How long do you use your pcs?

[Franck]

My P4 last day was 2 years ago so it lasted 15 years with 3 video card upgrades.

My E6600 still kicking for 13 years great test web server.

My i7-950 still running CAD and games and had 1 video card swap. 11 years old.

Replaced my I7-950 last year with a Ryzen 2600 build. I plan to keep it at least 10 years.

[Blze001]

I don't have a hard and fast metric. I just use mine until the budget allows for a meaningful upgrade and go for it. Typically that means skipping a generation of GPUs and 3 or 4 generations of CPUs.

[Norwegiantweaker]

3 minutes ago, vinyldash303 said:

NH-D15S is awesome. Single fan, and the fin arrays are offset upward by about a centimeter. With big vrms the cpu socket is shifted towards the top pcie slot. The ‘s’ designation is for increased compatibility to clear top pcie slot. Plenty of space.  Still gets into the 80s sometimes but im using IC Diamnod which is outdated thermal paste. Gonna switch to Thermal Grizzley... I think its Kryonaut? Not the liquid metal stuff but their really good conventional thermal paste will get temps down a few degrees. 

yeah that's the kryonaut. i need to order some more myself. really awesome stuff. even 80s isn't bad i mean the whole MUST BE LOW AF attitude totally ruined the OC scene for me. 

the liquid metal is called conductonaut or something along those lines if memory serves. 

[Norwegiantweaker]

Just now, vinyldash303 said:

Yeah 80s aint bad at all considering that im allowing it to pull however much power it feels like. I was fucking around with an X58 system i got for free and i ordered some nicer i7 I think it was for it but i dont have a cooler that will handle any OC for it. Choice between a 92mm tower heatsink or a 120mm aio that has an aluminum coldplate instead of a copper one. lmao. You throw any OC at it and it will hit 99*C in about 7 min. Good for about two cinebench runs and then you have to let it cool off.

haha xD. who sells the alu cold plate ? i've had the Fractal Design Kelvin S36 since 2016. actually really impressed with it apart from the pump starting to give me troubles after 3 years 24/7 use. i suspect i can reuse the rad for a future build ( supposedly it doesn't have those fittings thats glued or whatever ) time will tell lol. what fan do you use on the aircooler ? the one that comes in the box? 

[Norwegiantweaker]

3 minutes ago, vinyldash303 said:

The AIO is some dummy old OEM Asetek unit. You can order direct from them and get ones that aluminum coldplates, and then the same model of AIO but with copper ones. I'd imagine most of the people that buy them are system builders that just want them because of clearance issues. I did actually buy a 92mm AIO from them with a copper coldplate and it kept my 3960x cool non oc'd when it was in a sff system.

 

The 92mm air cooler on the x58 system was just some generic ball bearing fan. maybe a Delta fan but not one of the high power ones. On the NH-D15 i use the one that came with it.

ah gotcha lol. i have a bucket of noctua fans lying around from various builds but if the performance is that good with only one i might just stick with it. no reason to add on heaps more if its marginal performance 

[Norwegiantweaker]

Just now, vinyldash303 said:

Mounting pressure and good paste matters way more than having two fans. Noctua has the best mounting hardware in the game. Good paste combined with that is what will keep temps under control. 

 

What I did do, just because it makes sense in my mind is I moved the fan from the front of the rear stack to the back of the front stack, but kept it blowing towards the rear of the case. That way the rear exhaust fan on the case sorta kinda acts as a second fan. Not sure how much of a difference it made but w/e. 

yeah so its in the middle sorf to speak. ill hace to pick one up sounds like an awesome piece of hardware to have around regardless. 

[Norwegiantweaker]

Just now, vinyldash303 said:

It really is a sweet piece of kit. There is a little gap between the back of the fan and the rear fin stack so its not "sealed" between the stacks so to speak.

 

I'm also not using the low noise adapter. If I was I don't think the heatsink would be able to handle the heat. My case is the Define R5. I have two AF140 FLX fans in the front intake, and some corsaid AF120 in the bottom as an intake too. I have an NZXT rgb fan as a rear exhaust. Everything except the NXZT fan and the heatsink fan is plugged into the case's fan controller which is set to the medium setting. I let the motherboard do its own thing as far as cpu and rear fan speeds.

noted. i've had a headache and a half with mobo handling fan's so im waiting for a controller in the mail  im sure its something im doing wrong but after spending several hours and not getting anywhere i decided to "EF" it and just opt for a corsair link. if all fail i will probably build a little fan controller with some potmeters. 

[Bananasplit_00]

well at my current rate i upgrade more than once a year but its probably going to be quite a while until i change anything from now on

[Kisai]

On 5/17/2019 at 4:43 PM, Retro_R said:

I was chatting with someone about console vs pc gaming. He said "Yeah, you can keep a good gaming pc for 10 years" I was very skeptical, since i'm pretty sure no one uses a 10 year old pc (at least for gaming). So, how long do you guys use your pc before an upgrade

 

Okay there are multiple angles to this.

 

A 10 year old PC is possible, but caveat emptor. Most "techie" type people upgrade their system progressively until they max out what can go in the chasis/motherboard/ports, and then they start over again.

