I often feel like the most important question when looking at specs is what sort of games are you playing (or want to be playing) on your PC? I have to admit I do fairly frequent upgrades, I do not own any consoles so my PC is my sole 'gaming device'. I also play pretty demanding games overall and like to bump up the settings a lot (the Total War games and some of the newer next-gen ports are hitting stuff like VRAM pretty hard)

Over the last year I have replaced pretty much every component in my PC but I am now hoping it will last a few years (i5 4670K, 16GB RAM and an AMD 280X). Before that my PC was around 3-4 years old and while still decent it was starting to feel a bit sluggish to me in certain games.

Building a Mini-ITX system sounds great and certainly seems to be the way things are going at the moment.

My gaming PC is also my work and personal PC. I've had it for about 3 to 3.5 years.

I don't plan on buyng a new one soon, but when I do, it won't be so I can play the latest and greatest game. I don't think I fit the demographic you're looking for...

i5 CPU

8GB RAM

AMD 6450 graphic card

My PC is approximately 5+ years old now and still chugging along fairly well. No consoles for me, so all my gaming is done on my trusty old  PC.

Civ V late game crashes frequently but is still playable with all graphics set to low and playing against only 4 or 5 other Civs on small to medium maps sizes. Not the epic gaming experience I must admit but still highly enjoyable. It's probably the most cpu intensive game installed on my machine I think.

I'll probably buy a new computer sometime after the new year I would imagine. Besides, looking forward to playing GalCiv III! 

(Don't laugh too hard)

Dell Inspiron 530

(CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo/E8300 @ 2.83 GHz

Memory (RAM) 4 GB

Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit Operating System

(Video) ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

It still plays a lot of older games (mostly strategy) without even a hiccup... so there.

Mine is 4 years old.

• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz
• 12 GB RAM
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti

I upgraded the video card last year.  Still runs everything well... not really seeing any issues yet (and I play a lot of first person shooters).

I built my PC in 2009. Still running great.

i7 860
8GB RAM
GTX 260

I don't see any reason to upgrade for the next couple of years.

My machine is 7+ years old. (Parts of it have been upgraded twice...)

• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130828-1532)
• System Manufacturer: System manufacturer System Model: P5K
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E8400  @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
• Physical Memory: 4096MB RAM Page File: 2346MB used, 5841MB available Windows
• Card Name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 Manufacturer: NVIDIA Chip Type: GeForce GT 640
• SSD for mostly OS and most used apps
• HDD for data and everything else

Dunno I usually try to keep a lot of core components the same (mobo/cpu) while upgrading my memory and GPU up until ti's practical. I generally upgrade when the next memory cycle comes around. Though I suspect a lot of DX10 hold outs will need to upgrade to DX11 as that becomes more and more mainstream.

You'd better start plannig to upgrade your video card. Because teh DX11 train has left the station and you'd better be on board.

lol, why?

Many games are REQUIRING DX11.

Daylight

Tropico5

Strider

Watch Dogs

Dead Rising 3

This list is only going to get longer now that XP is officially dead

And in a couple of years when the games that require DX11 are on sale I might consider upgrading at that point. I've lost interest in paying 50+ for a game that sales out for half that in a year.

Mine is 5 years old. The most demanding game I play is Civ V. I've upgraded the video card, replaced the HDD, and upgraded from Vista to Win 7. I'll probably replace it in the next two years.

Specs:

intel core 2 quad @ 2.39 Ghz

8 GB Ram

Nvidia 9800 GT 1 GB

1 TB HDD

Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit

7+ years here for my main rig:

System Information

------------------
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1
System Model: EVGA 132-YW-E178-FTW
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
HDD1: Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD
HDD2: Seagate 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive (ST1000LM014)
ODD: Panasonic UJ240 6x Blu-ray Burner BD-RE/8x DVD±RW DL

Display Devices

---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
Display Memory: 4048 MB
Current Mode: 2560 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Model: ASUS PB298
Native Mode: 2560 x 1080(p) (59.978Hz)
Output Type: HDMI

I do have another system that I am in the works of getting up as a replacement (currently down for LC improvements). That one is based on a EVGA 270-WS-W555-A2 (Classified SR-2) with 2 Intel X5650's, 24GB ECC RAM, and 3 780's.

My machine is partly 7 years old

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0Ghz
• 2x2GB Corsair XMS 2
• Gainward GTX 570                    - (used to be GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)
• Sandisk Extreme II                  - (used to be Western Digital Raptor 150GB)
• Corsair HX620W
• Fractal Design Define XL R2       - (used to be Antec P182)

I switched Graphicscard in 2011, chassi and systemdrive in 2014.

I'm ready to upgrade the CPU but I don't need to as I max everything I play right now. There's also the problem that if I upgrade the CPU then i have to upgrade memory and motherboard as well!   THEN we got the thing that DDR4 is on the horizon and therefore I can just as well buy some old parts.

My Main/Gaming Computer 1> year old

AMD FX 9370 8 CORE CPU

POWERCOLOR AMD R9270X GPU 2GB

16 GB MEMORY

HDD 3 TB (Split into 3 partitions)

Dual Monitors

Win 7 Pro 64 bit

The computer this replaced was 9 +

Intel dual core (don't remember specs)

4 GB MEMORY

Integrated GPU

500 GB HDD

Win XP upgraded to Win 7 Home 32 bit (but the computer could have supported 64 bit)