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How often do you upgrade your CPU and Motherboard

I think 5800x to anything 9000 series is a waste of money if you ask me
Maybe by the time the RX 9000 series is here, I might need an upgrade
 
Every 4-5 years. Fairly consistently since I moved to PC gaming in 2011. I'm upgrading to AM5 and the 9800x3d next week, that will be 4 years since my 5800x build and the one before that was 5 years and 4 before that. GPUs are more sporadic, I just upgrade when I feel the need, which is usually every 3 years or so.
 
Every 6-ish years normally. I've just upgraded mid-cycle for the first time though: 12600K to 14700F. Definite upgrade. Had to limit the Power to 150W and 110W though. Still boosting above 5GHz and keeps it quiet. The sweet spot.
 
I think I am probably looking to upgrade now that a 9800x3d looks to show up my aging 5800X but as I game at 4K I don't really notice the contribution of the CPU over the GPU.
 
I used to trade out rapidly in the Core 2 days, I had the 7, 8 and 9th gen Intel chips because I could mod my laptop socket to take it so got 4->8 cores. Then I waited to move over to desktop and jumped in on cheap 7000 series just before the 9000 series. Picked up a 7700 which does 5.25Ghz all core all day long. Then in the future a 9800X3d would be a slot in upgrade.
 
Every couple of gens. Sometimes longer.

Going from a non x3d 5800x to 9800x3d.

I do a fair bit of emulation and play strat/4x games quite a bit so expecting a noticeable difference.

Planning on a 5090 next year too. First time in a long time I'll be going top tier.
 
I've been primarily using AM4 since 2017 (apart from an ~8 month period using a 10600K) and have only had two motherboards in that time - an Asus X370 Crosshair VI Hero and my current MSI X570 ACE. I've owned every generation of AM4 Ryzen CPU though, starting with a 1700 on launch day and ending with the 5800X3D that I'm using now. I could still be using the Crosshair too had I not sold it when I bought the 10600K setup (a regret and a waste of time). AM4 is a pretty remarkable platform really, to the point that I feel zero desire to upgrade right now. I'll wait for the final wave of AM5 CPUs, by which point there should be tons of cheap motherboards and DDR5 around.
 
arknor said:
roughly every 3 - 5 years.
had a 12700k in 2022 and seems it doesn't need upgrading yet
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I would agree.

Upgrading for me was largely about staying up to date, but these days its more about "needing to update", because CPU's haven't shown any real improvement in some time.

9800X3D is tempting. I got caught up in the hype, but reviewer tests at 1080P and unlimited frame-rate are very unrealistic.

The 9800X3D is only about 7% faster than the 12700K. Sure, it is faster in "unlimited" games, but I don't run my CPU like that. I play in 1440P and limit the FPS to my monitor, which means that both CPU's are capable of running the games I play at maximum frame-rate I play at, except the 12700K runs them at lower temperatures.

It's true there are some games the 12700K falls short on, but I am just not sure whether they are worth spending £1000 on.

People need to stop thinking that "newer means better" and starting thinking whether "newer means worth upgrading to".
 
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SpellowHouse said:
I would agree.

Upgrading for me was largely about staying up to date, but these days its more about "needing to update", because CPU's haven't shown any real improvement in some time.

9800X3D is tempting. I got caught up in the hype, but reviewer tests at 1080P and unlimited frame-rate are very unrealistic.

The 9800X3D is only about 7% faster than the 12700K. Sure, it is faster in "unlimited" games, but I don't run my CPU like that. I play in 1440P and limit the FPS to my monitor, which means that both CPU's are capable of running the games I play at maximum frame-rate I play at, except the 12700K runs them at lower temperatures.

It's true there are some games the 12700K falls short on, but I am just not sure whether they are worth spending £1000 on.

People need to stop thinking that "newer means better" and starting thinking whether "newer means worth upgrading to".
Click to expand...

Even my Xeon 5670 hex core played all games fine, apart from ones that require new instruction set .
 
madtoady said:
Have a 9800X3D coming next week to finish off my new build. Current build is 3800X with a GTX1080. Haven't yet decided on what graphics card to get though.
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Would wait on the GPU for now if you can live the the GTX1080 for a couple more months both NVIDIA and AMD next gen coming early next year.
 
So far, I've usually dragged it out as long as possible, driven by the point at which gaming framerate becomes unbearable, or sometimes (rarely) snapping up easy and good value CPU upgrades on the same platform without such framerate related pain.

Recently buying a 5700x3d to replace a 2700x is the first time I've bought a CPU upgrade while generally already being happy with CPU related framerate in all the games I play. I figured it'll be the last decent upgrade available for the AM4 platform and I note what's happened to 5800x3d prices as they've become scarce. I've taken a punt now because my guess is that 5700x3d prices will probably rise too before long as stock becomes harder to find. I think the 5700x3d will probably be OK for me for a long time, probably at least into a time when cross-platform games are also released on PS6 (or whatever).

I guess, typical for what's was achievable in the past was buying an Athlon X2 5200+ for just over £30 in 2011, unlocking it to a quad core Phenom FX5200 (basically a Phenom II, but this was back in the days where AMD used to literally design in Easter Eggs for tweakers and overclockers), overclocking it by 50% to about the speed of a Phenom II 955 or 965 and then running it in my main rig until 2020. So a bit over 9 years. I don't think I'll ever match that value again. The old thread again if anyone is interested: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...lock-to-phenom-fx5200.18225299/#post-18146904 I definitely don't have time for that kind of stress testing to make sure all is OK any more. Just want things to work without so much effort these days. Actually, the FX5200 build did start to show some signs of instability on hot days in that last year or so (which probably drove my move to AM4), but I don't think that's too bad, given I'd been running the motherboard with a 50% bus overclock for the best part of a decade.

I'd been quite happy with the 2700x since 2020 and I'm sure I would have been happy with it for longer. So that's 4 years. I could have probably hung on for quite a bit longer.
 
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SpellowHouse said:
9800X3D is tempting. I got caught up in the hype, but reviewer tests at 1080P and unlimited frame-rate are very unrealistic.
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Yea I looked at comparisons to my cpu and just doesn't seem worth at all.

I game at 4k anyway and usually lock fps to 120, I'd probably be happy with 60 tbh in most games. but I don't play anything competitive

"all this "intel sucks" but does it really when a 3 year old cpu still holds up fine
 
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Only when I feel I have to really. I'm still on a 6700k 1080ti system right now and it's just an expensive hifi right now. The phone meets my social media email and youtube needs. Oh and online shopping too.
 
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