what WAS your futureproof build and how long did it really lasted before upgrade?

[dfsgsfa]

just how long is your future?

 

2012:  i5 2500 (nonK) + amd 6850

2014: gtx970

2017: r7 1700

 

they are 2 working pc now and suprisingly 6850 + i5 is still great in med game setting.

and gtx970 still capable of all 1080p gaming at high settings avg 55fps

 

target to last 10 yrs till gtx970 and 1700 to fade out

[Levent]

2012 Summer: 3570K, HD7850. I just sold the card last month. So, 8 years on the original configuration. I still don't need to upgrade my CPU for awhile, might shell out for an AIO for higher clocks speeds. 

[Zando_]

I haven't had any single config for more than 6 months, but I do tend to buy old stuff because I find it more fun (CPUs/mobos at least). Currently on X99, gone through a 5820K, 5960X, and now on a 6950X. All of em still kick ass and they're 5-6 year old chips. 

[SansVarnic]

Intel Pentium III lasted 18-20years.

[The Sloth]

Just now, SansVarnic said:

Intel Pentium III lasted 18-20years.

Doing what? 

[butre]

2009 or 2010 ish I bought a phenom II 955be and a motherboard that I knew could unlock it, and stuck an 8800gts on it temporarily, which eventually got upgraded to an hd6870 once I could afford it.  in 2011 the motherboard died and I replaced it with a asus m5a99x evo and in 2012 the gpu died and was replaced with an hd7850.  that configuration lasted me until early 2019 before the cpu died (was unlocked to 6 cores and cranked up to 4.3 ghz, so pretty inevitable)  at which point it got replaced with an FX 4100 until I managed to save up for my current system and retired this one to my server closet.  at one point while it was in there partially disassembled the gpu fell 6 feet and broke a couple mosfets off (they had heatsinks glued on) so I stuck a cheapo r9 390 in it

 

here's a picture of that system as it sits today:

 

original configuration didn't last long, but the final config made it 7 years.

[TetraSky]

Early 2010

Core i7 875k, HD5870, 8GB of RAM.

 

2015~2016
upgraded to HD7970 GHz (got it for free)

 

late 2017
Upgraded to 16GB for one specific game that needed it.

 

2019

Bought the current PC in my signature/profile.

 

So 9 years with the same CPU, if we don't count the various upgrades here and there.

Would've been 10 years since I had originally built the PC in 2009... But various issues made me rage quit AMD and I replaced the motherboard/cpu with Intel instead, reusing everything else.

 

All in all, unless CPU tech keeps advancing at breakneck speed, I don't plan to buy a new PC for at least 5 years.

[Roswell]

In 2013 or so I bought a 4770k + 780 Ti combo. I didn't buy it to be "future proof", but it did seem to be viable until the beginning of 2018. I never bothered upgrading it because I spent less and less time gaming on my desktop. Now it just sits there in case my laptop bites it.

[LogicalDrm]

10 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

In 2013 or so I bought a 4770k + 780 Ti combo. I didn't buy it to be "future proof", but it did seem to be viable until the beginning of 2018. I never bothered upgrading it because I spent less and less time gaming on my desktop. Now it just sits there in case my laptop bites it.

I have about same. CPU is still same, but I used to have 560Ti with it until 2017 when I switched to 780 Founders. That's my current setup. 560Ti was in from 2012 to 2017. 4770K replaced Q6600 in 2013.

[aisle9]

HP Elite HPe-170f. i7-920, 9GB RAM, GTX 260. Got me through 6 years before a desire for better graphics prompted me to build a new one from scratch...then a f**king pile of s**t Antec power supply that I bought for the HP Elite killed it. It toasted the mobo, and the system was never stable again. I still have the i7-920 from it, and that's about it.

[videodj]

2010

 

P5Q Deluxe

Q6600

16Gb Ram

HD6970 Sapphire

 

Wanted to build a media server so in 2011, I upgraded to a P8P67 Deluxe and 2600K and added a 2nd HD6970.  The Q6600 became my home server for a while, until I retired it and went back to 1 PC. Until 2018, when I decided to build a new rig and moved my 2600k to a home server, with a GT710 instead, still going strong.

