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Whenever my old one can’t run a game I really want to play. Last time it was stalker 2. It had been about 6 years since I’d built a pretty much top of the line PC. The 1080ti was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
Case/chasis: 15 years and counting
Motherboard/CPU: ~5 years (currently: 6.5 years)
RAM: ~2 years until maxed out (currently: maxed out)
GPU: ~3-6 years (currently: 3 years)
I had hoped to do a new build last year, but it’s just too expensive. For now I’m planning to use what I have until it breaks.
Same, except I always buy more ram than I think I’ll ever need.
Currently my desktop has 64 and I don’t think I’ve even used 32 on it with a vm running. Every other machine I destroy my ram. By the time I need more I’m probably going to upgrade CPU/board too.
This is me. Case/chasis/cpu all 10ish years old. Gpu is at about 3 years and ram in the last 2. Was planning a fresh new build but…gestures wildly. Riding it till it dies i guess
It’s kind of a fluid, ship-of-theseus thing where parts flow in and out of a horde of various workstations and servers.
I generally like to aim for 5-7 years and then build for an “upper/mid” range trying to keep it below $1500 with a GPU update in the middle of the timeframe.
I got insanely lucky and decided to rebuild just before the ram crisis, so I’m set with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 64GB ddr5 ram, and a 4070ti. I really really really wish graphics cards weren’t so damn expensive… I hate being vram starved so often but with the way things are now I’m probably skipping my mid timeframe GPU upgrade :/
I’m usually on roughly a 5-6 year cycle. I typically aim for one or two notches below the best available and that tends to get me about 3 years on high-ultra, and another 3 on medium-high.
Is blowing on the fan so it starts spinning again counts?
When I can’t play a new game I want to play, I’ll upgrade. This varies. My last computer i7 920 with a GTX 470 lasted me for a long time – around 9 years. I have a Ryzen 2700x with a 3060TI that I built in 2018 and added the newer GPU in 2021. I’ll probably upgrade next year so around 7-8 years. Before that I had a Pentium 4, Pentium 2, Pentium 1 so those are roughly 4 years between but progress was more impactful back then.
Averaging things out – I’d say 6-7 years between major builds.Well I was planning to upgrade this year, but with the AI-fuelled RAM crisis and PC parts in general being jacked up in price, I think I’m just going to wait until something breaks and hope that is after we’re out the other side of this.
Same here. Also tired that it’s essentially the same people who invested on bitcoin server farms who are now heavily investing in these for glorified image and text generators.
Used to every five years. I haven’t upgraded my rig since the R5 5700X3D came out. Haven’t bought a new GPU since the 2080ti came out.
When the cross section of hardware being reasonably affordable and me having money to spend meets.
So never again basically.
Previously it used to be about 2-3 years or so (mostly CPU, GPU, motherboard).
- I don’t drink or smoke so most of my money goes into hobbies.
Previous/most recent upgrade was a Nvidia GTX 1080 to an AMD 7900 XTX
Now it’s currently looking like once every 10+ years unless prices come down before then.
I usually go around 7 to 10 years before building a new machine with usually one GPU upgrade in-between.
I’ll keep the computer going until the frame rate on a modern game hits less than 40 on a game I actually want to play which may be longer now since I’m not exactly clamoring to play the next AAA game.
Same. And to be honest my 7 year old PC is doing fine.replaced the graphics a year ago. I’m still running 16 GB ddr4 but I have room for two more. Motherboard is fine. Case is fine. Added cooling. Linux helped out a ton.
It handles everything I want. I game casually , maybe on the higher end of the bell curve. I’m not bleeding edge but I’m far from suffering performance wise. and my wallet has thanked me.
Don’t fall into the rat race. Upgrade as needed. Hell if I looked at what I’m “getting by with” a decade ago, past me would absolutely shit himself.
10 years
Every 2 years or so i buy something new or replace something that was reaching its end… But my current PC still has parts from an old 2007 PC… not many though.
It may be theseus ship by now, but… (dates and compatibility could be off, this is just memory)
CPU
2007 Phenom II 1100T,
2022 R5 3600XT
GPU (oh boy)
2007 nv iGPU 6000 or 5000
2008 nv 9800gt (died reaching 1 year + 1 week)
2009 nv 250 (until it died)
2010 nv 560ti (until it died)
2012 nv 9800gt (same old 2008 gpu, took it to a furnance and after that worked for + 1.5 years or so)
2014 nv igpu
2019 rd 560ti (still working, not installed)
2023 rd 6700xt
The rest is just details… some disc replacement, a new ssd, fan upgrades… well, of course, changing a PS that died…
It was nearly 0.5 to 1 upgrade per year when i was buying intel, now its around 0.25… maybe less
Fun thing, two of my gpus died while running the same game: stalker clear sky… i still blame nvidia
I match the average stated in the article. 5 years for a new build (CPU socket change is how I define that) since 2002. 2-3 years for GPU. Not counting 90’s family computers since that wasn’t my own money. Or laptops/mini PC.
Today I’ve reached my usual upgrade period but I didn’t this time. 5-6 year gap since my last builds last done in 2020 and 2021. The GPU remains the most frequent upgrade I still do. The rest dropped off…sort of. I bought a NAS that changed how I deal with storage. Gets complicated. Anyways, I don’t think I would’ve done a new desktop build for another 3 years at least even if things hadn’t gone to shit. Now with corpo AI bubble and daily global fascist tantrums jacking up prices? Hard to say. 8-10 years looks realistic?
Just comes down to performance and I’m not feeling any pinches yet with the two towers, a Ryzen 5800X in the office and Core i5 12600 in the living room. Office PC only gets living room hand-me-downs from now on. My gaming habits have changed a lot I’m primarily a couch PC gamer now.
