what is the average lifespan of a desktop computer ?

[lehtv]

Do all Arabs like polls for gathering opinions?

Only the ones who don't understand English well. The ones who do understand English obviously prefer normal conversation instead of polls.

 

[Joeydubbs]

I just upgraded to a 4670k from a C2D E8500 and have noticed a huge improvement. I don't see myself upgrading the processor again for at least 6-8 years.

I'm looking at a similar upgrade path. My system is coming up on 6 yrs. I delayed my rebuild since the games I play are still managable (WoW, world of tanks, skyrim...) Upgrading from vista to windows 8 a while back also breathed new life into my system....will have to wait and see if BF4 kills my C2D

 

[LurchFrinky]

Poll fail

+1
I voted 9 because nobody else did.

 

[videogames101]

2 Years and I want a new CPU.

#Broadwell

 

[sm625]

I have a PC with a 6 year old AMD 690G motherboard. It has since been upgraded to a 45nm athlon, more RAM, and an SSD. And of course a video card. I'll probably upgrade the video card to a 77xx before replacing the whole thing. My Q6600 sytem isnt much newer than that and it still runs fine for what it does.

 

[T9D]

10 years for your average user. Shoot just look at all the people who refuse to give up xp and are still on that same old computer and OS. But it still seems to be working for them. So many that Microsoft keeps moving the date to stop supporting it. Rigs have a ton of ram and disk space anymore too. Which helps go a lot longer. Usually peoples windows system goes bad from all the crap and virus's or just bloat. That's when your average person upgrades. And before what killed it was the crappy onboard graphics some people had. Onboard is getting extremely better these days. And everything can run 1080p no problem now.

3-5 years for a user that likes to do other tasks that are more intensive

2-3 years for a gamer. For me I'll update the CPU with the highest my motherboard will take and a new graphics card in 3 years. That should last me another 3 years after that.

1 year for a hardcore gamer with no self control and a bad sense of money and priories ;p

Sometimes installing the newest OS can go a long way to making your old rig feel new and run smooth. Or just being really efficient at keeping the old OS clean and tidy.

 

[ahmedelbehairy]

5 years

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

5 years

Are you being paid to undertake business polls ?

Was your last post an attempt to bias the population, and see how it affects the results (possibly implying University research) ?

What is really going on here ?

Why are ALL polls public ?

EDIT: Anyway, I vote "NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS", if you can't be bothered to use the "language" of these forums (English), and/or be clear about what is really going on here.

 

[aigomorla]

this is a total YMMV scenario...

Business: When Warrenty expires, and is no longer renewable...
Home Enthusiast: When your Bored... usually every 3 months.
Average User: When something inside breaks and the repair tech lies to you saying you need to rebuild so he can steal your old parts.

 

[Dannar26]

Why the hostility for the OP? Seems to have started some good discussions...

Have a core 2 quad myself, and a gtx260. I play skyrim, WoW, minecraft, metro 2033, so on and so forth. Nothing's maxed, but it's not pared down either. I get decent fps too...I have yet to encounter a game that is frustrating to play, or is beyond the power of my rig.

To be fair, I play in 1600x900 due to my monitor. I guess some of the ultra-enthusiasts here would jump out the basement window playing on a lower resolution with sub 60 fps... But it works for me.

I think I'm going to ride this out a bit longer, and build a better rig when star citizen comes out.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Why the hostility for the OP? Seems to have started some good discussions...

Have a core 2 quad myself, and a gtx260. I play skyrim, WoW, minecraft, metro 2033, so on and so forth. Nothing's maxed, but it's not pared down either. I get decent fps too...I have yet to encounter a game that is frustrating to play, or is beyond the power of my rig.

To be fair, I play in 1600x900 due to my monitor. I guess some of the ultra-enthusiasts here would jump out the basement window playing on a lower resolution with sub 60 fps... But it works for me.

I think I'm going to ride this out a bit longer, and build a better rig when star citizen comes out.

I have to agree, the discussion is a GOOD ONE!

The core 2 quad, and similar cpus were very good at the time they came out, offering amazing performance, relative lack of power consumption and usually/often brilliant overclockers.
Even today, they still offer somewhat competitive performance, as long as things don't get too demanding.
We are still at the Quad level max (for consumer grade Intel Cpus).

They also (motherboards etc) seem well built, and are still going perfectly, if I fire my old ones up.
The only real limit is that memory at the time tended to max out at 4 Gb (ddr2), and 8 Gb is possible, but a VERY expensive upgrade, compared to ddr3 memory (when I last checked the prices).

I find that after a computer is more than 10+ years old, it is beginning to deteriorate (especially its capacitors on the motherboard). But I sometimes hear of computers being 20+ years old, and still working just great.

 

[Blain]

Why the hostility for the OP? Seems to have started some good discussions...

Look at threads/polls created by him.

 

[VirtualLarry]

pollbot trollbot

 

[escrow4]

For what its worth my main PC runs a G1610 and a 4GB RAM. Will run it till it dies. I only splurged on my Haswell i7/280X box, just because. And next gen consoles.

