Product life of modern hardware?

[IAEInferno]

Hello, I want to know what is the average lifespan of a CPU, Motherboard, and RAM if I use the computer every day on an average of 6-14 hours. To be specific how long till a component does not work or function anymore? I heard CPUs can last for more than 20 years and I just want confirmation. Yes, I know by the time 3 or more years pass better products will be released, I'm just curious on the average lifespan of the components.

[VerticalDiscussions]

If properly cooled, i think 10 years is attainable by CPU, Motherboard and RAM, before starting to notice slowdowns i would assume as a symptom.

[Gonio]

For a decent brand and quality 10 years + should be doable. But breaking down for an unexpected reason can always happen sadly.

Lasting 20 years is true, but being usable is a different story . Software demands and stuff still go up fast.

[HeadsUpHigh]

The CPU can last a long time as long as adequate cooling and power is provided. The mobo can die either randomly after a few years or due to bad power delivery. So if you clean the dust regularly, buy a good power supply( overkill is recommended) and replace said power supply after a few years you should be good. About ram I think it's a hit or miss, I had 2 cases of bad ram sticks and one of them died within 1 year of purchase. 

Gpus die easily after 3 years manufacturers dont want you to keep them longer

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, HeadsUpHigh said:

Gpus die easily after 3 years manufacturers dont want you to keep them longer

I've got a five year old GPU that laughs in your face. :3

[IAEInferno]

So the best option for me to save money is to buy the best CPU and save up for the Mobo and GPU when 3 years hit?

[mariushm]

Processors aren't designed with finite life, there's nothing on them that would degrade significantly with time. So they can last decades.

 

Same for memory... though very rarely, unless it's ECC memory, bits in the memory chips can have their state changed by outside interference. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory

 

Motherboards have some components that as they age they degrade or drift a bit from the original specifications, and this behavior is well known and usually accounted for by engineers who design motherboards. Electrolytic capacitors have semi-liquid substance in them called electrolyte which in time (years of continuous operation) can slowly degrade. For this reason, they're replaced in newer designs by polymer capacitors which are less sensitive to heat and don't have any liquids or semi-liquids in them, so they last longer.  Even ceramic capacitors which are used even on processors in time (years) are slowly weakening, but usually they degrade so slow it's not worth thinking about it (and for the purpose they're used for, the degradation doesn't usually affect performance of life of product).

 

As for other failure reasons.. there's lots of things that can make electronics go bad... on motherboards, some weirder failures mode could be humidity infiltrating inside the printed circuit board and shorting out traces (PCB is made of strands of fibers woven to form a sheet of fibers on which some resin is applied to fill the gaps between strands and several of these sheets are glued together to form printed circuit boards)

 

With lead free solders, it's also possible to have solder whiskers happen randomly... very fine strands of solder just grow up from solder, in time. It's a physical effect that's well documented but not very well understood, but the point is that it can take years for such almost microscopic strands to maybe touch other soldered connection and short things and damage things. 

 

 

^^ Solder whiskers shorting some circuit in Toyota cars, which made the cars accelerate suddenly.

 

[HeadsUpHigh]

10 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I've got a five year old GPU that laughs in your face. :3

me too i got a gtx 630 that has lasted 5+ years but that is not the case with anything that has the gaming tag in front( or in other words anything with high performance on the consumer market). And workstations cards won't last that long either as those users will want to upgrade to the newer ones as well.

[NinjaJc01]

23 minutes ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

If properly cooled, i think 10 years is attainable by CPU, Motherboard and RAM, before starting to notice slowdowns i would assume as a symptom.

For gaming, 10 years for a CPU can be a little too much. First gen i7s are still only just good enough.

[Mira Yurizaki]

13 minutes ago, HeadsUpHigh said:

me too i got a gtx 630 that has lasted 5+ years but that is not the case with anything that has the gaming tag in front( or in other words anything with high performance on the consumer market). And workstations cards won't last that long either as those users will want to upgrade to the newer ones as well.

Workstation cards were made to last longer than their consumer counterparts because businesses don't want to have to replace parts every few years. Because workstation down = time lost = money lost. Businesses will buy from a more reliable vendor if the manufacturer entered the workstation card market with the mentality you proposed.

 

EDIT: The flipside though is workstation hardware is more expensive. But when you subject say a workstation graphics card to high loads most of the time, a consumer product will start to choke faster. A commenter on Ars Technica relayed his story that he thought he could save money by buying consumer cards for his workstation along with some workstation grade cards. Except those cards started to fail within a couple of years while the workstation cards were just fine.

[Gonio]

38 minutes ago, IAEInferno said:

So the best option for me to save money is to buy the best CPU and save up for the Mobo and GPU when 3 years hit?

Depends. I see the mobo/CPU combi apart from GPU. Pretty sure if you buy a 6500K and up right now as for usable lifespan the 5 year mark will be made easily overall for most users in normal (gaming most likely) situations.

