How do you upgrade?

[Ergroilnin]

I was just wondering about this, since I didn't truly upgrade in few years.

 

So... How do you upgrade your PC?

[PlayStation 2]

I basically upgrade whenever I can realistically afford it and whenever I need to. I usually don't buy bleeding edge parts (the exception would've been my 1700X, but uh...) when they are the bleeding edge and I tend to keep my old parts.

[emosun]

lol at the amount of people buying the leading edge hardware to be future proofed

[Guest]

I always have a laptop as my main 'rig' now. Usually only upgrade when I need to, like it dies or I get gifted a new one. I fly a lot, and work to and from uni, so a desktop isn't really suitable. My laptop has plenty of performance, so I'm fine. 

[Guest]

Just now, emosun said:

lol at the amount of people buying the leading edge hardware to be future proofed

don't laugh at me please, I can't replace what I buy

[jiyeon]

I upgrade honestly whenever I got bored of seeing my current parts, or they're not performing as well as I expected and want to upgrade to something worthy.

 

A good example was my upgrade to the Arctic Freezer 33 eSports One from the Hyper 212, I hated the visuals of the 212 so I changed cooler.

[KaminKevCrew]

I'm still using what is essentially the first computer I ever built. It's a core i7 3770k, and honestly I haven't really felt the need to upgrade since then. I've upgraded from a 256gb OCZ Vertex 3 to a Samsung 840(?) EVO 1TB drive, and since I built it I've changed the GPU a few times. I'm currently using a 980Ti though originally, it had 2 670s. 

 

Other than changing out a dying drive or two, it's really the same PC it was when I built it some 6 odd years ago. I really only play games at 1080p, and I rarely do that. I do some CAD stuff, but it's not particularly demanding (hell, my Dell XPS 9550 can handle the CAD work I do) so mostly, my PC just kind of sits around these days. That being said, when I do use it I don't exactly feel like I'm wanting for performance, so I've broadly left it alone. 

 

I'm only recently thinking of building a new rig with Threadripper, but that would be more for fun and so that this rig could be repurposed into a home server. Other than that though, I feel no real need to upgrade to anything because this thing is plenty fast for everything I do.

[SkyHound0202]

I always purposefully build a dedicated system that does not require much maintenance, but do reserve some upgradability. The only drive for me to upgrade is to fulfill the role of that machine to its maximum.

 

I have a silent build (fanless PSU, passive cooler, 9300-8i HBA, full SSD array) as a home NAS server, it was running a QN8J ("i7 8700T" ES) previously. I recently traded the processor in for a QQC0 ("i9-9900T" ES) and installed another identical HBA for future expansion.

 

I know from the beginning that those 35 W processors are weaklings compared to their 95 W or even 65 W counterpart, but I still make the CPU upgrade because they can provided exactly what a NAS need: efficiency, not power. The soldered TIM and improved 14 nm node (Ha!) means the system sips power and does not even require a fan to cool. The two more cores are just icing on the cake for me. The added HBA provided the flexibility of storage expansion, which is also crucial for NAS.

 

(By the way, those SSD in the NAS are cheap decommissioned Intel S3500 data center drives with around 200 terabyte written, no where near their 880 TBW endurance rating. Working in a home NAS is literately "retirement home" for them.)

[lloose]

For question 1 I put down whenever I feel like it. Its less of a need it thing and more of an opportunity thing. I'll upgrade when I get a bonus or have some extra funds and nothing else I want to buy. 

[Tristerin]

I never update to the bleeding edge.  Never have.  Because my wife says it best about this hobby we have:

 

In Today, Outdated Tomorrow

 

So Im not one to buy a new car either, because...that's one of the worst investments possible.  

 

The only way I would change, is when money becomes no object for me.  But until then, every decision is based on my personal needs for existence (which I don't need much), and first and foremost my children and wife are well taken care of.  After that, theres a little left over for my personal needs - enter hobbies.

[aezakmi]

tbh I use stuff until it gets too slow to run modern software or dies but did an exception with my Z370 rig because it wasn't what expected and ended up going for Ryzen.

[JB780]

9 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

I never update to the bleeding edge.  Never have.  Because my wife says it best about this hobby we have:

 

In Today, Outdated Tomorrow

 

So Im not one to buy a new car either, because...that's one of the worst investments possible.  

 

The only way I would change, is when money becomes no object for me.  But until then, every decision is based on my personal needs for existence (which I don't need much), and first and foremost my children and wife are well taken care of.  After that, theres a little left over for my personal needs - enter hobbies.

I'm the opposite, I haven't spent a dime on my PC since 2014 and only now am I looking at doing a completely new build with "cutting edge" hardware, once I have the money saved, so that I get another 5 or so years out of it before I consider upgrading further. I know the GPU you buy this year will be second best next year but at least I can still run games at high settings & resolution which is one of the reasons I decided to build my own PC in the first place.

