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Upgrade often, but cheap, or buy big for the long haul?

VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Wondering if anyone has done a study on this yet.

Would it be better to buy an i3-level CPU every few generations, or buy the biggest, fastest chip available, and hold on to them as long as possible?

Has anyone actually run the TCO numbers?
 
I hope someone does run the numbers because I've been betting on long-term and like having decent performance up front that lasts a while (at least seven years with these modern multi-core systems).
 
VirtualLarry said:
Wondering if anyone has done a study on this yet.

Would it be better to buy an i3-level CPU every few generations, or buy the biggest, fastest chip available, and hold on to them as long as possible?

Has anyone actually run the TCO numbers?
Click to expand...

What is "a few generations", pleople that has a SB I3, can probably upgrade to Skylake now, and thats is a solid a 4-year life cycle, i whould call that acceptable.

And to be honest with you, a have a 2500K, if i had a I3-2100 i whould probably never even noticed it.

It really depends on what you use the pc for, and even in gaming it depends in the video card, and thats where i do prefer to go big, for example a 6-year old HD5870 can still game like a GTX750TI, i just cant say the same about a HD5670.

So you can go small on cpu, as long you dont go too small.
 
for CPU it might make sense to buy something like a 5820K and keep it for 5 years+ (like an i7 920 can still beat i3s on a lot of things), for GPUs I think you have to upgrade more often...
 
I would agree with long haul for cpu. Progress is slow, and a new one can last several years. Plus you have the enjoyment of a better product.

GPU, I would try to not purchase until the new 14/16 nm products come out.
 
I like to buy high end stuff anyway for myself, but as for the question I think high end works out better in my situation anyway as I pass my stuff down and it becomes my little boy's machine after I upgrade.
 
Something in between.

I feel that often people are using the "long term" as an excuse to indulge in the high end where you pay 2-3x as much per unit of performance. But they are of course enthusiasts who will upgrade just as frequently as they have always done regardless.
 
SPBHM said:
for CPU it might make sense to buy something like a 5820K and keep it for 5 years+ (like an i7 920 can still beat i3s on a lot of things), for GPUs I think you have to upgrade more often...
Click to expand...

I have an i7 920 over 6 years old and was curious as to how it compared to modern chips. I don't know how relevant Passmark is to the programs that you might be using, but the i7 920 scores 4990. The Haswell i3's score form 4792 (i3 4130) to 5573 (i3 4370). The newer chips come with graphics processors, however. Of course the Skylake i3's should be out soon and will likely do better. If you started with an i3 6 years ago, I think you would have had to change motherboards twice over that period, and now a third time for Skylake. I'll have one motherboard upgrade when I upgrade to a Skylake i7 this year.
 
Depends on what you are going to do with it... if it's a general purpose PC, I would buy for longevity... in a gamer the long CPU/short GPU turnaround is basically correct.

Since I built my first 2500K machine, there have been 2 socket upgrades, so updating the CPU would have been fairly costly, vs just updating the GPU. My 2500K-powered GAME rig was a reasonable gamer 2 years ago with the GTX760, and continues to soldier on with the upgraded GTX970, with no other upgrades needed. As far as my desktop PC, I don't see it's 2500K coming up short anytime soon.
 
Bearmann said:
I have an i7 920 over 6 years old and was curious as to how it compared to modern chips. I don't know how relevant Passmark is to the programs that you might be using, but the i7 920 scores 4990. The Haswell i3's score form 4792 (i3 4130) to 5573 (i3 4370). The newer chips come with graphics processors, however. Of course the Skylake i3's should be out soon and will likely do better. If you started with an i3 6 years ago, I think you would have had to change motherboards twice over that period, and now a third time for Skylake. I'll have one motherboard upgrade when I upgrade to a Skylake i7 this year.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the big strength of the 920 was that it could overclock like a boss. Very low 2.66 ghz stock speed with the potential of 3.6-4.0 ghz overclocks.
 
To me, it depends upon what you are attempting to do and whether new chipset features are of any interest to you (USB 3.1, M.2, NvMe, etc) or any CPU features are relevant(AVX stuff for example)

Personally, on my main computer, I went "big" a bit over three years ago with a 3930k. Nothing from a "pure" performance standpoint has interested me. The only feature that I'm somewhat wanting is NvMe bootability from PCIe.

But, the tinker side of me has gone for three NUCs in the past year 😉
 
Truthfully a lot of this is going to depend upon what is available in the market at the time and how technology advances. For instance, no one scored a bigger win than those who bought into the X58 platform and bought an "overpriced" i7 980X that overclocked well back in 2010. Sure people have been upgrading those X58s with cheaply available Xeons now for the past little bit, but those original 980X buyers have had that performance available to them for over five years. While it's been outpaced by X79 and X99, to this day it's still a very viable system.
 
