Remember when there was a valid reason to upgrade your CPU every 2 years?

[Ken g6]

Actually, no. I've been upgrading my CPU on average every 5 years since 1996 or so.

Cyrix -> PII -> Athlon XP -> Core 2.

 

[ShadowVVL]

Actually, no. I've been upgrading my CPU on average every 5 years since 1996 or so. Cyrix -> PII -> Athlon XP -> Core 2.

Almost the same, 1996 Pentium dont remember which but i have it in a box somewhere. > pIII 766mgz 2001 > athlon x2 5600+ 2006 or 2007 > core 2 late 2008.

 

[bgt]

Limited budgets?

True, but I am far from being rich! I just like speedy pc's:$

 

[mikeymikec]

@ OP

I'm failing to see the relevance of AMD's lack of competitiveness with the rest of your statements. If your 2500K still does the trick for what you need, doesn't that either say something about a superior chip or the lack of demand from the software you're running (or both)?

 

[wsaenotsock]

I replaced my core 2 duo e6600 last month, and didn't really need to. Just for kicks I guess. Even though nothing was wrong it seemed like it was about due. So 2007 to 2013.


Fact is, there hasn't been any PC games come out I really like that have motivated me to upgrade. It would have to be something I would really sink a lot of time into, like a next generation mmo. Skyrim did tempt me though.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Thank you, I did miss that

Ha...so did I . Totally missed the second not.

 

[SPBHM]

there was a need for new hardware, Windows was always requiring a lot of ram, games were pushing the hardware quite hard, since around 2006-7 things slowed down quite a lot...
that's when we got more cores, dx10 and the consoles stability, also after Vista MS has been pretty conservative with their OSes.

 

[StrangerGuy]

1999 Pentium IIIs and Athlons are plenty capable of running 2002 games well enough. I still remember playing Warcraft III on a 1998 Celeron 433 + Geforce 2 MX, and it was still plenty playable in the days of 1.8GHz Athlon XPs, and the GPU was a much more critical factor. Popular games then like Counter-Strike was even less hardware intensive.

Note I'm talking about the gaming side of things, non-gamers would have much less reason to upgrade anything. The main reason the PC market was booming then is because of the rise of Internet and PCs were the only gateway then, and far less to do with performance.

 

[Vic Vega]

The only time every 2 years made sense was the mid-late 90s when things were moving fairly quick. These days not so much. The 10 year computer is a good thread on this. I have a PC I built in 2004 which will do all the same basic tasks as similar speeds as a PC built today.

 

[Cloudfire777]

I`d say people should upgrade their CPUs every 2nd year, on "Tock" since its a new architecture which gives the best performance boosts.
"Tick" is nothing more than a die shrink with marginal differences.

 

[SPBHM]

1999 Pentium IIIs and Athlons are plenty capable of running 2002 games well enough. I still remember playing Warcraft III on a 1998 Celeron 433 + Geforce 2 MX, and it was still plenty playable in the days of 1.8GHz Athlon XPs, and the GPU was a much more critical factor. Popular games then like Counter-Strike was even less hardware intensive.

Note I'm talking about the gaming side of things, non-gamers would have much less reason to upgrade anything. The main reason the PC market was booming then is because of the rise of Internet and PCs were the only gateway then, and far less to do with performance.

try playing GTA 3, BF 1942 and many other 2002 games with a Celeron 433...
even my PII at 500MHz is to slow for GTA 3... I know my P3 800 was slow on BF 1942 and not amazing on GTA 3,

even some +- 99/2000 games don't run very well on my PII 400 (pretty good CPU from 98)

 

[aaksheytalwar]

The OS has a lot to do with it. What ran Windows 3.1 efficiently struggled to run Windows 95/98. What ran 98 efficiently struggled to run XP. What ran XP efficiently struggled to run Vista. What ran Vista efficiently actually runs better with 7 and now even 8.

I agree.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I've had my i7 920 for 4 years :O

+1

 

[nenforcer]

The lack of competition from AMD is starting to show.

Where have you been the last 7 years?

