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How often do to upgrade your PC?

Celcius

°Temp. member
Lately I seem to upgrade my videocard every other generation and then upgrade my cpu after three or four generations. I’m just curious what everyone else does these days.

Edit: my phone autocorrected, mods can you please change the title to “how often do you upgrade your PC”?
 
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bender

What time is it?
I bought a new gaming PC when DayZ launched in early access. I got a high end mobile workstation for free last year. I bought a Steam Deck this past week. Not very often I guess.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
GPU every 2 generations (went 8800gtx, 770gtx, 1080ti, to now 3090rtx) each time I feel I go up a GPU class. Its crazy to think my last AMD/ATI GPU was the ATI 9800 pro back in 2003 0_0. My first ever GPU was a Voodoo 2 if that tells you how old I am lol
Processors every 3-4 generations, went from Core 2 Duo 6600, 2600k, 6700k, to now 5950x. The 5950x was my first AMD CPU sense the 64x2 back in 2005

The 4090rtx will be my first 1 gen upgrade of a card in a very longtime, but its a tax write off for me now as filming hardware and making custom parts for them has become a side business
 
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bender

What time is it?
My first ever GPU was a Voodoo 2 if that tells you how old I am lol

Not that old if a Voodoo 2 was your first video card. :)

If you chained two Voodoo 2 card together and that was your first rig, you should have retired at the peak of PC gaming.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
CPU - ~7+ years, basically until 1% lows become untenable though Ill likely be on RaptorLake(2023) only till NovaLake in 2025 so will be a short span.

GPU - Every second Nvidia generation or when new consoles show up if im out of sync.

Monitor - Whenever: I was at 1680x1050p75 when the 360 dropped, then went to 1080p60 before the XB1, by 2015 I was at 2560x1440p144, now im 3440x1440p165....looking for QD-OLED or better next.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
michael-caine-never.gif
 

Kuranghi

Member
5-10 years cpu
2-4 years gpu depends.

Same here, but more towards 4 years for GPU. I haven't had tons of money the last 5 years so thats meant I kept my 970 for longer than normal and then got a "cheap" 1080 4 years ago.

I don't care about framerates above 60hz so constantly upgrading CPU is a bit pointless for me outside of work and super high res/bitrate video playback. The GPU I've mostly not upgraded due to the 20-series prices being stupid and then 30-series being overpriced for different reasons. I can't wait until 40-series comes out, I'm going to buy a 4080 at least.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Not that old if a Voodoo 2 was your first video card. :)

If you chained two Voodoo 2 card together and that was your first rig, you should have retired at the peak of PC gaming.
it was my first GPU, I had many prebuilts before then, several gateways and packerbells…

considering the GPU market barely existed before then, i’d be curious what gpu’s you had before that period (not even sure if it’s ok to calll any graphic card before the first Geforce a true gpu anyway. Still remember my Geforce 256 and Geforce 4 4400 fondly)
 
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bender

What time is it?
Wait, what? Peak PC gaming is now, back then it was a mess.

I'll take the "mess" with some of the greatest games ever created that were specifically made to take advantage of the platform rather than modern game design that casts as wide of a net as possible. Sure PC is the best place to play those games for various reasons, but they can't hold a candle to the late 90s to early 00s.
 
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reinking

Gold Member
When I feel like I need it.

I don't really keep a set schedule but when I can't achieve performance I am happy with I will start making upgrades. Sometimes it is a smaller upgrade and sometimes it is a complete rebuild.
 
When it stops doing what I want it to do. In my case, smooth 120fps.

The exception are graphics cards. You can pretty much always use better performance.

Cpu wise, ssd and ram, I don't expect to move on from am4 5800x3d system until there are games that really push the console cpus hard, at 30 or 40fps, and/if 120fps on my system becomes challenging because of that. Feels like I built a future proof rig though, besides graphics.

Edit : like I see 0 reason at all not to upgrade graphics every generation (if paying MSRP!), because you never know when crypto crap will creep up again, and then that old card you just upgraded from is suddenly worth more than what you paid for it.

I'm itching to get a 4070 tier card, because this 3060 has limited me to 1080p at 120fps in a lot of games.
 
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bender

What time is it?
it was my first GPU, I had many prebuilts before then, several gateways and packerbells…

considering the GPU market barely existed before then, i’d be curious what gpu’s you had before that period (not even sure if it’s ok to calll any graphic card before the first Geforce a true gpu anyway. Still remember my Geforce 256 and Geforce 4 4400 fondly)

There was a GPU market pre-Geforce by a bit. I had NV1 (Diamond) and NV3 (NVidia RIVA) based cards. I wish Voodoo 2 was my first. You basically won the lottery with that as your first.
 
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MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
I'll take the "mess" with some of the greatest games ever created that were specifically made to take advantage of the platform rather than modern game design that casts as wide of a net as possible. Sure PC is the best place to play those games for various reasons, but they can't hold a candle to the 90s.

