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Intel CEO: Most People Only Replace A PC After 5-6 Years
- Thread starter Megalith
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As a former IT manager - desktops and laptops were usually replaced every 3 years.. 1/3rd every year. Though that could probably be safely doubled now with modern machines once you have the basic processor, storage, and memory needs met.
At home.. well, other than video cards most everything else needs little upgrading anymore.
There really hasn't been a huge increase in processing power or demand for it, nor for RAM.
As far as storage goes,once you have an SSD the only thing significant is how much it stores. Do you really need anything more than what you need to store the OS and your apps and games? Long term storage can be any old hard drive, external storage, cheap NAS, or cloud storage.
Really only enthusiasts upgrade constantly.
At home.. well, other than video cards most everything else needs little upgrading anymore.
There really hasn't been a huge increase in processing power or demand for it, nor for RAM.
As far as storage goes,once you have an SSD the only thing significant is how much it stores. Do you really need anything more than what you need to store the OS and your apps and games? Long term storage can be any old hard drive, external storage, cheap NAS, or cloud storage.
Really only enthusiasts upgrade constantly.
I used to replace my CPU/mobo/RAM every couple years but now even I fall into the 5-6 years category. When we only see 5% gains in performance per clock each year it takes a long time for that to add up to something meaningful.
I hope there is a Kaby Lake-C or Cannon Lake-C with eDRAM, since that seemed to bring a bigger performance boost on Broadwell than any of their ticks and tocks have.
Yep for general use a SSD makes a much bigger difference than anything else. It can even "brute force" it's way through some malware/bloatware, crappy AV, etc. For gaming a new graphics card usually helps more than anything unless you have a really old CPU.
Laptops in particular really benefit from SSDs, since they generally have very slow hard drives in them to start with. For most people CPU performance just doesn't matter anymore.
I hope there is a Kaby Lake-C or Cannon Lake-C with eDRAM, since that seemed to bring a bigger performance boost on Broadwell than any of their ticks and tocks have.
Yep for general use a SSD makes a much bigger difference than anything else. It can even "brute force" it's way through some malware/bloatware, crappy AV, etc. For gaming a new graphics card usually helps more than anything unless you have a really old CPU.
Laptops in particular really benefit from SSDs, since they generally have very slow hard drives in them to start with. For most people CPU performance just doesn't matter anymore.
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I haven't felt the need to upgrade my CPU since I got my i7 920, a few GPU upgrades and an SSD were all it took to keep this thing running my games well.
If this keeps up I'll upgrade when the mobo fails and I can't get the parts anymore
Now if only work would decomission some of those servers with the 1366 Xeons in them....
If this keeps up I'll upgrade when the mobo fails and I can't get the parts anymore
Now if only work would decomission some of those servers with the 1366 Xeons in them....
MavericK
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We recommend around 5-6 years to our clients. Many of them are still using C2Ds, or worse...
DukenukemX
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It doesn't help that Intel has CPUs worth upgrading to every 5-6 years. How old ist hat 2600K? A 2011 CPU? Would you really upgrade to Skylake from a 2600k? Probably not. Cause everyone wants to buy another 4 core CPU that performs only 20% faster per clock.
Moore's Law does not apply to consumer grade CPUs. Seems to only effect the server market. A 2600K, 4960k, and 6600K are not doubling in performance.
I'm in this boat too. My 2500K at 4.5ghz does everything I need it to. Could my machine boot a few seconds faster with a newer platform and pick up a few FPS in some games? Sure. Is it worth replacing my motherboard, CPU, and RAM over? Nah. Heck, my old Q6600 system is still perfectly functional for every day use.
Yep among enthusiasts/gamers Intel's biggest competition is actually their own previous CPUs. It's hard to justify spending $600 for a new CPU/mobo/RAM for a 20% performance increase at best (and in games even less). A $600 graphics card could easily double or triple your performance depending on what you are upgrading from.
I'm still pushing out recon ex Corporate Dell/HP 4GB dual core Pentiums from 2009/2010 to business customers. I cant get my hands on enough of them. They will be running in most offices for another 3-4 years minimum.
Got a 2008 Dell T5400 dual Xeon CPU workstation here that a customer has bought. Snapped my hand off to buy it.
Stick a SSD into any dual core+ box with at least 4GB and you are good to go.
Got a 2008 Dell T5400 dual Xeon CPU workstation here that a customer has bought. Snapped my hand off to buy it.
Stick a SSD into any dual core+ box with at least 4GB and you are good to go.
I feel sorry for those business customers... Unless all they are doing is browsing web sites and not even using Office, they could see a pretty huge increase in speed with a newer system.
