When buying a system nowadays, how long should one wait to upgrade?

[Kiverix]

It's a wiered question but, since pretty much all componants are good at pretty much whatever you like, when is upgrading gonna be considered "verry significant"?

[Agall]

2 minutes ago, Kiverix said:

It's a wiered question but, since pretty much all componants are good at pretty much whatever you like, when is upgrading gonna be considered "verry significant"?

It depends. I'd say a CPU upgrade if the GPU isn't the limiting factor in most games (which is common), and a GPU upgrade that's +50% or more in performance, although if the price of doing so isn't unreasonable.

 

Its probably the most complicated environment for computer hardware I've seen, and by a lot. The market is incredibly nuanced where its difficult to make generalized recommendations outside of the RX 6700 XT and some sort of newer generation i5/R5+ CPU (for new parts specifically).

 

Right now, the competition between Intel and AMD is quite fierce, so we've seen significant gains in CPU performance over the last couple generations. Before that, it was practically trivial to upgrade a CPU for gaming performance. To simply put it, almost everyone would substantially benefit from upgrading their Ryzen 3000 or Intel 11th generation or earlier CPU with a newer one.

 

GPUs have been a minefield, where there's significant gains in performance but usually at the cost of power consumption. Going all the way back to GTX 1070+ series or RX 5700 XT are still substantial in the performance department. The significant advantage (other than simply throwing more power at the problem) has been ray tracing and DLSS, which not all games support, so a 1080ti is still an extremely capable card in 2023.

[Monkey Dust]

I think the time to upgrade is when you can't run a game, that you really enjoy, as well as you'd like. Or sooner, if you just fancy spending some money.

[Middcore]

Until the current system is no longer adequate for your needs. 

[CephDigital]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

Until the current system is no longer adequate for your needs. 

^ this.

 

if your CPU is holding your system back, you upgrade it.

If your GPU is holding it back, you upgrade it.

 

Etc.

[Ripred]

2 minutes ago, Kiverix said:

It's a wiered question but, since pretty much all componants are good at pretty much whatever you like, when is upgrading gonna be considered "verry significant"?

It really depends on your use case, what games you play, what programs you use, what version of programs, what kind of performance your expecting, That and you also have to take into account when you personally would like to upgrade like how many years are you targeting to get vs your budget, if you only playing the same things and using the same programs you can build a pc that suits those needs and run it till the wheels fall off which could be 10 years, on the other side if you play the latest games use the latest software and always try to run newest features always high settings, you'll want to aim the performance of your component choices 20%+ what you'll need today to be able to have a good experience 2 years from now, its all very personal 

[Milesqqw2]

Until one of three things happens. 1) none of the games that you want to play have higher minimum requirements then what you have. 2) the games you want to play are running horribly and you can’t stand it. 3) you want to, it is a large enough boost in power, and you can afford it.

 

If one or more of these are met, go ahead and upgrade, otherwise it isn’t worth it.

[smcoakley]

Agreed, you only need an upgrade if your current hardware is preventing you from running a game you want to play adequately. I'm still playing VR games on my desktop that I built about 8 years ago, and haven't run into a VR game that I couldn't play with reasonable framerates. The only thing I've upgraded in that time was the GPU to an RTX 2070 SUPER for a great deal. Though it is also going to depend on how good of a system it was initially. In my case I won the silicon lottery with a killer i7-6700k that overclocks well and still handles modern games very well (as long as they aren't really CPU-heavy games).

 

I imagine at some point this decade I'm going to come across a killer VR title that I won't be able to play at 90 Hz due to CPU limits and will probably have to build a new PC, but I'm in no hurry for that to happen.

 

If you're building a midrange PC then you might have to upgrade more regularly if you like to keep up with modern gaming titles, but you also spend less each time.

[LogicalDrm]

"Very significant" would be 10 year mark.

 

Few years ago it was pretty common that GPU was upgraded in 2-5 years and CPU in 3-7 years. But. There's always multiple Buts.

 

Upgrade is due only when:

1. You have actual need for it.
2. You have money to do it.
3. You just really want to do it.

Imo only in that order.

[Doobeedoo]

Can depend in point of time with components and how performance fairs and lasta. My upgrades were 4-7y between builds. That's what I'd call decently usable range if you want to play newest titles each year and not always on low and bad fps too. 

Just lately I went from 3800x + 5700 XT to 7800X3D + 7900XTX and it's a huge upgrade. In some games the improvement was eyeopening.

