The 10 year plan computer

[Outback Bronze]

It's totally possible if you buy the right hardware.

Yeah, Cpu and Mobo's prob doable but GPU would be the hard part. 980ti is the best card closest to 10 years. Released June 2nd 2015

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I have 4790k system @4.6 is still going strong... Still gpu bottlenecked at 4k in everything I do ... No reason to change it, probably till 2032 but we'll see...

Right.

May I ask you what GPU are you using for gaming at 4K with this CPU and what FPS are you getting in what games?

EDIT: I just realised that 4K gaming monitor with variable FPS is probably not a very budget friendly solution and fixed 60 FPS monitor is unusable for gaming, unless the PC has enough performance to always sustain 60 FPS. So I would also like to know, what monitor are you using?

 

[#22]

I think that anybody who can afford highend pc should do it, because it will always serve you better than anything you could bought then. But the thing is, imo it's only for ones who wouldn't feel too bad if it got obsoleted soon. You wouldn't cry then, because you can easily afford replacement and even somehow would be happy to upgrade. It's kinda universal thing with just not getting things their price make you too afraid about them.

Ofc I mean rationally highend one. E.g with 14700K and 4090, everything nice, nothing what could be considered as budget, but not 9845686 MT/s RAM and Godlike board.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

If I was to build a 10 year old high end pc it would have 980ti which would still very much be useable today in my most humblest of opinions.

View attachment 342908
The above chart is somethign I just put together looking at performance of graphics cards you can purchase new (admittedly the 6000 series ones listed are new old stock with very limited stock) as found on a single etailer (OCUK). Price is in ££.
The `position` figure is taken from the Techpowerup graphics cards GPU database x 100 to bring the figure into a similar graph to the price (so a 4090 is position 1000, 7700XT position 450). The graph does not take into account RT.

As you can see the position is fairly linear with a few hiccups here and thereand even the price isnt far out being linear until you get to the elephant in the room that is the 4090.

There is no 4080 as I could not find any on the books from OCUK. I have not included second hand cards as prices are quite variable and its not a fair comparison to a new card price in my opinion.


The point of this graph is to show that for GPUs there isnt this steep incline of price v performance before a plateau of diminishing returns as much as some might think. Tghe price only graqph looks interesting as it climbs, flattens then climbs and flattens with nVidia hittiong the peaks followed by AMDs slight troughs. All this tells us what we already know - you pay a premium for the nVidia badge, which some may say is off set by how superior they are in RT and in most cases in power use.

View attachment 342911


I know some shops may be a little cheaper or more expensive and some models again may be more expensive brands but essentially a 4070 is a 4070 whether its an ASUS or a Powercolor. The difference just isnt enough for this graph (again in my opinion).

You aren't on the same page as I am...let me explain.

I assumed that the goal was to build a PC in 2014, with 2014 pricing, with the goal of seeing what it'd be in 2024. That's a 10 year plan PC....and I assumed that the current budget of $3000 would roughly match to what you could have spent then. The pricing, as such, was MSRP for the goods. The 980 was outside of the pricing range for your $3000 build....as the basic math demonstrated. You could squeeze a little more out by foregoing the SSD ($1 per GB was painful), and maybe you could cheap out on the PSU...but even if you somehow waited on the 980 it's a pretty crap card in 2024 where a $300 investment can get you....drum roll please....a 3060. If random benchmarks are to be believed, about 60% faster of a card for roughly the same price as one step down (not inflation adjusted).

Now, imagine instead of Haswell-e you bought Sandy Bridge, then something in the 8000 series from Intel. You'd gain hyperthreadding on standard platforms, better wireless, more cores, better PCI-e, better hardware accelerated video decode, and a plethora of other stuff that was completely inconsequential for a HEDT platform. That said....a gaming station under the mask of a HEDT platform is silly expensive...



