Most computers replaced after 4.5 years
Even installing a couple of sticks of memory apparently makes many PC users break out in a cold sweat.
The survey, carried out by Crucial, which polled more than 1,000 PC owners aged 16-70 in the US, France and the UK, also revealed some interesting reasons for people upgrading their PCs and, perhaps more importantly, why some buy a whole new system instead of upgrading.
According to the survey, the most popular reason people gave for reaching for their wallets was slow speed. Aside from gaming frame rates, slow speed can also be a result of full hard disks, installation of superfluous software packages, as well as viruses and other nasties. In fact, a slow computer can often be cured simply with a fresh installation of Windows, rather than new hardware.
The survey did hint at some knowledge of this, with users rebooting their PCs and running virus checks to try to speed up their machines. In addition, nearly half of those included in the survey simply disliked something about their PC.
As far as upgrades go, 49 per cent of those polled think memory upgrades would make a difference to their PC, but nearly as many didn't even know how much memory was already in their PC. A slightly odd but no-less important question was also posed - what did the users fear most, tinkering with the insides of their PC or dealing with your average house spider?
Clearly the survey managed to avoid the millions of arachnophobia sufferers out there, as 35 per cent of the respondents said the thought of performing upgrades themselves resulted in sweatier palms than dealing with your average household arachnid.
Does 4.5 years sound about right to you? Do you prefer replacing most of your PC every few years or performing smaller, regular upgrades? Let us know in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyEDIT: Reply to Ph4lanx:
Would it be fair to assume that that would be your NAS/router/firewall/server system?
That's all changed now as I've just bought my first iMac but I would imagine that's still going to be upgraded on a 4 year cycle.
It's going to be sad waving goodbye to the Q6600 that served me so well over the last few years :(
Nope, it was my gaming machine.
Bloody hell... Or did you upgrade a lot?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
I consider anything over 2.5 years worthy of a replacement tbh.
That said I've had my current laptop for about 5-6 years.
Vista will also adjust metrics quite a bit due to it being sold on machines that can't cope with it.
Oldest computer I have is about 8 years old, running an old Celeron doing Paradox 7 work. Yes Paradox 7..
Nope. As I mentioned in my first post, I didn't touch the machine hardware-wise for 9 years.
the second about 5 years,
the third lasted about 4 years (sub-standard parts causing early failure so ended up costing more than it should)
the fourth has lasted me 5 years with a HDD and a graphics upgrade. It is, however, stuck on AGP and a single core cpu.
it just isn't much use any more for games.
Expecting to get a new one soon and shouldn't need to upgrade for some time (I hope!)
If you buy a near-top-end gaming machine, it's going to last a while.
I Upgrade about a year after noticing I cannot run current games in decent settings anymore.
(and yes, looking at my sig, I'm overdue) :D
I also understand people buying a new machine instead of doing a fresh windows install.
Most ready-bought computers come without an install disk.
And saving all your data and setting and getting it to run again is a hell of a task if your not in practise :|
My current computer was sort of upgraded - sort of replaced using stuff I salvaged from my old pc, like the case, and graphics untill I can aford a new one.
The parts that were taken from that were then turned into a HTPC for my parents front room TV.
I think learning to upgrade your PC is a really useful and important skill, and better yet when to upgrade aswell.
http://valid.x86-secret.com/cache/banner/111373.png
2nd PC: 1999 (AMD K6-2 266MHz)
3rd PC: 2003 (AMD Athlon XP 2600+)
4th PC: 2007 (Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2400MHz)
This year it'll very likely be a shiny MacBook Air 13". Don't do much gaming on PC anymore so I don't really need a new desktop PC.
Also, if your liquid cooling often upgrading one part is enough hassle to encourage replacing everything while your at it!
i still havent run into a game it cant play adequately.
Early last year my PSU went and took the aging 7900GT with it. So I replaced them (GTS 250 or something I am running now). Other than that I replaced a blown Motherboard, some Harddrives and gave it a RAM injection early in it's life... this whole rig was bought in late 2005... 6 years almost with minimal intervention.
