Blogs How old is your hardware?

Interesting, Im still on a LGA775 system with a GTX480 it is getting retired through soon

 

meh not so good for me stared at 17 with i5 760 + 6870 then 18 i5 2500k +560ti sli. now just a cheep dell inspiron I3 380m 5650m next year? a i7 1366 or 1156 i5-i7 if prices are right and 2 or 1 580gtx

 

Hardware outran the software, which is why this happens more and more these days.

Don't knock 775.
Some of the old Core2Quads are extremely fast, the Q9550 still hangs with modern mid-range processors, despite being over 3 years old. The only reason I dumped my Q9550 as because I wanted more memory and Sata3. Upgrading from 8 gigs DDR2 to 16gigs would have cost me $300. For that price I could get an I5 2400, an okay board, and 16gigs of DDR3. Updating to SATA 3 was also am issue, most of the Sata3 boards for 775 are junk.

The q9550 now sits as a development server for Android, and it flies! It hangs with (perceived) much stronger systems just fine. I loan it out to other developers and they absolutely LOVE using it.


My old Radeon 4870 was still capable of modern games when I got rid of it about a year ago as well. It was around 2 or 3 years old as well. I went to a 6870 and barely saw any improvement in the games I play. It ended up in a friends desktop she uses for Second Life and it works fantastic for her.


The oldest part I have though is my PSU, a 5 year old PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 (before or around the time they were bought). The thing is still rock solid on a brand new system, and I expect 3-5 more years before it's replaced. Why change it when it works flawlessly.

 

My laptop may be modern (Core i5), but my desktop is a single core s939 chip with a 7800GTX. It's been upgraded to Windows 7, but that's about all.

 

My rig is a bit more than a year old, there is a ASUS P7P55D-LE socket 1156 motherboard, a Pentium Dual-Core G6950 @ 4.26GHz aircooled with a Freezer Rev.2 and there is 8 gigabytes of Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 memory consisting of 2 sticks. The motherboard is from a waste container, literally, with a one burnt memory slot and lost I/O shield. The HDD I am using is WD 80 gigabyte SATA-300 platter, and half a year ago I upgraded the soundcard to ASUS Xonar Essence STX. I haven't had any kind of bluescreens yet with this configuration, very realiable motherboard with 8+2 phase, I really haven't raised any voltage from stock yet and it runs still stable. Maybe the processor is good one, because it is the earlier C2 revision.

 

As mentioned above, lack of new gen consoles is limiting the need for newer hardware. The days when PC games dictated the required technology are over. My main rig is over 4 years old, my gfx card was updated 18 months ago, and I added more RAM last year. I can play the new games at near high settings or highest settings - although I must admit I'm no longer heavily into the latest shooter.

 

I feel positively modern, then. My main desktop is all less than two years old, other than the case, which is around 4, I think.

My wife's rocking my old desktop, with a A64 x2 5400+. It's got an MSI mobo scavenged from work, and inherited the DDR2 from my desktop when my old mobo died and I upgraded to an M5A97 EVO. That was right before BD dropped...if I'd been able to wait, I would have saved a few bucks and stuck with AM3 :\

While the Phenom II X3 720 has a sadly unstable 4th core, it's more than adequate, and I've had it OC'd to 3.7 without a problem (currently at 3.37)

Next is a modern system for the wife - thinking Llano, as it's the perfect fit for her usage. Going to try for a Mini-ITX board and actually make a tiny build this time - my current Mini-ITX has space for 5 3.5" HDDs, so not so tiny.

All the closets in the house are a different story - front closet has several 939 boards (not sure where they came from, tbh), bedroom closet has a couple 486s and a couple 386s...somewhere around here is a 15 lb laptop from the early 80s.

 

I got my 3.0ghz Nocona Xeon cpus back in 2004, its now 2012... thats 8 years of going.

Had 4gb of DDR 3200 ECC the whole time, The psu died 6 months ago and i recently replaced it.

The graphics card was the only thing that i ever needed to update and that got as far as an GTX260 and from there its just been doing fine. I dont play a lot of modern games anymore due to work and social commitments. How ever it still goes decently.


Ill admit that over the last few years i have noticed it starting to lag behind quite a bit, but i dont mind playing games on medium or low settings. besides Civ5 is a great game

 

Just upgraded from an identical system to the one below kept the 5870 and put in a i72600K at 4.5GHz and 16GB Ram and a vertex SSD, thinking of sticking a 670 in when they go down a little.

 

My current PC is for the most part 4 years old. I had to replace the motherboard because it died.
I recently replaced the HHD's and swapped the original 8800GT with a 460GTX while I was in Taiwan and it is still running perfectly.


So far it has been able to handle everything I threw at it, but I might replace the innards for something new next year if I have the funds necessary.

 

I tend to run older hardware mainly because I don't have the cash to upgrade very often. I usually upgrade when (finally) I cannot put up with the speed of my current system any longer, or a part ups and dies.

However I am in the middle of building a new system atm (Have CPU and Mobo to go) as I felt it was time to finally bring things up to date.

