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what is the average lifespan of a desktop computer ?

The lifespan of a desktop computer

  • 1 year

  • 2 years

  • 3 years

  • 4 years

  • 5 years

  • 6 years

  • 7 years

  • 8 years

  • 9 years

  • 10 years

Results are only viewable after voting.
When I was a gamer, 2 years.

Since gaming industry has turned into money sucking industry and there has been very little to NONE progression in games and ESPECIALLY GRAPHICS.....I honestly can't see myself building a new rig/desktop for MANY years to come.

To top it off, even though games are not really progressing from a graphics perspective the requirements to play those games keep going up and up. Almost as if Software/Development is supporting Hardware makers.

DLC crap has a lot to do with it and fact that almost every game maker keeps recycling the same crap over and over with a "new name" and few extra features.

Not worth it.

Or maybe, I'm just getting old......
 
hmm prob at least 6yrs but I think general consumer desktops are gonna be extinct, soon. I'm still using my Q6600 with HD5870 and a SSD. No need to upgrade even with light gaming that I do. I do get the itch a lot to build a complete new system - but I know it'll be a waste of money.
 
At this point, infinite. A Core2 still surpasses the need of 95% of the population's general needs. The industry has compensated with increasingly inefficient software.
 
I am still using my unlocked Phenom II 550 and GTX 460 I got in early 2010. Haven't seen any need to upgrade. About to get 4 years out of it, easily, plays FF14 perfectly.
 
I upgraded this year to an i7-4770K and Radeon 7970 from a AMD Phenom 2 965 and Radeon 6870. I definitely noticed a major improvement when playing GW2 especially when in Lions Arch with the new set up. It worked out to be 4 years. I used to upgrade every couple, but like someone said earlier, games haven't been progressing enough, so I was able to put it off an extra 2 years.
 
Mine? 18 - 24 months. Usually right when my rig is going to two generations behind, I build a new one from scratch and give my PC to one of my uncles or cousins. I would think most non gamers would be in the 5+ year range. My mom had me look at her friend's Mac Mini because she was having a problem installing flash...it was an original Mac Mini G4 from 2005, yet she was still using it every day. I think the only time regular people get new computers is when they think its broken in some way, but slow isn't broke so they deal with it.

I may just get a video card this next round.
 
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Well I think the life span is going to increase because in the last several years there have no dramatic improvements. A top of the line PC from 2009 can still run pretty much any of today's games and applications. A PC from 2004 however, would have had a hard time running the latest games in 2008.
 
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Bacstar said:
I upgraded this year to an i7-4770K and Radeon 7970 from a AMD Phenom 2 965 and Radeon 6870. I definitely noticed a major improvement when playing GW2 especially when in Lions Arch with the new set up. It worked out to be 4 years. I used to upgrade every couple, but like someone said earlier, games haven't been progressing enough, so I was able to put it off an extra 2 years.
Click to expand...

I still have my Radeon 6870. Sadly, there still isn't anything twice as fast as that card in the $200 price range two years after I bought it!
 
"Lifespan" infers that it will die - or at the very least no longer function.

Are you asking how long we typically go before upgrading? Because I do a bit of a constant rolling upgrade when I have some cash.
 
5 years between new system builds, 1 cpu/chipset generation skipped. But I have computers that are 12 years old that will still boot/work.
Strangely, most of my new builds hover around the month of September. 2001, 2007, and 2012.
 
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I built a midrange gaming desktop in 2009 (Phenom II X3, Radeon HD4870, 6GB RAM) and I'm still using it today. Sure, I have to turn down the detail settings a little in some games, but it doesn't bother me.

Due to the high cost of new games, I've been getting mostly older games on Steam - the prices are super low, and the system requirements are light.

I added an SSD last year for about $120. I don't see myself ditching this PC unless I experience significant hardware failure.
 
My parents are using my P4 3.0 that I bought in 2/2002. My wife's laptop is going on year 5 and works fine. I would be using a laptop from the same era except that it crapped out earlier this year.

In fact, the computer I just bought for my folks is a Core 2 Quad something or other. Should be fine for many years.
 
Since the Pentium 2 days, the active operation of past motherboards were on a two to three year cycle, with the KT133, KT133A, and Athlon XP days. Now, not so much.

A Core 2 Quad machine with 6GB of RAM I once had (before passing it off to my dad) still is very capable. That machine I expect to give a good run for almost a decade, maybe more now since computing power is not pushing any extreme performance boundaries as of late.

Current Core i7 HTPC and a PC workstation I have definitely would last for years to come, considering both have 32GB of RAM, a 8 threaded CPU, and all modern interconnects - assuming the computer industry isn't being fickle again and changing standards quickly.
 
Depends what you're using it for. My 2008 MacBook still does everything I need it to do and it's still going. General office work and light photo and video editing. Computers reached the "good enough" point around when Intel launched the Core 2. That's part of why desktop sales are tanking. Most people use them to just surf the web, watch videos, and play Candy Crush.

ultimatebob said:
I still have my Radeon 6870. Sadly, there still isn't anything twice as fast as that card in the $200 price range two years after I bought it!
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I've been holding out for. Still rocking dual 6850s in crossfire. I've been using the same mobo since 2009. DDR2 and all. No major issues with gaming unless it's a sloppy, poorly optimized console port. I probably will upgrade the core components (CPU, mobo, RAM) sometime in 2014.
 
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