I've spent 13K (i.e. the price of a decent upgrade) on my MBP for the freelance work early last year, as that was simply more important (and has made back most of that by now...)
built the missus a machine over 10 years ago out of an Asus Terminator DDR barebones box using a Duron 1.4Ghz and 128Mb of Ram, I won't say it hasn't been upgraded as I popped my old Athlon 1800XP in and an old 256Mb stick I had left from an upgrade, plus its now on Xp rather than 98 but its still running and has been running pretty much daily since.
It does everything her family needs from a machine, its not even that slow.
ASUS build quality for you, superb! If it does get replaced no upgrade would be cost effective, it would need complete replacement really, but hey if anyone wants to send me a stick of 256/512Mb DDR I could extend its life further. :D
Of course a couple of bits have been changed over the years - the hard drives, dvd drive, motherboard a few times, couple of different processors, graphics cards, fans, memory, and a couple of case changes, but I've never renewed the PC...
;)
Same here with my axe. I've replaced the blade 4 times, and the handle a few times, but it's still the same axe :D
P
Does that mean I've had four different PCs in 12 years, or one PC where everything changed but the floppy drive?
Athlon 933Mhz
Athlon 2000+
P4 2.4
P4 2.6ghz
Sempron 2800+
Sempron 3200+
P4 3.0
P4 3.2
Athlon 64 3,4Ghz (sck 754)
Athlon 64 3200+ (sck 939)
Opteron 170 (sck 939)
Q6600
Athlon X2 2350BE
Athlon II X4 600e
i5 2500K
All of this, more or less in chronological order since 1999. Loads of them were small updates in cpu,
The "loved ones" were the P4 2.4ghz, Opteron 170, Q6600 and of course the i5 2500K
The worse ones were the AMD XP 2000+, P4 3.2ghz (it turned off while I was playing, too much heat), and of course the Semprons line.
The one that lasted longer was the Q6600 (3 years and something)
Hmm, interesting... 4.5 years seems like a lot of time. I upgrade fully every two years even though I'm always waiting for an excuse to upgrade something, i.e. right now I'm debating if I should buy another 5870 for a quad crossfire, but my habit is in no way a reflection of what regular people do.
in 2000 we got a 733mhz PIII, 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD, Nvidia TNT2, Win98, Crappy PSUs that would blow up about once a year. Throughout the years this got upgraded to 512MB RAM and got a video card upgrade, and also got a 40GB secondary HDD (It was a Seagate and only lasted for less then a year or so) It also got a DVD-ROM upgrade.
The next we got around 2006/2007 is a 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, 1GB Ram, Nvidia 7300GT, 250GB HDD. The PSU died on this about 6 months ago so I replaced that with another one that died again a month after, so I got that one replaced so it's running fine now.
In 2008 my brother gave me an old 2.6Ghz Celeron to play around with so I could learn how to build computers myself, I took the whole thing apart and put it back together :D If it wasn't for him giving me this I probably would never have tried building my own.
I built my own Rig in 2009, specs were 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Ati 4650, OCZ 600Watt PSU. I just upgrade when I feel I need to. So now it has 6GB RAM, Ati 5770, 150GB Raptor, OCZ 700 Watt PSU (The original one Died about 8 months ago) My original RAM also died about a year later as well. I don't plan to buy a new rig anytime soon, this one is perfect for what I do. :D
As The_Beast says though, if something needs it and I really want it, I'll upgrade :)
3 years is also about the average lifespan for the cheap laptops my family buys before they die.
the video cards seem bound to go before anything else.. pretty impressed with the rig have now.. 460- is just no hassle at 850 stable with just a few mods (re-did tim and ducting to cooler)
the g6850 still running at 4.2ghz.. hope parts stay this good
also still running a e6600 at 3.3 for 3 years now
Since I have a 3Ghx dual core amd chip in there I can happily get away with simply upgrading my graphics card to keep things ticking over for a bit longer yet.
That said,when the time comes and since I am happy with my Antec fusion case it will simply be an upgrade of the motherboard, cpu and ram for me.
