How often do you upgrade your PC?

[Ripred]

Depends really, I try to get the most out of my hardware, basically Ill start to look at upgrade/sidegrades when the components I have fall below 50% on the second hand markets of the original price I paid(cant always do this but keeping this mindset you'll usually get a good chunk of the value back to put into new parts-also keep you up to date with any new emerging tech) Ill typically keep to this unless the performance of a component is so stellar that there's no point, then ill keep running that for asmany years as I can until there's no headroom left with new software/games and sell it before it becomes a requirement in order to play a new game

(usually can only do this with flagship tier or close to flagship component In which case you can still get a little chunk of cash when they are eventually considered mid low end second hand parts) 

If the platform has reached end of life such as CPU sockets like am4 is end of life, If I haven't already maxed out the board with highest tier CPU it can handle ill typically do so at that point, that way I can avoid the growing pains of first gen (just my preference) 

[WhitetailAni]

I don't really do full system upgrades, just incremental.

 

My first system had:

Ryzen 5 1600X

ASUS B350-F

2x8GB DDR4 3200 C14
GTX 750 Ti 2GB

128GB Crucial M4, 250GB WD, 2TB WD Black

 

Upgrades:
1. Upgraded the 1600X to a 3600 and swapped the 750 Ti for two 650 Ti BOOSTs.

2. Doubled the RAM to 4x8GB 3200 C16, then OC'd to 3333 C16, and swapped one of the 650 Ti BOOSTs for a GTX 690.

3. Got a 500GB Crucial MX500 for a Hackintosh boot drive, swapped the 250GB WD drive for a 1TB WD Green after the 250GB died (it was so old it was only SATA II, didn't report power on hours, and didn't have a color), and added a 3TB WD Green.

4. Swapped the cooler for an ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II, replaced the 2010 see-through blue fans with an NF-F12 and an ARCTIC P12, and added a PCIe 2x SATA + 1x IDE card.

6. Added in one Optane 16GB M.2 module. a 250MB Zip drive, and an LG WH16NS40.

7. Added in a PCIe to FireWire card and Quadro P620.

8. Removed the P620 and replaced it with a PCIe to M.2 adapter, and added in another 16GB Optane stick - I had two, just could only use one at a time.

 

This isn't the exact order they were done, just the grouping they were done.

 

At some point™ my plan is to get a Crosshair VI Hero (Wi-Fi) so I can connect a few more SATA drives, more USB ports, and a better PCIe slot layout. Also not be limited by the... not amazing VRMs on my B350. I'm fairly certain that's the limiting factor with my RAM overclock.

[mdk777]

You might see a trend in these posts.

 

In olden days of yore....every new CPU was a SIGNIFICANT improvement.

No one running a 486 would confuse it with the response and power of the 386.

 

Today....things have certainly stagnated(reached a level of performance that is seamless) .  When was the last time you saw a new CPU that took your breath away with the difference in performance?

 

So, now I upgrade entire systems when I am simply bored and have spare cash....5 sometimes 8 years.

 

And when I do...how much better?  sometimes hard to say.

 

 

[Sarra]

The last two machines I built are diametrically opposite.

 

I built a i5 4440 back in 2014. I upgraded the CPU in 2019 to a Xeon E3 1280V3, and that machine is now EOL for me (failing motherboard, not enough PCIe lanes, and no reasonable CPU upgrade options).

 

I built a new machine in 2019, with a Ryzen 9 3900XT. That machine got upgraded to a 5950X in 2021. I almost never do this, I tend to 'build and forget', usually only pulling hardware when it fails, and only to replace it, opposed to pulling hardware just to upgrade.

[thrasher_565]

hmm i buy a part every moth... and got an x299 and 3090 just for looks as i play diablo 2 and mindcraft... but still using my 6600k and 1080 for 7 years now and the 3090 is still on the bench

 

i had a $800 p4 (might have had other pcs that my dad gave me but dont remember...)

then i got an x58 with i7-920 6gb ram got from dad from gt 280 to gt 580 ish

then got some hd4950 gpu or something was fan less...

then a 760

then a 1060

then a 1080

and now a 3090

 

but i like pcs and i buy alot of parts so probably had like over 20 cases...

 

fun fact my 6600k was the first thing i got from amazon...

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by thrasher_565

[Kaas0001]

22 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Still running my 8 year old 5960X as daily driver.

Been wanting to upgrade for 2 years at this point, but eh... it works.

I have the exact same feeling. if it wrks, it aint broken

[BetteBalterZen]

Whenever I want to, really... Sometimes only a few months go by between "upgrades", sometimes more than a year. Depends on how much I really "need" the upgrade I guess. 

Fx, I just bought a i7-10700K + ROG STRIX Z490-G Gaming WiFi 2nd-hand, coming from the i7-8700K, which I have had since its release. So I do keep some hardware for some years. 