 

For PC's, this has aligned with the evolution of the system RAM (SDRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4) So you sink the most amount of money into the computer if you buy when the new memory is introduced, and you pay the least if you buy the old memory after the new memory is introduced. 

 

For Laptop PC's, 10 years is not really viable, though I'll admit I kept a laptop for 10 years, but it was out of service for 4 of them, and was incapable of playing games after 3. But at that point I mostly was not playing PC games. I had a PS2 and a Gamecube for games. I have the Wii, WiiU and Xbox360, and I went back to investing in a desktop PC rather than jump on the PS4/Xbox One (which are just cheap PC's really.)

 

For my systems:

Tandy 1000, 640K 1988

286 2MB 1990

386 4MB 1992 (I ran Win95 on this)

"586" 8MB 1996

Athlon 32MB 700 - 384MB 2004.

Systems below were systems I purchased, systems above were family systems

Pentium II III 32MB 1998 (Win98) - 256MB (2004) BX chipset. I still have it since it has floppy drives.

Pentium 4 Desktop (bought as an OEM system), 2004-2006

Laptop Pentium 4, ?GB 2004-2014, GPU failure

MacMini 16GB 2006-Present (DDR2)

Xeon X3220 (2008) Core 2 Duo E6320 (2010) 32GB DDR2 (Xeon CPU had issues)

MacMini 2012-Present (DDR3)

i7-4770 32GB DDR3 2013.

Laptop i7-7700HQ 16GB 2017.

 

Basically if you take the average of when and why I replace a system, it's roughly every 6-7 years. But like I said, there are multiple angles. Both the i7-4770 and the Xeon X3220 evolved from each other. The i7 was still in the chasis and had the hard drives from the X3220/E6310 up until I bought the Geforce 1080, which wouldn't fit in the chasis (by less than an inch.) So the current PC has parts going back to the 2008 PC. Prior to 2008 I used the P4 Laptop and the 2006 MacMini AND both the PIII and Athlon 700 for a few situations. 

 

But when it comes down to it, you CAN, and SHOULD use a system for as long as you can, as long as the system is capable of still doing what you need it to. As an example, Adobe CS3/CS4, which I originally purchased in 2008, I still use, thus I could still use it on the P4 laptop had it not ceased to function. I've largely replaced CS4 with other tools, but since the license doesn't allow for it to be used on more than one machine, it's basically glued to whichever machine I use as the main machine.

 

With a console, you are actually under a time limit. If you don't purchase the console when it's new, the games and the underlying services will be shutdown and you will lose access to some or all of the game. With a PC, some games can go on indefintely, even if their network features die.

 

[XR6]

I use it for as long as I can. Usually my PCs last around 5-7 years, but due to some technical issues my current PC is destined for replacement only 4 years in.

As soon as I start having major problems with my PC (or it just becomes too slow for me to use) I retire it and build a new one.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

plan is always ideal, so I plan my pc will be very capable for 10 yrs, r7 1700 (2yr old) & gtx970 (4.5yr old)

practically upgrade around 6~7 yrs, got to build new & give pc if dad's pc dies

[nekogod]

On 5/18/2019 at 1:27 AM, Queen Chrysallis said:

laughs in 4770k and 1070 with 30-40 fps in ghost recon wildlands and ac origins

 

5+ years is a good time for me to start looking for a full upgrade

will replace my current old system with a 9900K + 2080ti

which should leave me without the need for upgrade for some good years

Really depends on resolution and game settings/optimisations. I've got 4770k and a standard 1080 and can play most things high just fine at 1440, can play a decent amount of stuff maxed and have to play a few things on medium, but on the whole I wouldn't upgrade for at least another year.

[DaRk0]

5-6 years with GPU and usually some storage upgrades halfway through.

 

I recently built a new one. Need to update my sig. Specs are in my profile.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

I have no problem using an old pc. If it were up to me I'd still have my Q9550 machine, but sadly the PSU in that blew up and that killed the board and ram. 

 

my current rig the following:

Phenom X4 955

12GB DDR3

R9 290X

 

it's quite old (cpu is from 2009, gpu is from 2013) but it still plays Overwatch on a mix of high and low settings (for example shadows off) at 1080p 60fps. 

 

 

my main laptop is a 2012 13" MacBook Pro, which still does everything I need out of a laptop. I can edit 1080p video on it quite comfortably (noob editing though, just cutting together clips), it does web browsing fine, it does HTML and CSS programming fine.... like I said, old computers are not a problem for me. 

[EldritchMoose]

After relatively short 3-year upgrade cycles, I recently upgraded for the first time after 8 years.

 

I'll see when the next time will be.

[Ertman]

On 5/17/2019 at 7:43 PM, Retro_R said:

I was chatting with someone about console vs pc gaming. He said "Yeah, you can keep a good gaming pc for 10 years" I was very skeptical, since i'm pretty sure no one uses a 10 year old pc (at least for gaming). So, how long do you guys use your pc before an upgrade

10 Years, no not really, net yet? 

 

If you are talking about very high end, 8-9 can and is done by many. This was only really possible in the 8-9 years through, before that the software outstripped systems far quicker. The GPU has been the part that has caused people to upgrade at this high-end price point. We only relatively recently had games that have actually begun to use more threads than almost 9 year old CPUs. Even GPU wise, a high end gpu from 8 years ago can still be used with modern games. The thing is, the person has to accept the reduction in performance and/or settings as games become more demanding.

