How long do I have?

[popop]

With as much as software demands change today and new hardware coming out ever quarter, how long do I have until I am considered dated? Basically how long do you think this computer will last until it isnt considered a decent pc in today's world?

Win 8 pro
Intel 3770K
Sabertooth Z77
8gb Corsair RAM
OCD Vertex 4 ssd + 500gb storage hdd
KINGWIN Lazer 1000W psu

 

[NickelPlate]

With as much as software demands change today and new hardware coming out ever quarter, how long do I have until I am considered dated? Basically how long do you think this computer will last until it isnt considered a decent pc in today's world?

Win 8 pro
Intel 3770K
Sabertooth Z77
8gb Corsair RAM
OCD Vertex 4 ssd + 500gb storage hdd
KINGWIN Lazer 1000W psu

"Dated" is a relative term. If your PC runs everything you need and want it to then who cares if it's older technology? Unless you have money to upgrade just because you don't have the latest, stick with what you have IMO. You're only 1 gen behind on the CPU and using a new OS. Buy what you need, when you need it and be happy.

 

[Vampirrella]

This build would seem to last a while still. That being said, its also relative to what kind of games you play and on what resolution / settings you can tolerate as acceptable. Everyone has a different opinion on this.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Assuming you don't play games and just browse and stuff I would guess 5-8 years with perhaps 1 upgrade to each of ram, Ssd and hdd.

 

[Blain]

You should be fine for at least another 5-10 months.

 

[lehtv]

In terms of being able to drive a graphics card that can run modern games at smooth FPS, I'd say 3770K should last at least another 5 years. A 6-7 year old overclocked Q6600 (roughly equal to A10-5800K) should get over 40 fps average in Crysis 3, for instance. If you demand 60 fps at all times though, 3 years for the CPU is more likely.

 

[nwo]

At least 3-5 years imo... Especially if CPUs keep advancing at this slow and steady pace.

 

[_Rick_]

What in gods name convinced you to put a 1000W PSU in a 100W PC?

Anyway, I used to keep CPU/mainboard combos for around 5 years in my gaming PC, with a midterm GPU+RAM upgrade.
Then hand the hardware down to my parents, where another 5 years of office computing are easily possible, after a PSU and fan swap, if I want to be perfectionist with it.
These time frames are only likely to get longer, with consoles no longer pushing graphics complexity as massively, as during their last generation, and Moore's law seeing diminishing returns, and hence the increase in speed of computing devices being reduced year over year, compared to the past decade.

Of course, if your demands change, you could quickly outgrow a quadcore machine. I know a few buddies who render a lot of stuff, and for them the quadcore is very much a limitation, and they're considering more or less seriously getting something truly big for the single socket - 15 core CPUs can't come soon enough for them. But since that's a completely different world, compared to the PC you described, I doubt that this is very relevant.
For the time being you will be I/O limited 99.99% of the time. I would guess that hardware decay is more likely to force you to upgrade, than actual lack of performance.

 

[Ken g6]

Don't forget to update to Windows 8.1.

 

[Phaetos]

You should be fine for at least another 5-10 months.

ROFL. I first read that as "5-10 minutes".

 

[Zorander]

I'm still running a Lynnfield-based system and playing current games at 1600p. Performs fantastic still.

Your system still has years of useful life left.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I can tell you that if you are planning on building that system now, you are wasting a terrific amount of money, particularly on the PSU and motherboard. If you've already built the system, it's going to depend on exactly what you use it for.

 

[Torn Mind]

Probably after the two Skylake releases(Skylake and Cannonlake) for CPU performance. DDR4, SATA Express, and more powerful IGPs will be around by then though.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

At least a couple years.

 

[JackMDS]

How long do I have?

Hmm...

If you are a teenager, or and the kind that your life depends on gaming, it is probably already outdated.

If you are in your twenties, 2 -3 years. :|

If your are in your thirties, probably 3-4 years. :awe:

Above 35 - until the computer can not do what functionally you need it to do. :thumbsup:

 

[piasabird]

Age 57 here.

Most computers are good for 3-5 years. However most people think it is outdated by 3 years. Z77 is Ivy bridge and it about 2 year old technology. Of course I could be stretching the truth a little there. I am thinking Intel realeases a chipset every year. I still have a Q68 MB with a Sandybridge 2500k CPU and 8 gigs of RAM and it will probably last another 2 years. I mostly use it for Youtube and watching movies.

Until the computer slows down for what you are using it for it is fine.

 

[corkyg]

What Jack MDS says. Who cares what oither people think. Plasabird's last sentence rules.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehh, the days of moores law pushing higher performance exponentially are behind us. Nowadays it's all about performance per watt.

In 5-10 years, the CPUs will probably not be that much faster than today's I5 or I7 chips. However, they will use 95% less power.

I do expect GPUs to continue to improve in performance, especially as we see 4K growing more significant.