Where I work, we do replacements every 5 years now.
The oldest machines we have are 2nd gen i5/i7 machines. I could have went another year or so on most of them but was told if I don't spend the money, then they won't budget for it next year.
Once you get into Word documents that are several hundred pages and really huge Excel files, the old crap such as you are recommending doesn't cut it. And 4GB is just absolutely horrible. I upgraded some machines that had 4GB to 8GB and some to 16GB because stuff was running way too slow (Word and Excel x64). Stuff that was taking minutes to do immediately only took a couple seconds.
If building from scratch probably not far off. My latest not even super top of the line 6700k build is over $2k and I'm not done. Crap adds up! $500 monitor, $500 MB/CPU combo, $200 ram (32g), $200 Pro SSD, $100 cooler, $100 Windows, $4-600 GPU (depending), $200 gaming mouse/keyboard, etc., etc.$3,000.00?
Killerxp100
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What would you use an expensive 10 core for? If you have a need for that kind of power then why haven't you replaced that old 920 for a x56xx by now? Again you're probably doing it wrong.
Really depends on what they are running.
I installed several i3 (3.6Ghz) systems last year at the office. It was a huge upgrade from the 2.4Ghz p4 (single core/2GB ram ) system they where using.
Really can't go any faster, as we already see the occasional timing related problems with some old software they are still using.
Seem like more of the software we are running internally is web based, so the server speed is more important.
Just put in a new server with dual 10 core Xeons. Would have like a little higher clock speed, but they where still the best bang for the buck since we do a lot of virtualization.
dangerouseddy
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I will probably just buy a new video card, everything else isn't worth replacing yet.
That is currently the only thing really pushing PC's and its more limited by GPU than the CPU. The normal consumer over the years was never really limited by the CPU itself, the big bottle necks were memory. After a while we finally got over the 32bit wall and people got their much needed 8gb+ of memory.
Intel knows this, most enthusiasts are so hyper active that if they don't get +50% on their benchmarks they are getting screwed. No matter how fast the CPU is you won't be limited in gaming or normal day to day usage. Even AMD competes on normal gaming on their ancient MB chipset, that alone should tell you something considering they get murdered on benchmarks. Intel is leading in the CPU but more importantly they are destroying it on the chipset side where it matters most these days.
SuperSubZero
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You can't really say that there's nothing between an i7-920 and an x99 solution that wouldn't be a pretty noticeable improvement at a substantially lower price point. You can want, but it doesn't mean something a little less throw-moneyish wouldn't be a substantial upgrade anyway. Whatever you're doing with an i7-920, you can do with an i7-4790K with more RAM and whatever and it will be faster, period, and will cost a lot less.
People throwing money at like 6950X's now are doing so because (a) there's a financial incentive to do so (ie. their computer generates revenue inversely proportional to the speed it completes tasks) or (b) because they be Trumpin' and can spend money like that without much concern. The former know who they are and understand their situation and that it doesn't apply to everyone. Amazingly, so do the latter.
heatlesssun
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Three days ago I would have seen it more like this. But going from those 680s to a 1080 even an 1080P resolution, it's like night and day, at least with the latest titles. That single 1080 is driving games at max settings like Doom and Tomb Raider on my three monitors where the 680 couldn't even come close to that on one. The 1080 is insanely faster.
DukenukemX
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Gaming has always been the driving force for faster CPUs and GPUs. That's less true today when Xbox 360 and PS3 have pretty much put the brakes on games having better graphics and innovation. Besides getting 60 fps and 4k, the other reason to have a fast PC is for bad ports. Like it or not, the games you buy on PC are at best revolving around PS4 hardware, or at worst Xbox One hardware. If we want games to make better use of our hardware, we need consoles to disappear. Especially the CPU which is just horribly underutilized on PC. The more cores you have, the more it punishes your games performance, which really shouldn't happen.
I'm sorta in this boat. I'm still rocking a FX-8320. I upgraded my cpu but kept the same motherboard, until it died, then I replaced the motherboard. 9950be~1055T~8120~8320 so same basic platform for 6 years now.
I've thought about moving to a Intel haswell-e platform, but still cannot really justify the cost for the performance. Broadwell-E meh, I would have purchased an 8-core for 500-600$, but nope it's over 1000$ still. Hopefully when Skylake-E comes that will give me incentive enough to upgrade, perhaps Amd Zen if it's any good.
I've thought about moving to a Intel haswell-e platform, but still cannot really justify the cost for the performance. Broadwell-E meh, I would have purchased an 8-core for 500-600$, but nope it's over 1000$ still. Hopefully when Skylake-E comes that will give me incentive enough to upgrade, perhaps Amd Zen if it's any good.
heatlesssun
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Even if consoles did disappear I doubt many of those console people would go out and buy PCs, at least higher end ones, to game. Doing PC gaming well simply costs a good deal more in upfront hardware costs than a console.
