Have you sped up your upgrade cycle, slowed it down, or neither?

[Ramses]

Interesting to see so many slowdowns, I sure have as well, figured I was just getting old.
I thought the FS/Trade forums were a heck of a lot slower than
they used to be, maybe this is why.

PC parts overall are so freakin fast now, even slow stuff is fast.
It's hard to get excited when everything is already blazingly fast.
blazingly fast-er for a bunch of money? Meh.. I look for big gains now,
and they just don't happen very often near as I can tell.
My box I built last year was basically year old tech, and it's still got another
year in it easily before it needs updating, and that'll only be for DDR4 and m.2/pci express storage.
Honestly I had an old 955be amd system and hopped to a six core then to an
8350 then a 9590 just for the heck of it in a short time. The old 955 was still
plenty fast. I'm eager for something to wow me. Not holding my breath.
Must suck to be trying to sell this stuff.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Slowed considerably. The time between my Athlon XP 1800+, P4 2.26, P4 2.8HT, Athlon 64 3500+, x2 4200+ and Q8200 was ~4 years. I spent 5+ years on the Q8200, and likely will do the same with the FX. The only upgrades in between the Q8200 to now is 3x HDD, SSD, Radeon x1650, 8800GTS 320, Radeon 3850, 4830, 6870. With various SB Audigy and X-FI sound cards.

The only constant is the main 22" 1680x1050 Acer LCD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

PC parts overall are so freakin fast now, even slow stuff is fast.

Eh, I think my Kabini E2-2500 would like a word with you.

Other than that, if you stick to Intel parts, I would agree with you. Even my Bay Trail-T quad-core Atom 1.33Ghz tablet, has a Passmark of around 1000, but it only takes 33% CPU time while on Skype. Pretty amazing, really.

(I'm on my G3258 rig right now, at 3.8Ghz, and Skype is taking 8-13% CPU, even better.)

 

[TurtleCrusher]

^^I've got that same CPU in an ASUS X205 11.6" netbook. Very snappy. Paired with the eMMC and 2GB ddr3 it's pretty quick.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Slowed down a ton. Only retired my 920 @ 4.1GHz last year as I needed a few "new" rigs at the folks'.

My backlog of games is so redonkulous that I don't feel the need to upgrade my vid card nearly as often as I used to. Only switched from a 7970GE to the 780 due to it being a free / moneymaking upgrade (thanks LTC nuts!)

 

[mikeymikec]

PC parts overall are so freakin fast now, even slow stuff is fast..

I disagree. Ten years ago we didn't have netbook-class hardware masquerading as laptops, also there are tablets on the market that don't just age badly, they suck from day one. In those days it would have been like some cheapo manufacturer attempting to peddle a 486 in the days of the Pentium / Pentium 2.

I think hardware makers have decided that they'd prefer to have us running for new hardware like in the days of Win9x if they can.

Don't get me wrong, I think netbook-class hardware has a valid position in the marketplace, it just shouldn't end up in the hands of people expecting to find an average performance, general purpose laptop. At face value, this seems like a criticism that should only be levelled at salespeople, but I think the manufacturers play their parts in the fiddle as well; it would be logical that when you're looking at say two HP laptops, one would have obvious labelling (say the product range name) to say that it's optimised for say "travel" / battery life, whereas another is optimised for say general purpose home use.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

While I don't generally like the jaguar/atom in full size laptops, they really fit in with the ultraportables and are finally "good enough." I've got the x205 from Asus, which is in my opinion what netbooks should've been in the first place. I bought the Eee900 and the Dell mini 12", and they were dog slow. Fast forward now and Baytrail has a 25-50% IPC advantage over previous atom, has a decent IGP and is a 2W quad core. Performance with the emmc and given adequate ram, this netbook is quick and the battery life is insane.

My wife has no patience with slow computers and she hasn't said anything negative about it yet. She nixed using both the 9" Eee PC and 12" Dell mini 12 on the first day and went back to my ThinkPad. Now the quad core atom is passable for everyday usage provided you have an ssd.

