When to upgrade

[jsnpringle]

How do you know when your cpu is holding you back / when its time to upgrade.

Basically wanting to know when its time to upgrade your cpu and not your gpu.

If you dont get what i mean just ask and ill try again haha.

 

[gingerrankin]

It depends on whether you use your pc for general use (documents, surfing, email, ...) or for games.

If you use it for games you must update it when your favorite game becomes unplayable.

If you use it for general use, when your response time becomes so long that it is annoying. Now, your general-purpose computer can last up to 10 years or more and, often, you do not need to change it, just change your HHD to a solid state unit (SSD).

 

[dontlistentome]

There are a lot of ways to know. If you run a utility like MSI Afterburner when running a game and see your CPU use is stuck at 100% but your GPU use never goes above 40%, that might be a clue.

If the game you run has a 'quad core' as a minimum requirement and your CPU is a dual core, that might be a clue.

If you just bought a $400 videocard and know that CPUs like yours sell for $20 on ebay, that might be a clue.