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[Pegasus Actual]

The P4 and the P2 were ""Home-PC" computers" which you could buy from your employer subsidised by the government to increase computer knowledge in the general population. Very good idea which I think helped a lot.

Not quite the same but a girl who I liked at my high school bought a used computer from her summer job employer and wanted me to check it out. I forget the exact details, but she massively overpaid, it was an outdated piece of shit, and she couldn't take it back. I completely failed to hide my disgust at the purchase aaand I wasn't so welcome around after that. Whoops.

 

[Yerd]

Some of the years could be off by 1. I fact checked a couple by checking the release dates. Everything past 2000 is probably in my Newegg or Amazon history. Might have been one CPU from Fry's, can't remember. Definitely grabbed a case there at least once.

I could probably put video cards to most of them from memory. The builds in the 90s and I guess that Athlon 1800+ spanned my school years (the Franklin was more of a 'family' computer). The 486 was a Packard Bell straight from Best Buy, but after a few months I wanted a sound card and later a CD-ROM so I figured out how to install them myself. From there it was all self-built. Those older builds still stick out in my mind more because I associate them with specific games I was looking to play, and specific summer breaks from the school.

My worst build was definitely that Pentium D 805 with an ATI x1800xt. Those might individually be the worst CPU and the worst vid card I ever owned, smash them together and they were a Voltron of failure. Should have just waited a little bit and gotten Core2Duo and Nvidia 7900GT. Despite that, Battlefield 2 ran real nice on it. Worth it for that alone. Of course, the Xbox 360 came out and kind of cucked it as well. Not that it was the place for Battlefield... buuuut after running the demo of COD4 on it and comparing it to Xbox 360 I got real sad. And got a 360. With Gears. And MW.

Sounds very much like my upgrade history. Except I never had a Pentium D. I don't even know what that processor is, honestly. I might have not been pc gaming then or had AMD cpu at that time. I don't know.

But the Packard Bell family PC, had to be some type of pentium, that became my first victim of upgrades. Then I started buying all the pieces myself. I trashed all my old hardware a few years back. I kept every old part I bought up until then. So I could have gone through some boxes and searched their timelines, but I don't have most of it anymore. I kept my voodoo cards out of extreme nostalgia. I don't know why. They are useless. I might have some stray CPUs in their little plastic containers.

ASUS A8N, was a motherboard and box I threw away. That sticks in my memory because I had the manual out on a bookshelf and I would see it a lot. I don't even recall what era that is, what processor it uses.

 

[Doctor Hades]

Surprising what a boring upgrade a cpu is lol.

I agree with that. So true.

I enjoyed a massive and noticeable boost in performance going from an 4-core/8-thread 2013 i7-4770K to a 14-core/20-thread 2022 i5-13600KF but that's because that was almost a decade between the CPUs. I doubt I would have been as impressed or noticed the performance improvements had I been upgrading my CPU every 1-2 years though.

Even then the improvements to games was just in the framerates; the games themselves didn't look any better with a new CPU as that is what GPU upgrades are for and why they are a much more rewarding and exciting upgrade than any CPU can ever be.

 

[bad guy]

About every 10 years or more.

Currently running a i7 4790k and plan on using it another 5 years at least.

Previous CPU was a Core2Duo E8400

 

[Hudo]

Never, really. I only move onto a newer CPU if I have to change main boards anyway, which usually only happens when I build a new system. But I never once upgraded the CPU on an existing system of mine.

 

[Sybrix]

Only when im going to upgrade whole machine, usually have my CPU for at least 5 years, more like 10 years.

When i upgrade CPU i also upgrade MOBO and GPU.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Never, I just keep overclocking my 300a.

 

[Exentryk]

Been using my I7 5820K for 8 years now and still using it along with my GTX 1070. I'm not just going to upgrade but I'll buy a entire new PC completely maybe next year or the year after or whenever this PC dies.

Still using my 5930K for 9 years now with 3080. Will do a whole new system with a new CPU probably this or next year.