 

[Bateluer]

Roughly similar, variations are normal. I stuck with a P4C from 2003 to 2006 but part of that was due to budget. Likewise, I stuck with a C2D for over 2 years until stepping up to a Sandy i5 in 2011, which I also kept for 2 years before upgrading to an i5 4670 in September 2013.

Video cards, I go through more frequently. Whether I can justify the expensive of an upgrade relative to how my games perform and what the budget looks like. I've had a 290X since November 2013, so I'll be eyeing a 390X closely in a few months.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Just curious what other people had done with their upgrade cycles.

I've probably sped mine up, buying, well, what some people consider crap, that I don't really need, in search of smaller / lower-powered systems.

But by the same token, I've slowed down my desktop upgrades. Been sticking with a pair of Q9300 CPUs for the longest time. Could have bought a 2500K, ended up buying a Thuban 1045T, and then another one. (It's nice having a Microcenter nearby.) Don't use the Thuban much, except for DC. I use the Q9300s more for day-to-day stuff, as well as DC in the winter.

Now, some people are ditching their 2500Ks for a 4790K or 5820K.

I know BonzaiDuck is holding onto some 775 rigs just like me.

For the mention, I knew I'd get around to posting a response.

I have to convince the fam-damn-ily that they should embrace an upgrade on those LGA_775's. I've got all the parts; will recycle and re-use the cases; maybe replace a power-supply as needed. I don't want for hard disks; I have enough extras.

I've begun thinking about this problem more and more as the technology took first one turn, then another. I try to maintain an established "infrastructure." There HAS to be a server; there HAS to be reliable backup for all the workstations old and new. But I re-deploy older boards and processors for this server purpose.

I can look at it as a matter of years: the 775 systems are now 6-years-old with 7-year-old technology. I can accept the nature of my "hobby" which includes "experimental" outlays and not always the most prudent choices from a budgetary point of view. I have to balance this with the household mainstreamers and their indifference and preferences. But we all need this technology so much in our daily lives, there are various aspects to this balance.

So "purchasing" has two sets of priorities: keeping up with the latest/greatest to a reasonable degree; and keeping up with a "long-run" to squeeze a reasonable number of years from the parts. I find myself looking at "new" stuff all the time; but now I also investigate surplus-resellers of older-gen parts.

I also try to anticipate my outlays a year in advance. So there's some fixed target in dollars, which can include "new" stuff, "new-stuff upgrades" to older systems, and surplus parts for more recent generations of processors, memory, mainboards.

But I seldom stay on target. It's still a useful exercise, though.

Some folks who upgrade more frequently are adept at flipping last year's systems on EBAY, sometimes offering up a complete package of processor, mainboard, RAM and the OEM Win OS knitted to that hardware. That, too, seems like a worthwhile strategy. To do it more effectively, attention must be made to software licenses, backup and restoration and other factors. I tend to drag my feet on these types of changeovers.

 

[skipsneeky2]

No interest of any kind of anything to upgrade my i7 3770,been a odd year cause i had 2 motherboards fail on me.If the failures had a bit better timing i would have replaced my 1155 setup with a 1150 as i bought the i7 to replace my i5.

Well really i had 1 motherboard failure,some odd reason some odd material landed in a ram slot and pretty much gave the symptoms of a dead motherboard.Found out how touchy gigabyte boards are and bought my first Asrock as i needed a budget microatx.

 

[Dribble]

Slowed a lot. Got an i2500K and still no reason to upgrade that, just upgraded graphics for first time since I got a GTX 570 near release. CPU performance has barely increased at all. GPU performance has increased a lot but performance/$ has increased a lot less then total performance. Both vendors introduced faster cards but did so at higher prices so I just didn't buy. I would have replaced cpu and gpu last year if faster kit at non rip-off prices had existed. Only thing I've been buying faster is HD's, well SSD's.

