QOTD: What Determines Your Upgrade Cycle?

Keeping your PC up to date is expensive, which is why most of us choose to build a new PC at a specific point in time. Throughout its lifetime, we may perform CPU, GPU and RAM upgrades, but at a certain point we decide that it's time to start completely fresh with a brand new box.

At which point do you decide that it's time for an upgrade, either a full overhaul or just a simple drop in/swap part?

In other words, for our QOTD, we'd like to know from you exactly what determines your upgrade cycle?

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Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.

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171 Comments Comment from the forums

the_one111

If I can play games at "medium" settings and have no lag than I am good. When my system is unable to play games at medium settings it is time for a upgrade.
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dravis12

My current/future financial situation.
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Irrenhaus

Other than been able to play games at a normal or decent resolution....Having The Money To Upgrade....:')
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First!
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mcnuggetofdeath

Whether I really and truly want to play a game well. At the moment, nothing intrigues me and I can play 90% of what I play at or close to max settings. Since there havent been any major releases recently that i wanted, Its been awhile. Also not having money puts a damper on that sort of thing. Currently waiting for DX11 cards.
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MartenKL

New Windows OS and old hardware >3 years old, i.e. for me this october (earliest). Have pentium 4 3.2 GHz and Radeon 800 series. Getting i7 and a DX11 graphics card below 200$, 12GB Ram (at least). No new drives or monitors.
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GuyAmI

2 -> 3 year cycle
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dzeric

Money, but in terms of when I "need" to upgrade: Full system every 4 years or so, or an upgrade every other year if I don't need a complete system overhaul to do the upgrade.
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mcbowler

If there is a great game that can be made better with better gear.. then I will upgrade. I think the next revolution for PC gaming will occur 2010 or 2011.
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helios2052

I usually build a system and its total life is usually about two years. After the first year, i will usually do a GPU and harddrive upgrade. A year later I usually build a new system and repeat the cycle.

I only do the GPU upgrade if a new architecture has been released, or if I am adding a second card.
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