 

[HeXen]

Mines a year old, but I'm getting a laptop next time, desktops are going the way of the dinosaur, slowly but surely.

 

[raildogg]

Look at threads/polls created by him.

If this is a good thread, it's a good thread. It doesn't matter about those past threads/polls.

As for how long a PC lasts, it depends. If you're an average user who games from time to time, then maybe more than 5 years. My Athlon X4 635, 4GB of RAM are still running great. Adding an SSD later and a Radeon 7850 also made this a nice system that will run for quite a while. So I've had this system for almost 3 years now and have no intention of getting a new one anytime soon.

 

[mfenn]

Let's keep the discussion focused on the topic at hand, not the OP's posting style. If you feel that his posts violate the forum guidelines, then you should use the Report Post button.

mfenn
General Hardware Moderator

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Let's keep the discussion focused on the topic at hand, not the OP's posting style. If you feel that his posts violate the forum guidelines, then you should use the Report Post button.

mfenn
General Hardware Moderator

Sorry. I seem to have got unprofessionally carried away.

Back on topic:

What exactly is the topic here ?

One title says, average age of your PC.
But the other seems to say, life expectancy (lifespan)...

what is the average age of today's PC ?
.

The lifespan of a desktop computer

I've taken it as lifespan, but some other posters seem to have taken it as age.

 

[ahmedelbehairy]

what is the average lifespan of a desktop computer ?

 

[JackMDS]

this is a total YMMV scenario...

Business: When Warrenty expires, and is no longer renewable...
Home Enthusiast: When your Bored... usually every 3 months.
Average User: When something inside breaks and the repair tech lies to you saying you need to rebuild so he can steal your old parts.

+1

Or can be anytime when someone gives me a newer Computer as a Gift.

 

[HeXen]

lol, I never knew anyone who got a computer as a gift other than my mom and wife from me of course.
I don't know anyone personally that's into computers any further than to just use a web browser and print out stuff with which is overkill for most laptops and they all seem to use them until their so gunked up and nasty that when they break, no one wants to fix it, certainly not me, if people can't keep a lappy clean and take care of it, I won't bother.
I've seen GeekSquad tell someone their better off to throw it away and get a new one when it was obvious to me the issue was software but now i'm veering off course.

 

[Charlie98]

Back on topic:

What exactly is the topic here ?

One title says, average age of your PC.
But the other seems to say, life expectancy (lifespan)...

I've taken it as lifespan, but some other posters seem to have taken it as age.

Or, in another vein...

Life expectancy vs life usefulness.

I have my 7-year old Dell Pentium D desktop upstairs... it's still alive but it's usefulness is waning as a workable computer. The fact remains that many of the components are obsolete (DDR2 RAM, Windows XP for example...) and although it is technically upgradeable, to extend it's useful lifespan, it is cost prohibitive vs just buying a new computer or upgrading my more recent i5-powered desktop (the Dell's replacement.)

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

Or, in another vein...

Life expectancy vs life usefulness.

I have my 7-year old Dell Pentium D desktop upstairs... it's still alive but it's usefulness is waning as a workable computer. The fact remains that many of the components are obsolete (DDR2 RAM, Windows XP for example...) and although it is technically upgradeable, to extend it's useful lifespan, it is cost prohibitive vs just buying a new computer or upgrading my more recent i5-powered desktop (the Dell's replacement.)

I remember in the past, that Microsoft would produce a dramatically new and better OS. E.g. Windows 3.1 vs old Dos.
But in order to move to the new OS, one had to go out and buy a new computer, because the existing one had way too little RAM, was too slow, and the graphics system was unsuitable (and expansion needed a new socket type, so changing the graphics card was NOT viable).

These days it's more like (at least in my case), waiting out with Windows 7 (and Linux etc), until Windows 9 (or whatever it's called) comes out, which is (hopefully!) worth getting.

 

[PCunicorn]

Depends on what you mean. I have a PC that's over 10 years old and still runs, but if you mean until you have to upgrade, I say 3-4 years. Let's say you build a higher end mid range rig today. GTX 760, i5 4670K, 8 GB RAM. Should last you 4 years, playing most games on higher settings. Later in the 4 year period, you will start turning settings down, at the end most games will have to be run at low. I had a GTX 260 last year, had to play BF3 on low. That was almost a 4 year old card at the time IIRC.

 

[AViking]

I bought a C2D Conroe E6400 in July of 2006 and it lasted about 5 years. I have a Sandy Bridge 2500K that I bought at release and I would expect about the same. I've had a couple other computers last 6 years. I had a MacPlus that lasted 6 years and a Quadra 610 that lasted 6 years. When the Athlon came out though everything changed and upgrades were happening all the time.

Other components have lasted much longer. I still have a 72GB raptor in my main rig as the boot drive. It's around 10 years old and running just fine. I'm going to replace it with a 120GB SSD soon though so don't worry.