Upgrade regularly for better resale value?

icehot666

icehot666

icehot666

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12 Feb 2007
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Bishops Waltham
Hi,

Been giving this some thought lately... what does everyone here think about as an enthusiast upgrading regularly, and reselling older kit so as not to lose so much on resale value vs keeping the kit for much longer (if it performs how you're happy with) but getting less for it when you do eventually upgrade?
 
The performance you'd gain vs the money spent would seriously tear a hole in your wallet. Plus the only things that hold their value somewhat within a short period are CPUs and GPUs.
 
I'd personally stick with a setup that works for me and does what I wanted it to before upgrading, unless there was a really cheap way of upgrading an area or two

I think if you summed up the difference of upgrading regularly vs. upgrading in bulk over time the regular option would work out more expensive (purely based on guesswork of course!)

That said, upgrading is fun, so if it's your hobbie then why not
 
I typically plan for parts I will keep for a long time (Case, PSU, RAM) and parts that will need upgrading e.g. GPU/CPU. I would upgrade the GPU ever 2-3 years as you gain a decent amount and either give/sell the old one, upgrade the CPU as and when it needs, and basically just keep everything else the same, maybe stick in a new HDD/SSD.

I get a lot of my building out of the way building PCs for friends.
 
interesting replies, I guess I was looking at going from a 2600k with asus P8Z68 board to the rog hero z97 board with a 4790k... I know there's not much in that in terms of performance, but it is an upgrade, and researching on ebay revealed I could get anywhere from 200 to 250 for my current board and cpu, so the upgrade itself would only cost a couple hundred all in.

Now I don't have any real need to upgrade aside from a few nice things on the motherboard, but equally I started thinking my current rig is only going down in value every day that passes, but anything new I want down the line will still cost around 400 to 500 ish (maybe more if DDR3 goes away and I need more memory then). Obviously down the line when something even better comes out the 4790k is going to be worth a lot more than a 2600k.
 
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I wouldn't upgrade form a 2600k even if its losing value, the price your paying for the upgrade is really steep. I would maybe look at getting a nicer case/PSU/GPU and just waiting for something that really makes a difference.
 
OP Upgrading your 2600k is not worth it, not sure on rest of spec, but SSD's, extra RAM, or faster graphics card are great way to extend the life of a PC. Even a fresh installation of Windows can speed up an older PC. Something simple like using better thermal past / cleaning CPU cooler, and upping OC can help increase life.
 
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Well my full spec is 16Gb Corsair Vengence DDR3 1600, 256Gb SSD, 5.5Tb of extra HDD space (amongst various mechanical drives), an Asus Direct CUII 290x, corsair h80 on the CPU (got the CPU running at 4.5GHz), asus xonar dx sound card, 1000W PSU (can't remember the make)... I am getting a fractal design define r4 on monday as my case is getting on a bit now, and will probably get a k70 rgb keyboard next month.
 
As far as I can tell the cheapest way to be an enthusiast is to buy used 6 months after launch, then sell again 12 months after. That way you're a constant 6-12 months behind, but you buy without the launch premium (after the initial price drops), buy while it's new enough to be in great condition, but sell while it's still current and in demand.

Selling anything used from new carries at least a 25% drop, I tend to find, just because of shipping costs and the fact that if people are only saving £10-30 or so, they'd rather just buy new for peace of mind.

If you want to keep upgrading, I'd be tempted to buy high mid range and upgrade every 2-3 years. That way you're high-end enough to be relevant, cheap enough to stay within a couple of years of "current" and it won't bust your balls trying to do it.

Personally I like the "Buy high mid range, run it into the ground and upgrade after 5/6 years" approach. That way you get several years of a very good PC, followed by a slow decline until you get fed up with it and upgrade, at which point the upgrade feels like an absolute rocket.
 
Yeah i keep the main components(GPU, CPU, RAM, MOBO) for at least 3 years or until i need to upgrade but these days its hardly worth it.
 
The rate of change has slowed down a little, I didn't see any noticeable lack of performance until my PC was 3-4 years old, and a lot of that was just due to SSDs, the last big revolution in PC's.

It's only now, 5/6 years on, that my CPU/GPU combination doesn't feel like it's cutting it anymore.
 
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