This PC is about two years old and at the 1st of the year I had it upgraded because it was really lacking. When I bought it it was a AMD Athlon 2 640 3.0GHZ x4, 4GB of 1333ram, GT240 512mb, 500GB SATA 3.0 hard drive, onboard sound, 350watt power supply. I upgraded to AMD FX 8120 3.1GHZ x8, 8GB of PC 1600ram, 560TI 1GB, 500GB and 750 SATA 3.0 hard drives, onboard sound, 550watt power supply.

I am a little disapointed with the video card, I bought it because some of the people I use to play EQ2 with said it was a good card. And to be honest its lacking, its having a hard time with battlefield 3 and skyrim. So I am thinking about upgrading the video card again. My question to you is how long do you wait between upgrades?

Greg

Every 5ish years or so. My CPU have the same speed as the CPUs released in 2005, albeit more energy efficient so it generate less heat, and still run the games just fine. Upgraded my graphic card last year though.

Although the oldest part of my computer is my keyboard, which I've used over 15 years now. I have no plans on replacing that one though, it's very comfy, but I will upgrade the second oldest part soon I think, which is the OS. I'm still using Windows XP.

I guess about every year and a half. First major upgrade was new GPU and CPU, then not too long ago was the new case. Then I got an SSD for a gift, but the only reason I would consider that major was the wiping of my hard drive.

It's been nearly three years since I built my rig. I may try to upgrade this summer or fall.

It's 4 years now. I changed PSU once, upgraded video cards twice, bought 2 HD, one 1.5TB but that one got bad sectors after warranty, then a 1TB now and running good. I suspect the video card slot had losen and possible mobo replacement is in hand, but perhaps I should just get a new PC.

I am an odd case. I enjoy having the latest tech. (Not the most cost effective, but definitely very cool)

I upgraded my graphics card in January. I would say every 6 months or so I pick out a new part to put in.

Not terribly often. When I get to a point that I can't run new games at settings I consider acceptable I start looking at upgrades. It's usually somewhere between 2 and 5 years and can vary quite a bit.

Right now my main desktop has this:

Intel Core2Quad Q9550 @ 3.4GHz
8GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB
160GB SSD for OS & programs / 2 x 500GB SATA (mirrored for user data) / 1TB SATA for games

It still runs new games really well at good settings at 1920x1200. I'll probably upgrade to an Ivy Bridge/x77 platform and possibly an nVidia GeForce GTX 680 later this year, but I'm not in a big hurry.

I use a PC with little upgrading, outside of the GPU, until it seems to be too slow for whatever I tend to use a lot. Then I build an entire new rig (not top of the line for the time but close to it) and use the old one for general purpose/older software use. So maybe an average of 5-6 years or so for complete new rig build, but GPU once or twice during that time.

Built my current 2.5 to 3 years ago I think and it's still just fine with everything (1920x1080). I'm getting the feeling that this one will last me longer than anything I had before it. Partly, I think, because of the consoles somewhat limiting PC-game tech specs, if you know what I mean.

Did add more RAM (because I could/it's cheap) and did upgrade the GPU once already...but when I built this 1st gen i-7 I didn't put the best GPU in the rig in the first place. Current GPU should be good a while longer yet.

When I need to/want to. I don't play many video games, so rarely do I upgrade in order to play a game. peripheral upgrades happen more often than internal upgrades. Arguably I do constant minor upgrades for things like hard drives and the like, but real upgrades are fairly infrequent and just when I feel like it.

If I recall correctly, I bought my first personal computer in spring of 2007 before I first joined the forum. I had to buy a new power supply when it failed about 8 months later.

I then built my own in January 2010 as an upgrade and college project. Haven't needed to fix anything, but I did buy a new sound card and another hard drive for backup.

I don't see any reason to upgrade any time soon. I suppose you could say about 3 years between computers, but this one will probably last 4.

I've had the same old ATX case since about 2001. It's been thru 3 MOBO's, the current one with a AMD 64X2 Dual 4800+ 2.49 Ghz...only 2 GB ram.
I hang the old MOBO's on the wall for "art".
So every 3 or 4 years I suppose.

Power supply has died a couple of times.

I typically upgrade the graphics card when I can't run Bethesda's newest offering. The most recent is an nVidia GeForce GTX 560 2GB.
I can run Skyrim on High with no apparent problems even with the mere dual processor.

Still running XP...it's stable for my purposes.

Haven't upgraded this one since 2007. Instead I'm buying a new computer entirely.