 

I am using a 8 year old system right now to game, its definitely showing its age, but its still holding on, as long as I accept its limitations.

 

I'd say though, 4-6 seems more reasonable, but really it depends on what price point we are talking about. Whats great about PCs is the ability to upgrade some components over time without needing to replace an entire system.

[kaiju_wars]

Before I got into building my own PCs... whenever someone would buy me a new one.

Now I usually do some kind of upgrades every two years.

 

First PC, 2015.  AMD Athlon X4 860K and GTX 780

Second PC, 2017, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X and (eventually) a RX 480 I got for $90.

Now it's 2019.  I originally just wanted a CPU upgrade, but my 480 failed on me, and I wanted a better mobo, so (once it gets here), it'll be a Ryzen 7 2700 and RX 590.

[Misanthrope]

Lately I might play Skyrim SE a few times per week, not a lot. I watch a lot of youtube videos, keep current on social media, look for and read books (mostly RPGs) and on weekends my son plays some Fortnite, Roblocks, Sonic games and lately Undertale (Of all things) so my current rig is mostly overkill.

 

I might pick up games here and there that peak my interest but I spend far more time with videos, music and work, social media, news, etc. Definitively gaming quite a bit less nowadays so I feel like the 10 years quote could be accurate for my current rig. Note that I say could be because I still enjoy building so I will probably update before that but not cause I need to.

 

And in the past I also keep some rigs for a good 6 to 8 years mostly because I was completely broke and my rigs consisted on getting a shitty prebuild from Walmart and then just dropping in an AGP card: I did most on my gaming on beefed up e-machines rigs for most of the 00s though it was like 2 rigs basically.

[Mitchie23]

my macbook pro is still breathing. I have used it since 2010.  

[Curious Pineapple]

Recently put a pair of Xeon x5590's in my rig, over 10 years old at this point

[chuckM]

I tend to upgrade my cpu motherboard gpu every 2 to 3 years. I like to stay up to date with the latest stuff.

[corrado33]

5-6 years, although I doubt I'll update my current setup until intel comes out with good 10 nm chips. 

[Michael McChesney]

I just built my first PC last weekend.  Well it's not quite finished yet.  I went a little (really a lot) overboard on the components.  It has a Core i9-9900K, Gigabyte - Z390 UD, 32 GB (4 X 8  )  Corsair - Vengeance LPX, DDR4-3200 Memory, a 500 GB SSD, and an 8 TB HD.  I am not much of a gamer which is why these components are significantly more than I need.  I was initially going to use the integrated graphics but decided that would be silly.  I think I will try to get into gaming.  I'm retired without kids so what else do I have to do?  After a little research, I decided on a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060.  I figure that should do a decent job for at least a few years.  If I find I want more performance, I can upgrade the GPU in a few years.  I don't think I will need to upgrade anything else on this rig for quite a long time.  But since I built it, I know I can upgrade it.  Oh but that RTX 2060 is quite frustrating right now.

 

I had a choice of places to order from, but Amazon was tied for the lowest price and GUARANTEED me free next day delivery.  That was on Thursday, guaranteed to be delivered by 9 pm on Friday.  At 9:30 Amazon said there was a problem with the shipping, but don't worry we'll get it to you by Thursday 6/20.  If I didn't have it by the 6/21, come back and they would take care of me.  That was obviously unacceptable and I called them, but I was told the shipping company "Laser Ship" had closed at 9:30 and the woman couldn't find out the problem.  I called back  yesterday and found out Amazon had screwed up and hadn't been able to get the package to the shipping company.  She promised me I will have it on Wed.  I said I would like to cancel the order and she said, I couldn't because it had already shipped.  I said, you just told me you haven't given it to the shipper yet, it hasn't shipped.  We went back and forth like that for a little bit.  "Shipped" I don't think that word means what you think it means..."  We have some disagreements about the definition of "guaranteed" as well.  Lesson learned.  When I first ordered my components, I ordered the majority from NewEgg. They promised me shipping in 3 to 5 days and had everything there the next day.  

 

So for the next few days at least, I will be rocking the most high powered PC without a discrete graphics card.  Or at least one of them.

 

[Windows95]

q6600 here

[Donut417]

On 5/17/2019 at 7:43 PM, Retro_R said:

I was chatting with someone about console vs pc gaming. He said "Yeah, you can keep a good gaming pc for 10 years" I was very skeptical, since i'm pretty sure no one uses a 10 year old pc (at least for gaming). So, how long do you guys use your pc before an upgrade

My current machine was built in 2013, I got an Ivy Bridge chip which was on it way out, as Haswell as released not long after I bought this chip. I still use the machine every day, mostly to watch videos, but I do occasionally still game on my PC. Only upgrades I did was more ram and a bigger SSD when my first one died.