Eh thing is I'm playing things like Terraria, Don't starve, Diablo 3 and rarely league..It wouldn't make even the slightest difference for me. I imagine if I ever break down and buy Ark it might be a point to consider.
TechLarry
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I've got iron way older trhan Sandy Bridge running Win10 just fine
Honestly, if I was on 1080p I probably wouldn't have upgraded.
chasing the 165hz 1440p, 4k, or 3440x1440 ultrawide and wanting the absoulte smoothest performance with every single setting cranked is why I (and others) need to upgrade.
a 3-4 year old video card can run things well @ 1080p at medium/high settings. Heck, a 3 year old 780 can max overwatch @ 2560x1440/60.
chasing the 165hz 1440p, 4k, or 3440x1440 ultrawide and wanting the absoulte smoothest performance with every single setting cranked is why I (and others) need to upgrade.
a 3-4 year old video card can run things well @ 1080p at medium/high settings. Heck, a 3 year old 780 can max overwatch @ 2560x1440/60.
M76
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Oh no, it's not because it's too hard to move to a new PC. It's because there is no point to buy a new PC because the performance improvement will be negligible, unless you step up your target price. For the price I paid for my PC 3 years ago I could barely get a better one today. And I'm not paying for a sidegrade.
D
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True for me. My last rig lasted me 6 years. I upgraded the ram and put a SSD in there as well as a GPU. But, CPU's don't see the exponential jump that other pieces of hardware see anymore, so its not worth it to spend the coin. I have a feeling that, unless a fundamentally different type of new CPU is released, this current rig will last me even longer.
M76
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They don't need to. There is already a big enough PC gaming crowd. And if consoles disappeared developers wouldn't need to hobble their games to make them run and don't look too shitty compared to the PC version on them.
heatlesssun
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Consoles disappearing would significantly raise the price of hardware entry for large screen 3D gaming and the size of the audience. While PC gaming would still be able to support a lot of gaming, there'd be fewer games. Of course that wouldn't bother a lot of people but overall I don't think it would be as good of thing as some think.
I ran my last rig for about 8 total years on an Intel P45 chipset. 2 CPUs Q6600 and a (bargain blowout from Micro Center) Q9550. With only 4 GBs of ram to boot. 2 GPU upgrades. HDD to SSD upgrade. Guess what. I didn't want to upgrade but I had to since the tech in the computer was getting too obsolete since I was using the USB 3.0 ports on my laptop but not on my computer for image transfer. When the back up of the storage drive needed to be done, it was an overnight process. Now I can do it in less than an hour through the 3.0 port on the computer.
However, I am now looking at going to a NUC for a replacement. Originally when I rebuilt my desktop, my computer desk was still in place. Then my wife and I decided to remove the desk part. We replaced it with a TV stand, a 50 inch LCD for the PS4 and a couch. The desktop looks out of place on the tv stand. In hindsight, I wished I built an mATX box or NUC since that would have fit in better. NUCs are a cool idea but they seem to have some serious buggy issues though.
Getting back to the point from the original article, yeah I see the longevity in systems. SSDs really made the playing field equal. I'm rocking a fairly old C2D in work in which I was told it would get upgraded when it dies. My boss said there is no reason for upgrading since it does everything I need. That system is something like 8 or 9 years ofd. E7200 on a P965 which on top of that it is gimped. Long story. However it has a SSD and there is no problem running most software packages. During the course of my work day, I see all kinds of systems from dual core with 2 GB running XP to monster X99s with a 5820s and 64 GB on Windows 10 Pro. Most are still rocking hardware from 0-5 years old. All those processors have no trouble running the programs for the equipment they bought. However, with one piece of equipment, it requires at least 2 USB 3.0s and minimum Z87 chipset to run. The equipment runs so fast it needs to ports to keep up. It's really cool to watch when everything is at full speed. We recommend a skylake or newer for this equipment and the customers have no problem investing on it since they want the speed and quality.
However, I am now looking at going to a NUC for a replacement. Originally when I rebuilt my desktop, my computer desk was still in place. Then my wife and I decided to remove the desk part. We replaced it with a TV stand, a 50 inch LCD for the PS4 and a couch. The desktop looks out of place on the tv stand. In hindsight, I wished I built an mATX box or NUC since that would have fit in better. NUCs are a cool idea but they seem to have some serious buggy issues though.
