Weekend Open Forum: How frequently do you upgrade your PC?

Jos

Posts: 3,073   +97

Analysts love to point at Windows 8 as well as the rising popularity of tablets and smartphones to explain the industry’s accelerated sales slump. While they’ve certainly played their part, we can’t ignore the fact that nowadays you just don’t need to upgrade as often, as hardware has gotten to a point that any decently spec’d computer you bought or built three years ago is probably still good enough for most tasks today.

Even more so if you bought a high end system. Any “Westmere” Core i7 system paired with a first generation SSD and Radeon 5870 / GTX 480 graphics will still fly next to a decent mid-range machine today and run most games reasonably well -- though PC enthusiasts often have other reasons altogether for upgrading.

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Today we want to hear about your upgrade cycle. How often do you phase out old hardware to make way for the latest and greatest? What’s the last thing you replaced and what parts do you plan to buy in the near future?

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I start considering upgrades whenever similarly classed hardware gets to be 25% or more faster than what I'm currently running at stock clocks. (I.e. GTX 480/GTX 580/GTX 680 different generations same class of hardware)

My last replacement was a GTX 480 with a GTX 680 and recently added a second 680 for SLI.

I'm anxious to see what happens with Haswell hopefully it will be enough of a jump to consider replacing my Sandy Bridge 2600K.
 
3-4 years for a major rebuild. Though I may buy some additional hardware in between there. Though since I have both a desktop and a laptop, I probably end up buying a new comp of some sort every 1.5-2 years.
 
Up until recently, I was an upgrade junkie. But I upgrade to get the most out of games and for now and foreseeable future, there aren't going to be any games coming out that can even remotely tax my current system. We can thank developers stuck developing at XBox and PlayStation levels for that. Everything I play is at max settings and I get crazy frame rates.

My last upgrade was adding a second GeForce GTX660ti video card in SLI. I don't see any upgrades in the near future until games are to the point where they can tax the system I currently have.
 
When it breaks, I'll replace it. Until then, I just don't see the point. There's nothing out there that really challenges my rig. The only thing I don't get out of it is DX11 which I can easily live without.
 
Whenever a form of media or certain tasks cannot be performed on my current hardware, then I'll usually go for whatever upgrade I need. I'm not an "upgrade just for the sake of it" kind of guy.

Just recently I decided to go all out on a full new build with a Core i7 and GTX660ti, leaving behind my old socket 775, DDR2 system. My next upgrade will probably be an extra 660ti to go in SLI for some of the gaming titles coming this year.
 
I think the ONE of the many reasons why you don't see people upgrade as often as they used to, aside from what the articles mentioned, is that ever since AMD and Intel (parcitularyl intel) started rolling out new sockets every iteration, I lost interest to upgrade every 6 months. it's not only expensive, but a hassle to change out sockets everytime you want a new CPU upgrade. I remember back in the college days, I was upgrading CPU and memory like every few months, went from a Palomino 2000, to a thoroughbred 2100 to a thoroughbred 2400 all within a period of 8 months. it was a fun time all without the need to change out sockets or re-install. now I just DON"T want to go through the hassle anymore. unless I have all the time in the world, with the job, kid, family, a socket change will likely wipe out my entire weekend. if they want customers to grade again, they must reverse the trend and make it easy for the users to upgrade again.

I currently have two main desktops at home for myself. one in the study for gaming, and one as an HTPC in the living room. my study room gaming rig's last major overhaul was 5 years ago. it's still rocking a Q6600 overclocked and water cooled at 3.7ghz (default 2.4ghz). I've only recently swapped out the GPU for a HD7950. I am holding out for as long as I can mostly because not wanting to go through the hassle of swapping socket again.
 
Used to be every 2-3 years, now I think I've hit the end of it. My PC has mid range specs from 2010 and it still runs everything I need it to perfectly fine. I put some more RAM in a year ago, but that's been it.

I was looking forward to buying Win 8 until it I read reviews of it.
 
Usually about every 18 months which Im due for now. Waiting to see also what haswell brings to the table to upgrade my 2600k. My 3Gb 580 is in need of an update also but didnt see the 680 as being worth it. Waiting for the 780 series. I game at 2560 x 1600. Already have enough ram - 16gb ddr3. I'm good on hard drives - 256gb ssd/4tb backup/3tb backup/300gb velociraptor. XFI sound is good.
 
I do a minor upgrade once a year, ram, hdd, ect... I upgrade CPU, mobo, and video card once every 3-4 years.
 
I usually don't upgrade computers unless a component fails and needs to be replaced. Instead, I build an all new one about once a year or two. All my old PCs still work but only two are usually actively hooked up at a time.

