How often do you upgrade your PC

[Warsam71]

How often do you upgrade your PC? And what makes you want to upgrade? Personally, I build my PCs to last me at least 2 years. But sometimes, depending on what I'm doing (which is mainly gaming), I change my GPU to get a better gaming experience (i.e. higher res and fps). But when it comes down to PSU, CPU, hard drives, motherboards and memory, well these last me a lot longer, like I said, about two years.

[theanalyzer]

I upgrade my system's parts (CPU, GPU) whenever I find a good alternative which is relatively cheaper and the sale of the existing part is able to fund half or more of the next purchase.

HD, motherboard, RAM, PSU is always new and usually lasts upto 3 years.

[Warsam71]

See, I'm the same, especially on the HD and PSU front. In fact, before I built my current rig, my old hard drive (which wasn't an SSD) was about 3 years old, same for the PSU. It's a Cooler Master 750w, which I'm pretty sure I'll keep it for a long time, at least another 2 years from now as I don't plan to Crossfire.

[Output]

Also see: http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-news/2...e-your-pc.html

[Warsam71]

Thanks for the link, it's a bit old (2013) but it helped. I'm happy to have seen a few comments from members stating "when it's necessary". I do have a couple of friends tho that somehow manage to keep their system unchanged for 4+ years. The longest I've ever gone is about 3.

[JordanTr]

Usually i upgrade PC every 2 years, but now i bought my GA-H67M-D2 + i5-2500k + 12GB RAM + GTX560TI on February of 2011, so my cpu will start to count his 4th year in 3 months But it sports 4.5GHZ 24/7 with no problems, so i think i will be able to keep it another couple years or so if it will not let me down, or my corsair h90 will not destroy all my build during this 3 years i changed, my gtx560 Ti to GTX660 and just month ago i bought second one and made GTX660 SLI. Motherboards: i have changed my gigabyte to MSI Z77A-GD55 one year ago, cause i gave my old one to my nephew and made him budged gaming pc with i3-2120 + HD7770 (Thats enough he is playing on 1366x768 19" monitor). And three months ago i was forced to change my MSI motherboard to older P8Z68-V/GEN 3, cause then i have been taking off my cpu, accidently some thermal compound fell into the cpu socket and then all magic started, so i end up with only 1 ram slot working, bought refurbished asus and it works like a charm, max overclock is 4.9GHz, on MSI i could barely get 4.8GHz. So probably my next upgrade will be new GFX again then 20nm shows up

[Jay]

Still on a Q6600..... last update was probably my SSD in 2011

[Saracen]

I upgrade when the current machine won't do something I need it to do, and not before. I don't buy a new shovel every time the garden centre has a shiny new one, and my PC is much the same - a tool to do a job.

[Output]

Thanks for the link, it's a bit old (2013) but it helped.

I'd think that it's still very relevant, as 5-6 months old isn't that long ago. Regardless of that however, you're welcome.

[integerspin]

The last time I upgraded was in 2008, I am waiting for a much better cpu for about 40 quid;-)

[wasabi]

10 years ago roughly every 8 months it would get a major overhaul. Nowadays, apart from adding SSD it has been the same box for 3 years now. Don't game as much as I used to and new games aren't pushing the envelope the way they used to, so no need.

[virtuo]

I just replace parts when something fails, and then I'll replace with something I have lying around, so it's often a downgrade..

My current box is largely unchanged in the last 4-ish years. As Saracen said, it's been a tool to do a job and not needed to be bleeding edge. It is starting to show its age though and so will be repurposed and replaced by a completely new top-end build, hopefully before xmas.

[sula]

Not often and usually only when I have to.

Reason?
1. Out of principle

2. Money.

I may buy new bit of hardware bit more often or buy bit more expensive parts - if my real income (after paying health care, food, housing, energy, insurance and other essential things) would be higher. Since income and wealth inequality is getting bigger and not smaller in modern world, hardware uppgrades by majority of population may get rarer and cheaper rather than more often.

Entertaiment spending is one of last on the list.

[kompukare]

The last time I upgraded was in 2008, I am waiting for a much better cpu for about 40 quid;-)

Not quite as long as that, but years (going back the the Celeron 300A era which I bought in 1999) my upgrade strategy was simple:

Stick to my budget of ~£50 for a CPU and ~£40-£60 for a motherboard and if I could buy an upgrade for that price which gave me at least double CPU performance I would take it.

That strategy worked fine for Celeron 300A, Duron, Core2 Pentiums and a few others during that time. But since Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge etc. that strategy no longer works since to get any worthwhile upgrade now means buying a £150+ K processor.

My current desktop has a Core 2 Pentium E5300 running at 3.4GHz and for the same budget I could currently get something like a Pentium G2130. But that only gets me an upgrade (using Passmark scores) from 2,400 to 3,100. Hardly worthwhile - the power saving would be about the only worthwhile thing there.

Having said all that, I was recently given a brand new (RMA-returned) Z77 motherboard so I either have to sell it or see if I can get a used 2500k/3570K.

Nice optimistic signature by the way...

[GeorgeStorm]

Used to 'upgrade' a lot (not always an upgrade, but getting different bits) since I enjoyed it, however I've calmed down recently.

Now I try to do it just when I 'need' to (for whatever reason), such as now I'm going mitx so I can take my PC with me on the train more easily.

[wasabi]

That strategy worked fine for Celeron 300A, Duron, Core2 Pentiums and a few others during that time. But since Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge etc. that strategy no longer works since to get any worthwhile upgrade now means buying a £150+ K processor.

My current desktop has a Core 2 Pentium E5300 running at 3.4GHz and for the same budget I could currently get something like a Pentium G2130. But that only gets me an upgrade (using Passmark scores) from 2,400 to 3,100. Hardly worthwhile - the power saving would be about the only worthwhile thing there.

Nice optimistic signature by the way...

The new Haswell Pentiums look tempting though at around £50 - G3220 in particular. Might jump at some point.