 

 

 

[Tristerin]

10 minutes ago, JB780 said:

I'm the opposite, I haven't spent a dime on my PC since 2014 and only now am I looking at doing a completely new build with "cutting edge" hardware, once I have the money saved, so that I get another 5 or so years out of it before I consider upgrading further. I know the GPU you buy this year will be second best next year but at least I can still run games at high settings & resolution which is one of the reasons I decided to build my own PC in the first place.

 

 

 

Ahhh but I only just a month or so ago built my Ryzen rig 2 (my personal upgrade whereas my Ryzen Rig (1) in my sig I built for my wife as she games as well)

Upgrade was from my AMD 2012 "Cutting Edge" build of FX 8350 crossfired HD 7850 GPU's - so I eek out the performance but still don't go cutting edge (intel/nvidia top of the line) so I got way more than 5 years out of my last build...and Im positive my 8 core 16 thread builds will make it for at least 5 gaming, with a GPU in the middle upgrade for sure for both (both rocking Fury's I got on Ebay a while back for dirt cheap atm)

[TetraSky]

Usually, I buy parts by parts... until I reach a time when I need to upgrade everything anyway.

 

Like, over the years I upgraded a few parts,

For example, 8GB was really cutting it short for me a year ago, Space engeneers wouldn't run right with just 8GB and I often ran out of memory with a Chromium base browser. So I got 16 GB.

Changed my old HDDs to a new SSD and even replaced my 9 year old super slow dead beat of an SSD(first gen ones, the kind that cost like $150 for 64GB) to a "newer"(at the time) intel 120GB SSD for my bootdrive. Got a better GPU to replace an old 5870. The 7970 is that much newer, but the 3GB of VRAM helps a lot compared to the 1GB my old card had...

 

But I still have my 9 year old CPU.

So now the CPU, the GPU and pretty much everything else needs to go, so I'm waiting for Zen 2 and Navi to upgrade. (either to AMD if it's not disappointing or to Intel)

 

I usually also try to get "the bleeding edge", just so I can postpone upgrading for as long as possible. I mean, come on... It's a 9 year old CPU and I'm still able to play most newer games just fine, I'm mostly held back by the GPU these days, sure it ain't getting me 200 fps in games, but if I get at least 40~60 at medium settings I'm happy. But I'm feeling it hard when it comes to things like emulators.

 

As for selling older hardware... I try to. I'll try with this hardware as well. If nobody buys it, I'm either going to trash it or start a motherboard wall like in Linus' old office, lol.

[Totally Average Gameplay]

I answered "others" because there is no option for when I would have the money to buy hardware.

[IAmAndre]

What to do with old parts is an interesting topic. I usually don't upgrade until a part starts failing or really underperforming. So I'd sell this part only when it still have a decent value. Otherwise I'll just keep it for other another project or to donate it at some point.

[jones177]

I upgrade to reach goals.

 

One of them is to get my heavily modded Skyrim LE to run over 60fps at 4k. With a GTX 980 it got to 60 at 1080p. A GTX 980 ti got it to 60 at 1440p. The GTX 1080 got it to 60fps at 3440 X 1440 but not even a RTX 2080 ti can get it to 60 everywhere at 4k. Next gens top video card may do it.

 

My new goal is 60fps at 4k with RTX on. I think that will take a while as well.

 

In the short term I am playing at 75hz 3840 X 1600 ultrawide at 60fps on everything with a 2080 ti.  I want to get the 144hz version of the monitor when it comes out but then I will be chasing frames again. 

 

 

   

 

 

  

[Bramimond]

Clicked the future-proof answer, but that doesn't necessarily mean bleeding edge for me. For example, I have no need whatsoever for a dedicated GPU, so I only got a basic one (since my system doesn't have one integrated). But when it's time to upgrade, I tend to go for long term investments. A system has to last me at least five years and I think my current setup will hold out longer. The only reason I got it was to fit more harddrives inside. I've now got about 30TB and still have room for more drives. My motherboard even has another M.2 slot and I've been thinking to put a 1TB SSD there to hold all my games. Not sure if this makes sense, yet.

 

[Giganthrax]

It really depends on $$$. My goal is to have a system that can provide good-to-excellent gaming performance and upgrade paths without having to change out CPU socket for at least 3-5 years.

 

For instance, my current system (in sig) is built to provide me with 1080p 75fps gaming in high-to-ultra settings and it does that splendidly.

 

The plan is to use it as-is until graphics catch up and I start getting sub-60fps performance on medium settings in the games I play, at which point I'm going to upgrade to a newer GPU or a newer Ryzen chip (probably a 4----x model of some sort in 2-3 years). 

 

Of course, I'd happily buy top-of-the-line hardware, but money as always is a concern. Luckily, midrange computer gaming is perfectly fine for me as I see no need to go beyond 1080p 75fps in the foreseeable future.