What Is The Average Life Cycle?

I am wondering what the life cycle is for laptops of members on this forum. I'm looking to see for Core2 Duo and above. My i7 quad is starting to throttle too often, a few glitches and slow downs even with new SSD and mobo... Starting to wonder if it is time for an upgrade.

My understanding though is that general computing did not become harder to compute since Win 7 first came out. So if it was fast back then, it still should be as fast today and probably few years down the road, right?

 

For basic computing needs anything C2D and greater is probably fine... there are still four E6400s kicking in my family: the only upgrades we've done are SSDs and 4GB RAM on two of 'em.

I end up "upgrading" about every other year... though not at all for performance but for features (ie we are finally getting some decent 12" 1080p displays, so I will probably buy something this year).

 

You'll need to upgrade to keep up with technology. Sure, it will do today what it did yesterday but your computing needs won't stay static.

Think about it, were all the videos on youtube HD five years ago? Sure you can still watch them, but only in DV (360p) while the rest of us will be viewing in HD (1080P) and beyond. I won't even begin to talk about the advancements in games over the past few years.

Right now I have 40 web pages open. Can your C2D do that?

 

I upgrade yearly, but I have never been satisfied with my laptops, until this year (Acer Aspire V7, 14 inch with the 1080P IPS panel, core I7, and Nvidia GT750M), so I am hoping I can keep this one three years. My GF has had here mac over three years now, but it is having heat issues, she will be getting a new one when the Pros get Haswell.

I always hated the screens on my laptops, I have not really had a need for a faster computer the last three years, but I love the screen on my current laptop, and the GT750M is really nice. Hopefully I have no issues for the next three years.

 

I stick on a long 4-year upgrade cycle, but I always buy something expensive, a cut above the "average machine" (and upgrade components in between as possible).

Every time so far the cycle has been the same.
New machine --- awesome
One year in --- still pretty awesome
Two years in --- eh, "average" machines are starting to catch up but it still holds its own quite well
Three years in --- starting to feel it
Four years in --- yeah, time for a new one

Before the M6700, I had a machine with C2D and 6 GB of RAM from 2008. It really worked fine for most stuff, where I got hung up was modern games and running multiple VMs. (No problem with 1080p YouTube or 40 website tabs.)

Since things are slowing down a little now I'm wondering if the M6700 will last more than four years. I think with a GPU upgrade (two or three generations in) and continued storage expansion, it'll last me a good long while. However, if high-DPI starts showing up in larger displays, that might be a reason to upgrade sooner.

 

Well screens should follow the movement towards 4k. So if your computer is capable of supporting that, you should be well equipped for the foreseeable future.

 

Nice feedback. I used to game and so I packed some Alienwares (hence my ID name...) and Precision workstations (Desktops), as soon as I dropped all my gaming and content editing, I feel like any machine out there can do everything I need.

I guess it really comes down the "snappy" aspect.

 

Well in that case, we've got to get you back into gaming. The economy has got to move forward you know.

 

Haha funny you say it that way. I used to own like M15x, M17x R2, M18x, couple of M6600 in just a few yr time span. Now that I gave up on them, just using old old machines. Maybe this is why Dell's revenues are so low haha.. Very nice specs on your Covet... Very jealous!

I just went ahead and.. pulled the trigger on a E6420 XFR. Apparently that is a lot more rugged than the E6400 version. Hopefully I will just put in the quad i7 couple years down the road!

 

Still on my E6400 which I use daily.