 

2018

 

Maximus X Hero

8700K

64Gb Ram

Strix Vega 64

 

By 2020, I got fed up of the Vega 64 and switched it to a RTX 2080 Super.  Plan to make this last for at least another 5 years, the problem is I like to tinker and also always  want more power.

[atxcyclist]

Probably what I have now:

 

-R7 2700x

-16gb 3200mhz

-GTX 1060 6gb

 

 

I moved over from a 7600k system I built a few years back, because 'an i5 is all you need for gaming', but that mantra didn't cover 4-core/4-thread processors after 2017. I am going to wait a while still to upgrade from the 1060, ray-tracing is the only thing I'm interested in with a new card.

 

[Dravinian]

Mine was:

 

2014

i7-4790k

16gb 2400mhz RAM

SLI'd GTX 970s

Rampage Motherboard

Evo SSD

It lasted me til about March 2020, and honestly, I didn't have to upgrade.  It was still chugging along fine, but I wanted a taste of the finer things so opted for a 2080 ti and a 3900x.

 

Can't say I am unhappy with a PC lasting 6 years.  There are people that upgrade every 2 years and I think we probably spent the same amount of money over time.

[PeachGr]

i7 4790k (5 years)

SSD  120+HDD 1tb

16gb ram 1600

Radeon rx300 GPU

But I never let it like that, I constantly add hardware

[CatQueen05]

I got my pc used from my father when he upgraded his 2 years ago and it looks like i have to use it until it doesn’t work or games aren’t play able.It was free so I can’t complain but i might try buy a used rtx 2060 or something like that since my cpu is decent for my needs.

i7 980X

Asus Sabertooth X58

GTX780 reference

24GB ram

Dual psu Antec Neo Power 650/550w 

[SansVarnic]

On 7/23/2020 at 4:51 PM, SansVarnic said:

Intel Pentium III lasted 18-20years.

Played games, did MS Word stuff, genealogy stuff... etcetera....

[FeIIex]

Build for a friend who wanted to dabble into video editing and gaming, i7 6700k, 16gb ram (room for more) and a 1070

 

Really wish we had waited for ryzen, even though he doesn't video edit. The 6700k was I believe 400ish canadian rubles when we had built, could have gotten a 1700 or something for same price (only games at 1080p 60hz so it doesn't matter all that much)

[KnightSirius]

Never seen this topic done before but I really like it!
For me it was my first build back in December of 2013!

• i7-4770K (4.5GHz)
• Swiftech H320 AIO
• Gigabyte G1. Sniper 5 (Z87)
• Corsair Dominator Platinum (32GB CL16 1600Mhz)
• 2 x Samsung 250GB 840 EVOs (RAID 0)
• MSI GTX 780 Lightning
• Corsair 750D
• Seasonic Platinum 1000 W

I'm more or less running the same core parts but have lost some along the way.

• H320 AIO died from pump failure which was replaced once under warranty and happened again due to build up in the loop. Swapped for an NH-D15 in mid-2016.
• MSI 780 Lightning died after many years of heavily overclocked use (+320 core!). Replaced with an EVGA XC Ultra RTX 2070 January 2019.
• Seasonic Platinum PSU died in ~2018 or so, it was still under warranty (7 year warranty) but.... no receipt so they only honour 5 years. Now I keep track of my receipts LOL. Now I have an EVGA G2 750w.

The core parts has survived ~7 years or so! I am planning to upgrade this winter to Zen3 which will be exciting! If I needed to though I could easily run this for another 3-4 years before beginning to really feel it's age.
However, it definitely shows its age in some aspects, especially when I'm working in Unreal Engine or playing more CPU intensive modern games. But it still holds up relatively well in the modern games I'm playing even at 4K which I'm running. (Most recently Plague Tale, Civ VI, Halo etc...)

[Spindel]

I still have my C128 that gets a spin now and then, does that count for this discussion?

 

 

[mr moose]

I have never tried to future proof anything I have built, I buy the best I can afford and use it until it no longer sufficiently does what I want then buy a new PC.  My current PC is only a year old now,  however my last PC was an i5 3550 with 8g and it is still going strong as a theatre PC under the TV.

