If I believe everything Shio tells me I never ever have to upgrade to play all the newest games on the best settings.

Hmm I upgrade my rig as often as Shio , my Mobo would probably have a heart attack if i put a new Gfx card in it.

I buy an almost top of the range rig, then maybe upgrade it once every 18 months - new graphics card, sound card etc depending on what's going to improve things the most.

Once the system motherboard acts as the bottleneck - usually after 3-4 years - I look to buy a new system.

I always upgrade once, Graphics Card + Ram usually at once. After 5 years or so I buy a new PC and the older PC will be used by my parents for misc stuff (last time though I was forced to buy the newer PC only 3 years after the previous one due to not gaming related affairs).

I have never switched a motherboard. Though when someone upgrades mobo, it's almost like buying a new computer (only cheaper).

My brother's PC (over 5 years old) is still being used for new games today, and when I buy the recently released and Lucas Arts quality Adventure game "A Vampyre Story" he will play it on his crappy PC. There will be alot of great PC games that will still run old PCs, and if you don't believe that, then it's clear you don't know much about PC gaming.

So you actually upgrade about every 2.5 years then?

2 years gap. Will get shorter as my pay rises, since i love upgrading, but never have enough dough for it(like girls and shopping)

Once a year... it's a tax right off, so it's virtually a free upgrade for me.

Once every six years. I think a game released in 2012 should work on medium settings on a PC built in 2006 but that won't happen.

Whenever I feel the gap in the technology has grown big enough for me to warrant a new system. So usually every 3-4 years.

I may pick up a new GPU during that time.

Every 2 years...