My point is still that a 10 year build sucks...even when you have maximum spend. When you are trying to save money it sucks doubly. When you're trying to build it out of spares in the area, want it to last a decade, and expect it to not be miserable by the time it's put to pasture you're thrice damned. Take it from someone who loved his 3930k...until SATA II became a slow interconnect, who had to disable hyperthreadding due to some instability, and was frustrated by having high end everything to compete with middle end hardware after three years. Two 5 year plans>>one ten year plan. A decade in PC hardware is just too long to be strapped to hardware....because even 1.08^5 is a 47% increase...and that's assuming an 8% increase every 2 years. If you get something like Zen1 -> Zen 3 it's a whole different level of depressing.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yeah, Cpu and Mobo's prob doable but GPU would be the hard part. 980ti is the best card closest to 10 years. Released June 2nd 2015

10 Year old GPU but CP2077 is in its 4th year (Dec 2020), so realistically the game is only 7 years older than the 980Ti

If you want to see what 10 years of damage does to a GPU, here you go:

I think there's a third-party vulkan mod that works around mesh shaders compatible with version 1.1.6 of the game, and it's aparently a 30-60% improvement in FPS, depending on the scene, which takes it from "unplayable" to "cinematic", I guess.

 

[#22]

We are not far from 780 Ti. Or 690. Is here anybody willing to share with us wonderful memories of owning those cards? Press F to Pay Respects

 

[DaemonForce]

Take it from someone who loved his 3930k...until SATA II became a slow interconnect, who had to disable hyperthreadding due to some instability, and was frustrated by having high end everything to compete with middle end hardware after three years.

Fffhahahahaha this one spoke to me.
My first and last taste of hyperthreading was the Pentium 4 Prescott. Absolute workhorse paired with DDR-500 but the moment a single thread 32-bit app goes rogue, CPU pinned at 50% and I can hear the fans slightly dip in speed like a MASSIVE current is suddenly being drawn. Yeah no, I skipped the entire Core lineup of Intel CPUs over that. Now that I look back at it, that was most likely the absolute garbage that was lunching power supplies every few months, eventually stabilizing out to every few years. I still have a 460W throwaway somewhere that somehow ONLY works with that system. Also that was from 2004. JFC what a nightmare.

We are not far from 780 Ti. Or 690. Is here anybody willing to share with us wonderful memories of owning those cards? Press F to Pay Respects

Is that closer to the 290X that I passed up or my RX 580? Hard to tell at this point.

 

[Deleted member 239770]

10 years is stupid.
Unless you play nothing newer than around 5 years.

Speaking of though....

I think it is stupid as a rule of thumb but the 9 year old 980 Ti can run the new Horizon game decently, but it can't run Alan Wake 2.

This GPU's ability to play games is mediocre at best.

EDIT....

2022 game, so nope.avi

 

[#22]

Is that closer to the 290X that I passed up or my RX 580? Hard to tell at this point.

All were similarly performant, but I mentioned both Nvidias due to them being flaghips not far from 980Ti (OP brought here as an example of card doing fine after almost ten years), but aged way poorer with getting low on VRAM in just a year or two and then not supporting DX12.

 

[freeagent]

It can work. He said he wants to play all of the games that are out now right? He will get a few years of comfort..

 

[Outback Bronze]

so realistically the game is only 7 years older than the 980Ti

It's actually only 5.5 years. Just goes to show that even a 5-year plan on a GPU is pushing it.

These older cards actually need DLSS and in retrospect these newer cards might actually have a chance of surviving because of this technology.

Time will tell.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Food for thought for the OP.

 

[Desktopstu]

So… forget the 10 year plan a moment, and park the graphics card choice, what other hardware would likely have the longest lifespan? The new Intel platform or AM5?
What ram would you chose to have the longest lifespan?
what PSU would you chose?
what hard drive?

 

[silentbogo]

So… forget the 10 year plan a moment, and park the graphics card choice, what other hardware would likely have the longest lifespan? The new Intel platform or AM5?
What ram would you chose to have the longest lifespan?
what PSU would you chose?
what hard drive?

