How often do you upgrade your PC?

50Cent

So do you upgrade often?

Post your current spec too.

Blitzkrieger

Upgrade as in buy a new PC, or fit some new parts? I'd say most people here fit new parts more often than they change their underwear. About all that's left of the original PC I bought 30 months ago is the keyboard, the case and a few cables. They keyboard's about worn out though......


I wonder do vendors still base their estimates on people buying a completly new PC every 2 years.

I'm not telling you my spec tho - I'd be all exposed! :eek::D:eek:

50Cent

Hmmm thats actually a good question. I suppose upgrading parts and/or upgrading the system in its entireity.

I think your probably right about the way people upgrade more than they change their underwear because who the hell changes their underwear anyway? ..jk

mike65

I seem to buy something new every six months or so, or indeed less! Yesterday I fitted a third hard drive (thats enough hard drives, ed) I bought a new CDRW two months ago, before that it was 128 mb SDRAM and so on! I'm nearing the point where the only "expansion"
left will be something like a second, 24bit, sound card,
after that I'll have no room to upgrade except for the OS (win98se at the mo)

Current spec -
Gigabyte AMD mobo
AMD 950
256 SDRAM
3 HDD 3.5/10.5/40 GB
Soundblaster Live
Trio S3 AGP
Plextor CDRW
Trust 56k modem
FDD

Mike.

Woden

i started buying parts for my pc pretty soon after i bought it a couple of years ago and released it wasn't great, ah how naive i was then first p.c and all and its still being paid off in the esb, bought:

a graphics card geforce 2mx.
.
2 sticks of 256mb ram at different times.

a cd/rw (liteon 24x10x40x) probably the best thing i ever got paid for itself over and over.

sound package audigy card and 5.1 5300 creative speakers

wireless/optical trust mouse

new modem after fried one by static

oh and a new dvd drive in there after a firmware upgrade went nasty i think

Xithus

If its new.. and will fit in the box.. I buy it.

PPC

When i have the money really or if there's something that i want.

PC1

AMD Xp2600
2x 512Mb PC2700 Twinmos Ram
120Gb Western Digital h/d
80gb Seagate h/d
Yamaha CDW-F1 writer
Shuttle FN1 Mobo
Shuttle SN41G2 Case
Geforce 4 Ti4200

PC2
AMD XP1900
256Mb PC2100 Twinmos Ram
80Gb Seagate
80Gb Maxtor
2x 40Gb Seagates
120Gb Western Digital
SiS 4Mb pci card
Generic DVD


Next thing im getting is a Radeon 9800pro for the shuttle and puitting the GF4 into my 2nd pc \o/

TacT

about once every 3-6months+ myself

currently running
xp2100+
512mb pc2100 DDR
Gf4 ti 4200 128MB
xabre 5500 or some other wacky named soundcard
WD 20GB and SG 60GB HDD's
ECS k7s5a mobo
Qtec 550W dual fan Psu
DVD Drive 16x
CDRW Drive 4x
and lots of other junk...

BabyEater

I would upgrade with something new every couple of months. I am getting a Abit NF7 S Rev 2 and 2 256 of PC3200 from Komplett tonight.

That will match me
2100 Thorughbred B
Geforce 3
40g Hardrive etc

These new parts are replacing a 1900XP ,Abit KR7A and 512 of PC2100 .Have to sell these.
The only reason i am getting the new board and chip is to overclock me 2100 . As i can only get to 150fsb and me 2100 should clock well past 2GHz.

The_Bullman

I upgrade when I have the cash firstly. Secondly I try to figure out if it is worth spending the cash now or waiting a few weeks/months for the price to drop.

About 2 years ago I bought the following rig
1.2GHz Thunderbird
kt7a
40 gig harddrive
geforce2 pro
5.1 soundcard

I updated slowly with the following

more sd ram
Geforce 4 ti4600
Audigy
120 gig maxtor
1900xp
40x cd writer
nforce2 motherboard
120 gig western digital
ddr ram
2500 Barton
and a nice case

echomadman

I have a 486 laptop wit 12 megs of ram and a 250 Meg HDD,
do I win?