It makes more sense to buy the biggest chip available. A Sandy Bridge i7-2600 (no K) would have cost about $500-550 for CPU+Mobo in most cases. An i3+ budget mobo is about 200-220. If you upgrade from a "Bridge" i3 to a Haswell one, you're talking savings of about 1000-150, but much less performance in the end, and the hassle of new mobos and selling off/ repurposing your old items.
 
Larry my man, I go to your posts when i'm looking for cheap replacements for relatives PCs. However, I think that for what you are truly looking for, it makes a lot more sense to go for the second from the top. For example, in sandy bridge time, 2600k instead of 2700k. Now maybe the 4790k instead of 6700k (budget depending of course, and whether or not it makes sense, do you have a micro-center, etc).

I do not think it makes sense for a main usage PC to go budget with the intent of buying every couple of years to replace. I bought my 2700k PC parts going on 5 years ago. @ 4.6Ghz, the then halo part is still competitive. Will a 6700k beat it? Obviously. Would it be worth it for me to switch however? Probably not. I have mine undervolted as it is, and only REAL gains I would get are via chipset, but I single card game only.

People who got their x58 platforms coming up on SEVEN years ago, are still often times doing fine, and depending on what they do, not looking for or needing an upgrade anytime soon. Can you say that about buying the Pentiums, celerons, or i3's of the same era? Probably not. I truly believe that you save money by getting the high end (but not the highest!).

I think you should buy for what you need. If you need an office PC, get an i3 with 8gb. If you are getting a gaming / photoshop / workstation / high usage power needed, get an i7 4790k, 5820k, 6700k, depending on your needs, and you will be good for quite some time. (As it stands, according to current pace, upwards of 5 years).

Video cards on the other hand you can often skimp out on, as buying the mid tier usually loses you 10-20%, at a 50%+ reduction in cost. That I can live with a more frequent upgrade cycle.
 
I bought a 2700K 4 years ago and it's still going strong today. I've been running it at 5 GHz, and at that speed, it's still faster than the CPUs in the vast majority of pre-built systems today.

I'd say that's pretty good value for money considering it cost about $300 4 years ago. Even upgrading to a Skylake i7-6700K would not be much of an upgrade today.
 
You forgot the middle option. Buy medium and upgrade somewhere in between cheap and enthusiast. i5 and gtx 970, upgrade very few years.
 
Also maybe there is some value to the fun experience you get for upgrading itself.

It's pretty nice to be able to open a fresh new computer part and set aside some time to dig in and clean out the dust and perform an upgrade of the CPU (assuming drop-in replacement to existing mobo+RAM) or GPU.

So I'm more favorable toward more frequent upgrading, to get good performance over time while saving money and getting the fun of upgrading more frequently.
 
There has been a trend in the amount of RAM you should put in a computer. In the past 20 years it is typical that new software and new operating systems need a lot more RAM to run properly that what Microsoft will suggest as a minimum. Usually 4 times more or even more than that depending on the task you are performing.

So taking a long-haul approach, More RAM may be a benefit even if that more RAM does not seem to be needed at the time.

I have never wished I had purchased a weaker lower end processor or Less RAM.
 
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It seems like an awful lot of older computers with Core 2 Duo processors are capable of having a really long life cycle. Call it the secondary owner market. Whether it is just giving your old computers to family members or donating them for charity or possibly re purposing the computer as a backup device.

Maybe NASA has some advice.

The longer you keep computer parts the more likely they will malfunction leaving you stranded with no replacement parts.
 
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VirtualLarry said:
Wondering if anyone has done a study on this yet.

Would it be better to buy an i3-level CPU every few generations, or buy the biggest, fastest chip available, and hold on to them as long as possible?

Has anyone actually run the TCO numbers?
Click to expand...

Neither. It's better to get an i5-level chip and upgrade every two years.

The fastest chips are never a good value unless you absolutely need the performance. The slowest chips will cost you in productivity.
 
Rakehellion said:
Neither. It's better to get an i5-level chip and upgrade every two years.

The fastest chips are never a good value unless you absolutely need the performance. The slowest chips will cost you in productivity.
Click to expand...

It's probably not a good strategy once you add in the cost of the additional motherboards.

A low end strategy can work in a undemanding environment, like the office. I only need to surf the net and run Word. I get a long life out of an i3 in this environment.
 
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