Pretty much every Christmas, although this Christmas I felt I didn't need to. Next Christmas I'm gonna upgrade my mobo, CPU and RAM because I am having to start turning settings down to medium. MEDIUM. If I have money left over I will buy another GTX 460 to SLI with my current one.

What specs for CPU and RAM do you have? You would most likely see more of an improvement if you got a new GPU in games. Personally, having dealt with dual GPU systems in the past (though I was with Crossfire), its not worth it to go with a second mid range GPU. A single more powerful GPU is much better for heat, power consumption, not to mention that some games do not scale well with Crossfire/SLI or even at all.

My mobo is the nForce 680 ti lite, CPU intel core 2 quad q6600, and my ram I'm not sure about but I have 6 GB of DDR2. I think it is Corsair but that's all I can tell you. My CPU is overclocked to 3.2 GHz

I built my last rig in 2004. I rebuilt/upgraded it in 2011 for the release of Skyrim. So, I guess I upgrade every 7-8 years or when a game requires it.

As often as I can. Which is basically never.

Yeah, I hope to fix that this summer.

I used to upgrade (or "sidegrade", in many cases) every few months. I'd save up sell whatever I was replacing. I've let it go for about a year now, though I did get a free GPU upgrade during an RMA where they weren't making the RMA'd model anymore.

For my regular PC maybe 5 years or so.

For my gaming PC I tend to build or rebuild (ie replace most components) after about 2 or 3 years. I like to keep my gaming PC current and powerful.

I built my computer a little before Skyrim was released and recycled some parts from mu old build, which had a few recycled parts from the previous build (that one would be about 5 years old now) I still have one part from that build in my current pc (hard drive) it's one of three I have now, and is used purely for storage.

I tend to tinker with my pc every so often. been thinking about adding a fourth hard drive (2nd SDD) and re install my games on it. I'm also considering getting a new video card, not that there's anything wrong with the one I've got now (GTX 470), but sometimes I crave a little more...and then I have to satisfy that craving.

Honestly, my whole thing with tinkering with my computer all began with the desire to add more RAM, nothing else, but as it was, the motherboard couldn't handle any more, so I decided to replace it...which led to needing a new case...and a new video card, and that turned into needing a new psu. I think you get the point now. It was a tiny little snowball that started rolling down the hill. Now it's not so tiny anymore.

I don't unless there is some major reason for me to do so. The desktop I use is from 2007 and still runs any game I want to play on acceptable settings so I have seen no reason to upgrade. It is possible when I graduate from college this year I may rebuild it if I have money but if not then I amnot overly concerned. I have not done any upgrades to my other systems since I have gotten them other than adding some RAM to a free server I got. Why spend money on things that are still suiting my needs fine, especially when I will have large bills to start paying off soon.

Built my computer last May and will probably add another 4gb ram to my already existing 4gb with a month or 2. Other than that I can't see me upgrading anything else unless something breaks.

I have the money to be able to buy the newest most powerful GPU for example but as long as my current one (GTX 570) performs adequately I see no need to waste money

I'm hoping this build will last up to 4 years without needing to upgrade anything to be honest

Only as often as I think I need, and not recently since I started Uni a couple years ago. When I do upgrade, though, I usually do big system overhauls (new mobo, CPU, and RAM if needed). Usually I'll do GPU or HDD upgrades separately and less often.

The last thing I upgraded was my computer case (if you even count that, and I do since the one I upgraded from was a piece of crap). Before that, I switched over to a shiny new Foxconn motherboard, AMD Phenom II X4 processor, and Radeon HD 4870 GPU. That cost me a pretty penny .

3-4 Years if I can afford it.

Mine is over 4 years old at this point:

Model: m8530f

AMD Phenom X4 9550 / 2.2 GHz Quad-Core
Motherboard: M2N78-LA
64-bit processor
Radeon HD 5770 1 GB
650 Watt Power Supply
5.0 GB DDR2 SDRAM
Windows Vista

The only thing I did to it was add the graphics card and the 650 PSU (granted I only really needed a 500, but the 650 was on sale and got much better ratings than the others I checked out). Right now with the games I play mostly (FO3, Skyrim, and some FNV) the computer does great. I bought a Merc Stealth keyboard for it when the computer was new (which I love). I have to buy mice about every 6 months since they seem to break a lot. I also bought an X-Box controller for it and a Logitech G13. I figure I'll use this computer till it dies or enough games I like need a better computer.

And in case anyone is wondering, I've actually had no problems with Vista just lucky I guess.