Optimal price/performance or feature upgrade schedule?

[VirtualLarry]

Just wondering, what is the optimal upgrade schedule, to maximize price/performance? Three years? More? Less? Whenever there are significant technology shifts? (Multi-core, SSD, etc.)

I went from a Pentium MMX 166@233, to a Pentium II 300@450, to a Athlon XP 1800+@2000+, to a C2D E4400 2.0@2.8, and right around the C2D, I also bought some other machines, a Opteron 165, some P4s (to replace my friend's rig), etc. Have also since bought a number of quad-cores, Q6600s, Q9400s, Q8200s (for friend's rigs) too.

I'm probably going to wait until P55 or later, lga 1156 Core i7 (4 cores with HT), and USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0, and then perhaps SSD prices will have come down a bit too.

 

[daletkine]

I think 2-3 years is optimal, but it depends on technology changes. I would not consider an upgrade to CPU unless the new CPU was theoretically twice as fast. Also, I basically go with upgrade when system is too slow to run the task needed. Like machine not able to play any new game at lowest settings, or my single core proc not playing the high definition video without lagging. Anyway, here's my history of building PCs.

I went from Pentium II 300MHz (64MB SDRAM) to an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz (384MB SDRAM), then to a AMD Athlon 64 3000+ AM2 1.8GHz (2GB DDRII), then to an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.3GHz (2GB DDRII) - which I later gave to my brother and went with a Phenom II X4 940 BE 3GHz (8GB DDRII).

As you I am also looking for features on motherboard, so I picked mine for its eSATA, 6 USB 2.0 ports, 5 SATA ports, 3 PCI-E x16 slots, 2 PCI-E x1 ports. I don't care for a standalone soundcard, but I did get a Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum for a sale of $50 (refubrished), just to solve the problem of dissappearing audio when playing with EAX effects in games. It's a stupid Realtek issue with surround sound arrangement. Anyhow, I would not go from a dual-core to a dual-core, as it's not enough of a speed boost. Heck, here's an advantage of a quad-core, if you need one: I was encoding multiple queued video files and playing The Witcher without any performance drop whatsoever with my Phenom II X4, not even a lag while loading, not a single frame drop!

 

[yvliew]

this is fun, i've started using computer since the 90s..
start with 486 with DOS and Windows 3.11

486 66mhz forgot how many RAM ( 1994 )
Pentium 100 ( 1996 )
Pentium MMX 233 ( 1998 )
AMD Duron 800mhz ( 2000 ) (because i wanted to play Counter Strike 1.6)
Athlon 1.1ghz (dad still using this machine bought in 2001 on Win Vista)
Athlon XP 1800 ( 2003 )
Athlon64 3000+ ( 2005 ) (still using in living room for movies including HD 720p - Windows 7)
Sempron 2700?? on Laptop ( 2005 )
Core 2 Duo T5500 1.6ghz laptop ( 2007 )

and recently just bought a desktop
Phenom II X3 710 2.6Ghz ( 2009 )

I guess my next upgrade would be 2011. I really wonder what proc will there be.. 35nm? past 4ghz?

 

[Denithor]

486sx25 upgraded to 486dx100
Cyrix 133
Pentium MMX 233 <long gap - broke college student>
Pentium III 733 <first custom build>
Pentium 4 2.4B (533MHz fsb)
Pentium 4 2.4C (800MHz fsb + HT)
Athlon 64 3000+
Athlon X2 3800+
Core 2 e6400
Core 2 e8400

As you can see I follow performance improvements and generally upgrade every year or two. Unlike Daletkine I don't wait until a system is defunct before upgrading - I hate getting slowed down doing anything and want to be able to play the recent titles without issues. GPU is on a much more rapid turn-over schedule than the rest of the PC as a result.

Next upgrade I'm a little torn on. I want i7 or i5 but don't really want all the heat that come with those chips. I also would like to get one of the 32nm chips so I may end up with one of the dual core + HT chips. I'll have to see how they benchmark against the true quads before making that call.

 

[Pollock]

I upgrade whenever it's fiscally prudent - i.e. I find a hot deal and can sell my old hardware for around the cost of the new part, thereby upgrading for very little. So, continuously for me.

 

[DefRef]

I used to do what I called the "Endless Upgrade Cycle" in which I switched up CPUs, video cards, and mobos within the same cases. Now I do total fresh builds in which I get a case and fill it with all-new parts, only carrying over old HDs with data, eventually consolidating that data onto newer, larger, faster HDs. (Just copied the data from a pair of 6-year-old PATA drives to a single 1.5TB SATA.)

As best as I can recall:

* P2-333 (early-1998)
* P2-450 (SLW8K, late-1998)
* P3-700 and P3-900 (1999-2002?)
* Athlon 1800+ (2002)
* Athlon 3200+ (2003)
* Athlon X2 3800+ (2005)
* Some sort of i7 setup (2009)

What's crazy to me is that 6 years ago $230 bought 1GB of RAM; 3-1/2 years that cash bought 2GB; now you can get TWELVE GIGABYTES (12GB) of DDR3 for that money. Let's not even discuss video cards!