The only things I keep forever are hard drives and my DVD burner. I have always had several HDDs in my PC (up to 6 at a time at some point) because I don't take them out until they become useless (say a 80GB surrounded by 500GB HDDs). As for my DVD Burner, up to a month ago, it had been in my PC for 7 years. It's still working beautifully and is the most silent DVD burner I have ever seen (heard?) but it's IDE and is useless with my Sabertooth X58. Sad
I think I will keep my current rig intact for quite a while, though. I will definitely add more HDDs in the near future however because 4.5TB is getting a little tight. The rest should be enough for a long time, especially if games keep being held back by consoles
Haha, that was what my brother said to me a few weeks ago when I started explaining to him my current 'nine year old' PC!
It started out as my personal PC, then switched to becoming my work PC:
4 PSU's.
3 GPU's.
1 Extra stick of RAM.
4/5 Boot HDD's.
3 HSF's.
2 DVD drives.
3/4 new sets of case fans.
The only original bits left are the case (Lian-Li), motherboard (Asus), CPU (AMD Athlon XP 2800+) & the floppy drive! Although if anything else goes wrong I think it's getting beyond the point of being cost effective to replace individual components, it'll be time for a wholly new system, (probably a nettop of some description - I wish there was a barebones Shuttle version with AMD's Zacate/Fusion instead of just the Atom, I'd buy that tomorrow).
I have to agree. As mentioned above, damn near every day for the best part of nine years - you can't really grumble at that!
I have a cheap generic brand (Hynix) stick of 256MB DDR 400MHz CL3 you're very welcome to - unless someone can trump me by offering a 512MB stick. :)
It's been sitting in my drawer for a good few years now, but I can't see any reason as to why it wouldn't still work. I'd rather it went to a good home than continued to sit in my drawer feeling lonely...
I don't know how to send personal messages in here, but if you can get me your address somehow I'd be quite happy to wrap it in cardboard, pop it in an envelope & send it out to you.
If you're still using that 4.5 year old HDD, then I think that could be well worth a replacement. The step-up I noticed from my old Samsung Spinpoint to my new Samsung F3 was immense - it practically felt like a new PC.
A 500GB Samsung F3 can be had for about £30 now:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-samsung-spinpoint-f3-hd502hj-sata-3gb-s-7200rpm-16mb-cache-8ms-oem
Combine it with a free disk cloning utility like the nice and easy one I use:
http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm
And you really can't go wrong... :)
Just build your own. Overclockers had "Hudson M1" Motherboards and you can pick up some itx cases that can take a full sized PSU. Mind you since LGA1155 dropped I've always fancied making an itx gaming rig. i5 speed in such a tiny space........I really need a higher paying job =(
i'll probably upgrade after bulldozer's release, so by then the pc i have would be 2 years old.
I would say about 4 years is probably right for what I'd expect MY pc to stay with me for, then at least another 4 years with the family. Until every member of the household has their own PC, there is no chance of one being thrown away. We still have a 10+ year old PC being used for flash games and web browsing.
Hardly any guilt involved if you flog a piece of kit that you bought new and more than one person gets good use out of it. Once you find a good backbone of Mobo/CPU and you're not playing games with a PC, who knows how long it'll last. The Socket A and Barton 2800+ CPU that my Mum uses, it's rolling into its eighth year in total when looking at the oldest parts inside plus the seven year old Jeantech Phong case, but I'd bought and sold two more of the same combo before the socket was axed. If it didn't use too much power then it would roll on forever, but she'll move on to her laptop eventually.
Current magic backbone is the MSI K9A2 either CF or Platinum, and the AMD 4400+, long in the tooth for big performance standards but trucking along nicely for anything else, sailed past its third birthday and easily another 18 months in it for gaming unless I bought a BF game. Not going quad until I see the current gen offerings, or whatever follows that vs Ivy Bridge in Jan.
Didn't even remember the decent PSU, once you've done the shelling out for one of those, it's years before you have to bother again.
I had that curiosity about the 3200+ Barton for years until the mag finally tested it and showed I was right to stick with the 2800+, 2GHz at that level, only cache was there to make it any quicker and it would have been even more heat and even more juice.
That's how I felt about the Phenom II X6s, probably great at the time, but will probably be bettered in the newer socket so no hurry to upgrade - not even now the 1055T/1075T are £130/£140 on the street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbha4XclSMU
My daughters box, which I built and modded for her, is still going strong at over 6 years old.