PSU: anything with 10 year warranty. Personally I lean towards higher-end Seasonic (got me an SSR-550FX, which so far clocked almost 5y 24/7 with zero issues), but there are many more choices that fit the requirement.
HDD: there are no modern HDDs that will last that long, including enterprise offerings. And they break/degrade wa-a-a-y faster than old PMR drives. Just get a good TLC SSD with 5 year warranty and go from there. Samsung would be my choice, but also I had very good luck with higer-tier ADATA offerings. Had a 1TB SX8200 for over 5 years, before I upgraded to 2TB Legend almost 3 years ago.
RAM: same thing. Just read reviews and see what's good. Personally I wouldn't chase high mt/s figures.

And on topic of your 10-year plan: forget about it. If you want it to last 10 years and at least be semi-relevant throughout, you need to go with HEDT platforms, which are ridiculously expensive.
The closest I've gotten to that mark was with my X58 PC, which I built at the end of 2009 for approximately $1500 and retired in 2016. And that was only possible due to Westmere Xeons, triple-channel RAM and ridiculous overclocking possibilities. Nowadays you can't get any of that. for adequate $$$.

And if you just want your PC to serve as long as possible, just go with freshest offerings for AM5 platform. Heck, my AM4 rig is still not maxed out, and it'll probably catch up or even beat my good-ole LGA1366 in a couple of years. I'm saving up some cash for R9 5950X3D for this year's upgrade, and maybe a new GPU next year(depending on what gets released).

 

[Chrispy_]

So… forget the 10 year plan a moment, and park the graphics card choice, what other hardware would likely have the longest lifespan? The new Intel platform or AM5?
What ram would you chose to have the longest lifespan?
what PSU would you chose?
what hard drive?

AM5 is supported until 2026, possibly longer, but AMD have promised they'll stick on AM5 throughout 2025, and just like now - they're still releasing AM4 chips 18+ months into AM5's lifecycle.

LGA1700 is dead next-gen. It's already on it's last legs as Intel recycle AlderLake for the third iteration, which is one more 'generation' than Intel typically last for. I guess the reason it's 3 'generations' this time is because 14th Gen is a lie, it's just 13th gen silicon in every way with a new label on the box.

I think this thread mostly agrees that getting a CPU or GPU to remain relevant for 10 years is fruitless, but you can get a decent AM5 platform and go for a few years with your first CPU and GPU, and then when AM5 finally gets dropped (probably 2027 or 2028) you can get whatever the flagship chip is that will fit in your motherboard.

Same rule for graphics cards - buy something sensible for your games, settings, and monitor you have right now without overspending, and replace the GPU when it starts to disappoint you. It might be 2 GPUs over 3 years, or it might be 3+ GPUs. The point is to not overspend because new features will leave previous generations behind and you'll miss out on stuff.

• Get a good PSU, probably 1000W to give you some headroom. Corsair RM1000e seems like a reasonable option with good reviews.
  
  
• Get a Good 2TB primary SSD like a WD SN850X for your OS and games, then in a few years when your library of installed games gets too big, plug a 4TB SSD into the next M.2 slot and migrate your games library to that (many launchers support multiple libraries and Steam is great at moving games between them).
  
  
• Get sweet-spot RAM today, which for a 7800X3D is DDR5-6000-CL30 with an EXPO profile. Yes, the next CPU might be able to use faster RAM, but you're only going to be missing out on a couple of percent by using slower RAM. My experience with AM4 is that DDR4-3600 was the sweet spot but putting new CPUs in older systems with 6-year-old DDR4-3000 RAM is within 5% on average.

This is just my opinion but I think a decent midrange board with good case, PSU, SSD can carry you through at least 1 major CPU upgrade and several GPUs.

 

[dgianstefani]

AM5 is supported until 2026, possibly longer, but AMD have promised they'll stick on AM5 throughout 2025, and just like now - they're still releasing AM4 chips 18+ months into AM5's lifecycle.

LGA1700 is dead next-gen. It's already on it's last legs as Intel recycle AlderLake for the third iteration, which is one more 'generation' than Intel typically last for. I guess the reason it's 3 'generations' this time is because 14th Gen is a lie, it's just 13th gen silicon in every way with a new label on the box.