That said, while I built an Intel based gaming PC this past March 2013, I'm going to be building an AMD based gaming oriented PC shortly. I still have to buy a case and graphics card. I don't need it, I just want one to play around with.
 
What do you guys do with your old hardware?
build a streaming box and use it for network storage. That or give it to a relative who needs a new computer. I still have every video card I've ever owned. Don't have the heart to throw them out or give it away :/
 
I'm really getting an itch to upgrade but I can't bring myself to do so. My build is a first gen I7. Its not slow. I really just play it all by ear. I did decide it was time to upgrade my smaller slower SSD. I think it was worth it.
 
Change in sockets means the upgrade coming up is a major build, so I have been holding off on any upgrades for more than a year. The disappointing news about Win 8, especially lack of START menu, has just added to the barrier. I budget (as appropriate to my income) so I will be hunting the bargains pages for several months before I find a good fit. My typical build is what an enthusiast is likely to be putting aside. My hope is 4 cores, 8 GB DDR3, 6Gb/s SATA. I'll build it with an old drive and then look for a good price on a 500GB HD. I will definitely wait on the video card, but an nVidia 560 series (256bit, GDDR5) on sale would make me jump. SSD still feels beyond my budget, but I might get lucky.
 
It used to be every 6-9 months for small upgrade.
But I kinda broke so I stuck with my Athlon X3 system that already served me well in this 3 years.
Guess I have to do some major upgrade next time.
 
This all depends - is it a 'gaming' PC or used for other things? My 'desktop' system is 2001 vintage XP box that does everything I need it to - except play games - the gaming rig gets upgraded when new hardware is +50% faster than what I currently have.
 
I usually build a new computer every two years. I went all out May of last year: i7 3770k / gtx 690 / 16gb ram / 240gb ssd / 1tb hdd / 27" 2560x1440 120hz oc. I was doing some serious gaming then and I continued to do so for almost six months after building this computer. Lots of life changes and I have done little to no gaming since. Without gaming I could see myself maybe upgrading my screen if something much better comes out, otherwise... meh.

ps. those new captchas are pretty obnoxious. Also they don't work with flashblock in Firefox (the addon which prevents autoplaying flash). If you click to enable flash for the captcha it forwards you to the forum. I had to open up Chrome (woah didn't know techspot had so many ads), thankfully Windows 7 allows muting per application.
 
I just "upgraded" ATI HD 5870 to HD 6670, just because my new monitor (DELL U3014) works best with DisplayPort 1.2, which was not supported by HD 5870.

I haven't played games much lately, too old for this now. But after playing SC2 Demo on my new 2560x1600 monitor - it's a thing of beauty, I bought the game.
 
I don't usually upgrade. When I buy a new computer, I get one that will let me play or do anything for at least then next 5-7 years. I got my current computer about three years ago and though it might not be state of the art, there has been no software or game that has bogged it down.
 
My pattern has been to build a system, then after a few years upgrade the graphics, then a couple of years after that build a new system.

My current rig was built in 2008 - Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, GTX260, with the case and 74GB Raptor hard drive from my first 2004 build. The only major upgrades have been to replace the GPU with a GTX480 early in 2012, and I added a 120GB Agility 4 SSD as a boot drive about 6 months ago. This system still plays everything out there that I want to play, so barring a component failure (I did just order a new DVD burner a couple of hours ago) it will probably be a while before a major overhaul.

I have the itch to build a new system and have looked into new CPU/mobo/RAM, but just can't justify the cost right now since this does what I want it to do.
 
I upgrade much less now than I had 4 years ago, when I started working at 17. I bought as many parts as I could afford with my first few paychecks. I enjoyed building it very much and loved reading reviews on high end components on sites like techspot. I longed for the day when I would be able to afford them.

...And now that I can afford those parts and have built myself such a computer my cravings and interests in parts has substantially subsided. I've gained more interest in other media and don't really play games anymore.

The only upgrades I can see myself doing in the next year would be picking up some more hard drive space.
 
Desktop 4 yr old E8400 - getting dusty
Notebook 3 months old AMD A6 - cheap cos it's not the latest OS - it's Win7 ! V happy with that...
Netbook 2 years old - used to play music at home and for travel.
No tablet
Dumb-smart-phone - Nokia N8.

This is more than I need and I'll wait until Win9 before I consider a replacement for the netbook. I doubt I'll ever buy a desktop again and I don't like carrying a tablet w/o a keyboard so I won't get one of them either.
 
Processor wise, I'm still running on two main systems with over clocked Core 2 Duo / Quads that are now about 5 years old. As for video cards, those get upgraded almost every year. Currently running GTX 670s in SLI on these unsupported motherboards thanks to the magic of HyperSLI. Getting 60 fps in Heaven 4.0, which is the same as some Core i7 systems I have had the privilege of playing with.
 
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