Future Proof: How Often Should You Upgrade Your PC?

Technology changes rapidly and PC hardware is no exception to that rule. Throughout the 90's and early 2000's we saw some pretty ridiculous advances in computing power, going from single-core CPUs in the 100-200MHz range to the 4/6/8 core 3-4GHz monsters of today.

After deciding that our family's relic from 1999 just wouldn't cut it any more, I built my first computer in 2002 and traded up from a P3 450MHz with PC133 SDRAM to an Athlon XP 2100+ at 1.73GHz and 512MB of DDR. The old machine originally had a Voodoo Banshee 16MB video card, which was apparently "the ultimate bridge between 3D entertainment and PC graphics." I had previously swapped out that card for a GeForce 2 Ti and I further upgraded to a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 128MB with my new build. In a span of three years I moved to a new CPU architecture with more than triple the clock speed of the Pentium III, adopted the first generation of DDR, and picked up a video card with eight times the VRAM and many times the performance of my Banshee. Pretty crazy.

The beautiful Voodoo Banshee. Image: Maximum PC

Examining the Pace of Innovation

The trend has continued in years since, but a couple of articles from this week have me wondering if things might be slowing down. ExtremeTech published an article titled "PC obsolescence is obsolete" on Tuesday that compares the jump in tech from 1996 to 2000 and contrasts it with the advances we've seen from 2008 to 2012. Here's what they had to say about the first four-year span:

"In four years, CPU clockspeed quintupled. Actual performance gains were even higher, thanks to further improvements in CPU efficiency. In 1996, high-performing EDO RAM offered up to 264MB/s of bandwidth, in 2000, PC100 had hit 800MB/s. AGP slots weren’t available in 1996, four years later they were an essential component of an enthusiast PC. USB controllers had gone from dodgy, barely functional schlock that locked up the mouse every time you launched a program, to reasonably reliable. 32MB of RAM was great in 1996, by 2000 you wanted at least 64MB for acceptable performance."

Their current-day performance comparison includes a 2008-era Nephalem i7 system and an Ivy Bridge system of today. Improvements in clock speed and architecture aside, they argue that everything is "roughly comparable:" tri-channel 6GB DDR3-1066 kits can still hang with dual-channel 8GB DDR3-1600, and add-in cards can provide things like USB 3.0 ports or SATAIII for SSDs.

Tom's Hardware System Builder Marathon

Every quarter, Tom's Hardware sets out to investigate the PC hardware market. Armed with three budgets - usually $500, $1000, and $2000 - they assemble three builds and compare overall performance and value. We're right in the middle of the August System Builder Marathon this week. On Monday they showed off a $500 gaming PC. Tuesday highlighted a $1000 enthusiast PC, and today showcases a $2000 performance powerhouse.

I always look forward to reading these articles every few months. When you're a PC gamer on a budget, building a computer is all about balance. Reading reviews of $500 video cards is great, but if you're planning on pairing that GTX680 with a dual-core i3 and 2GB of RAM you're going to be disappointed. Tom's does a great job of demonstrating what you can get for your money using currently-available parts. They're experiments, and they're not always perfect, but that's the beauty of it: read a few of these and you'll get an idea of what percentage of your budget you should devote to each part to get the performance you desire.

Tomorrow they'll take a look at the overall value of each build and compare the performance of all three, and it looks like on Friday we'll see a extra "surprise" $2000 build. Spoiler alert: they chose to go with a GTX670 in the $2000 build this quarter, and while it was an all-around solid machine you'd expect to get a little more gaming performance for two grand. I'm guessing they'll drop down from an LGA2011 SB-E setup to an Ivy Bridge i7 and either go with a single 680 or two 670's. Either way it'll be interesting to see what happens.