I think this thread mostly agrees that getting a CPU or GPU to remain relevant for 10 years is fruitless, but you can get a decent AM5 platform and go for a few years with your first CPU and GPU, and then when AM5 finally gets dropped (probably 2027 or 2028) you can get whatever the flagship chip is that will fit in your motherboard.

Same rule for graphics cards - buy something sensible for your games, settings, and monitor you have right now without overspending, and replace the GPU when it starts to disappoint you. It might be 2 GPUs over 3 years, or it might be 3+ GPUs. The point is to not overspend because new features will leave previous generations behind and you'll miss out on stuff.

• Get a good PSU, probably 1000W to give you some headroom. Corsair RM1000e seems like a reasonable option with good reviews.
  
  
• Get a Good 2TB primary SSD like a WD SN850X for your OS and games, then in a few years when your library of installed games gets too big, plug a 4TB SSD into the next M.2 slot and migrate your games library to that (many launchers support multiple libraries and Steam is great at moving games between them).
  
  
• Get sweet-spot RAM today, which for a 7800X3D is DDR5-6000-CL30 with an EXPO profile. Yes, the next CPU might be able to use faster RAM, but you're only going to be missing out on a couple of percent by using slower RAM. My experience with AM4 is that DDR4-3600 was the sweet spot but putting new CPUs in older systems with 6-year-old DDR4-3000 RAM is within 5% on average.

This is just my opinion but I think a decent midrange board with good case, PSU, SSD can carry you through at least 1 major CPU upgrade and several GPUs.

It's not relevant if LGA-1700 has no future upgrade options because if you read the thread, OP has stated he isn't building until 2025.

Hence Arrow Lake with a new socket, or Zen 5 which is possibly the second last generation on AM5, since AMD have promised support till at least 2025/Zen 6.

Zen 6 sounds good from leaks, so does Arrow Lake. Not sure I'd want to build a new Zen 5 build since it's the same twin chiplet plus IO die design, the active interposer from TSMC (Foveros equivalent) isn't coming till Zen 6.

 

[Arco]

So… forget the 10 year plan a moment, and park the graphics card choice, what other hardware would likely have the longest lifespan? The new Intel platform or AM5?
What ram would you chose to have the longest lifespan?
what PSU would you chose?
what hard drive?

As a side note get a decent chipset/motherboard with a PCIE5.0 x16 slot.

I'm not sure if they will pull some BS like last time with the storage on the motherboards "not being enough" but that is to be seen.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

The new Intel platform or AM5?

The new Intel platform comes this winter. Who knows how it will look in comparison with AM5 (or AM5+)?

And how the new CPUs are going to perform?

 

[A Computer Guy]

Another thought I had...."dead" platforms or "no future update" platforms will more likely be available with discounts among their parts. Sometimes less is more and paying less will give you a better price to performance ratio. The available performance among parts today is very robust and could last 10yrs depending on how you use your PC. For example if in 2025 a 7950x at $450 vs. 9950x at $650 (assuming the new wave of CPU crypto hasn't jacked the market) picking the 7950x leaves more room for modern GPU with likely acceptable performance from the CPU for quite some time. Again depends on how you use your PC. One satisfying part of building a long term build is not overspending on it while still having it perform well as it ages.

 

[ador250]

I'm still using my i7-5820k setup from late 2014 as a secondary system now. Almost 10 years, this thing still capable of everything I throw on it. It's was the top dog in it's time. So, u can say that if u go for 7950x today, it will serve u okay for next 10 years.

 

[Zach_01]

In order a PC to last the longest one should build a system that has upgrade paths opened ahead.
I’ve build my AM4 PC back on summer of 2019.
X570 with R5 3600, 2x8GB and RX580.
Since then I upgraded GPU to 5700XT(early 2020) and recently to 7900XTX (late 2023).
CPU/RAM upgrade done on summer 2022 to 5900X and 2x16GB.

I expect to hold to this system as is another 3 years hopefully. That will result ~8years since build.
Currently this can be done only with AM5 with 2 more CPU upgrades coming ahead.

