Why do you upgrade your CPU yearly/biennially (if you do it)?

[birdie]

I'm curious why lots of people do it despite gaining very little performance-wise, yet spending quite a lot on that.

E.g. I'm still on Intel Core i5 2500 running at 4.1GHz and I'm quite content with performance.

I'm not even sure I really want Ryzen 7 3700X (which looks like a very enticing upgrade) 'cause my CPU is quite alright for my GTX 1060 6GB and it's not like I encode videos, compile, render or stream 24x7.

Of course, if you're well-off (e.g. a European or American) then you might like the feeling of running the latest and greatest but other than that I'm just confused. With my salary of less than six hundred US dollars a month I'm really conservative in regard to spending.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I don’t. I hang onto the motherboard, cpu and ram until it no longer does what I want it to do.

The only thing I upgrade every 2 years is GPU.

 

[Splinterdog]

My motherboard and CPU cycle is about five years or longer, but like @rtwjunkie said, a GPU change at least for me is more frequent. I got my RX580 in December 2017 but will probably stick with it until later in the year.
@birdie and I do understand about budget, as you say, and it is a big factor where I live too. I only make big upgrades if I go to the UK where hardware is much cheaper.

 

[StrayKAT]

I don't plan to... especially with all of the architecture upgrades coming in the future (PCIe 4/5, Intel's 10nm delays, etc). Besides, I kind of won the silicon lottery with my 7820x, so I should be more content than usual for awhile.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

I don't upgrade often either, last full system I built for myself was a x58 a decade ago which still runs since launch. Picked up a 2700x recently to do a few other things, and probably a new Threadripper later this year as a (relatively) cheap VM server.

With a bit of luck should good for a few years, don't expect another decade of stagnation though if AMD keeps pushing Intel like this.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Of course, if you're well-off (e.g. a European or American)

Huh? Just because someone is American or European, that in no way means they are well-off. Over 13% of the US population live in poverty which is comparable to France and Australia and worse than Norway, Finland and Denmark. I'm just saying.

*****

Why do you upgrade your CPU yearly/biannually (if you do it)?

I would say most do it for bragging rights. That is not a criticism - just an observation. I see the same thing with some people and their cars.

I don't upgrade on any time basis. But what I do do when I am ready for a new build is "over-buy". That is, I buy more CPU, more graphics, more RAM, etc. than I think I will ever need because I know in 2 or 3 years, my system will be behind the power curve. That's just how life in the computing industry works. But that's okay. Progress is a good thing.

 

[lexluthermiester]

For me, time is an irrelevant variable. My upgrade paths are determined by need. If my current hardware is insufficient for the tasks I want/need to perform, I buy upgrades. However, last year I downgraded(motivated by a friendly challenge) from an OC'd i7-5820k to a stock Xeon X5680 and hardly noticed a difference. To be fair, my RTX2080 is being slightly bottlenecked by the Xeon, but not enough to cause problems in games or general computing tasks. However, the next upgrade I make will likely be this year as something I do regularly will benefit greatly from the increased SMP power provided by the Zen CPU's. I'm likely going with Threadripper as the quad channel memory has the memory bandwidth that will be useful.

 

[dirtyferret]

I'm curious why lots of people do it despite gaining very little performance-wise, yet spending quite a lot on that.

I'm rather wealthy and feel the theoretical processing power of my PC is a direct correlation of my superiority over other people.

...My upgrade paths are determined by need. If my current hardware in insufficient for the tasks I want/need to perform, I buy upgrades...

Stop making sense with your posts!

*****
I would say most do it for bragging rights. That is not a criticism - just an observation. I see the same thing with some people and their cars.

Cars, homes, vacations,...spouse...children...

 

[trparky]

I don't upgrade yearly or even every two years, before my current 8700K system that I have now I had an old 3570K system. It was five years old by the time I upgraded. As for that old system I gave it to my father who's still using it to this day. As for why I upgraded, the 3570K system wasn't doing the things that I needed it to do; I was limited by the fact that it was only a quad-core with no Hyperthreading. I kept the 3570K system until it was no longer fulfilling my system requirements.

I may do another upgrade in a year or two and give my 8700K system to my father to replace the 3570K that he has now because even he's starting to say that it's running slow. Not only that but the overclock failed on it. I had it overclocked for three years and it started to crash daily so I had I remove the overclock. I figure that eventually, the system will become unstable even while stock. I may ask him for $400 for the 8700K system which will go towards the new system I build in a year or two.

