After how many CPU generations do you typically upgrade?

The 5000 series if pricey, but also really good. 5950X is an extremely impressive desktop grade CPU that has no weaknesses/wins on all fronts (gaming/production work/heavy multitasking).

Really hoping Intel has their 10 nm node parts come out soon at a reasonable price and a decent core/thread count. Arguably Zen 2 was an even stronger release overall considering the lower price at the time, but for gaming Zen 3 had a big uplift.

 

Pentium 4 930 to Intel Pentium E2200
Intel Pentium E2200 to Core2Quad Q9400
Intel Core2Quad Q9400 to Intel i7 3770
Intel i7 3770 to Ryzen 2700 (last Year)
Ryzen 2700 to Ryzen 3900x (last Year)

I'm going to keep my ryzen more than 8-10 years

 

Last two years 2600,3600, now a 3900x. I think i will stop for a while.3900x blew my socks off.

 

i tend to just see if the gains are there, unless i'm forced to upgrade (my i7 920 started to degrade and needed OC volltage to run stock clocks at the end of it's life which....was reason to upgrade...also it's motherboards dual bios broke and i couldn't shut it down anymore unless i like turning my pc on 50-100 times...wish i was kidding....to get a post, just having it decide on a bios and start to post, not a great combo with a actively degrading chip that could go unstable and need move juice any day >.<).

think my first self built pc had a intel pentium 4 530, which later got replaced with a pentium D....540?640? not sure (2 cores instead of 1 so potential 100% speed increase reason enough), then i moved on to a core 2 duo E6600 for it's IPC increase a year or 2 later i upgraded to a core 2 quad Q6600 which i actually stuck with for quite a while untill the core i7 920 arrived which i used untill i was eventually forced to switch to a core i5 4670k for the above mentioned reasons and since mainstream is a lot more budget friendly then enthousiast grade. and that served me well untill amd started making noise with ryzen, intel started making noise with specter and thermal goop instead of solder (that 4670k was unreasonably hot >.>) and i bought a 3900X thinking this will last me for years, but a all core speed of 4150mhz and a occasional burst in to 4.625 for a ns on 1 core has me eyeballing the 5900x to see if there wont be a 5900XT that will fill the role of (not a problem for the next 6 years) better.

i had a similar issue with my gpu played a lot of skyrim modded beyond what a GTX470 could reasonably handle, eventually upgraded to a EVGA GTX980 and was somewhat dissapointed, and used the EVGA step up program to step up to a GTX980 TI which matched my expectations...it was kinda to expensive for me to reasonably buy but putting some time between it and the GTX980 and only paying shipping/the price difference made me oke with it ^^

 

My upgrade path is all over the place as I've pretty much always had more than 1 PC.
If you boil it down to the most powerful one I've had, then then it goes like this:
Pentium II 350Mhz
Pentium 4 2Ghz (northwood)
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz (northwood)
Pentium 4 3.2Ghz HT (Prescott)
Core 2 Quad Q9650
I7 4790K

Then E5-1680V2, if you can count that as an upgrade.

I upgrade when the thing I have can't do what I want it to do any more.

 

Usually it's more because of features than pure performance. I went from 2600k to 8700k to 5900x now. It has slowed down a lot, earlier on I'd always switch to the newest generation.

 

Good choices mate

 

I've never upgraded on a set schedule. I upgrade whenever I feel like I need something faster or components fail. I was on an R5 1600 from shortly after launch until Feb 2020 when it cooked after a pump failure. Been running an R5 2600 ever since. I don't really see a need to upgrade yet. I'd still be running the R5 1600 had it not cooked. In general, I usually end up upgrading processors every 2-4 generations and graphics every 1-2 generations.

 

My last PC I built Jan.2013. It was a Ivy Bridge 3770k.

And my current PC with a 3950x I built Jan.2020.

That means, 7 years difference.

 

how can a cpu cook these days it should shut itself down

 

When my pump failed my R5 1600AE just throttled until it finally produced a BSoD.... The system was unstable after that.

 

Out of curiosity how long did it take for your pump to fail? I’ve got a liquid cooler but from what I’ve read online they say it should last like 6-7 years.

 

Every pump is going to have a slightly different lifespan. I was running a custom loop with a D5 PWM pump. My pump was somewhere around 4 years old at that point but had run pretty much 24/7 aside from shutting down for an hour or so to change coolant a few times. The pump is still usable. The system had to be powered off long enough for the pump to cool down, else it would randomly decide not to spin up again. Once it started spinning, it was fine. I chose to go back to air cooling because it's quieter and less hassle since there's no coolant to change.

 

did you get a refund ?

 

7 years sounds about right, my previous one from 2011 started leaking from one of the tubes on the radiator in 2018, the pump itself was still going though, just leaking.

 

Why would I get a refund and for what product? My R5 1600AE was 3 years old and my pump was roughly 4 years old.... Both products out of warranty.

 

tough luck
i would never think a modern cpu would fry before shutting down safely

 

I just went from a Q6600 to a 5950x. Quite the jump.

 

Pentium 4 knew nothing about pc's and bought a prebuilt from a local pc shop.
i5-4670k still knew nothing and purchased another prebuilt, this time from a well known overcharging retailer
i5-4790k got this from amazon warehouse returns for just over £200 and it turned out to be a great clocker, really lucked out.
5950x went all out on my latest build earlier this month.

 

After having a 7700k rig since release date, I was going to hold out for DDR5 to become mainstream.

Unfortunately, the rig died, most likely the motherboard. So I bought a 5800x, Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite v2, new RAM, new PSU, new case.

Gutted because I was going to hold out until DDR5. But meh, it's done now. On average though, I'd say I upgrade my main components once every 4 years or so.

Generally speaking, I would upgrade every generation if I could be arsed. If I had someone come over and do it for me, I'd always be rocking the latest CPU. But I just can't be bothered. Also for gaming, there's no need.