 

[freeagent]

AM4 is the new X58

Boy does that warm my cockles

I have a 5900X for cores and relatively balls out performance.. and I have my 58X3D to play games in quiet with

I also have a 5600X system that gets no love, but deserves a lot, because of all the things people say about it being just a 6 core, it is a fine 6 core that can still kick up a little dust

 

[Beginner Macro Device]

AM4 is the new X58

I have my 58X3D to play games

Does not calculate. When MT didn't matter that much, X58's ST offerings were 2000late. When MT became a thing in gaming, X58 became 5+ year old by then and was beaten by mid-range Skylake CPUs in almost every single game. X58, however, was a classy working platform.

AM4 doesn't actually have Intel's historical equivalents. C2D/Q? Sandy Bridge? AM4 didn't have that brilliant of a start. Haswell? Not so horrible of a finish. The whole LGA1151? In terms of longevity, it's FOUR generations (Zen, Zen+, Zen 2, Zen 3 account for the same four in AM4) but the reception had been drastically different. And LGA1151 faded away a while ago already, whereas AM4 has all the potential to survive for a couple years more.

AM4 is a league of its own. Ridiculously versatile platform. AM5 will have a hard time beating that.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Does not calculate. When MT didn't matter that much, X58's ST offerings were 2000late. When MT became a thing in gaming, X58 became 5+ year old by then and was beaten by mid-range Skylake CPUs in almost every single game. X58, however, was a classy working platform.

AM4 doesn't actually have Intel's historical equivalents. C2D/Q? Sandy Bridge? AM4 didn't have that brilliant of a start. Haswell? Not so horrible of a finish. The whole LGA1151? In terms of longevity, it's FOUR generations (Zen, Zen+, Zen 2, Zen 3 account for the same four in AM4) but the reception had been drastically different. And LGA1151 faded away a while ago already, whereas AM4 has all the potential to survive for a couple years more.

AM4 is a league of its own. Ridiculously versatile platform. AM5 will have a hard time beating that.

AM4 had a great run that's for sure and I have an odd feeling it's going to end with a quad core 5200X3D.

 

[#22]

I’m even considering a 27” 1080 with high refresh rates to extend the life of the hardware. I already have a standard 4K 60hz 27” benq monitor which can act as secondary

OMG, just don't do it! Long story short it's once again sentencing yourself to garbage experience for the sake of spending on gaming pc as little as possible. When it's should be about possibly good experience, right?

I came from <23" 1080p monitor to 35" 3440x1440. Back in 2019 it was ~800 pounds, so quite much and like some todays OLEDs, but I still use it and love it. Big screen, finally no jaggies, so much fun and immersion from 21:9 and beautiful image are a pleasure every moment you use it. Without a doubt I would prefer to spend 4090 money on going todays counterpart monitor with rather only 4070 TiS and it needing upgrading more often to feed this.

Good mouse and keyboard. My Logitech G403 Prodigy Wireless can't stop impress me with its comfort and longevity. It was pricey, probably like today priciest Logi or Razer mice, but beginning this year it started eighth year of flawless service. One thing to replace is battery which I need to charge every few days, but honestly still don't care. The same eighth year with Zowie PS-R mousepad not showing any signs of surface degradation. I have never had better ones and don't really see the reason to change.

Speakers/headphones. My last three was budget 2.1; shitty soundbar with sub and now Logitech Z623 I love (used mostly for gaming and watching non-music related youtube). Combined with SoundBlasterX G6 external soundcard giving e.g. absurdly convincing virtual surround. Sound gives more fun, is higherend plasure than image. Once again I would prefer good audio financed by savings on pc perfomance.

It all also keep the essence of real pc futureproofing - not just trying hard to use things as long as possible, but buying things that good they don't feel needing changing/spending for years and all this time give you amazing experience. Fps-related stuff really should be treated as secondary, after every other thing determining experience, because it's what it's all about. Deal with it all needs spending and don't go route of highend pc with you sitting on white plastic garden chair lol