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

When necessary, last build was from late 2014/early 2015, upgraded at the end of 2022. Last build before that was around summer 2006 - 2007. So I seem to get a solid 7 - 8 years out of a system.

[bartolo1988]

I went nearly 10 years on the same system until I built my R5 5600X.

 

My first computer (2003) was the old family unit, not entirely sure what it was other than it had a Celeron at 600mhz. It also had 3 hard drives for a grand total of 80gb of storage.

 

My second computer (2005) was a Sempron system. I don't really remember much of what was on that one either other than it had an ATI X800GTO. I only had that one for 8 months. Sold it to buddy.

 

My third computer (2006) was a Core 2 Duo E6600. I think I had 4gb of RAM and I was using the same video card as the previous system, until I put in an EVGA GTS8800 640MB. It would not boot for a couple of weeks after building it and remember I had to move on of the USB cables to a different header for it to boot. It also had a TV Tuner and Windows XP MCE. I ended up selling it to roommate. Wish I kept it though.

 

My fourth computer (2011) was an i7-2700k on a P8Z68 Deluxe motherboard. It has 16gb of RAM Aegis ram. It originally had a GTX560TI 448 Cores until 2018 when I upgraded to an RX580 8GB. I believe I originally built it with just HDD but I may have put an SSD for OS from the start. The fact that it has ran basically none stop for 11 years is quite impressive. The CPU cooler is the original AIO.

 

My current computer I built in 2021. It is an R5 5600X running on an Asus Tuf Gaming X570-Pro. 32GB (2x16) G-Skill TridentZRGB 3600mhz CL16. 1TB NVME SSD. EVGA RTX3080 FTW3 Ultra.

[NB912]

Roughly every 7-8 years, however I have to say, back in Dec. 2015 I thought it would be the last (huge) leap as I came from a October 2007 PC, but after upgrading just last month, I was proven wrong as it also felt like a huge upgrade (did go from intel to AMD though), despite keeping (for now) the same GPU (that was upgraded last July).

[Ripred]

On 2/1/2023 at 10:33 PM, thrasher_565 said:

hmm i buy a part every moth... and got an x299 and 3090 just for looks as i play diablo 2 and mindcraft... but still using my 6600k and 1080 for 7 years now and the 3090 is still on the bench

 

i had a $800 p4 (might have had other pcs that my dad gave me but dont remember...)

then i got an x58 with i7-920 6gb ram got from dad from gt 280 to gt 580 ish

then got some hd4950 gpu or something was fan less...

then a 760

then a 1060

then a 1080

and now a 3090

 

but i like pcs and i buy alot of parts so probably had like over 20 cases...

 

fun fact my 6600k was the first thing i got from amazon...

 

 

Lemy borrow that 3090 if you not using it 

[igormp]

Whenever I feel the need. For GPUs, I had a 280x that died, bought a rx480 to replace it, started doing ML, found out that AMD is a shit for it, got a 1050ti so I could get started, upgraded to a 2060S since it was the cheapest GPU with 8gb of vram and tensor cores at the time, then managed to sell it for double what I paid during the mining craze and got a 3060 for cheaper couple months after.

 

Started needing more VRAM for some of my models, so I managed to snatch a 3090 from a miner for a reasonable price here and donated my 3060.

 

For CPU, I had an fx6300, needed more ram, couldn't get past 32gb on AM3, upgraded to AM4 and 64gb with a 3700x. Started doing many compile jobs, found a 5950x for sale, bought it with another 64gb.

 

The current DDR5 platforms do not offer any noticeable upgrade for my use cases, since they're still stuck at 128gb max and have shitty performance when using that amount. An upgrade to a TR would be way more expensive for my current needs, so I'd rather just use cloud instances whenever I feel constrained.

[Wayward Peanut]

I had to change out a power supply about 4 years in because I cheaped out but after that my first build lasted 7 years. Then my 980 ti took a nose dive and I "had" to upgrade mid gpu overpricing to a 3070 ti. And at that point I rebuilt a whole new computer and used my old one as a NAS which I super recommend. Makes me feel like a hackerman and very convenient for work.

[DirtyBirdX]

I know it's not the greatest idea to do this, but I typically upgrade components when I see something I really want. I always upgrade my RAM and storage options. I have always bought pre- built in the past, so I would sell the current one and buy a new one with most of the things I wanted, and then just swap out what I wanted to upgrade. I just built my first PC (and I love it) but I already want to upgrade the motherboard and case just because I came across other ones that I like. I am curious though, how often should you upgrade. If I kept my current PC setup, would it still play new games at high resolution/ quality? Or will it start to struggle over time?

[Mark Kaine]

i did upgrade from

 

2200G 

to

3600

to

5800x3D

 

was the last upgrade necessary?  probably not, not as big of a jump as 2200G -> 3600, but the PC overall does feel snappier (although that could be placebo tbh?)

