll probably end up lowering settings. I don't play COD or anything like that so as long as it can still play Mass Effect 3 when it comes out, I'll be happy. Considering neither ME2 or ME1 was any sort of challenge for my hardware, I figure I'll have no problem with 3. Skyrim might pose problems, but I didn't really like Oblivion so I'm not really all that interested in it anyway so meh.

 

[TheLoneBeet]

Mine is one of those "other" problems. It's been fixed so now I don't have the first clue what's the worst now.

Initially my motherboard was faulty and wasn't reading my RAM correctly, resulting in multiple freezes and crashes (this is in the first week I owned the damn thing) so I contacted Dell as soon as fucking possible and they sent somebody out to replace the motherboard. Things are all good now though, but that was a colossal pain in the ass and I'm very glad I didn't have to pay for it (hooray for warranty and finding problems early enough that it actually counts)

 

[Legless Zombie]

Overall my PCs pretty good. There isn't a game on canyourunit that I can't run at maximum performance, but I'm not too sure on how reliable canyourunit is. If HD memory refers to the hard drive then I'd say that's the weakest part. It's just a cheap 500 GB hard drive. I'm still waiting on a SSD from Tiger Direct so I can boot my operating system and games from it and just use my HDD as a slave drive for storage.

 

[Riddle78]

Weak link? Probably the heat management. I have an Ubercomputer,compared to what I know. It may not be some sort of $150,000 monstrosity,but the parts are all fairly decent,while keeping the overall value of the machine under $2,000. I've upgraded the video cards (two of them),RAM,and Hard Drive,exclusively.