 

[Zor Prime]

Still using a Phenom II X6.

Gone are the days when an extra 33/50/66/100 MHz makes the difference.

I could upgrade to the latest and greatest but I think I can wait 2 seconds longer.

 

[xthetenth]

It's gotten slow. Funnily me and my friends have done or will be doing four CPU changes on their computers in the span of about two months, but it's a total fluke. The only one going from a cpu that wasn't five or so years old and was good at the time was me going from a 2500k to free it up for a friend going to that from a Phenom II of some description as much as for the upgrade. Another friend's switching from a Nehalem i3 to an i5 4690k because the non-HT dual core isn't cutting it, and a friend's sister is going from a ~3 year old AMD bought in lieu of an i3 for the core count, and half of the reason for that upgrade is because the fan's held on with a zip tie and the thing's generally a mess.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I've probably sped mine up, buying, well, what some people consider crap, that I don't really need, in search of smaller / lower-powered systems.

But by the same token, I've slowed down my desktop upgrades.

So, what exactly are you comparing? You've slowed down your desktop upgrades, but sped up the upgrading of what?

 

[Ramses]

I disagree. Ten years ago we didn't have netbook-class hardware masquerading as laptops, also there are tablets on the market that don't just age badly, they suck from day one. In those days it would have been like some cheapo manufacturer attempting to peddle a 486 in the days of the Pentium / Pentium 2.

I think hardware makers have decided that they'd prefer to have us running for new hardware like in the days of Win9x if they can.

Don't get me wrong, I think netbook-class hardware has a valid position in the marketplace, it just shouldn't end up in the hands of people expecting to find an average performance, general purpose laptop. At face value, this seems like a criticism that should only be levelled at salespeople, but I think the manufacturers play their parts in the fiddle as well; it would be logical that when you're looking at say two HP laptops, one would have obvious labelling (say the product range name) to say that it's optimised for say "travel" / battery life, whereas another is optimised for say general purpose home use.

I don't disagree but I was thinking more along the lines of "upgrade" as in desktop parts. However my old Nexus 7 2nd gen is still as fast as it was the day it came out of the box. I dabble in smartphones but really haven't kept up with non-laptop and non-PC hardware, I have an older Acer chromebook which works as well as ever (which is to say, very), but that's about it.
Even my tk-57 AMD laptop from five years ago or better is perfectly useable for netflix and skype and office/browsing/email after it inherited an old SSD. I just finally replaced it solely for a larger screen.

 

[Carson Dyle]

In my home, I see it like this:

smartphone > tablet > laptop > HTPC > desktop > server

Left to right, each one has decreasingly fewer compelling reasons to upgrade, as new technology and lower power consumption and better displays are being released on the more portable devices.

The only system in that lineup that really gets incrementally upgraded is the server, as hard drives are replaced with larger ones, and controller cards occasionally upgraded. All other systems are replaced completely as necessary and only rarely is anything within them upgraded.

 

[fuzzymath10]

The one way to make any system feel like 2008 is by having its main drive store data on only rotating platters.

Spinning platters is at the very top of my list of typical user experience killers followed by older small cores and older IGPs (both are usually tolerable these days; I'm talking about processors like the N270 and IGPs from when Intel called them "GMA").

Other ones include TN displays, fewer than 1024 vertical pixels, and inkjet printers (except maybe for photo printing).

 

[MongGrel]

Have slowed down a lot in last 5 years.

The wife still likes the old gaming Q9650 of mine she uses, the other two in the house are X58's (Main and HTPC) that have at least slapped Xeons in and OC'd.

About the only thing have upgraded much lately are a monitor, GPU, and a few SSD's in the last few years.

Still don't have a real smartphone or tablet in the house, but the wife wants a tablet for awhile now, might get her one yet.

My sister in law even still uses one of my old Q6600 OC'd gaming rigs for general messing around.