 

[nenforcer]

Actually, no. I've been upgrading my CPU on average every 5 years since 1996 or so.

Cyrix -> PII -> Athlon XP -> Core 2.

You and I are on the same upgrade schedule. It's been 6 years since a Core 2 Duo and I upgraded last fall to a Core 2 Quad. When / what is your next upgrade plan?

 

[exar333]

I definitely get more excited about upgrading the gpu than I do the cpu. This i7 920 has been paired with a higher end card from both AMD and NVIDIA each generation since 2009. GTX 280, HD 5870, GTX 470 (SLI), GTX 580, HD 6950, GTX 560Ti 448 core, HD 7970, GTX 680, and GTX 670.

I guess I should mention that I did also own a 3930K for a few months, but I sold it before it dropped in value too much. The 3930K wasn't really a significant enough of an upgrade from the 920 considering the price IMO. The 3930K alone was about the same price as the 920, motherboard, and RAM. A Haswell rig may eventually replace the 920 though...

I thought the upgrade from my 920 to the 3930 was extremely noticeable. I went from 4x3.6ghz to 6x4.6ghz. The MHz speed gain, coupled with the IPC improvements made a huge difference in both encoding and gaming for poorly-threaded applications. The extra cores also are a godsend with running VMs. Extra RAM slots was also a nice bonus with socket 2011.

 

[slag]

I'm still using a 2500k @ 4.5 ghz, same clockspeed its been since I got it new at microcenter a couple years back. It plays all the games fine and is still plenty snappy. I agree with the OP, there's nothing that has come out recently that is leaps and bounds faster than what I have that necessitates needing a faster processor.

 

[jhu]

I don't upgrade, rather I repurpose older hardware.

 

[Cloudfire777]

This thread is sad. Not many enthusiast here I see. I buy new hardware each year just because its new hardware :biggrin:

 

[slag]

This thread is sad. Not many enthusiast here I see. I buy new hardware each year just because its new hardware :biggrin:

I used to do that. If I bought new hardware for all my hobbies every time something new came out, I'd be spending money on metal detecting, boating, new trucks, computers, hot tubs, 4 wheelers, etc.

No money to do all that and what I have is stable so no need to spend money I don't have/need to spend.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Desktops are officially boring old news. No major improvements coming for the high-end.

If you want excitement in this industry get into Mobile Devices.

 

[tigersty1e]

since when was there a valid reason to upgrade every 2 years?

cpus have always been 3-4 years. gpus were 1.5-2 years.


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[Zap]

True, but I am far from being rich! I just like speedy pc's:$

Yup. We all have our poisons.

Last year I built a computer for one of my aunts. Her old system was probably 8 years old. She would have kept on using it, but it started having problems. Why was she using such an old system? Could she not afford to buy a new one? Nope. For her a computer is just another device or tool, like her home telephone, or her old CRT television (she hardly watches anything anyways). What's her poison? Traveling! She is always traveling around the world. That's her passion, and that's what she spends money on.

I know people who spend all their money on their car. I know people who spend all their money to go out all the time (food, bars, entertainment). I know someone who puts all his money into investment properties, and he's a gamer too but he's still using a computer I built for him maybe 5 years ago, with one upgrade since then (IIRC video card because old one was dying). I used to know people who spent all their discretionary income on alcohol.

Me? Computers. I enjoy it. It keeps me out of trouble. TCO is lowered a bit by selling off old parts.

 

[cytg111]

I went from a Core i7 965X to 975X, to 2500K, to 2600K and now to a 3570K. :\

I'm actually really glad I upgraded from socket 1366, but since then they were not much upgrades as much as me finding deals or getting bored with what I had.

Damn man! I have this rule of thumb, I wont upgrade to anything less than a 100% performance increase.. Guess your number is closer to 5%

 

[tweakboy]

Updating from a 486x DX 50Mhz or it had turbo 100Mhz lol ,,, upgrade cost 2k ... Asus P2B motherboard, onboard SCSI Cheetah 4.5GB scsi 10k rpm drive lol, Pentium 2 450Mhz ,, I could OC it to 504Mhz but UT99 wasnt stable LOL