Discussion Forever changing components and they are incompatible

[Mahisse]

Many PC builders' argument for building a PC is often: "It allows the user to do cheaper and continuous upgrades" but I haven't found that to be too true anymore.
Thinking about how long a processor lasts in today's gaming environment it is safe to say you don't have to upgrade too often, when it comes to CPUs. I still run a i5-3570K in my setup from 2013-ish and first now encounter some games, where I experience a CPU bottleneck. I would reckon that processor will probably last for my gaming needs for 2 years more (maybe 1).
Since it takes quite a handful of years before today's CPUs get outdated it often turns out that you need to change most of the components in your case, when it actually comes to upgrading. It seems to me that the motherboards gets outdated quickly these days due to new socket requirements for the CPU or even new memory.
When the time comes I will probably need to upgrade:
The motherboard
The RAMs (DDR3)
The CPU
The CPU cooler?

The only thing you are really upgrading along the way is the GPU before you have to replace everything.

Storage and case are actually the only things left, which does not need an upgrade right away.

My conclusion is: Using the argument that a home built PC is easier and cheaper to upgrade is not 100% bullet proof. Most high-end systems may last up to around 5-6 years for a casual gamer, in which within that timeframe newer incompatible components have been introduced to the market and you would have to change most of the interior of your case anyways.

How often do you upgrade your systems? Do you experience that the motherboard needs to be changed each time you need to upgrade?

 

[Obakasama]

Have to admit I don't recall many making the argument that building a PC is cheaper (and cheaper compared to....?). It can be done 'cheaply' but if not done smartly it would result in poorer performance and user experience.

How long a CPU lasts really depends on what workload you're putting on it. My Athlon x4 760k lasted me a while, but when I wanted to play more modern games it then struggled. Even more the case when I wanted it to do more heavy workloads like Blender usage, especially compared to my current Ryzen 5 1600. One could put forth the argument about how long a system lasts depends on the workload you demand of it isn't limited to just the CPU.

With motherboards... depending which ones you're thinking about. There's an element of planned obsolescence with some, which one could argue is 'arbitrary' or more likely a business decision to get consumers to spend more. Then there are perhaps those cases which a change is needed due to fundamental changes to a CPU architecture which the current motherboard designs (and their chipsets) can no longer realistically handle.

I would add PSU as well to the list of not immediately needing an upgrade, assuming it's a good quality one. Even optical disc drives depending on the needs of the user for their system and use case scenario.

There seems to be a suppressed comparison you're making without stating what it is which leaves out a significant part of your counter-argument.

The term 'casual gamer' is vague, as is 'hardcore gamer'. Few rarely define what they mean by such terms as they hold little meaning, thus comparisons of the use case scenarios are difficult to make.

 

[boju]

Began with the ancient 286 playing Prince of Persia and Dave.

Ventured to 486 50MHz, played wolf3D, Doom and Duke3D. Didn't play well but was a start.

686 333MHz gave pleasure in Duke3D, NFS and Doom. This chip was a rocket and games played were a lot smoother. This and the 486 machine had many memorable lanning Doom sessions with the winner awarded the good machine 😁

Amd k6 450 came into the scene eventually and was ok but couldn't match a friend's PII 266 performance in Quake 3.

PIII 600 was the best during that time. Unreal tournament, Q2&3 were so smooth with Geforce Ti500.

Team Fortress Classic entered the scene as did Pentium 4. Not too bad but did it's job.

Since that time after a break but not recent, had re-entered pc land buying an i7 920 system. Was used to WinXP/2000 but Win 7 was quickly loved.

920 system is now an office pc and my main rig in my sig is the heavy game lifter.
.

Through my years of experience, application/game requirements is always changing. These days, games are becoming ever more intensive and refresh rate is also increasing which puts more strain on cpu.

When system cant do much more for you, its time to upgrade. These days, a thing called Freesync/Gsync 'can' help delay upgrades.

 

[falcon291]

Many PC builders' argument for building a PC is often: "It allows the user to do cheaper and continuous upgrades" but I haven't found that to be too true anymore.
Thinking about how long a processor lasts in today's gaming environment it is safe to say you don't have to upgrade too often, when it comes to CPUs. I still run a i5-3570K in my setup from 2013-ish and first now encounter some games, where I experience a CPU bottleneck. I would reckon that processor will probably last for my gaming needs for 2 years more (maybe 1).
Since it takes quite a handful of years before today's CPUs get outdated it often turns out that you need to change most of the components in your case, when it actually comes to upgrading. It seems to me that the motherboards gets outdated quickly these days due to new socket requirements for the CPU or even new memory.
When the time comes I will probably need to upgrade:
The motherboard
The RAMs (DDR3)
The CPU
The CPU cooler?

