How Many Years Do You Expect To Use a Card(s) in Your Main Rig?

[AtenRa]

I used to upgrade every year up to HD6950. Then with the GCN effect i kept my HD7950 for 2 years.
Currently i have a R9 390 but if Polaris at $299 is 20-25% faster at half the TDP, i may donate the 390 to my cousin and get a Polaris.
Now, if BF1 needs even faster than the Polaris for 1080p 144Hz or 1440p 120hz i may even upgrade to VEGA next year.

So what im trying to say is, how long i keep a GPU depends on a lot of things, including hardware and Games availability.

So, im not sure what to vote yet.

 

[ShintaiDK]

~2 years.

 

[JimmiG]

2-3 years. I kept my GTX 670 for 2 years and will probably keep the GTX 970 for another year (2 years total). The GTX 460 before that, I kept for 3 years.

 

[Broburger]

My buying habits so far have been very stupid.

6670 DDR3 (prebuilt) -> 7850 -> 7850/7870 -> 7870/7870 -> 670 -> 670 SLI -> 980 -> 290.

No more wasting my time and money with pointless sidegrades and incremental upgrades. Not buying anything until Vega/GP100, hopefully I'll get somewhere around 3x my 290 on those. See, between my 670 SLI, my 980 and 290, all them (subjectively) felt the same. Not making that mistake again.

That's nothing compared to my stupidity. This is me from feb 2015 to now..

GTX 970 -> GTX 980 -> GTX 960 2GB -> GTX 970 -> GTX 980 ti -> GTX 980 -> GTX 960 4GB -> GTX 950 -> GTX 980 ti -> Intel hd graphics 530.

 

[guskline]

I used to upgrade every year up to HD6950. Then with the GCN effect i kept my HD7950 for 2 years.
Currently i have a R9 390 but if Polaris at $299 is 20-25% faster at half the TDP, i may donate the 390 to my cousin and get a Polaris.
Now, if BF1 needs even faster than the Polaris for 1080p 144Hz or 1440p 120hz i may even upgrade to VEGA next year.

So what im trying to say is, how long i keep a GPU depends on a lot of things, including hardware and Games availability.

So, im not sure what to vote yet.

AtenRa, Excellent points made in your post.

I kept my cards longer when I had more machines running but I've now decided to try keeping a "newer" Nvidia machine vs a newer AMD gpu machine (was all AMD but gave my 8320OC rig to my son-in-law and Devi's Canyon, at the time was too hard to pass up).

Since I like custom water cooling, the heat output of the gpu was not a critical factor, thus the 2 R9 290s. When Fury X came out I stayed put eventhough 1 FuryX was close to 2 R9 290s, especially since it sported a CLC and the Fury was not a double of performance from the 290s (The 4G of HBM didn't help either)

I'll "soldier" through with what I have on the AMD side until the Big Vega appears to replace the 2 R9 290s.

 

[railven]

I'll "soldier" through with what I have on the AMD side until the Big Vega appears to replace the 2 R9 290s.

And this is what is killing AMD.

People who got lucky with a launch 290/290X before inflation in 2013 might not even consider upgrading until late 2016 or early 2017 when Vega drops.

People who scored a refurbished/used 290/290X "stole" a sale from AMD and probably won't upgrade in the same manner.

AMD didn't move much from 2013 and if Polaris 10 is any where near current rumors, they won't move much in 2016. Unless people still holding on to 7970s from 2012 missed the 290/290X firesales.

I said it in another thread, AMD has done a good job making their product line stagnant. Great for consumers, terrible for AMD.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Welps....

5870 > 5870 2GB > 7970 > CFX 7970 > 660 Ti > SLI 660 Ti > 780 > (Borrowed) 680 > CFX 290X > 980 Ti

Sold the 7970's while they had good value expecting to jump on 290X. 660 Ti was a card I had bought a while back for my hybrid PhysX adventures, but became my crutch. 290X were sold out almost immediately, couldn't stomach single 660 Ti on 1440p, snagged refurb from Microcenter super cheap, hated SLI just as much as CFX. Sold em both, got 780 Lightning after giving up on inflated 290/290X prices (Actually bought 780 Lightning from refurb bin, it had artifacts but RMA'd got brand new one in sealed box from MSI). Still not ready to give up AMD/ATI loyalty, Fury X broke my heart (and it was sold out every where), got 290X CFX thinking I'd just water cool em and hold out, but that power draw, good god! Returned em and just snapped bought 980 Ti. Haven't looked back.

That isn't bad at all. At least you made rational decisions to yourself at the time. For some reason I always buy GPUs with emotion.

 

[AtenRa]

People who scored a refurbished/used 290/290X "stole" a sale from AMD and probably won't upgrade in the same manner.

People who scored a refurbished/used GTX780 "stole" a sale from NVIDIA back in Maxwell (GTX970/980) release.

People who will score a refurbished/used GTX980Ti "stole" a sale from NVIDIA and probably won't upgrade to GTX1070/1080.

Edit: And dont forget,
People who scored a refurbished/used 290/290X "stole" a sale from NVIDIA and probably didnt upgrade to Maxwell (GM204).