 

Graphics demand go very fast currently compared to CPU, so while your CPU/mobo combi can last a while you can probably have need for a GPU upgrade in between.

[straight_stewie]

1 hour ago, IAEInferno said:

Hello, I want to know what is the average lifespan of a CPU, Motherboard, and RAM if I use the computer every day on an average of 6-14 hours. To be specific how long till a component does not work or function anymore? I heard CPUs can last for more than 20 years and I just want confirmation. Yes, I know by the time 3 or more years pass better products will be released, I'm just curious on the average lifespan of the components.

A very very long time. You will have bought many a new machine by the time your current machine will physically fail given these conditions:

• The components are properly cooled
• The computer is properly maintained
• None of the components have received physical damage

[IAEInferno]

I have this rig for 3 years now and it still performs well and fast but new games are coming and are more demanding... even if i lower my resolution and settings it just won't cut out anymore....

 

I'm currently waiting for the new AMD and Nvidia tech and hardware. I sincerely hope ZEN and Vega would be good as well as the new intel processors so that I can choose properly.

 

Current rig for 3 years.

i5-4670

Gigabyte G1.Sniper B5

Kingston HyperX 1x8gb ram 1333mhz

GTX 650 ti

 

I can buy any high end pc build at around $3500 now but I want to wait for new tech which would be only 5-7 months away.

[SLAYR]

1 hour ago, HeadsUpHigh said:

 

Gpus die easily after 3 years manufacturers dont want you to keep them longer

My 8500gt is almost 10 years old, and works perfectly fine.

 

17 minutes ago, IAEInferno said:

I have this rig for 3 years now and it still performs well and fast but new games are coming and are more demanding... even if i lower my resolution and settings it just won't cut out anymore....

 

I'm currently waiting for the new AMD and Nvidia tech and hardware. I sincerely hope ZEN and Vega would be good as well as the new intel processors so that I can choose properly.

 

Current rig for 3 years.

i5-4670

Gigabyte G1.Sniper B5

Kingston HyperX 1x8gb ram 1333mhz

GTX 650 ti

 

I can buy any high end pc build at around $3500 now but I want to wait for new tech which would be only 5-7 months away.

The cpu is fine in that the gpu is on par with a gt 740, if you put something like a rx 480 in that it will max out 1080p in today's games.

[HeadsUpHigh]

10 hours ago, SLAYR said:

My 8500gt is almost 10 years old, and works perfectly fine.

 

The cpu is fine in that the gpu is on par with a gt 740, if you put something like a rx 480 in that it will max out 1080p in today's games.

My point was for newer cards mostly. The life cycle of gpus has gone down a lot in the last few yers

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 hour ago, HeadsUpHigh said:

My point was for newer cards mostly. The life cycle of gpus has gone down a lot in the last few yers

Do you have any definitive proof of this? I mean the only theory I can think of is electromigration should be a bigger problem when you get down to smaller nodes, due to being less material able to withstand the damage. But I've yet to see a case of electromigration being a problem.

 

However the only thing that is known to be a definitive killer of electronics is heat. If you keep the component cool, it should last you longer than you care to have it.

[HeadsUpHigh]

10 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Do you have any definitive proof of this? I mean the only theory I can think of is electromigration should be a bigger problem when you get down to smaller nodes, due to being less material able to withstand the damage. But I've yet to see a case of electromigration being a problem.

 

However the only thing that is known to be a definitive killer of electronics is heat. If you keep the component cool, it should last you longer than you care to have it.

The damage is not to the gpu itself but to the pcb due to heat, but the end result is the same as you can't replace the pcb alone. Also a lot of people have seen vram issues, again due to heat( myself included). The problem with pcbs on gpus is that the main heat source is very close to the pcb itself, while mobos are much more widespread.

 

 There are a lot of ways to design something that breaks after a said period of time. The term value engineering didn't come out of nowhere. Also keep in mind the use case scenario OP suggested is pretty heavy( assuming the pc will not be idling all those hours every day).

 

Anyway, to answer your question no I don't have any proof and I wouldn't expect for any to exist.

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, HeadsUpHigh said:

 There are a lot of ways to design something that breaks after a said period of time. The term value engineering didn't come out of nowhere. Also keep in mind the use case scenario OP suggested is pretty heavy( assuming the pc will not be idling all those hours every day).

This is just a conspiracy nutcase idea designed to make us hate the corporations. There is no "it'll break after a set period of time", only "it's guaranteed to last after a set period of time." Just because you design something to last for 30 days doesn't mean it becomes useless at 30 days. Depending on how you use the thing, it can last for much longer.

 

Otherwise my PS3 (which is nearing 6 years old and has seen some heavy use early in its life) should've died a long time ago because Sony only guaranteed it'll work for one year.