50Cent

Thats pretty cool guys. I personally upgrade once every 6 months usually. I just built my own pc about two months ago. But i know ill be upgrading some stuff pretty soon for the hell of it once i get the cash...

Also, my current spec is:

p4 2.53
512 pc3200 ddr ram
Radeon 9000 pro 128mb
60gb hd
dvd
cd-rw

Im wondering, i notice that some people have like two pretty high spec pc's. Just wondering is that because you use one of them as a server or what?

Cheers
Andy

Capt'n Midnight

My unbranded 486 notebook only has 8MB ram and the hard drive is riddled with bad sectors, the keyboard is a bit dodgy (5-T-G-B keys) and the cmos battery goes flat in 3 days.

BUT.. it boots into NetStumbler

Dooom

whenever i have money....i end up buying summat for it...there's no shortage of new parts anyway.

spec:
Windows 2000 Pro sp3
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
Asus A7N8X Deluxe mobo (nForce2)
Audigy 2
512mb pc3200 ram
Ati Radeon 9700 pro 128mb
120gb + 80gb 7500rpm (or close to that) western digital HD's
17in TFT sony monitor
40x cd-writer
16x dvd drive

just out of curiosity, what'd i get for the above machine?

conZ

at a glance i would think about €1800-€2200.

Woden

thats a quality machine aragorn hoping to buy something like it in six months if i can afford it (minus the tft monitor)

Dooom

yea im not sure how much it cost me in total (those receipts are here somewhere...) but it took about 6 months to get all this all together. i think the grfx card and the monitor were the most. i really dont want to find the final invoice

GUI

question this thread should be posting..
can the users with such high spec rigs, justify the need for such speed ?
cant ever see myself upgrading this laptop, does everything i use it for, work,programming,net,multimedia etc..
320megs of ram, 700mhz p3 speedstep 30gig hd win2k sp3
etc etc

Dooom

i like feeling powerful

Woden

i'd say its easily justifable to buy mid to high end stuff, however i can't really justify buying the top of the range just for having it. like a pentium 3.06Ghz when you could save a bucket and buy a 2.66 or 2.8 and not notice any performance difference, or heres an example a couple of years ago i bought a geforce 2mx for 150 quid, top of the line at the time i think was a 450 quid geforce 2 ultra, for the last two years the mx has done me fine and if i was to upgrade now i could get a fine graphics card much better then the ultra for less then 200 euro, in the long run i would notice no performance difference and at the end of the day have a better card. does that make sense to anyone else but me?

personally i need more speed soon, as my games are really starting to suffer and the machine won't make it to the end of the year

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by GUI_XP
question this thread should be posting..
can the users with such high spec rigs, justify the need for such speed ?

Yes, we need to constantly upgrade for the uses we put our PCs to, which for most of us here is gaming.

Originally posted by Dataisgod
i can't really justify buying the top of the range just for having it. like a pentium 3.06Ghz when you could save a bucket and buy a 2.66 or 2.8 and not notice any performance difference

I've heard that the hyperthreading on the 3.06 gives it a significant boost over previous chips, but I do agree with you. I upgraded recently and instead of spending stg£1,200 more on the lastest chip, DX9 gfx card, etc. I bought the flashiest mobo I could and the cheapest chip. By the time I need the DX9, etc., they'll be much more affordable and my mobo will support them.

SantaHoe

I reckon I upgrade my cpu/mobo every 18 months or so... new parts/peripherals whenever they're needed really.

Athlon XP 1800+
512MB SDRAM
GeForce 4 MX

daveg

Upgrade every year or so. Although I'll buy components now and then. My next purchase will be a DVD writer. Current spec:

P4 2.5
Abit BE7 (on board 6 ch sound)
256 DDR Ram
Geforce 4 Ti4200 64MB
120GB Maxtor drive (7200 RPM)
21" Dell triniton monitor.

I think that spec should keep me going for a while.

