When do YOU think its time to upgrade your hardware?

[Paul_VB]

Greetings fellow masterrace members!

 

I was just thinking about stuff, and i wondered "when do other people upgrade their stuff?"

 

When i first got into PC gaming in early 2012, i thought i'd have to upgrade every few years.

A few months ago, however, i saw an interesting YouTube video that said something along the lines of 'don't upgrade every time a new generation of parts get released. only upgrade when you really need to'

 

Its not a matter of money or performance so much as it is a mindset. a mindset where you think "will spending $300 on a new graphics card REALLY make my games that much more enjoyable? Is running medium-low settings really THAT god awful? usually, medium-low settings is not too bad. the only settings i really notice is texture quality, AA, and lighting. Ambeint occlusion, for example, is nice, but i personally don't notice it that much in the heat of a BF4 match.

 

so i wonder, what do YOU people think of this? do you agree with this mindset? or do you still need to go out and upgrade your system every year?

[dlf]

The reasonable (logical?) thing would probably when what you WANT to run at the settings you want to run can't be done. Or since I want 4k, I'll wait till there are (singular) GPU's that can run 4k @ 60+ HZ. . . . . .

[Flyguygamer]

When I have money.

[SuperPug]

Usually after 5-6 years... Or when i cant run games at even minimal settings and 720p anymore.

[LancerBG]

I want to every generation of cpu or gpu however I usually do it every one and a half to two years so that's usual every other gen believe. It's not cost effective when it comes to performance value however It's just one small thing that brings a smile to my face so why not. 

[Kyuubixchidori]

my 7950 runs my 1080P screen just fine. in all reality i was fine with my 7770, on lower settings. but i got the chance to upgrade for free

and now im looking to see if i can get a 290 for about 200. like, I dont need to upgrade, but my friend is willing to pay 160 for my 7950 soooo

[Lotus]

When I can no longer get the framerates I want on the games I play, I upgrade. Over the past 5 years, ever since my initial purchase of my dream build that's only been a single new GPU and different cooling because I was an idiot 5 years ago and tried using an intel cooler in an X58 platform.

[FreeDiver]

What do you mean "you people."  JK 

I upgrade when I the games I play need more power for the best settings.

[Padunkadunk]

When the price is right.

[HippY]

When I feel like I need

or have an urge to spend money

 

At the moment I am waiting for a R9 390, as I want 4 or more monitors (I got obsessed with them ) CPU upgrade will be when this will not be enough or there is a new CPU that is awesome and can fit into a mITX mobo (skylake or Zen)

[vandanved]

For GPU i would say every 2-3 years.

For the rest 4-5 years.

[Paul_VB]

For GPU i would say every 2-3 years.

For the rest 4-5 years.

Thats what i used to think, but my old GPU was a gtx 570. it still ran games just fine for me, and its a pretty old GPU. the only reason i upgraded to dual 7850s a few weeks ago was the 570 was kinda dying (i probably incorrectly installed an aftermarket gpu cooler on it, i was a bit of a computer noob back then)

 

if the 570 hadn;t died, i'd still be usuing it for... idk maybe another year or two