Features - QOTW: How often do you upgrade your PC?

[HEXUS]

And have your upgrade habits changed over the years?

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[Tokoloshie]

I do small upgrades every 5-8 months. (Like upgrading RAM, new CPU cooler that kind of stuff)

[aidanjt]

I used to go through the upgrade mill and buy a few parts a year. But in the last 7ish years I've more or less just moved from building one machine to the next when the machine becomes too slow to be useful. The old machine gets relegated to server duties and the new machine (every 4ish years) becomes the desktop and the old server gathers dust.

[Leeski]

I'll upgrade when I either feel the need to because something is bottlenecking my machine, or when something comes out that is such a good price that I can't resist buying it. It also depends on whether or not I have enough money to upgrade.

[hoggson]

I upgrade when I can't run the latest game I have bought maxed out in the settings. It doesn't cost so much if you get a good price on an upgrade and sell off all the old parts they are replacing.

[Output]

For me, it's usually only when it becomes necessary. It doesn't stop me from wanting to upgrade to better before then, but I would have to be able to justify it to myself and can rarely seem to.

[Mattheus]

I upgrade when necessary, for an example my RAM went so I went out and brought some Corsair Vengeance to replace/upgrade my computer.

[samuraiweasel]

Its been 6 years since i bought a new motherboard and processor, which i consider a new pc. Other bits have died in between but i don't consider replacing them with slightly better stuff is much of an upgrade.

[Chaoss]

I usially change the gpu every 14 montha and the cpu, motherboard and ram every 24 or 36 months.

[Gerrard]

I've had my machine for 3.5 years now. I upgraded my SSD from 64Gb to 256Gb last year as it started to get full, but apart from that I haven't seen the need to upgrade it. However, I am thinking of upgrading this year, but mainly to go to smaller (uATX to mini-ATX); therefore it would be a new build. It's just what to do with my current rig. Not worth selling, and I don't think I can hand it down to anyone at the moment, so just seems a bit of a waste to me; which is probably why I've hoarded a fair few bits of old hardware! If I were to keep to keep the same form factor, then I would probably just upgrade the graphics card.

[5teviewonders]

I do at least a small upgrade every 2 months or so. Always messing about with it.

[GuidoLS]

Nowhere near as often as I would like - my last upgrade was to take my rig from 4gb to 8gb and from a single 1tb hd to 2x 1tb hd's and a 320gb Velociraptor.

It's not top of the line by any stretch, but the old 9800GT still does extremely well on all but the most demanding of games, or games like Crisis 3, which require bleeding edge stuff just to open. Next upgrade will be a GPU of some sort - 650 or 660 (whichever one funds allow for). After that, the upgrade path is over, and will require a new build. And while not top of the line, the C2Q9550 has a long way to go before it's obsolete, let alone eol.

[smargh]

I bought my current motherboard & CPU five years ago. I still have no need to upgrade from that. Whenever I want to do gaming, I rig something up from spare parts that I have around at the time.

However, storage changes whenever drives die or I run out of space. So, I think that aspect might change once, maybe twice, per year. I also proactively replace my power supply around every 3 to 4 years depending on what reputation they develop over time. I expect my Seasonic X-560 to last at least maybe 4 years in total.

Every time I price up an upgrade to a modern board & CPU, I can't justify the cost.

[cheesemp]

I've never had the cash to upgrade regularly (student then mortgage then marriage) - usually just do a new build once the old one dies or becomes incapable of playing games at low to medium settings. Will do the odd small upgrade on occasion such as more ram or had but not more than once a year. Hoping my recent i5 purchase will last 4 years+ like the old q6700 it replaced (motherboard died).

[abirawlinson]

i used to do a new build every year sell the old one off but since building my last pc end of 2011 have not bothered keep looking at whats about and the next thing im going to upgrade will be my gpu my asus 6970 still doing me proud but would love to go back to nvidia again

[devBunny]

Lol. I upgraded last year from a 2004 machine. I suspect that my next upgrade will be a bit sooner than that. ;o)

Actually the next machine is more likely to be an additional resource rather than an upgrade, possibly the IVB-E equivalent to the 3930 price point or maybe I'll push the decision out to Broadwell or Haswell-E.