My Superposition scores are worse with the 5800x3D btw, which i found funny ~

 

i also upgraded the mobo from b350m to b550m, well the biggest difference is the Gskill RAM RGB software now works??

 

also RAM

Vengeance 3000mhz 8GB 

to

Vengeance 3200mhz 16GB

to

Trident Z 3200mhz 16GB running at 3600mhz 

^well, that didn't really do much, even on the Ryzen 3600... running each RAM at default settings didn't actually impact performance much in my testings, neither games or benchmarks, like 2-5% *max*?

Not worth it lol.

 

GPU:

2200G 

to

1050ti

to

1060 6GB

to 

rx580 (nope, worse performance,  actually most games became unplayable, ddu didn't help)

to

rx590 (same as above, temps of both AMD cards were also abysmal btw) 

to

rx5500xt

well, that performed slightly better, but still worse than my gtx 1060, frequent "driver crashes", btw funny thing the amd "crash recovery" software cannot be deinstalled from windows whatsoever,  had to disable it with autoruns...

to

1070 (weird card, EVGA, ran hot, wouldnt overclock or undervolt for shit)

to

3070

well, thats a good card, will probably be good for several years still to come!

 

monitors: 

asus 1080p (really good monitor tbh)

to

msi 1440p "gsync compatible"

pretty meh "upgrade" colors are far worse, gsync doesn't work, tbh, i feel it might work, its just not usable at all, it feels and looks soooo laggy! definitely false advertising...

however i have the monitor set to 120hz and vsync "fast" it actually looks good, even seems to work with 60fps games.

overall, maybe a slight improvement,  but overpriced and overhyped af ~

 

 

I was thinking about upgrading to am5, but i don't think its worth it currently, ie the tech isn't mature enough, that's why i got a 5800x3D instead...

 

Still using the same DELL OEM keyboard and under $10 logitech wireless mouse btw (no i upgraded that to a $12 logitech wireless mouse, worth it!) And still using the same inwin case too.

 

 

So i built my pc in 2018, you guys do the math, how did I do???

 

._.

 

 

[CommanderAlex]

Every 5 years or so a CPU socket upgrade. For graphics card, maybe 3-4 years. 

[Fendrick]

Once every century.

[Godlygamer23]

I usually upgrade when I think it's needed, or when I'm sorta due to for an upgrade and I see a decent deal that I don't wanna pass up. I rarely ever have completely current hardware. Currently I'm on a Ryzen 5 5600, with the last CPU being a 2600, and then I upgraded from a GTX 1070 to an RTX 3070. And I probably won't be upgrading for a while now. Before my 2600 upgrade, I had a 3570K that I had since around 2012-2013, and I only upgraded because the CPU wasn't able to properly handle many of the games that I was playing - I assume at that time it was because it was more limited on the number of threads it was able to execute simultaneously. 

 

Power supplies I rarely ever change out because the warranties are ridiculously long nowadays on a decent unit. Even my Enermax 750W PSU from 2011 is still being used on the test bench, and seems to be handling everything fine. My FreeNAS server however has a Super Flower Leadex III. My primary PC has a SeaSonic SS-750KM3 that I bought in 2014.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Godlygamer23

[Mark Kaine]

On 2/1/2023 at 8:17 PM, mdk777 said:

When was the last time you saw a new CPU that took your breath away with the difference in performance?

when i bought my r5 3600.

 

i get what you're saying but i feel at least once a generation you get that kind of boost.

i feel gpus are stagnating more,  they get more powerful yes, but dont really have games to utilize them, textures and game engines haven't actually improved much since ps360 gen, you still get basically the same character models,  and blocky textures most of the time. yes there are exceptions but very few, in some ways graphics even seem to go backwards as devs barely put emphasis on physics anymore.

 

i even feel "prebaked" lighting often was superior, but yeah, mostly stuff like hair and clothes physics,  reflections... took a hit. Sure you get nice tech demos of "raytraced reflections", but the truth is most games dont even have working mirrors which was kinda standard during ps360.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

I started with a  Phenom X6 II 1100T + 550Ti back in 2012 and only went to a FX-6300 + HD 7850 because a friend of mine was offloading it after upgrading to Ryzen back in 2020. That FX-6300 system just became unbearable with how unstable it was while already having relatively mediocre performance. So out it went and in came the i7-12700 + 6650XT in late 2022. 

 

So I guess technically it was a 10 year cycle since that FX-6300 was already out when I got that 1100T for peanuts. 

[NB912]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:17 PM, mdk777 said:

When was the last time you saw a new CPU that took your breath away with the difference in performance?

