How many generations do you wait to upgrade your graphics card or processor?

[CCap]

I will be upgrading whenever Broadwell-E comes out. Gives me more than enough time to get things ready.

 

Ditto. I have plans on picking up two EVGA 780 ti Kingpin editions whenever they come available again, so I hope I don't have to upgrade from those for at least two to three more generations of cards. Then again, if I come across some money inbetween, I'd gladly get the next big thing at the time. 

 

//CCap

[flibberdipper]

I'll keep my current trend (nVidia TNT2 > 3dfx VooDoo3 > Radeon X1650 Pro > Radeon HD 6570 > Radeon HD 7790)

[applebook]

For top tier CPU/GPU, you can last up to 4 generations, but by the final year of their service, your CPU/GPU will be barely cutting it at lower settings (1080p). For mid-range gear, midway through the 2nd generation, perhaps towards the bigging of the 3rd.

[Chinh Nguyen]

I'd say depending on your financial status. I usually waited around 50% performance gap between generations to upgrade, but I have some other priorities to take care in my current situation. Usually, a graphic card upgrade is every cycle for mid-range cards and 2 cycles apart for top end cards. On CPU upgrade, if it's worth it (I'm still waiting), I will rebuilt a whole system with new case (only reuse graphic card) since I will have a new CPU-Motherboard-RAM combo anyways. Unless you're making money from your system, don't stress on upgrading until you're financially can and the games are worth it. 

[harrynowl]

I'll probably upgrade in 2015. My 7950 is doing fine just now.

[Jumper118]

less than one cos i have a gt610,670 and 7970 all from the same gen

[SJBijzitter]

I wait until I can't play the games I want to at the resolutions and graphic settings I think are acceptable, in this case BF4 on low settings wasn't cutting it for me, so it was time to upgrade the 6850, I will stick with the R9-290 until it is no longer adequate for playing games.

Same, although I went with a highly overclockable 270x (from a 5570)

[ViruZ_HUN]

When Maxwell comes out my graphics card will be 4 generations old (GTX 465). My processor is last generation. I am probably going to upgrade at Maxwell but i said the same thing for the 700 series.

i still have a gtx 550 ti and 2nd gen i7 cpu.. i will probably upgrade to maxwell and haswell-e , i had 4 rigs in my oide but i only know 2 of their hardware. i know that i upgraded from a 8600gts to gtx550 and in cpus: AMD athlon 64 x5000 dual core to a i7 2600