Games now are better than ever. It applies to almost every genre, if not every single one.
 

Knightime_X

Member
Once I notice 10+ games or apps failing to run at optimal performance even at high settings.
If 90% can run at max and the rest at high (60fps minimum) I don't worry about upgrading.

I upgrade GPU roughly every 2 generations.
 

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
Bought a 2080TI on 7/2019 then upgraded to a 3080TI on 8/2021. Won't even consider upgrading until the 4080TI releases and the performance demand for the games I want to play at that moment. Stalker 2 will be the first heavy performance requirement UE5 game to release. Even if they don't utilize Lumen, I'm positive they will have an option to enable RTGI.
 
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ACESHIGH

Banned
I've built my rig in late 2013 with an FX 6300 GTX 760 and 8gb of DDR3 RAM.

Popped an SSD in 2015 and bought an RX 580 8GB in 2019. It's a good 1080p 30 fps machine for the most demanding AAA games. It's insane how much mileage you can get from a gaming rig these days.

I'll keep running old games and indies on this rig and use could gaming for next gen MS AAA games. Very surprised with xcloud.

I'll upgrade when DDR5 memory has mass adoption and am able to see how directstorage works. So maybe 2023/2024
 
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bender

What time is it?

It has zero to do with nostalgia and everything to do with modern design philosophies, inflated game budgets that led to developing for the widest possible audience. We still get great gams today. I wouldn't say otherwise as that would be as silly as saying "Games now are better than ever. It applies to almost every genre, if not every single one."

What's your favorite game this year? Mine's Windjammers 2 which is just a modernized Neo Geo game which itself was just a modernized take on pong.
 
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ZywyPL

Banned
When your PC starts to struggle.

If you go for the absolute top of the top components, it'll obviously last longer, but if you aim for the mid-tier it's gonna age within 3-4 years.

Also - the display is always the key component, it's what sets the resolution and franerate target, if you're on 1080p 60Hz didplay and don't see a point in anything higher, a good PC can last a decade even.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
I wouldn't say otherwise as that would be as silly as saying "Games now are better than ever. It applies to almost every genre, if not every single one."

There's nothing silly about. What genre peaked in the 90s?

What's your favorite game this year? Mine's Windjammers 2 which is just a modernized Neo Geo game.

Favourite game released this year or favourite game that I played this year?
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
i’m just going to say I loved games then and I love games now. that era of gaming was more “wild west” and exciting because of it. It’s like saying classic films are better than modern films, you’ll have people in both camps, and then people like me who just loves it all, appreciates the wildness of what was and the technical marvel that we have now.
 

teezzy

Banned
i’m just going to say I loved games then and I love games now. that era of gaming was more “wild west” and exciting because of it. It’s like saying classic films are better than modern films, you’ll have people in both camps, and then people like me who just loves it all, appreciates the wildness of what was and the technical marvel that we have now.

People look to the past with a selective bias. They only remember the zingers.

Even some of the classics are starting to show their age these days. I used to love retro gaming... now a lot of it fails to engage me apart from JRPGs and fighting games.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
i’m just going to say I loved games then and I love games now. that era of gaming was more “wild west” and exciting because of it. It’s like saying classic films are better than modern films, you’ll have people in both camps, and then people like me who just loves it all, appreciates the wildness of what was and the technical marvel that we have now.

Amen.

But there's no denying that 80s/90s cinema was way, way better than what we have today. :messenger_winking:
 

bender

What time is it?
There's nothing silly about. What genre peaked in the 90s?



Favourite game released this year or favourite game that I played this year?

First Person Shooters, Survival Horrors and RPGs all peaked in the late 90s to early 2000s.

Released this year is what I was referring to.
 
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PeteBull

Member
Gtx 1080->3080ti so every 2gens for gpu, same as op.
Cpu i got 8700k from 2017 and still feel like its plenty for stable 60fps gaming, if i notice next gen only games are demanding enough so my current cpu cant handle that stable 60 then ofc i will upgrade it, but hoping/thinking it wont be sooner than 2023 or maybe even 2024, hard to say really.
 

teezzy

Banned
You like Buffy and Peanut Butter mixed with Tuna. I might be old but at least I don't share your tastes. And yet, I can't stop loving you.

Keep sweet talking me and I'll let you stick your canned fish in my peanut butter jar whenever you'd like 🥰
 
First Person Shooters, Survival Horrors and RPGs all peaked in the late 90s to early 2000s.

Released this year is what I was referring to.
RPGs, yeah. If we are talking jrpg. Also 3d adventure games, fell off a cliff after early 2000.

Shooters got better and better, though. Not recently, but after early 2000s.

Survival horror...? Depends on your definition, my guess is that you wouldn't consider re4 or re2 remake as such?
 
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