 

 

Tbh, the 5600 in my new current (one month old) build, sure it's nothing crazy but for the price you'd be surprised by how good it is, doesn't have a crazy amount of cores & threads, yet it handles 4K like a champ. Went from a i7 6700 in case you were wondering.

[mdk777]

1 hour ago, NB912 said:

Tbh, the 5600 in my new current (one month old) build, sure it's nothing crazy but for the price you'd be surprised by how good it is, doesn't have a crazy amount of cores & threads, yet it handles 4K like a champ. Went from a i7 6700 in case you were wondering.

Well, just for fun, I booted up my retired laptop from 2012

 

So, it seems pretty fast. To be honest, I thought it was older.  11 years on  a laptop seems forever.

 

The power button fell broke off, so you need to poke the shinny dot with a pen cap to get it going.

It also stopped working off the battery, you know 11 years and all, but plugged it runs fine.

 

so, I7 3720qm at 2.66GHZ

32 GB memory

samsung 840 evo  1TB

 

IDK, (if it wasn't a 10 lb brick) i don't think i would notice any difference using for a business laptop today. 

 

So in 11 years has a great deal changed?  gotten cheaper, a little bit lighter and a little bit less energy, YES.

But the experience is not much different.

 

laptops just wear out for me from travel...the one I'm using now seems  fine...will replace when the battery stops working and the keyboard starts to fail....not because of any CPU advancement.

[Ja Krispie]

Right now I'm gonna be doing my first upgrade to my PC since 2018. Bought a Ryzen 7 5700x and mobo to replace my older Ryzen 5 2600 and mobo. Thought about going 7700x but the 5700x had a great deal and and wasn't ready to jump to AM5 and DDR5. I am also going to be replacing my PSU from a 650w Bronze to a 850w gold and in the next few months I will also replace my GPU

[NB912]

9 hours ago, mdk777 said:

Well, just for fun, I booted up my retired laptop from 2012

 

So, it seems pretty fast. To be honest, I thought it was older.  11 years on  a laptop seems forever.

 

The power button fell broke off, so you need to poke the shinny dot with a pen cap to get it going.

It also stopped working off the battery, you know 11 years and all, but plugged it runs fine.

 

so, I7 3720qm at 2.66GHZ

32 GB memory

samsung 840 evo  1TB

 

IDK, (if it wasn't a 10 lb brick) i don't think i would notice any difference using for a business laptop today. 

 

So in 11 years has a great deal changed?  gotten cheaper, a little bit lighter and a little bit less energy, YES.

But the experience is not much different.

 

laptops just wear out for me from travel...the one I'm using now seems  fine...will replace when the battery stops working and the keyboard starts to fail....not because of any CPU advancement.

It’s pretty decent specs, even by today’s standards, perhaps the cpu is probably the only noticeable slower component there.I think once SSD’s became a thing and people started realising 8GB of RAM won’t cut it, the differences aren’t that big, apart from the screens which I’m sure improved over time, but yeah, at least in Windows’ laptops the experience today won’t be that different from 11 years ago or 10 (assuming you install windows 8.1) since the OS’s functionality hasn’t fundamentally changed.  In Macs though, you would feel a difference, especially since November 2020 when they moved to those ARM based M1 MacBooks.

[QuantumSingularity]

Beginning: September 2001 - The very first my own computer as a gift from my parents for managing to get accept at a prestigious local high school for technology. Socket 478 Celeron 1.7, which i clocked to 3.0GHz with GeForce2 MX400. .

2003 - replaced the MX400 with GeForce4 4400Ti after it died from a power surge. 

2004  - GeForce4 4400Ti to FX 5600 Ultra. Also Celeron 1.7 to Pentium 4 HT 3.4. 

2006 - changed to Team Red with the Athlon 64 X2 4400+

2007 - FX 5600 Ultra to ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT (AMD had bought ATi at this point)

2008 - HD 2600 XT to 8800GT

2009 - 8800GT to Radeon HD 5870

2010 - Athlon 64 X2 4400+ to Phenom II X6 1065T

2012 - after a rough year where i had lost my job and sold my computer, in order to pay the bills and have something to eat, finally towards the end of the year managed to gather some little money to build a basic rig with A10 5800K APU. 

2013 - added R9 280X

2019 - A10 5800K APU to Ryzen 7 2700X. Also just before the COVID hit at the end of the year, got a 2nd hand $120 GTX 1070, after the R9 280X started dying.

2021- 2700X to 3600X;

2022 - 3600X to 5600X and finally 5600X to 5800X3D

 

Took me basically the whole morning to recall everything and write it down, but it gave me a whole another look on my spending habits. Looks like when i am NOT in a relationship, i upgrade quite frequently and spend money on hardware. When i am in a relationship though, i put everything aside. Now just waiting for the GPU prices to finally get to sane level again, so i can retire the 1070.

Basically i do a platform change every 5-6 years with some mid-upgrades in-between.