Current system:
CPU: Phenom II X4 940 slightly OC'ed to 3.3GHz, with Titan Fenrir HS&F.
Mobo: Biostar TA790GX3 A2+.
GFX: KFA2 NVIDIA GTX 470.
Sound: Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS.
Memory: 2 GB (2x1 GB) DDR2 800MHz Corsair XMS2.
PSU: SeaSonic X760 Modular 760W (Pretty much new. This was bought for the new system I'm building, but a week after it arrived my old PSU went "BZZZZT" and died taking my HDD with it (From jealousy I think ^^.)).
Drives: 2 TB internal WD Green 7200 RPM (My old WD Black 320 GB drive got killed by the death throws of my previous PSU.). 2 TB External USB3 Iomega drive. Generic DVD writer.
Case: Antec P182 case using 4 x 120mm Gentle Typhoon fans.
Speakers: Creative Labs Inspire T7700 7.1

New system:
CPU: Ivybridge 3770K (Not bought yet), with Noctua NH-D14 HS&F (Already bought)
Mobo: MSI Z77A-GD65 (Not bought yet - Trying to hold out for the GD80)
GFX: KFA2 NVIDIA GTX 470 (Simply cannot afford to upgrade the GFX as well atm)
Sound: As the MSI mobo's don't have a PCI slot I'll have to drop the Audigy 2 card and use on-board sound.
Memory: 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) Corsair DDR3 1600MHz 1.5v Vengeance (Black) low profile.
PSU: SeaSonic X760 Modular 760W
Drives: 2 x 2 TB internal WD Green 7200 RPM in RAID 0. 2 TB External USB3 Iomega drive. Generic DVD writer.
Case: Antec P182 case using 4 x 120mm Gentle Typhoon fans with NZXT Sentry II 525 fan controller.
Speakers: Corsair SP2500 2.1

 

I am in the group that can't afford to upgrade every 2 years or so. My PC is very old. The only reason I haven't upgraded is because it still plays new games well at 1920x1080 with no AA. I am still using an AMD 6000+ X2 with my 8800GT 512. The only things that has been upgraded is the PSU and RAM. Oh and the disc drive has been replaced twice.

So even if I did want to upgrade a single part (i do), such as the gfx card. I can't without it being bottlenecked by the CPU. Then I would need a new CPU, but it wont fit on my mobo. So I need a new mobo and RAM. My PSU might be too weak to handle a modern card so add that in with it. Then I would need a fresh copy of Windows.

Basically people are left with 2 choices. Buy a new PC every 2 years, or stick with the old one as long as possible. However even though I defend my choice to hang on to this current PC, I still want/need the latest tech. My PC isn't spectacular but it works well enough.

 

I'm running a 3.0ghz P4 (@3.4ghz), 2gb ram, 2xpata HDD, 7950GT card (AGP connection) zalman reserator and wrapped in a thermaltake case.

It manages but I would like something newer.

 

I kinda struck lucky. I was using an AM2 4800+ X2, the mobo went and I replaced it with an AM2+ mobo, which allowed me at a later date to get the Phenom II (With a BIOS update). But it has got to the point where I'm in the same boat as you, need to replace the whole system to upgrade further.

 

Currently rocking
athlon x2 6000+
4gb ram
Gtx260

I could upgrade to a phenom but what's the point? I recently upgraded my netbook to a 13" lenovo with an i3 2330 and hd6630. Only upgrading the gpu will improve on that, upgrading to a phenom ii only matches it and whats the point till next gen games come out? Cash is tight and currently I'm still playing around with OS's atm to work out what I want server wise. hard disks will absorb most of my budget this years budget leaving the desktop neglected another year.

 

With the advent of GOG getting great games no longer requires great hardware

 

As in the sig below and has been since Jan '09.

Torn between replacing the 4890 which has been and is a fanastic gpu or an ssd. The i7-920 is, I suspect good for another 3years+ ...which is nice.... which is a real problem for the likes of Intel.... we've reach the 'good enough' horizon. If it's good enough, why change it?

 

playing with this:

C2Q wolfy Q9550 (stock)
4gb 1066 corsair
Asus P5q Pro
GTX 460 1gb
Force 3 SSD
and a couple Samsung 1TB F3's

Processor, mobo and memory have been going for 3 maybe 3.5 years for me and looking to make the jump to ivybridge today as the mobo is on its last legs.

 

I'm loving reading thro all of the comments, all these old systems that are still easilly powerful enough to run modern day apps and most games albeit with reduced detail.

my system is a P5QC deluxe with a q9550 @3.4ghz, 8gb ddr3 Ripjaws 1600mhz cl8, 2 x ati hd 5770 in CF, 2 x 500gb samsung f1 in raid 0 and a 2tb samsung f3, azuentec x-fi prelude, be quiet dark power pro all inside a antec 300 all hooked up to my panasonic vierra 50inch in 1080 goodness and running win 7 64bit. nice!!

the system has been on the go in one form or another since late 2005 with its beginnings underpinned by an asus p5kc (that blew up) with a Pentium e2160, geforce 7800 gt (for sale on ebay) and an audigy sb1394 (also for sale on ebay)

latest addition is a crucial m4 256gb that has had a massive price drop this week, that should be in the post as i type. i might upgrade with a bru-ray writer possiby at some point soon, other than that i honestly cant see any reason to upgrade for a good while yet. maybe in the long term the next gen of gfx cards might be a good upgrade. if theyre more than twice as fast as my cf 5770 combo and use half the power then ill be sold i think.

 

My rig has been the same for the past 4 years:

AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition
Zalman CNPS9900 LED Copper
ASUS M3A32MVP-Deluxe WiFi
OCZ 8GB DDR2 PC-8500 Gold Edition
LC-Power Arkangel 850W
Zalman GS1000
Sapphire ATi HD4870 1GB GDDR5 Toxic Edition
Asus VK246H @1920x1080 (native)
(HDD's and Optical Drive)

Only thing I believe needs switching to handle modern games and applications is the GPU but low on money and have to hold on. When possible, switching to GTX580 3GB or GTX680 2GB.
I can run all the games, only BF3 isn't maxed out.