PC Gaming

I used to upgrade only every 5-10 years but that's because I used to game on Sega and then PlayStation. But now I use PCs for gaming too (or would if I actually had time 😞) so I upgrade something every couple of years but tend to stagger out the costs. Last time I did a full upgrade at one time was about 2016 with a i5 4k series CPU, DDR3 with a GTX1080 - PC before that was a pre-built one from 2008ish. Improved monitors to triple Dell 2515s. Most of the 2015 PC is still going, or was until recently and will be repurposed soon as my kid's PC.

Next build was over 2020-2021. New case, DDR4 and change of CPU to Ryzen 3600. Same GPU as prices went a bit mad. Changed to 49" monitor and got a RX6800 in 2022-23. Everything second hand though. Went a bit RGB crazy during this time too so did a whole lot of cosmetic changes. Was also WFH too so I blame that as my reasoning.

Most recent upgrades have been in the last year or two. Same case, change to DDR5 and 7800x3d, a 9070xt and a 5k2k monitor (but non-oled as I am 80+% using it for work not play). Still have all my old stuff as it gets passed down to wife and then kids. So when I upgrade, I'm really upgrading multiple PC's at the same time.

My memory is getting fuzzy but my list from as far back as I can remember;

• A 386 system somewhere in the late 80s early 90s
• Then had a pentium I, II and III system all in the 90s
• We had a PC with an Athlon XP 2400+ in the early 00's
• Then I bought an Athlon X2 4800+ with an Nvidia 7600gs somewhere around 2007

I also bought a laptop with an AMD e-350 chip in this period

• Next PC was in 2014 and had an Intel i3 4360 and a 970 GTX

Then I bought 2 PC's in 2024:

• AMD 5800x with an AMD RX 6800
• AMD 5600x with an Nvidia RTX 3060

Is blowing on the fan so it starts spinning again counts?

Every 2 years or so i buy something new or replace something that was reaching its end.. But my current PC still has parts from an old 2007 PC... not many though.

It may be theseus ship by now, but.. (dates and compatibility could be off, this is just memory)

CPU

2007 Phenom II 1100T,

2022 R5 3600XT

GPU (oh boy)

2007 nv iGPU 6000 or 5000

2008 nv 9800gt (died reaching 1 year + 1 week)

2009 nv 250 (until it died)

2010 nv 560ti (until it died)

2012 nv 9800gt (same old 2008 gpu, took it to a furnance and after that worked for + 1.5 years or so)

2014 nv igpu

2019 rd 560ti (still working, not installed)

2023 rd 6700xt

The rest is just details... some disc replacement, a new ssd, fan upgrades... well, of course, changing a PS that died...

It was nearly 0.5 to 1 upgrade per year when i was buying intel, now its around 0.25... maybe less

Fun thing, two of my gpus died while running the same game: stalker clear sky... i still blame nvidia

Whenever my old one can't run a game I really want to play. Last time it was stalker 2. It had been about 6 years since I'd built a pretty much top of the line PC. The 1080ti was one of the best purchases I've ever made.

When the cross section of hardware being reasonably affordable and me having money to spend meets.

So never again basically.

It's kind of a fluid, ship-of-theseus thing where parts flow in and out of a horde of various workstations and servers.

Case/chasis: 15 years and counting

Motherboard/CPU: ~5 years (currently: 6.5 years)

RAM: ~2 years until maxed out (currently: maxed out)

GPU: ~3-6 years (currently: 3 years)

I had hoped to do a new build last year, but it's just too expensive. For now I'm planning to use what I have until it breaks.

I generally like to aim for 5-7 years and then build for an "upper/mid" range trying to keep it below $1500 with a GPU update in the middle of the timeframe.

I got insanely lucky and decided to rebuild just before the ram crisis, so I'm set with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 64GB ddr5 ram, and a 4070ti. I really really really wish graphics cards weren't so damn expensive... I hate being vram starved so often but with the way things are now I'm probably skipping my mid timeframe GPU upgrade :/

I tend to stagger my platform and GPU upgrades. It tends to be about 3-4 years between something being upgraded. So I'd technically call the platform upgrade a new build, even though it inherits some older components.

My last build was used for 10 years, and the one before that 4 years. I was planning to have my previous build last for about 5-6 years, but those were the days when Intel stagnated with 14nm++++ and AMD wasn't really showing up, so I ended up prolonging its life a bit more. My current build should last me well into the 2030s since it's an AM5 platform. So this is the timeline:

2008: New build. 2012: New build, plus old hard drives inherited as data drives. 2015: GPU, PSU and SSD upgrade. 2018: GPU, CPU and heatsink upgrade, retired old data drives from previous build and replaced with new ones. 2022: Platform upgrade (motherboard, CPU, RAM), case upgrade and new SSD to use as the main drive. 2025: GPU and PSU upgrade. 2028: Most likely going to be another CPU and SSD upgrade (provided that prices come back down to sane levels), and retirement of older drives.

Well I was planning to upgrade this year, but with the AI-fuelled RAM crisis and PC parts in general being jacked up in price, I think I'm just going to wait until something breaks and hope that is after we're out the other side of this.

I usually go 10 or 15 years on a motherboard. I'll upgrade the CPU, GPU, and RAM in that time.