[Kisai]

19 hours ago, Kiverix said:

It's a wiered question but, since pretty much all componants are good at pretty much whatever you like, when is upgrading gonna be considered "verry significant"?

7 years.

 

Traditionally, you don't spend more than 50% to upgrade over replacement. So if a new PC is 1000$ and upgrading what you have is $500, you may as well just spend the 1000$ if the performance would be doubled.

 

Upgrading from DDR2/DDR3/DDR4 to DDR5 is also the best guideline for when you should replace something. If you bought a new DDR4 system after DDR5 started come out, then you may as well wait until DDR6 comes out before you upgrade to DDR5. This isn't generally great advice, but if you're trying to hypermile a system, it IS best to buy a new system with the maximum RAM right before the change to new RAM, because you're going to be stuck with it anyway. Where as when you buy a new system when a new RAM is introduced, you aren't going to minmax that, because faster RAM will come out next year.

 

It makes the most sense to do that, but that's usually not an option if you need something "now".

 

So usually within 7 years I would:

1. Buy the intended CPU and half the RAM capacity (eg if the max is 128GB in 4 sticks, buy 64GB in 2 sticks)

2. Upgrade the GPU to the same tier (eg 1080 to 3080)

3. Max out the system RAM (2 more sticks to 128GB)

4. Upgrade the GPU again (3080 to 5080/5090)

 

And within 20 years, I've replaced monitors 5 times. Two because they were getting screen burn-retention, and one because it just wouldn't turn on. So I went from 1080 TN to 1080 TN to 4K IPS for the primary screen, and 900p TN to 1080p TN for the second screen. So when I'm shopping for a new monitor next time, I'll look for probably an HDR 4K monitor and push the 4K IPS to the second screen.

 

When considering upgrade I also look at problems with that generation. I've written off the 40xx simply because of the 12vhpwr connectors melting, and I don't trust anyone to actually fix it, so may as well skip it.

 

Likewise with the CPU upgrades. If a CPU has a specific issue (eg 12th and 13th gen intel's need windows 11) and I'm not ready to upgrade to windows 11, I'll wait. Right now the AMD CPU's look like a better deal overall, but if you're into video or AI work, you are still better off on Intel/Nvidia than AMD CPU/AMD GPU or Intel CPU/AMD GPU. Intel's GPU's haven't reached a level of stability I would want, unless I just needed a video encoder GPU.

 

[will0hlep]

19 hours ago, Kiverix said:

It's a wiered question but, since pretty much all componants are good at pretty much whatever you like, when is upgrading gonna be considered "verry significant"?

As soon as:

 

1) The PC's hardware cannot do what you want it too (This target is moving and different for everyone, it might be that there is a big new thing that your hardware dosn't have or support (DLSS, Raytracing, AV1 ect. are previous examples), or it might be that a new game won't run at 144hz at 4k on max settings)

 

and

 

2) The cost of upgrading is low enough that you personnally consider the upgrade to be worth the expenditure.

 

I get that this answer is a a bit of a cope out, but I think it is the correct answer.

[NobleGamer]

16 hours ago, smcoakley said:

you only need an upgrade if your current hardware is preventing you from running a game you want to play adequately.

[Emphases are mine]

19 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

I think the time to upgrade is when you can't run a game, that you really enjoy

In this day & age, I do not recommend performing an upgrade for a single game unless you can confirm with independent technical reviewers (Digital Foundry?) that the game is currently well optimized, or literally all your other games that run fine are much older.

 

See: Starfield.

 

If you have multiple games that can benefit from an upgrade, then great.

 

If however you do an upgrade for a single game that happens to be unoptimized, then there are risks that:

• The benefit of upgrading hardware will not be much for that game
• If all your other games were already running fine then you have to ask yourself if there will be any noticible benefit to those other games

[Monkey Dust]

2 minutes ago, NobleGamer said:

[Emphases are mine]

In this day & age, I do not recommend performing an upgrade for a single game unless you can confirm with independent technical reviewers (Digital Foundry?) that the game is currently well optimized, or literally all your other games that run fine are much older.

 

See: Starfield.

 

If you have multiple games that can benefit from an upgrade, then great.

 

If however you do an upgrade for a single game that happens to be unoptimized, then there are risks that:

• The benefit of upgrading hardware will not be much for that game
• If all your other games were already running fine then you have to ask yourself if there will be any noticible benefit to those other games

True, if the game has been pushed out before it was ready, waiting for performance patches is a good move. A depressingly large number of games these days need to be given 6 months following release to get a good experience. 

 

I'm holding off buying Cities Skylines 2 until performance is fixed. I'm not buying a 4090, and still probably running into issues.

