Survey: How old is your computer?

[maxtch]

Back in a Chinese forum, I have discovered that a lot of people there sell their computer before its value depreciated much and move on to the next computer. Me being the a firm believer of trickle upgrades and have multiple old computers still operating feels like the odd one out there. They even threw certain mocking points at me:

• "AMD YES!!! AMD YES!!! Intel is STUPID!!!" (All my computers are based on Intel platforms, either because of Hackintoshing, or was bought before AMD became competitive.)
• "There is no point polishing a turd that is an old PC not of the current generation. Sell it while it still worth something." (I trickle upgrade my PC, so the base platform is often a few generations behind.)
• "Why bother with trickle upgrades? It is much more satisfying to get big upgrades year over year."

So I would like to survey this here, on a platform mostly of Western audience, how old is your computer?

[NinJake]

Old enough for an upgrade, yet not old enough to notice any significant reasons to upgrade.

[Sauron]

Quite a few of my systems are 8-10 years old, with either sandy or ivy bridge chips.

[Tristerin]

I have old systems, and old parts in my new systems.

[find_better_name_later]

I usually sell my PC to one of my relatives and build a new one once something worth upgrading to comes out, which typically happens every 2-3 years for me.

[maxtch]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Quite a few of my systems are 8-10 years old, with either sandy or ivy bridge chips.

Same here really. I just bought a pair of Ivy Bridge Xeon E5 for my dual socket workstation to bump out the two Sandy Bridge chips there, so I can have 50% more cores.

 

5 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Old enough for an upgrade, yet not old enough to notice any significant reasons to upgrade.

If I noticed a reason, the first thing I look into is a trickel upgrade - step up one single component for example.

 

6 minutes ago, Benji said:

Besides the case, PSU, the SSDs and the moderately "new" GTX 1060 6GB in my computer, I did a full upgrade last year to the original Zen platform. I "upgrade" when something fails because I have no money.

For me I only upgrade when something breaks, no longer functions well enough for my purposes, or I decided to give someone one of my systems. I don't have the money either.

 

1 minute ago, find_better_name_later said:

I usually sell my PC to one of my relatives and build a new one once something worth upgrading to comes out, which typically happens every 2-3 years for me.

I usually never sell my disused systems, just cannibalize the parts.

 

8 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

I have old systems, and old parts in my new systems.

This comes naturally when you cannibalize your old machine as parts for a later build.

[Skiiwee29]

Some parts are a few years old in mine, a pair of 3tb HDDs, a few a year, maybe 2.. my Radiators, 2080ti, RAM, CPU, but mobo, GPU block, CPU block, Pump/Rez combo are brand new as of Monday... so a mixture in mine??

[maxtch]

3 minutes ago, youngboy said:

I have a 16 year old Dell from 2004, it still works fine and boots up, but is as slow as heck, uses ethernet connection, has windows xp, and is just super slow, which is why I never use it. It still works though. The only upside is that it has an optical drive tray. But I never use it, even though it still works

 

My main laptop is an HP Pavillion I got it 2 years ago and it still works up to this day works just fine. 

What laptop is it? I have a 2004 Dell Latitude D620 which have a lot of upgradeable internal components, so I gave it a used T7600 CPU (maxed it out,) maxed out RAM at 3GB, upgraded Wi-Fi + Bluetooth combo card, a 4G cellular module, and replaced the optical drive with a second battery. It currently runs the latest Windows 10 version 2004 amd64, and since it have native 4G I use it for travel and navigation on my car.

 

2 minutes ago, Skiiwee29 said:

Some parts are a few years old in mine, a pair of 3tb HDDs, a few a year, maybe 2.. my Radiators, 2080ti, RAM, CPU, but mobo, GPU block, CPU block, Pump/Rez combo are brand new as of Monday... so a mixture in mine??

So your new build cannibalized parts from your old one?

[DevilishBooster]

I'm still rocking a 5820k for my main system, then I have a secondary system with an FX-8350, and a VM server using a 4960X. My pfSense router is my newest machine with a LGA-1151 system.

[Skiiwee29]

2 minutes ago, maxtch said:

What laptop is it? I have a 2004 Dell Latitude D620 which have a lot of upgradeable internal components, so I gave it a used T7600 CPU (maxed it out,) maxed out RAM at 3GB, upgraded Wi-Fi + Bluetooth combo card, a 4G cellular module, and replaced the optical drive with a second battery. It currently runs the latest Windows 10 version 2004 amd64, and since it have native 4G I use it for travel and navigation on my car.

 

So your new build cannibalized parts from your old one?

well I mean, its been my build for the past 1-2 years, really the only part that is new new for required hardware is the motherboard, Changed from the Crosshair VI Hero to the Crosshair VIII Hero and then swapped out a few other components. But its still all 100% current gen parts. its "White Ice" in my signature. 

[xAcid9]

almost 7 years old except 4 years old GPU + case and some 3 years old SSD. 

[TetraSky]

Bought a whole new PC last year. With the only thing I've reused being the GPU because, I barely play games these days and it's still enough for me to play the games I play.

 

Personally, I am between "whole new system" and "upgrade old system".

It depends on how old the computer is and how far CPUs have advanced.