 

[Squeetard]

Slowed wayyyy down. I used to upgrade a couple times a year whenever the latest and greatest was released that would get you huge gains. New stuff is just not exciting anymore and my current 7970's in xfire play most everything on ultra at 120fps on my lightboost monitor.
I'd like to see a 34" ultra wide monitor with some sort of ulmb/gsync/freesync. I would do that.

 

[MongGrel]

I disagree. Ten years ago we didn't have netbook-class hardware masquerading as laptops, also there are tablets on the market that don't just age badly, they suck from day one. In those days it would have been like some cheapo manufacturer attempting to peddle a 486 in the days of the Pentium / Pentium 2.

I think hardware makers have decided that they'd prefer to have us running for new hardware like in the days of Win9x if they can.

Don't get me wrong, I think netbook-class hardware has a valid position in the marketplace, it just shouldn't end up in the hands of people expecting to find an average performance, general purpose laptop. At face value, this seems like a criticism that should only be levelled at salespeople, but I think the manufacturers play their parts in the fiddle as well; it would be logical that when you're looking at say two HP laptops, one would have obvious labelling (say the product range name) to say that it's optimised for say "travel" / battery life, whereas another is optimised for say general purpose home use.

This too.

If I do get the wife a tablet might be something along the lines of something with a bit of balls to it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._Book_10.1"_T100TAM-C1-_-34-232-126-_-Product

Not even sure how good they are, but was just one of the things had looked at lately and hadn't researched a lot.

Still seems almost unnecessary to me though, other than being able to walk around with it vs the three that are set up.

 

[piasabird]

I went with a wireless Centrino card on the motherboard last new computer. Seems like I don't play many games. I don't have much extra money. I cut the cord on cable TV and I only watch what is on the Internet. I basically use the computer to watch TV, read E-mail, do research, and communicate with relatives and friends, shopping, etc.

I have 3 computers.

1 old one with an E7200 socket 775 on Intel Integrated Motherboard

1 slightly newer with a 2500K and no video card used to watch TV
Put this in an Antec 300 Case. It is kind of a waste of space to use a
large computer case with an ATX motherboard but it was cheaper at the
time than an ITX case and motherboard.

1 New last year with an i3 4330 also used to watch TV using a wireless card.
I put this in a Mini-ITX case so I purchased the best i3 within my money range
to take advantage of lower power rating, better IGP, and 4 Meg Cache. It runs
as good as the i5 2500k if not better.

For the next computer I think I am going to wait till Windows 10 comes out. I already purchased:
ANTEC GX500 Case (on sale) (free shipping) $49
DVD multi drive (on sale) (free shipping) $13

This new ANTEC GX500 case seems really lightweight. I think this is a bit of a trend. Only weighs about 10lbs, and I think that includes the shipping container.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129191

The front and top fan grills slide off by moving a lever and then you can clean the air filters and slide them back on. Has another filter under the bottom mounting power supply location. Also has an SSD drive mount. The DVD drives are near the top and the HD mounts are at the bottom. This makes a long video card possible. It is more case than I will ever need. Might be possible to put a radiator on top under the fan mount.

 

[Puppies04]

Slowed down.

2500K runs everything I need at 4.2Ghz with plenty of headroom left if I need to squeeze a bit more out of it. Upgraded my 560TI to a 660TI recently purely because someone offered my an alomost new one for silly money. Also upgraded my ;C drive from a 120GB SSD to a 250GB model because I was bored.

Going to end up giving this one to the wife because I don't forsee it becoming "too slow" before the upgrade itch gets too strong to bear.

 

[aigomorla]

i have majorly slowed down.

lol..

although thats only for my main machine...

ive been building a ton of ITX's which i use for office / family, as they are more fun to build then a full bloated ATX.

But my main system is a Extended ATX, i havent upgraded it outside new video cards. Im hoping the system will last until broadwell-e + windows 10, in all honesty tho.

 

[ZipSpeed]

I bought something new each year in the past, but not this year. Now, I rather spend the money on my baby girl.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Slowed down but i do want a 5960x bad