There are users who always want to be up to date and who don’t mind investing money in updating it practically every year or every two years. However, for many other users, buying a PC is a investment of a lot of moneyalmost a sacrifice, and therefore they hope that it lasts in good condition for a long time.
Your old computer is not that old
Let’s put ourselves in a situation: you decide to invest a good Amount of money in buying a new and state-of-the-art computer. You mount it, configure it, and immediately you have it working… you are delighted with its performance and with what you are able to do with it. Two, three, four years go by and the PC continues to work without problems, although it is true that it “crawls” to do some things, and you can begin to think that it has already become obsolete and the time has come to change it.
Of course, a four-year-old PC is not old at all, as long as you assemble it using quality components, since it is true that some hardware elements suffer wear and tear over time, such as the power supply, the fans and especially if you installed a liquid cooling kit. However, if during these years you did regular maintenance and cleaning, they should continue to work perfectly, and it is not in vain, for example, that many manufacturers of quality power supplies give up to 10 years of guarantee, sure of the durability of their devices.
But, leaving this aside (you probably do have to change the liquid cooling AIO kit at 4-5 years), in reality a PC this old is not old at all, and with a simple formatting You will see that it stops “creeping” in some applications, because what does happen is that over time we accumulate many installations and uninstallations, saving and deleting documents that can saturate the operating system and reduce its performance.
You may also notice, especially if you update the version of the operating system and the programs, that each time it goes a little slower. This is partly because the manufacturers want it that way, since the supposed requirements for its proper functioning are increasing, but that does not mean that your PC works badly, far from it.
So when does the PC become obsolete?
Now, if there comes a time when your hardware is no longer compatible with some programs and games, that could be an indication that your computer is already too old. We have seen this for example with graphics cards: games evolve, use different engines and make use of new versions of graphics APIs, such as DirectX. For this reason, some old graphics cards are not compatible with the new versions of DirectX, and it could be a good indication that your PC is becoming obsolete (although in this specific case it would be worth updating the graphics card, of course).
Another indication that the PC has become obsolete is that, even after completely formatting it and installing the operating system from scratch, you still notice a lot of slowness. In the end, although a processor and RAM can last you a lifetime, storage devices also suffer wear and tear (both mechanical hard drives and SSDs), and there may come a time when it is no longer worth upgrading your PC. and decide to opt for buying a brand new one.
How many years have to pass before that point arrives? It depends a lot, it depends on the maintenance that you have been giving to the hardware and software, and it depends on how the programs and games have evolved. Normally, a computer up to 6-8 years old usually continues to work perfectly, but from personal experience we would tell you that from that age more or less is when you can already consider that you have an old PC.