 

[64K]

I do a new build every 4 years or so.

I upgrade my GPU about every 2 years with the exception that Nvidia has complicated that for me.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I used to upgrade because of a mental illness that made me a little impulsive.

I'm not sure when I'll upgrade again but it'll most likely be when my PC just isn't good enough for the games I play.

Given that my 18 month old gfx is just now upper mainstream I'm thinking I should be able to wait another 12-18 months before I upgrade it

 

[vega22]

i went 26k>47k>67k for tax write off purposes really.

thinking next year i might switch to a 12 or 16 core amd system.

will need a new avatar then too, been rocking this since conroe

 

[phanbuey]

Because you can sell a 2 year old platform for a decent price, and the upgrade costs much less. I usually upgrade every 2 to 3 years, the current platform I am on is a bit different though, and is well balanced at the moment, so I might keep this one until zen 2+ refresh.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I guess for many of us here, it's a hobby and we spend our "spare" cash on our computer, rather than our car, motorcycle, AV stuff, sports equipment or something else that people spend money on.

I went 2500k, 3770k (which I swapped for something else), 6700k (which I was given by a friend), Ryzen 1700 as my other system was smashed up by a shipping company I spent the insurance money on a new system and wanted to support AMD. (I should point out this is the most recent systems I've had, as I started out with a 386sx-16...)

Graphics card is also one of those things I try to upgrade when I can afford it, or there's a good deal. I guess I'm lucky, as I get a few bits for free here and there as well.

I upgrade one or two major components every year or two years, depending on what I can afford, or at least feel like I can afford. The only other thing I really spend money on is travel and some kitchen gadget once in a while. I also use computers daily for work, so I can offset some of the costs for parts through my company, but it's still my money being spent on it so...

I'm looking at Ryzen 3000 and although I don't "need" it, I think I will be making the move...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I hung on to my X79 setup for 6 years. I would of had it much longer if the board didnt die off and leave me with two choices... £300+ for a equivalent second hand board or put that £300+ towards a new setup. Needless to say i went with the new setup.

 

[theFOoL]

Same but I switched to the old Socket 775 as my Main PC but I use my Box PC (just a CM-110 "Thanks Linus" LINK) as my Video Server

My Box-Server Specs:

i3-3150
8GB RAM
GTX710 2GB
2 HDDs 1TB/500GB 1 SSD 120GB OS

77Build:

Xeon e5450 Custom CPU to fit in 775 Boards with a supported chipsets LINK
8GB RAM (2GBx4) PC28500
GTX750Ti 2GB
2 HDDs 750GB/500GB 1 SSD 120GB

 

[Franzen4Real]

I guess for many of us here, it's a hobby and we spend our "spare" cash on our computer, rather than our car, motorcycle, AV stuff, sports equipment or something else that people spend money on.

I went 2500k, 3770k (which I swapped for something else), 6700k (which I was given by a friend), Ryzen 1700 as my other system was smashed up by a shipping company I spent the insurance money on a new system and wanted to support AMD.

Graphics card is also one of those things I try to upgrade when I can afford it, or there's a good deal. I guess I'm lucky, as I get a few bits for free here and there as well.

I guess I upgrade one or two major components every year or two years, depending on what I can afford, or at least feel like I can afford. The only other thing I really spend money on is travel and some kitchen gadget once in a while. I also use computers daily for work, so I can offset some of the costs for parts through my company, but it's still my money being spent on it so...

I'm looking at Ryzen 3000 and although I don't "need" it, I think I will be making the move...

I totally agree with your statement. In my case I see it as a hobby. There are a lot of things that people spend money on for entertainment/hobbies that I do not/would never spend on myself, such as TV service and expensive cars/homes. I feel I make decent wages, and have worked hard for many years to get to the point where I now have minimal outgoing monthly bills. People are quick to point out that I "wasted' money on my gpu, as they shell out $200 a month for cable tv, or $500+ a month on a car payment, or whatever other expense that I personally choose to have nothing to do with. In the end, unless you are a hardcore saver, we all probably spend out a similar ratio of our income on things that we want, not necessarily that we need. It's just that each person has entirely different priority rankings on what they choose to spend that $$ on.