Getting back to the point from the original article, yeah I see the longevity in systems. SSDs really made the playing field equal. I'm rocking a fairly old C2D in work in which I was told it would get upgraded when it dies. My boss said there is no reason for upgrading since it does everything I need. That system is something like 8 or 9 years ofd. E7200 on a P965 which on top of that it is gimped. Long story. However it has a SSD and there is no problem running most software packages. During the course of my work day, I see all kinds of systems from dual core with 2 GB running XP to monster X99s with a 5820s and 64 GB on Windows 10 Pro. Most are still rocking hardware from 0-5 years old. All those processors have no trouble running the programs for the equipment they bought. However, with one piece of equipment, it requires at least 2 USB 3.0s and minimum Z87 chipset to run. The equipment runs so fast it needs to ports to keep up. It's really cool to watch when everything is at full speed. We recommend a skylake or newer for this equipment and the customers have no problem investing on it since they want the speed and quality.
westrock2000
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You have to think like most people on this board do. If there was a guy selling something used, that is now the "normal" price for something. If your uncle Dominque was able to get you a $600 video card for $150, that is now the normal price. And if some store had a price fluke for 25 minutes in which 2 people got something for 80% off, that is now the normal price for that item.
That's the kind of prices you have to post on this forum. You can't EVER talk about normal retail, even though that's what many of us pay. We will still all SAY that we got just as a good a deal as the last guy.
M76
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I for one always calculate with retail price. I don't even consider buying used HW. It's just too much of a hassle. My way is go into the shop pick it up, and get it home. I don't even like waiting 1 day if I want something, And definitely not go meet some guy in the middle of the street, or even worse wait for postage and realize it's not what I wanted, or it's broken, or it was a scam. I once ordered a control unit over ebay for one of my models for $100, and couldn't sleep until it got here, because I was worried it might not be what I want, or it will be broken, or it's a scam.
rezerekted
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I used to upgrade cpu and gpu almost every year at one time but cpu are now mostly just a sideways upgrade so don't bother and you have to wait 2 - 3 gens of gpu to get a worthwhile boost so they are the reason we don't upgrade as often now.
Exactly, so many people really don't understand what is actually required in a modern office. In many cases the usage patterns are getting narrower and narrower. Half the software we used to have on machines 10-15 years ago has gone, replaced with the web. The PC power levels were sorted a long time ago. Most of the offices I look after purely use Internet, Email, Office and a few web/cloud systems. That's it. No need at all for 32GB i7 systems with 1TB SSDs.
In fact these machines are usually better specced and built than their home machines. In a year or so we'll slap some 120GB SSDs in them and they will be even more impressed. The other factor is most companies don't want to spend a great deal. Some folks on here I would be terrified of having as my IT Manager as the spend would go through the roof.
We are currently looking at rolling out Chromeboxes to a firm I look after.
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Typical IT guy mistake...assuming customer usage is the same for every other customer. Seen it so many times. Plus if stuff is taking minutes (and isn't video)...then it's built/configured wrong.
If the customer is doing 4K video then they get the 32GB Xeon or i7. If Pam on the front desk uses just Office and Facebook she gets the dual i3/Pentium.
How much computing power does a plumbing or carpet fitting company need?
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Todd Walter
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Amen to this. Why in this world of cheap RAM are my mobo choices restricted to max 32GB so frequently? Even my servers downclock if fully populated so what's the point of having 18 slots?
Exactly. My marketing manager has two 24" LCD screens and an i5 and 16GB of ram, and a 512GB SSD. Why? Because he's constantly on his computer, working with massive spreadsheets and graphic files. My techs for data entry? Still C2D e8400's with 3GB of RAM and just recently replaced a few of the drives with 120GB SSD ($32 shipped each...).
My brother in law was quote over $15,000 for 8 computer systems at his office....his office $15,000???? $250 for off-lease Dell optiplex's and you're at $2,000. Add in a few SSD's and maybe some cheap ram and maybe $500 for extra system or two for parts/backup systems and You're at $3000...about a FIFTH of what the computer IT company quoted my brother. Some people go way overboard with their IT budget. So much money sucked away.
still rocking that Amd 1055T I bought for cheaps..
sold off my gaming rig with I5 after using the 1055t cause I didn't notice any difference.... and it's stuck, using a GTx970 now and all games in 1080P+ works JUUUUST fine!
what's the point of upgrading all the time ? old crappy cpu's.. even old amd's still work in modern games...
sold off my gaming rig with I5 after using the 1055t cause I didn't notice any difference.... and it's stuck, using a GTx970 now and all games in 1080P+ works JUUUUST fine!
what's the point of upgrading all the time ? old crappy cpu's.. even old amd's still work in modern games...