I guess it's all down to how you use it and how well you look after it.
Thats true tho I don't really need cutting edge atm since I mainly game, fold and occasionally edit photos or compress blu rays for a mobile device etc. I'm still on a 6000 x2 AM2+ so it would require a full mobo, cpu ram upgrade for anything where as the hex is enough of an upgrade to breath another year or so life into the machine for taking my next move. With an luck when I need to do a full rebuild I will have the cash or jump to AM3+ and slowly upgrade that way. It also annoys me that I would be throwing away 8gb of DDR2 for 4gb DDR3 just to keep costs down. Its only recently 4gb sticks have appeared at a decent price. If im to truly upgrade I always said I would get at least 8gb with 2 sticks.
My computer thus far is about 2 years old outside of the GPU. There really isn't anything more I can upgrade now that I think of it, perhaps a better 20" monitor, but that's it.
That said, my current machine is a 6 GB, Core i7-920 running at 3.2 GHz with an SSD boot drive, 2 TBs of hard drives, a BD/DVD Rewriter and GTX 580 graphics/X-Fi XtremeGamer sound and it still runs every game I throw at it with aplomb. It does help that most PC games are multiformat though as that certainly reduces the need to upgrade regularly.
Another good post reminding me why it's laptop year for me, I didn't want yet another generation of jewellery hardware gone to waste so flogged whatever hadn't lost its value and gave away the rest. As you say, two sticks of a larger amount of memory are usually a struggle to fit into a budget build, that's something else to wait for as everything else would have come down and stayed cheaper without the same fluctations as RAM.
It seems like external peripherals are the longest lived bits and pieces in my house, I only spent the £40 per case but for people buying Silverstones and Lian Li models costing £70-150, you don't just ditch those overnight on a whim. Since there's been a drop in sales of 26in flat TVs, if this has translated into less monitors at that size then the 22 I bought last Autumn looks like it'll get a decent decade of use depending on whenever the pixels start to die.
you could get another 2 years out of that i reckon
I consider myself fairly techie, but rarely upgrade. Since I got my first PC in 2000, I've replaced the whole thing once (2009) and before then had gone through maybe 2 motherboard upgrades (one because it got fritzed by a dying el cheapo PSU), one new PSU (as the old one was killing motherboards...), one CPU upgrade, a couple of RAM upgrades and a couple of HDD upgrades, the HDD upgrades largely because I think £50 for a new mid size drive, larger and faster than I had before, is a small price to pay for a fresh install every 3 years, avoiding the need to move everything to an external drive, wipe the internal HDD, install Windows again and pray the data got copied off the old drive properly. I just bang in a new drive, unplug the old, install Windows, then do a direct copy of any data I need, keeping the old drive as an internal backup drive in case the new one breaks.
oh and eat haggis, its good fo ya
I agree with John_T, next to upgrading ramand graphics card, changing from an 80gb IDE HDD to my 500GB Sata Hdd saw a big leap forward in loading times and system speed
Windows Xp has tripled in size and Vista 32 bit will almost never run right.
As for 7 years, expecting 7 years out of a computer (without significant upgrades) is just not going to happen unless you like torture.
More importantly, consider the costs.
If you can do it yourself, yes, it's not bad, but pay someone to install the upgrades and clean out the computer and you are easily halfway to another cheap store bought computer. "Why pay $200 to fix a 4 year old computer when I can buy a brand new laptop or $300."
You and I know that $300 laptop is junk, but all many people see is a computer.
Ah...no, a computer with a fresh instoll of the OS-of-it's-time will run much better than before.
Also nice: family computers where the kids installed "theme-packs" and every other kind of crapware they were thrown at.
Of course a five year old WinXP box isn't going to run Crysis for you with just a fresh install.
But for an Office/Internet/Mediaplayer it'll easily suffice.
I replace a lot of 5 year old office computers because.... They're too slow.
My computing needs have changed somewhat over the past few years, to the point that the vast majority of my time in front of a computer is surfing the web and the iPad/iPhone/Blackberry takes care of most of those needs.
I will tend to use the laptop for the odd download, but gaming and photography have taken a backseat for some time.
Maybe time for a PC upgrade, get some gaming and photography time in again.