TacT

*shrugs*
I upgrade for my filthy gaming habit mainly, then it's also nice to work on a pc that doesn't take 5 minutes with page file swapping to open a new window in IE or have several documents/programs running and being able to work between them the way you want to.
Dunno gui_xp, I think your just nitpicking, you could ask a lot of people to justify why they spent x amount of money on anything really, whatever makes you happy imho.

popinfresh

I got my pc 2 yrs ago. 700mhz celeron, 128 ram, 17.5ghz HD, 32mb geforce2 mx, cd/r. Since then I got a sound card, tv card new mouse new keyboard and last yr i got a minutely better Geforce2 mx 64mb (funny story I only found out i already had a geforce 2 when i opened my pc to put the new one in , jesus i was kicking myself then) Personally I think you should get as much life outta ur pc as possible. The next time i upgrade my processor is when 3ghz is cheap, next year maybe. What do you all do when ur finishes with stuff, put them in the attic??

Blitzkrieger

I've got two PCs here, and use the old components to upgrade the old machine, so by the time components are swapped out of the old machine, they're ready for the bin.

TinCool

AthlonXP 1800+
768 RAM
120 GIG Hard drive
32x CD Burner
2x DVD Burner
GeForce Ti 4200
SB Live
17" Philips

and a few other bits and bobs.

Upgrade my PC so I can pick up games boxes in EB and say, "yeah my PC still meets the recommended specs." When that doesn't happen I upgrade.

Mutz

Pc1:

Win2k Pro sp3
p4 2.4ghz 533fsb - Can O/c to 2.53 without more cooling needed - but don't need it yet
Asus P4S8X Motherboard
Too Much RAM pc2700
80 GIG WD Hard drive 8mb cache
HP CD Burner
Asus DVD
GeForce 4 Ti 4600 128mb
AC97 Onboard Sound
17" Gateway monitor

Seriously Stable Pc

Pc2: First Ever Computer

Gateway p3 500mhz
256mb Sdram
Intel Warmsprings Motherboard - Not working
10gig IBM Hardrive - upgraded to 40gb Seagate - (Dodgey)
Hitatchi Dvd - (Dodgey)
16mb Voodoo 3 Graphics Card upgraded to Gf2 mx
Sounblaster 64 pci blah dunno what it is
17" Compaq Monitor

Pc2 was a pain in the face - always crashing, so I decided to upgrade :rolleyes:

Gerry

I still have my p3 900mhz, which is coming up on 3 years old I think. Of course I've added 1 or 2 parts in the meantime. You should have an option in the poll for "once every two or three years". The machine still runs the games I want extremely smoothly, so I don't see any need to upgrade yet.

I don't think most people are justified buying high end machines. The absolute latest games are really tough on your graphics card, so a reasonably high end card can be justified, but theres no need for the fastest chip. Buy a middle of the road chip, overclock it if you need to, and save money.
I'll upgrade my machine if I get a new game that I actually want to play but runs too slowly. Even for development my machine is fine.

elexes

ill prob purchase a small mid sized upgrade once every 2 months r so . i only would do a cpu/motherboard upgrade once every 2 years or so .

i have 3 systems highest bing the xp2100 but that system i made for gaming and i use that one for mirc/making svcd cause my lowest system ( which ive always used for gaming ) seems to feel better when playing games .

in the last few months ive bought
water cooling
cpu's / motherboards
ram
graphics cards
i dont tend to spend over 150 on any one item as i dont see the majour need for it . if it costs about 100 and would give a majour boost in preformance i would go for it

nxt thing i will buy will be in the next 2 months will be 52 or 48 speed wrighter and a gig of ddr3200 for the main system.

over the next year also i want to get a new laptop. so im prepairing myself for that

whosurpaddy

i like to keep my machine fairly new, but like the lads above i dont go out & buy somethin just cause it looks good or its the latest thign on the market. bigger hard disks ( maybe raid) & a geforce fx are all that ill buy this year. & possibly a dvd burner after that

xp home
athlon xp 2400
512 ddr pc2700
msi kt4v mobo
western digi 40gb hd
geforce 2 mx
soundblaster 5.1 sound
16x burner
16x dvd rom
5.1 speakers
15" tft
microsoft natural keyboard w usb ports
wireless optical mouse
external zip 750

I also have a p1 166, which is dead handy when my current machine is actin up, or not working for whatever reason, has saved my college life for a few project deadlines over the years