But to answer your original question, I'm not much of a CPU upgrader. My history starting in 1996 is many many single core AMD (back in the Thunderbird days and earlier when +100mhz was like WOW)... Core 2 Duo, Nahalem 920, current Haswell 5820K. I will probably go with a Ryzen 3 because I want to scale down to mini itx for desk space and am using it as a bad excuse to justify an upgrade lol. For GPU's, that is a different story. Those seem to get caught up by software at a much quicker rate than cpu's. My history goes, 3dFX Voodoo, GeForce 4 (? I think?) Ti4400, ATi 9700 Pro, every gen or every other gen ATi card thereafter up to 6850, gtx 980, 1080, 2080ti.

I also see it similar to @phanbuey where you can get better return value when selling after a few years instead of waiting so long that the value completely tanks. (I have some of those sitting around in the closet too lol... anyone want to buy my core 2 duo/ATi 3750???? ) I run two systems in my home, so the main desktop hardware shuffles to the 2nd rig for many more years of use, and by that time the 2nd rig gear is getting pretty dated. I should probably be taking his approach and sell sell sell...

 

[willace]

First computer I built (for myself) was E7200, now I am running a I7-6700K. Not sure when to build my next one. Won't build a new one until it is really outdated (most of the time)

 

[Grog6]

I haven't done this since about the time GameSpy went down; the last game I upgraded for was Crysis, lol.

The dual core wasn't doing it for me, so I bought the x79 system I have now; 6/12 cores running at 4.2 to 4.8GHz works for everything I've ran since.

Video cards are different; I upgraded a 3x 4870 setup to a dual 5870 setup, to a dual 7970 setup, which I replaced with a single RX480.
The 480 is as fast as the 7970 crossfire setup, for much less power; not I just need to add another one, and I'll be able to hit 60 frames on Crysis with all the eye candy cranked all the way up, lol.

Who has time to look at textures, if the gameplay is fast and awesome anyway, lol.

In Doom 2016, I rarely know what actually killed me; something takes me out while I'm killing something else, lol.

 

[spectatorx]

...People are quick to point out that I "wasted' money on my gpu, as they shell out $200 a month for cable tv, or $500+ a month on a car payment, or whatever other expense that I personally choose to have nothing to do with.
...

How TF is possible to spend 200$ on cable tv monthly? I'm curious what such expensive offer contains? The most expensive i've seen in my life were around 50usd but i'm out of touch with tv services since many years so, ye.

 

[StrayKAT]

How TF is possible to spend 200$ on cable tv monthly? I'm curious what such expensive offer contains? The most expensive i've seen in my life were around 50usd but i'm out of touch with tv services since many years so, ye.

That would be multiple boxes and probably a couple of premium or sports channels (HBO, all NFL games, etc).

 

[Zareek]

I'm curious why lots of people do it despite gaining very little performance-wise, yet spending quite a lot on that.

E.g. I'm still on Intel Core i5 2500 running at 4.1GHz and I'm quite content with performance.

I'm not even sure I really want Ryzen 7 3700X (which looks like a very enticing upgrade) 'cause my CPU is quite alright for my GTX 1060 6GB and it's not like I encode videos, compile, render or stream 24x7.

Of course, if you're well-off (e.g. a European or American) then you might like the feeling of running the latest and greatest but other than that I'm just confused. With my salary of less than six hundred US dollars a month I'm really conservative in regard to spending.

Like @Bill_Bright said, not everyone in the US is wealthy. What you see in movies and TV shows is not at all representative of what the average home is like in the US. I'm not sure were you are from so I don't know how it compares. What I do know is we have a lot of cheap food compared to most countries so there aren't a lot of people starving.

Turning back to your original question, I personally don't upgrade every six months or even yearly and I don't have any friends or family who do. I do upgrade something in my PC pretty much every year and that varies a lot based on what I feel needs the most attention.

 

[shovenose]

CPUs aren't getting that much better that quickly. I do gaming (primarily GTA V and Overwatch), web design and development, server management, etc. and I have no need for the latest hardware. I can't imagine buying a new top-tier CPU every year or two... it just doesn't make sense for 99% of people.

 

[dirtyferret]

That would be multiple boxes and probably a couple of premium or sports channels (HBO, all NFL games, etc).

Not even, I have multiple older neighbors who spend $200 or more on cable, phone and internet just for two boxes and "basic" package. The entire industry is a scam.

 

[StrayKAT]

Not even, I have multiple older neighbors who spend $200 or more on cable, phone and internet just for two boxes and "basic" package. The entire industry is a scam.

Yikes. I stand corrected then. I'm a bit out of the loop myself. Seems like I was close though, telling from when I used to have cable myself.