You've got an SSD, and in general, 8GB is plenty for a desktop these days. So, I say in 5-10 years, you may wish to upgrade your hardware to save money on electricity...

 

[Fanatical Meat]

A long time, hell I'm still rocking a Q9650 with a GTX260. I may upgrade the video card soon but that is all. Honestly it plays games fine. Its all in perspective if a game like BF3 looks good at medium settings and my machine still runs it I'm happy. BF3 is the only game I've had to go with medium settings too.

 

[Torn Mind]

Ehh, the days of moores law pushing higher performance exponentially are behind us. Nowadays it's all about performance per watt.

In 5-10 years, the CPUs will probably not be that much faster than today's I5 or I7 chips. However, they will use 95% less power.

I do expect GPUs to continue to improve in performance, especially as we see 4K growing more significant.

You've got an SSD, and in general, 8GB is plenty for a desktop these days. So, I say in 5-10 years, you may wish to upgrade your hardware to save money on electricity...

Professionals still exist and will require their powerful parts. 5 CPU gens from now, computing power could be 1.61 times as fast, assuming a 10% increase per generation and no changes in clockspeeds or cores. Not major, but not insignficant either. If Intel manages 15% per gen(a tall order, I'd speculate), they could double compute power. But if they falter and can extract only 5% performance increases generation after generation, then your assertion would certain be true that the parts won't be much faster than current parts, assuming core count and clockspeeds remain constant for the respective parts.

 

[lehtv]

A long time, hell I'm still rocking a Q9650 with a GTX260. I may upgrade the video card soon but that is all. Honestly it plays games fine. Its all in perspective if a game like BF3 looks good at medium settings and my machine still runs it I'm happy. BF3 is the only game I've had to go with medium settings too.

You probably don't have very high framerate requirements.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Professionals still exist and will require their powerful parts. 5 CPU gens from now, computing power could be 1.61 times as fast, assuming a 10% increase per generation and no changes in clockspeeds or cores. Not major, but not insignficant either. If Intel manages 15% per gen(a tall order, I'd speculate), they could double compute power. But if they falter and can extract only 5% performance increases generation after generation, then your assertion would certain be true that the parts won't be much faster than current parts, assuming core count and clockspeeds remain constant for the respective parts.

In the old days, "5 generations" would be roughly 7-10x performance jump.
I'm not saying that performance changes have completely stopped, just that they have very very much slowed down/stagnated.

I would love if AMD made a comeback with powerful CPUS and if Intel was able to boost performance by 50% every 18 months or so... but I won't believe it until I see it...

 

[Fanatical Meat]

You probably don't have very high framerate requirements.

I probably don't however the game looked great and ran well.

 

[BrightCandle]

Back 15 years ago in 3 years you would be looking at about 4x performance jump, you would definitely want to change your PC pretty frequently back then. However at today's pace of improvement in CPUs (about 10% improvement a generation) it will take about 10 years for performance to double, assuming Intel can keep it up and I doubt they can. So unless something changes dramatically there is a good chance that this CPU will last a long time, a lot longer than they ever have in the past.

I would target an upgrade around 50% now however. A lot of the upgrade of modern PCs is now in IO capabilities such as USB3, MSATA and PCI-E 3.0. These bring extra performance in other aspects of the PC even if the CPU doesn't improve. Chipsets and GPUs are still improving and limitations in other areas of the PC are being removed so there is still the desire to keep reasonably up to date there. We are also seeing a progression towards vector instructions on the CPU with each revisions as well, which will improve performance given some time once the software is improved.

My guess is somewhere around 4-5 years is still worthwhile, not as worthwhile as back in 2000 but still sufficient to be a noticeable difference without excessive cost. That is assuming that we don't all start running Knights bridge like machines with 64 processors of course!

 

[Torn Mind]

In the old days, "5 generations" would be roughly 7-10x performance jump.
I'm not saying that performance changes have completely stopped, just that they have very very much slowed down/stagnated.

I would love if AMD made a comeback with powerful CPUS and if Intel was able to boost performance by 50% every 18 months or so... but I won't believe it until I see it...

If those generational increases include massive clockspeed gains and/or core count increases, then yes, the septuple figure would likely be accurate. That is why I said "assuming core count and clockspeed remain constant". If one takes the Pentium 4 660 and count 5 generations from it (Conroe, Wolfdale, Nehalem, Westmere, Sandy Bridge), yes the 2600K is about 7 times as fast as the Pentium 4. Of course, the P4 660 was a $600 part, so the 3930K would be even faster in tasks that utilize an extra 2 cores.

In the really old days, it is much easy to double a low amount of something than a high amount(Mhz).

Anyway, while the performance progress has slowed, a doubling of performance is still worth considering, even though the upgrade cycle has slowed due to all the low-hanging fruit being picked.