-For GPU upgrades, it really depends on the CPU. Checking benchmarks of other people with the same CPU (or similar) with a newer GPU to see how much it differ from the latest CPUs and if it's worth it. (If performances much lower than with a newer CPUs... yeah might not worth it)

-If all you'd need is more RAM for a specific application, there's no point buying a whole new system at all. Same with storage.

 

If the system still fits your needs, there isn't much point buying a new system even if it's old after all.

 

 

But then, if you have any sort of issues, after 6+ years... Even more so if it wasn't a "high end" machine at the time and there's a new standard available (like DDR5, PCI-e 5.0, USB4... etc.). 

Then it might be time to consider buying a new system instead of trying to fix the old one. I personally toughed out my old PC for 9 years. Upgrading the GPU from 5870 to 7970GHz. 8GB of RAM to 16GB and adding SSDs over time.

[Waikano]

Running a Q9550 (Core 2 Quad!!) on a ASUS P5QL-VM DDR2 MOBO, GTX 680, Dual boot Linux and Windows on SATA 3 SSDs on SATA 2 ports!! (Crystal Bench has the ports maxed if that's accurate) It's not the fastest for sure, but plays my backlog just fine. I don't try moderns anymore other than to see how bad I need an upgrade. The hardest hurdle is the 8GB Max Memory restriction of the Chipset. Still working 24/7 on FAH providing 6,440,373 to the cause. Probably most coming from the 680 (which was given to me from a friend who upgraded). When I upgrade (hopefully soonerish), I'll spend some money on CPU/MOBO, Memory, and M.2. Keep the 680 for now, and the SATA SSDs for backup, but the goal there is to sell all of my older hardware I have lying around before I do....FIC VA-503+ anyone?

[TopHatProductions115]

Westmere EP, 2010-2011 time frame.

 

Dell Precision T7500, Xeon X5680's

[AndreiArgeanu]

Do you mean, how old are the parts, like since they launched, or as in how long ago I bought it?

[Marbo]

Doesn't really tell you much taking an average of mine. 

 

It works out at 22.8 years old

 

Newest is 1 year old, oldest is 38 years old. And there are a few in between. 

[Guest]

I only upgraded recently. Old computers work fine.

 

My laptop is 6 years old. My last desktop was from 2013~2014 & I bought it used cuz it was a good price. I only upgraded cuz parts died.

 

I only upgrade to the newest stuff if I am seeking an upgrade. If I lived in china, I'd reap the resales of basically new hardware & not tell anyone about it because you can take advantage. As soon as a new product is announced/released, use the "50 other people are selling it. This guy is selling it for cheaper" card & get good deals that way if everyone sells their stuff all the time.

[Vector0102]

Core 2 Duo E4600, 2 x 2 GB 800 MHz CL5 Hynix DDR2 DIMMS, Intel D945GCNL motherboard, 2 x 160 GB Seagate Barracuda hardrives

dual booting ubuntu 18.04.4 and Windows 10 ver 2004


14 years and rocking

[PlayStation 2]

My PC overall is a little over two years old. Motherboard was purchased in September 2017, CPU in June 2018 and GPU in September 2018, with varying dates for everything else.

Peripherals do skew the age of my PC, though; my keyboard is coming up on four years old while my monitor is around 12 years old.

[RollinLower]

i'm in the trickle update camp aswell.

 

my main rig is based on AMD X399 and the threadripper 1950X, but it uses trident Z royal RAM and 2 RTX 2080's. so multiple gens represented there.

my DC server uses older Xeon's LGA 2011 and a RTX 2080Ti with a 750Ti. so lots of gens in there aswell.

 

[Gum Joe]

Usually I find my PCs last 3 years, then after that my uses outstrip what it can do (even with e.g. formatting it).  However my first two PCs were a netbook and then a laptop, which obviosuly can't easily be upgrade besides the RAM.  As much I would like to upgrade my current PC (I now video edit so A: an upgrade to Ryzen and B: a GPU would be good - Ironically I brought my PC 2 months before Ryzen 1, and if I had held on I could have gotten a 1600X), I'm better off now saving the money for a good laptop for Uni, especially as my PC still runs perfectly fine and just about let's me do what I want to do at a good speed.

[dizmo]

I follow a similar approach to the people on the Chinese forum; sell it before it depreciates too much. Usually every 2 years, or with every new graphics card release. Though I pay next to nothing for my builds, so it's more-so to get the most profit from it. 

[Gegger]

tagging @CircleTech because i think he has something to say about this

 

my "computer" is from 2014 ish and im waiting to upgrade, probably after this whole situation calms down a bit

 

most of my family members buy a pc when their old one is unusable or cannot suit their needs anymore, but we have been stalling on that a bit because of the whole covid-19 thing

[jones177]

My computers are the sum of their parts so I don't age them by the date of their parts or the date I put them together.

 

My VR/ultrawide computers case is 2020, GPU 2019, CPU 2018, SSD 2019, motherboard 2017 and PSU 2020. The old case to this computer(bought in 2011) was used to build another computer the next day along with a 2018 GPU, 2018 CPU, 2020 SSD, a 2020 motherboard and a PSU from 2018.

 

I date my computers by their CPU generation and since they are 8th gen Intels they are 3 years old. 

 

 

[Lord Vile]

I constantly upgrade mine so what do I put... The oldest component is like 5 years old but the newest is a few months.,