[it_dont_work]

Depends what you're classing as future proof. 

 

While I don't replace or upgrade systems often, I've also drastically changed my usage over the years. atm my overclocked roast potatoe of an amd fx is out performing my usage for it. 

[AngryBeaver]

On 7/23/2020 at 4:08 PM, dfsgsfa said:

just how long is your future?

 

2012:  i5 2500 (nonK) + amd 6850

2014: gtx970

2017: r7 1700

 

they are 2 working pc now and suprisingly 6850 + i5 is still great in med game setting.

and gtx970 still capable of all 1080p gaming at high settings avg 55fps

 

target to last 10 yrs till gtx970 and 1700 to fade out

I have a 2600k machine at 4.8ghz (currently) with a 780ti and 16 gb of ram that is still in my "lab" and still gets played on by the kids. That machine is still relevant and can play any game thrown at it. It is going on what 8-9 years old. Now originally I think it did have a GTX580 in it, but it gets hand me down gpus as I upgrade my main rigs.

[dfsgsfa]

5 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

kids. That machine is still relevant and can play any game thrown at it. It is going on what 8-9 years old.

but the heat is killing me regardless of perf

[divito]

I wouldn't call it future-proofing, as I typically stayed within use case and limited budget, but the longest timeframe that I've had a single PC is probably with my current and previous build at around roughly ~7 years each. Before that, I had done a new build every 18-24 months or so.

I'm old so my timeframes are a bit fuzzy, but I got a Q6600 around launch. This was my early 2007/08 PC that lasted until 2014:
 

Spoiler

Case: Antec P182
Operating System: Windows XP Professional
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3L
CPU: Intel Q6600
Power Supply: Ultra X3 - 1000W
RAM: Patriot PC2-6400 8GB
Graphics Card: EVGA nVidia 8800GT Superclock (670) 512MB
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Hard Drive: Western Digital 150GB Raptor / WD 500GB / WD 250GB MyBook
Monitor: 19" Samsung 997DF
Headphones: SteelSound 5H v2
Speakers: Creative I-TRIGUE 3400
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0
Mouse Pad: SteelPad 5L

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In early 2014, I switched to:

Spoiler

Case: BitFenix Prodigy Arctic White 
Motherboard: MSI H81I
CPU: Intel i5-4670
Power Supply: Silverstone SS-ST45SF 450W
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB 1600MHz 
Graphics Card: EVGA nVidia 760 FTW Dual 4GB
Hard Drive: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB / Seagate Barracuda 3TB / Samsung HD103UJ 1TB
Monitors: 24" BenQ XL2430T / 22" Samsung 2233RZ / 22" Samsung 2233SW / 40" Samsung TV 
Headphones: Razer Carcharias
Speakers: Klipsch ProMedia 2.1
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0
Mouse Pad: SteelPad 5L

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though, I can't really count the 2014/current build the same as as my Q6600 build, because shortly after, I added another 8GB of RAM, and I've switched power supplies (Corsair SF450), case (Node 202), and graphics card (1060, then got a great deal on a 1070). So really, the Q6600 build at ~7 years was the longest.

The builds have lasted so long mainly because the games I played were never that demanding (primarily high level CS from 2001-2010ish?). I picked up other games here and there but the tech I had was always decent enough to make the experiences more than adequate. CS was my only real focus, outside of Photoshop and some light 3D work, that demanded "performance." And that's a really easy bar going back to CS 1.3-1.7.

That's why I hung on to Windows 2000 for as long as I could (because XP had mouse acceleration and before there was word of a fix), my Samsung 997DF because hertz, and the only reason I switched off that is because Samsung released the 2233RZ 120hz monitor in 2009.

I keep contemplating upgrading, but there's been nothing that's really been an issue for me to actually pursue an upgrade. I don't play games as much as I used to, and nothing current that would be a problem for this machine. My Adobe stuff works fine, as does Plex.

[Uttamattamakin]

The most future proof computer I've ever had is a surface pro 3. Still works.