I’m usually on roughly a 5-6 year cycle. I typically aim for one or two notches below the best available and that tends to get me about 3 years on high-ultra, and another 3 on medium-high.

When I can't play a new game I want to play, I'll upgrade. This varies. My last computer i7 920 with a GTX 470 lasted me for a long time -- around 9 years. I have a Ryzen 2700x with a 3060TI that I built in 2018 and added the newer GPU in 2021. I'll probably upgrade next year so around 7-8 years. Before that I had a Pentium 4, Pentium 2, Pentium 1 so those are roughly 4 years between but progress was more impactful back then.
Averaging things out -- I'd say 6-7 years between major builds.

Last time I did a major upgrade was a few years ago, got a new motherboard/cpu/ram because the old stuff was broken in some way that was causing weird problems. Glad I got that and some additional drives bought before all the current craziness. Before that it was a better GPU. So every few years I guess.

Used to every five years. I haven’t upgraded my rig since the R5 5700X3D came out. Haven’t bought a new GPU since the 2080ti came out.

10 years

I usually go around 7 to 10 years before building a new machine with usually one GPU upgrade in-between.

I'll keep the computer going until the frame rate on a modern game hits less than 40 on a game I actually want to play which may be longer now since I'm not exactly clamoring to play the next AAA game.

When my power supply died

Previously it used to be about 2-3 years or so (mostly CPU, GPU, motherboard).

• I don't drink or smoke so most of my money goes into hobbies.

Previous/most recent upgrade was a Nvidia GTX 1080 to an AMD 7900 XTX

Now it's currently looking like once every 10+ years unless prices come down before then.

I match the average stated in the article. 5 years for a new build (CPU socket change is how I define that) since 2002. 2-3 years for GPU. Not counting 90's family computers since that wasn't my own money. Or laptops/mini PC.

Today I've reached my usual upgrade period but I didn't this time. 5-6 year gap since my last builds last done in 2020 and 2021. The GPU remains the most frequent upgrade I still do. The rest dropped off...sort of. I bought a NAS that changed how I deal with storage. Gets complicated. Anyways, I don't think I would've done a new desktop build for another 3 years at least even if things hadn't gone to shit. Now with corpo AI bubble and daily global fascist tantrums jacking up prices? Hard to say. 8-10 years looks realistic?

Just comes down to performance and I'm not feeling any pinches yet with the two towers, a Ryzen 5800X in the office and Core i5 12600 in the living room. Office PC only gets living room hand-me-downs from now on. My gaming habits have changed a lot I'm primarily a couch PC gamer now.

Can't upgrade; too poor.

I added one other SDD to dual-boot linux, but it's otherwise the same as when I built it in May 2020.

I was looking at upgrading the video card before all the prices went to shit. I'd need to get a new mobo to really make it worth the effort. I'm not sure adding more memory would really do a lot.

My previous computer was a laptop since I knew I'd be moving across the world and I got it in late 2014 or early 2015. It technically still works, though it just sits in a closet.

I'm thinking I just want to buy a higher-end laptop next time and just use this machine as a server. If I can do some gaming and video editing on it, that's really all I need that's intensive. I'm also debating whether or not to live in Japan full time or see if I can get work authorization somewhere in the Schengen area and just live in Japan part time. Bit of a dream with jobs the way they are now, though.

I’m running a 2018/2019 laptop I got in exchange from a friend around 2022 for an old TV and some cash 25€ or so. I doubled its RAM to 16GB a few years ago and it’s just fine. Im not paniny to upgrade it anytime soon. Three only moments I think about upgrading is when NVIDIA fucks up my Linux setup with their new drivers and I dream of switching to AMD instead of figuring out how to fix it.

I just upgraded my build. The original build was done 6 months before the Nvidia 10xx series came out (do the math yourself.).

The original disk storage setup was a disaster so that got changed a few years in. Three years ago, I inherited a GTX 970 from a friend (up from my 960).

And now I finally actually upgraded Mobo, CPU, GPU and Ram.

Still a AM4 socket from Asrock, basic DDR4 16GB. Intel B570. Less than 500 euro upgrade.

I looked because I wasn't really sure. I upgraded late last year. The computer I'm on right now is that upgrade (based around a 5070). Before that, my last build was in 2020, but I didn't upgrade to replace the 2020, I upgraded to add a second computer.

I could have ridden the 2020 for another 2-3 years easy. Matter of fact, looking back prior to 2020, my previous build appears to have been 2011. So yeah, I "upgrade" every 8-9 years.

I just replaced my desktop with a gaming laptop. A 2026 g16.

My desktop was an i5 from 2018 that had a 980 in it until last year when I put a 6650 xt in it.

I didnt "need" to upgrade. It was a gift to myself and a way to consolidate laptop and desktop into one more powerful unit.

I rarely upgrade, I normally just continue using my PC until it eventually is so old that I feel the need to replace it entirely and last time I did that, I had had the old PC for 13 years.

My last PC I ran for, I'd guess, 7 years. Built a new one about a year ago.

I could see upgrading the GPU in a few years. But otherwise I'll probably run it until it breaks. Hardware has a pretty long useful life these days. Assuming you don't run an OS that pushes planned obsolescence.

I normally change my computer when it breaks, "every 4 years, tops."