How many CPU upgrades do you make (or can afford) in a year?

[Regs]

Lets see. This year I went from a Intel 700 Mhz Celeron -- (mobo change)-> AMD 1800+ 1.53Ghz -->AMD 2500+ 1.85 Ghz Barton.

And in a few months I'm going to have to buy the nforce 3 and the Athlon 64!

 

[Detselom]

once a year is enough

 

[bgeh]

1/2 a year=once every 2 years
maybe i'll get once a year if i save more

 

[Jeff7181]

I'd like to say once a year... but it turns out when I look back, I make a change about every 3 months.

Mostly because I stay just behind the leaders... this XP2500 I bought was the most expensive processor I ever bought, for $137.

I tend to buy slightly outdated stuff, and sell my old stuff while I can still get a reasonable amount for it. That way I don't have to come up with 6 or 7 hundred bucks all at once.

*EDIT* I was tempted to give P4's a shot this last time, since I was replacing my processor, motherboard, and ram all at the same time. But I'm not too up to date on Intel hardware, especially CPU stepping info and quality motherboards, so I think that's the determining factor on why I chose the XP2500 and nForce2. Plus 1 GB of RAM... all that ended up costing $380, minus about $80 that I'll get for my old CPU and motherboard, minus another $30 I already got for my old RAM. So it ended up costing me $270 for the XP2500, A7N8X, and 1 GB of PC2700 RAM.

 

[SinfulWeeper]

I usually get a new system up every 4-6 months. Depends on the pricing schedule for which brand. As of late, AMD wants a lot for their cycles. So I am stuck with Intel as the brand. I more prefered their pricing schedule in the t-bird days. But those are long over .

 

[pspada]

Yup, just about every 3 months I replace most components - not all at the same time, tho.

 

[Jadow]

I try to upgrade once every 18 months. However I think I'll stretch it out longer this time, I want to wait till PCI Express comes out and takes over.

 

[Chrisdragon]

Once a year or so

 

[THUGSROOK]

once a month ~ its not always an upgrade tho

 

[chsh1ca]

To give you an idea, my current processor is a 1.2GHz TBird, and I JUST upgraded my motherboard so that I can upgrade my processor (I'm too poor to be able to just upgrade all at once, so I stage them). So Motherboard + RAM last month, this month I'm going to get a new case + PSU, and then next month I'll be picking up (I'm hoping) an Athlon XP 2200+. My plan is to then make my 1.2GHz thunderbird turn into my Parent's 600MHz Duron and buy a cheap board for it so I can turn it into a more powerful home dev server than I have already.

When I got my 1.2GHz TBird, in about 18 months (when I had cash to spare), I upgraded 5 times:
Cyrix 686/166 -> K6-2/400 -> K6-2/500 -> Duron 600 -> 1.2GHz Thunderbird. The K6-2/400 -> 500 was a motherboard upgrade as well, and family got my hand-me-downs.

 

[pspada]

I just realized what the simple answer to this is: "Not enough"! :frown:

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: pspada
I just realized what the simple answer to this is: "Not enough"! :frown:

let's see....

i'd have to say that i upgrade my cpu once between feb 2001 to january 2003....

but since january 2003, i've upgraded cpus almost 3 x per month

i know thugs prolly would too if p4's were as cheap as these 1700+'s... right thugs???

 

[THUGSROOK]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim

Originally posted by: pspada
I just realized what the simple answer to this is: "Not enough"! :frown:

let's see....

i'd have to say that i upgrade my cpu once between feb 2001 to january 2003....

but since january 2003, i've upgraded cpus almost 3 x per month

i know thugs prolly would too if p4's were as cheap as these 1700+'s... right thugs???

yep ~ id be buying one from every vendor looking for those magic numbers

 

[RWalker2]

well since ive been aware of computers, its been about every 2 years... 450mhz PII --> 900mhz Tbird --> 2100+ .. i wish i could do it more often but im 16 and saving for a car, so until that i cant get anything Hopefully next yr i'll pick up a cheap Barton tho.

 

[maxSe]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
once a month ~ its not always an upgrade tho

I did this trying to keep up with THUGS and ErikaeanLogic (there're more, but these 2 were main culprits... ), until I realized I needed to eat...

 

[Actaeon]

I usually try to remove any bottlenecks in my system. Next up is Videocard. Then probally harddrive afterwards, then who knows what...

 

[Shimmishim]

videocard huh?

yeah... i went from a geforce2 gts 32 meg to a geforce4 ti4200 128 meg ... didn't upgrade for... 2 years

ti4200 is enough for most games anyway especially with the speed i am running my chip at so... yeah

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: bgeh
1/2 a year=once every 2 years
maybe i'll get once a year if i save more

I dont need pure mhz and ultimate pushing power. Even 12 months ago when I upgraded to xp1800+/GF4, my Slot A Athlon 700 and 64mb Kyro II were doing the job for me. (640*480*16, most options off, slight frame lag on some games.... I dont mind, i play online games with a 56k modem so I already have the 200-400 ping adjust )

 

[amoralist]

i am upgrading every summer. but last year i upgraded just the cpu during the winter. like some others have said, it helps if your old stuff is still useful so you can sell it to help pay the cost of the new stuff. that said, i never buy top of the line. this summer i would like the hyperthreading cpu but no way am i paying twice for cpu that gives me much less than twice the performance. i mean, if i made 50K per year it would be a different story. i'll be getting 2.4 400fsb and seeing if it overclocks to 3ghz+ on 533fsb.

 

[passign]

not often


i went from a geforce ddr 256 to a geforce 4 128meg


and a 1 ghz thundercat to a 2700+


so I always double my performance or better

 

[beatle]

Originally posted by: passign
and a 1 ghz thundercat to a 2700+

Thunder... thunder... thundercats! HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Sorry, couldn't resist.

I upgrade about every 2 years or so. Went from a tbird running @ 1266 w/a 32 meg GF2 GTS to a 1700+ running @ 2.2, w/a 64 meg ti4200. I would probably consider jumping on a Barton CPU down the road that overclocks well if the price is right.

 

[infinite012]

If the price is right, I upgrade every 3 to 5 months when necessary. In the past 4 months I have upgrade:
1) 1.4 GHz TBird -> XP 1700+ A -> XP 1700+ B (these 2 went in 1 week)
2) GeForce2 MX200 64MB -> Radeon 7000 VE 32MB -> Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB
3) PC CHIPS M817LMR -> Asus A7N8X Deluxe
4) 12x DVD ROM & 12x CD Burner -> 32x/16x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive

I think that's it....? LOL!

 

[Detselom]

pcchips motherboards, YUCK. I feel your pain. Those sucked ass.

 

[jpetermann]

Ummm, I lost count... :Q

 

[pspada]

Originally posted by: Detselom
pcchips motherboards, YUCK. I feel your pain. Those sucked ass.

Yup, they sure did. But it could have been worse, you might have had a Packard Bell.......:evil: