Life span.

[Rhyth]

Are there average life spans for graphics cards say X800/6800 or TFT's (I use mine for watching TV). Is there any burn out factor without oc over time or loss of quality in tft's? Or any individual component on the pc?

[Rys]

Running at the manufacturers rated specifications for all components, a PC should last for a decade at the very least, long after it ceases to be useful. The only things that are likely to fail before then are cheap fans with crap bearings.

Rys

[TiG]

Hmm not sure i'd go as far as Rys there. I'd say 3-5 years is all i'd expect from cards at the moment. Still believe due to the complexity that you'll have an initial failure rate within the first 3 months of up to 5%.

TiG

[shiato storm]

a PC should last for a decade at the very least, long after it ceases to be useful.
Rys

Anyone still chugging along with windows 95?

look how far we've come in 10yrs, I hardly expect many people to still be using it, unless they realized - as I did - that being outdated, hackers don't care about it and leave it alone. (or just get a mac)

[Spunkey]

with PCs, everything will become outdated before it stops working. I have a P3 450 with a voodoo3 in it at home which has been jogging along hunky dory for (almost) the last 7 years, along with a 15" CRT donated to my parents which is 8 years old.

Overclocking things takes only a marginal percentage off the life of your hardware, and even then its only the voltage that will cause it. Extra clock speed shouldnt cause you much of a problem in xx years time.

[Speed]

I'm pretty sure the manufacturers realise that the hardware is likely to be totally and utterly out of date within say 10 years. So I imagine that’s how long they are made to last for, if not longer.

Speed

[Butcher]

Anything without moving parts will last for years at recommended speeds and temps. Overclocking slightly reduces lifetime, overvolting can significantly reduce lifetime. Still even a fairly heavily volted up setup should last a few years, and you'll tend to get a gradual fail rather than sudden when it does go.

[Rhyth]

ok cool, what about tft's do they just go on or is there loss of quality over time?