The only thing you are really upgrading along the way is the GPU before you have to replace everything.

Storage and case are actually the only things left, which does not need an upgrade right away.

My conclusion is: Using the argument that a home built PC is easier and cheaper to upgrade is not 100% bullet proof. Most high-end systems may last up to around 5-6 years for a casual gamer, in which within that timeframe newer incompatible components have been introduced to the market and you would have to change most of the interior of your case anyways.

How often do you upgrade your systems? Do you experience that the motherboard needs to be changed each time you need to upgrade?

2013 to 2019. And your CPU was not the best CPU at the time. I bought my late CPU, mainboard and RAM 6 years ago, and replaced last March. 6 years is a long time for a computer, laptop or desktop. I would say if lasted 6 years, it was a good investment, that performed well.

 

[Mahisse]

2013 to 2019. And your CPU was not the best CPU at the time. I bought my late CPU, mainboard and RAM 6 years ago, and replaced last March. 6 years is a long time for a computer, laptop or desktop. I would say if lasted 6 years, it was a good investment, that performed well.

I think the point I was trying to make (perhaps too much of a rant really) was that, when I built my PC I naively thought I would be needing to upgrade the CPU at least one time before I needed to replace the motherboard. But it didn't take long, as we know before the LGA 1155 socket was hopelessly outdated, meaning the motherboard would have to be changed in any cases.
I agree a 5 year old build, which still plays fairly well was a good investment. I guess it's the enjoyment of bulding the PC, which really is the reward in it self because the arguments for building your own PC, mainly meant for gaming is a bit vague.

I would define a casual gamer as a person who is fine with ~40 fps in most cases.

 

[falcon291]

I think the point I was trying to make (perhaps too much of a rant really) was that, when I built my PC I naively thought I would be needing to upgrade the CPU at least one time before I needed to replace the motherboard. But it didn't take long, as we know before the LGA 1155 socket was hopelessly outdated, meaning the motherboard would have to be changed in any cases.
I agree a 5 year old build, which still plays fairly well was a good investment. I guess it's the enjoyment of bulding the PC, which really is the reward in it self because the arguments for building your own PC, mainly meant for gaming is a bit vague.

I would define a casual gamer as a person who is fine with ~40 fps in most cases.

Unfortunately 6 years are quite a gap. My previous board was PCI-X 2.0, was not supporting NVMe drives, and also of course most importantly generation 9 CPUs. Intel is also not known giving support for large range of CPUs. But still it is more or less same for AMD for 6 years. It is not the mainboard, also your RAM should change.

40 fps is now simply not enough for me, if all the players have the same disadvantage like consoles low fps would not matter, but for first person shooters, multiplayer gameplay with fps you will end up dead in most situations independent of how you play. After buying 9700K still not satisfied with my performance I bought a Freesync monitor and my K/D climbed from 0.86 to 1.01in 2 and half months. If you are playing FPS a G-Sync or Freesync monitor is a must for 2019.

 

[hang-the-9]

- snip -

My conclusion is: Using the argument that a home built PC is easier and cheaper to upgrade is not 100% bullet proof. Most high-end systems may last up to around 5-6 years for a casual gamer, in which within that timeframe newer incompatible components have been introduced to the market and you would have to change most of the interior of your case anyways.

How often do you upgrade your systems? Do you experience that the motherboard needs to be changed each time you need to upgrade?

I cut most of the post in the reply since the core point is here. A home built PC IS easier to upgrade, when compared to many cheaper or business class systems since they are built with parts that are pretty much exactly good enough to run at that time for what they are bought for. Small cases with custom motherboard shapes, weak power supplies with limited connections for power only just long enough to reach custom placed drives and connectors, etc....

But of course it's not 100% true, there is very few things that are always true in all cases and for all people. If you buy a system built by a company for you, and they use a standard case and standard motherboard and standard power supply type that you can buy yourself easily build on the standards like ATX, then you can almost as easily upgrade that system. Even some decent business towers can be upgraded into a faster system, depending on what is in them of-course. I used one for years that was a first gen i7 system, I put in a better power supply, video card and solid state drive in it, it all fit and worked because the core of the system was build on standard parts.

I upgrade very rarely myself, and when I do it is usually storage speed or size, and video card since I plan on what I get to be good enough for a while with the least amount of work. I like to jump over my upgrades in stages. My last main PC is on a 4th generation i5 with an older Radeon 290X card. Next thing I get for it is a newer video card. After that would be a platform swap to a modern CPU and keep the same card. Then keep the CPU and upgrade the video card. Of course this is based on things not changing during that time like some new video card standard connection.