[BrandonLatzig]

this has reminded me I want to get an ssd for my pc for newer games

[Waqas409]

5-7 years each big jump and components upgrade within 1-2 years. 

[Queen Chrysalis]

2 hours ago, Waqas409 said:

1-2 years. 

hard disagree there.  Why would you even buy something planning on 'upgrading' it next year?  This isn't motor oil or running shoes.

[Kisai]

4 hours ago, Waqas409 said:

5-7 years each big jump and components upgrade within 1-2 years. 

If you're upgrading something 12-24 months after you buy it, you should have just waited 24 months.

 

That said, sometimes there is a bargain to be had if you buy a system with only half the memory and only one SSD populated, and then buy the other half of the RAM and a second SSD 24 months later when the prices on those parts drop.

 

Like my last build was basically an emergency build after sitting on a 4th gen intel as long as possible, and what was new was the 11th gen. I was holding out for prices to drop but unfortunately needed it now, so I only bought it with the same spec the 4th gen had, 32GB RAM and reused the PCIe Gen 3 SSD, and RTX 3070Ti. So I can not justify throwing out the MB, CPU and RAM again and will likely wait for a DDR6 to be in production before replacing the MB/CPU/RAM again. I did add 64GB to this system last year though. So it has 96, but I didn't want to throw away the 32GB it had so kept it in.

 

I would not justify a small bump upgrade unless it can work in tandem with what you have. So a GPU upgrade is usually something worth replacing at the mid-point (eg 3-4 years), and isn't justified sooner unless you are going immediately up (eg RTX x70 to x90) or the price of the upgrade heavily discounted (eg 30xx parts were basically all fire-sale'd last year so I picked up the 3090 despite having a 3070Ti.)

 

[Waqas409]

17 minutes ago, Kisai said:

If you're upgrading something 12-24 months after you buy it, you should have just waited 24 months.

 

That said, sometimes there is a bargain to be had if you buy a system with only half the memory and only one SSD populated, and then buy the other half of the RAM and a second SSD 24 months later when the prices on those parts drop.

 

Like my last build was basically an emergency build after sitting on a 4th gen intel as long as possible, and what was new was the 11th gen. I was holding out for prices to drop but unfortunately needed it now, so I only bought it with the same spec the 4th gen had, 32GB RAM and reused the PCIe Gen 3 SSD, and RTX 3070Ti. So I can not justify throwing out the MB, CPU and RAM again and will likely wait for a DDR6 to be in production before replacing the MB/CPU/RAM again. I did add 64GB to this system last year though. So it has 96, but I didn't want to throw away the 32GB it had so kept it in.

 

I would not justify a small bump upgrade unless it can work in tandem with what you have. So a GPU upgrade is usually something worth replacing at the mid-point (eg 3-4 years), and isn't justified sooner unless you are going immediately up (eg RTX x70 to x90) or the price of the upgrade heavily discounted (eg 30xx parts were basically all fire-sale'd last year so I picked up the 3090 despite having a 3070Ti.)

 

I'm not talking about the new parts.
i meant for example if someone is going to buy a Ryzen 5 2600 (low budget) and year after he can easily swap it with the best option available. 

[Mihle]

I have two criteria:

1. I have to feel my current system can't do what I want it to do, as well as I want it to. Compared to what other hardware exist out there.

2. Whatever I am upgrading to should be at least 2x the performance, without being the top end hardware/too expensive.  Exceptions can be made, for example bar is a little lower if CPU can be changed while keeping mobo, if it's cheap enough.

[HenrySalayne]

On 12/6/2023 at 6:13 PM, Kiverix said:

It's a wiered question but, since pretty much all componants are good at pretty much whatever you like, when is upgrading gonna be considered "verry significant"?

Rule of thumb: you need to gain at least 30% performance to notice the upgrade. 50% and above is definitely a noticable improvement. This generally aligns with an upgrade cycle of 3 to 4 years if you stay at the same performance tier.

But you need to consider everything. New pc parts won't improve anything if you are already achieving enough for the capabilities of your monitor. The jump from high to ultra is also not worth any money. If it's (somehow) a business expense, tax right-off periods might be important. It really depends.

[Grant M]

I think that from personal experience i would wait 3-4 years to really get a good upgrade. As i have waited that long to upgrade my card and after upgrading it was a night and day difference. It feels better.

[Absentia13]

Personally, I build a new system every 4 years. That way my current one still has enough value to take a huge chunk out of the cost of the new one, and I stay reltively current.