How long do you keep your system before a major upgrade?

[HGC]

About every 2 1/2 to 3 years, I start upgrading mobos, processors, power supplies, etc. and selling the old parts. My logic is to get out ahead of parts failing while keeping up performance-wise. As I'm on a budget I try to upgrade to a good value level of the older technology when a new technology hits. For example, I'm now buying Asrock 939 motherboards and Athlon 64 4000 single cores instead of AM2 or Conroe and dual core.

Just curious about different philosophies on this. In the past I tried to make my systems run as long as possible but it's painful when you wait too long and things fail.

 

[Snakexor]

there is no reason at this point to not go dual core, an x2 3800+ is 150 dollars.

 

[Markbnj]

2-4 years, or when I feel the need, or when I find another use for the existing system.

 

[So]

Usually ~ every 3 yrs.

 

[NuAlphaMan]

I'm averaging about 2 - 3 years right about now. I usually sell off one or two of my old systems and replace them.

 

[Baked]

4 years avg. Went from 486DX2 > Pentium > AMD Barton > C2D. I always do the system overhaul, buying completely new parts, but I never buy the top of the line parts.

 

[j00fek]

3-5yrs

 

[happy medium]

About everytime Microsoft makes a new operating system.(except windows ME). End of next summer will be duel or quad core intel with Windows Vista.

 

[kingtas]

Well.....

I just bought a dual core. The last time I upgraded was in 1999.

LOL

 

[brikis98]

i seem to be following some kind of moore's law on upgrades...

1998: bought my first system
2002: second system
2004: third system
2005: fourth system
2006: upgrading again...

sigh.

 

[Oyeve]

Until a game I love comes out and doesnt play well with all the settings on high that my current system cant handle.

 

[jackschmittusa]

I am always upgrading a piece at a time. Seems like every couple of months, I either see a deal on something, or someone wants a part I have in my rig, which I sell and buy a better, faster, whatever to replace it. This past month though, I've bought deals on a vid card, soundcard, and hd. Now have a pile of stuff to swap out.

 

[Jeff7]

I go until I can reasonably afford an upgrade. That would have been this past summer, except that my car was hungry for money. I got over 50k miles out of my brake pads and rotors (bought the car at 35k). And it needed new belts, and new rear tires. So there went my upgrade budget, and then some.

I upgrade in sections for the most part. Maybe a storage subsystem upgrade, then a videocard, then finally a motherboard and CPU.

 

[Skott]

2 years is my average. More than that and its hard to run games at optimal settings.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Until it no longer does what I need it to do, or it is no longer ideal to keep it. Sadly, it is time for me to replace my current tower. I'm going to miss it....

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: Baked
4 years avg. Went from 486DX2 > Pentium > AMD Barton > C2D. I always do the system overhaul, buying completely new parts, but I never buy the top of the line parts.

nice system. AT&T has a 6mb? how much is it?

 

[Crassus]

Pretty much whenever I can't stand performance anymore with the latest game I bought. But than I only swap out about two parts at a time (so I still use my very first floppy drive from back in 1992). Now that I actually EARN money I swap slightly more often, but I don't have time anymore to assemble a random PIII system just for the fun of it. I think the average part has a life span of about 1 1/2 years in my main rig.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Until it no longer does what I need it to do, or it is no longer ideal to keep it.

Same here. I've got a 5.5 year old PC and a 4.5 year old Mac. The Mac will probably get replaced in the next 6-9 months, and the PC, well I don't use it much so whenever I get enough free time and money to start tinkering again I'll build myself a new toy PC.


Lethal

 

[w00t]

I want to go dual core..... I am still waiting for the perfect motherboard the Asus P5B is the close but the vdimm is too low.

 

[Aikouka]

I usually upgrade once every 6th months to a year. Usually it's closer to a year.

 

[HGC]

Thanks for the comments. It's interesting to see the range from 6 months to 6 years.

The main hard drive (a Maxtor) on one of my systems has been running 24/7 5 days a week for 6 1/2 years. I feel a sense of impending doom lol.

I went from a NEC notebook with a 386DX-40 > Dell P90 ($3300, but it had a cutting edge SCSI 3X CD drive) > Pentium MMX 233 > Pentium II 400 > Dual Pentium III 600s > Athlon XP 1500+ > Athlon XP-M 2600+ > upcoming Athlon 64 4000+ or X2 3800+.

 

[dealseaker]

I update when I find a good deal in the hot deals section and I feel it is time and I have money my last upgrades were amd 800 to 2000 to 2500 or maybe first it was a 2100, not sure, but now i have a sempron 3100 in my main rig, maybe i will upgrade again in the next couple yrs, i don't game much so I dont know what else I really need right now, and the prices keep falling so I dont want to upgrade until i find the need now.

 

[Rommel44]

Every 3 years.

 

[Slammy1]

When the peer pressure of the boards weighs so heavily on my being that I simply must upgrade.

I used to go by the law of 3, that I'd upgrade my MoBo/CPU when 2nd-tier processors were 3x as fast. I'll usually do 2-3 upgrades per year aside (memory, video, etc), but weigh each purchase against the question of how dead end the purchase is (so I'm more likely to upgrade memory early life-cycle, HDD mid, and only peripherals towards the end). I also tend to push the o/c more towards the end than the beginning. When I upgrade MoBo/CPU/Memory/HDD I upgrade case and sell my old system.

 

[HannibalX]

I do incremental upgrades about once a year. I never do the entire system at once.