 

[railven]

That isn't bad at all. At least you made rational decisions to yourself at the time. For some reason I always buy GPUs with emotion.

I always get attached to my cards and have a hard time parting with them haha.

People who scored a refurbished/used GTX780 "stole" a sale from NVIDIA back in Maxwell (GTX970/980) release.

People who will score a refurbished/used GTX980Ti "stole" a sale from NVIDIA and probably won't upgrade to GTX1070/1080.

Edit: And dont forget,
People who scored a refurbished/used 290/290X "stole" a sale from NVIDIA and probably didnt upgrade to Maxwell (GM204).

Which of the two companies can afford a few stolen sales? Which of the two companies market share cratered?

If AMD is fine with it's users skipping two product lines, kudos to them.

 

[mikeymikec]

Most of the year numbers are approximate:

Permedia 2 in 1997
GeForce 2 GTS in 1999
GeForce 4 Ti 4200 in 2001
GeForce 7300GT in 2005
GeForce 7600GS within a year or so (passively cooled)
Radeon HD 5770 in 2010 (new system build, went from AGP to PCIE)
GeForce 750Ti in 2014 (faulty)
Radeon R9 380X in 2016

The last one is the most I've spent on a graphics card by a fairly long way, I hope it's going to last a few years!

 

[CropDuster]

Voodoo 3 - 1999
Geforce 3 - 2001
6800 GT - 2004
GTX 460 - 2010
R9 290 - 2013/4

So, every 3-4 years. I didn't game much from 04-10 other than Battlefield 2 and its mods which the 6800GT ran fine.

 

[xthetenth]

All except 6600 GTS and 290 bought right around release

6600 GTS (iirc, don't really remember great)
8800 GT
GTX 260 core 216
GTX 560
GTX 760
GTX 970
R9 290 (about half a year ago)

All except the 290 were after ~ 2 years, but now I've got a job so I'm still at trying to get 2 years from my cards but I'm in the market constantly so I rounded down rather than up. I'll be getting a polaris if it's actually a big upgrade and if and only if I can get a good retirement plan sorted out for it because I'm definitely buying a vega, possibly the top tier if it's got as sexy a cooler as the Fury X because I really want one of those.

Interesting to see what looks like a normal distribution centered on ~2.5 years on an enthusiast forum where there's people doing high profile card flipping.

Also NV made a mistake pissing me off enough to override my EVGA fanboying. Just saying.

 

[Spjut]

People who scored a refurbished/used GTX780 "stole" a sale from NVIDIA back in Maxwell (GTX970/980) release.

People who will score a refurbished/used GTX980Ti "stole" a sale from NVIDIA and probably won't upgrade to GTX1070/1080.

Edit: And dont forget,
People who scored a refurbished/used 290/290X "stole" a sale from NVIDIA and probably didnt upgrade to Maxwell (GM204).

IMO, if I get the impression that a certain company's GPUs remain viable for longer than the competition's, that's the next GPU I'll buy. If I had had a 290x and it "stole" a sale from AMD and Nvidia because I didn't get a new GPU today, chances are it'd still yield AMD a new GPU sale from me eventually because I've had a good history with them.

In the same way, Nvidia's long-term support for its older GPUs made me choose Nvidia for my HTPC.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I seem to run them for about two years, typically. Sometimes up to 3, depending on the games I'm playing and whether they're bottlenecked or not.

 

[railven]

~25% of people upgrade within 2 years. That seems like a healthy portion of a subset.

 

[Despoiler]

I upgrade every new product stack to whatever is the second fastest card of that stack is. ie Fury line released I bought a Fury.

 

[kaesden]

i remember my first 3d video card was an intel i740. After that it gets a little foggy, but i Know i had an 8800GT at one point, possibly that was the next card I really don't remember. After that I bought a GTX 285, GTX 670, 970, and will maybe buy a 1080, or wait for a 1080 ti. All depends on real world pricing, and how much performance it actually provides in non-VR uses.

 

[Majcric]

2 or 3 years, or just whenever performance doubles. If I can get double performance of my 980ti within the next year i'll upgrade.

 

[sandorski]

In the long ago, approx 1ish year. These days at least 3ish years.

 

[IEC]

I think my R9 290s have had the most longevity of any card I have purchased in the past decade.

I'm at 2.5 years already, which is a freaking eternity given my usual upgrade cycle.

 

[Piano Man]

I got my 7950 for $290, which I still use, on 10/26/2012. Before then I bought a 5850 for $270 on 10/10/2009. Before that was a 4850 for $180 on 10/8/2008. (Not sure why only a year there).

I would say I go for 2-3 years.

 

[Erenhardt]

Mining made me upgrade a lot recently. Before that I was harvesting parts from other computers at home

 

[TurtleCrusher]

2, maybe 3 more years. I had my HD 6870 for exactly 4 years and got a ton of mileage out of it. I feel the same about the GCN 1.0 R9 270.

 

[DigDog]

when the card lags in mainstream titles, it's time to rebuild.

 

[spat55]

It does depend on multiple events, i.e having the money, is there going to be a die shrink soon, can it run what I want? I'll upgrade when I feel like I need too but do not feel the need to ultra everything and as long as I can run at minimum 40fps with medium-high I feel fine.