I'm feeling my PC is getting long in the tooth. Maybe it's more of an itch to buy new technology. My computer was new in 2010. Before I started with BOINC it was used daily and powered on/off routinely. I've been cunching for BOINC for over 4 years, and for the last three the PC has been running 24/7. Aside from the upgraded GPU and a couple of replaced fans it's all original equipment: CPU (never overclocked), motherboard, RAM, power supply, even the hard drives.
Should I be expecting imminent failure? Who's running the oldest hardware out there??
Win

I'm feeling my PC is getting long in the tooth. Maybe it's more of an itch to buy new technology. My computer was new in 2010. Before I started with BOINC it was used daily and powered on/off routinely. I've been cunching for BOINC for over 4 years, and for the last three the PC has been running 24/7. Aside from the upgraded GPU and a couple of replaced fans it's all original equipment: CPU (never overclocked), motherboard, RAM, power supply, even the hard drives.
Should I be expecting imminent failure? Who's running the oldest hardware out there??
Win

I have a computer that's been crunching since 2007, and crunching here since 2009. I have upgraded that video card a few times, increased the ram from 2 gigs to 4, but everything else is original. It is still kicking butt, and I plan to keep it crunching until it dies, and hopefully that won't too soon.

Personally I wouldn't worry about replacing a PC. It's one of the nice things about a PC that you can replace bits as and when you want / need to.

There is a big caveat to this, which is power consumption. It may be cheaper in the long term to replace a power hungry part with a newer or better one. While pasta of my PC must be 13 years old, namely hard disks which aren't something that lasts reliably for more than 5, depending on the particular model, I have recently replaced the graphics cards because the current 10 series was so much more efficient than the old 4 series I had. The power consumption on the main computer's gpu was only 20w more than the current one, but I figured it would save the £220 cost over the next couple of years. The extra speed is a bonus. I calculate this from the figures from the nvidia gpu wiki page at

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units

Much greater savings can be had with a new power supply of greater efficiency. It should be noted that power supplies are most efficient at maximum output. Clearly you want a little leeway, but overspeccing is not the way to go. It will cost you dearly in the long term. The only place I have found to compare efficiencies is at

https://www.scan.co.uk

Obviously you don't need to buy from them. They are uk based and you are in the us, so you get all the best deals anyway.

Since my primary use of the computers is running games I also upgraded various other parts, but they were second hand. Only power supplies, hard disks and gpus were new. Oh and the ram on my main computer. Ram can be a bit dodgy to get second hand. People often sell stuff on when it stops working.

At the end of the day, what you buy depends entirely on how much money you have. I have very little. And also on what you use your computer for - mine is my main entertainment / occupation and also I play a lot of computer games with my son as I can't do much else. I recently bought a new mouse to reduce input lag for him, and a new mouse pad. The mouse was second hand, but good condition.

I did upgrade cpus after I did the gpu upgrade. They were second hand, but needed to be done to get the most out of the gpus.

There's an optimum point on the price / power curve. It changes all the time. There seems to be almost a minimum for new stuff, and a point at which excellent stuff can be had for very cheap, after which it rapidly gets much more expensive. This point changes all the time, of course. There is therefore a complicated interaction between new technology, cost, efficiency, income, need, trends, and preference, if I'm not missing out half a dozen extra factors. Thankfully the efficiency one gives us a reason to get new hardware effectively for free!

It is amazing how your old i5-661 (TDP~90W, 1st Gen. i-Core) can still feed the big 980ti ... surprising. So I have learned something new today :)

Having said this, it is known that old CPUs from Sandy Bridge (2nd Gen) and up still do a great job, as there was a major leap forward in the second i-Core Generation but since then, Intel was bored stiff and unrivaled. Thank goodness, AMD is now back again with Ryzen.

CPUs hardly die... but in your case, a platform change would give you a major improvement in power efficiency. For example, the new i3-6300T (1151 platform) is 30% faster than your i5-661 (both single and multicore benchmarks), provides the same number of virtual cores but needs appx. 50W less energy!

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-661-vs-Intel-Core-i3-6300T/m548vsm75733

The other way round, the Ryzen 1700 still saves ~20W, but performs 100-200% better.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-661-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-1700/m548vs3917

Btw, I run two systems with one Ryzen 1700 and one Intel 6700K, where the Ryzen is so fast at multicore operation that I can run WCG or Rosetta and GPUGRID at the same time without significant decrease of my GPU utilization (gtx 1070). (that machine does not show up in my computer list due to pool crunching by thy way.)

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

It should be noted that power supplies are most efficient at maximum output.

No. Regarding PC power supplies (which are switching mode power supplies) the most efficient range is around the 50% load. That's why it's recommended to have a PSU with maximum power output twice as much as the continuous power draw of the whole system for a cruncher / gamer PC.
For example:
Corsair AX760i: (80+ Platinum)

Corsair HX750: (80+ Platinum)

Corsair TX750M: (80+ Gold)

Corsair TX750W: (80+ bronze)

Corsair VS650: (80+)


You can check other manufacturers' products with different power rating, the chart will generally look the same (=the peak efficiency is around 50% load).

It is amazing how your old i5-661 (TDP~90W, 1st Gen. i-Core) can still feed the big 980ti ... surprising. So I have learned something new today :)

Then you'll be surprised by my i7-870 which have 1.034.793 RAC (it's ranked 59th by RAC at the moment) with a single GTX980Ti (tasklist).
Its CPU is released 4 months earlier, though it's 24% faster according to userbenchmark.com.

My PC is from 2011, bought it off of ebay as an off-lease system, upgraded a few parts over time, added a hard drive, bam I'm still doing great. I'd imagine you'd be fine too. But the others are correct with these newer systems power efficiency being better.

And seeing what zoltan has said makes me wonder if my PSU is even good in the first place. My gpu max power is 170 watts and my psu is a corsair cx 600m (600 watts), and recently turned 2 years old.

Not sure because other system parts are involved too in my power draw.

My oldest PC with which I am crunching GPUGRID is a Fujitsu Esprimo with an Intel Core(2)Duo E7400 @ 2.8GHz inside.
Bought it around 8-9 years ago. When I started GPUGRID on this PC, I put in a GTX750Ti - crunching GPUGRID with WindowsXP works perfectly !

And seeing what zoltan has said makes me wonder if my PSU is even good in the first place. My gpu max power is 170 watts and my psu is a corsair cx 600m (600 watts), and recently turned 2 years old.

If it's the i5-2400 / 12GB / GTX 670 then the Corsair CX600M should be good enough. There are better PSUs around, but you don't need to worry.

My oldest PC with which I am crunching GPUGRID is a Fujitsu Esprimo with an Intel Core(2)Duo E7400 @ 2.8GHz inside.
Bought it around 8-9 years ago. When I started GPUGRID on this PC, I put in a GTX750Ti - crunching GPUGRID with WindowsXP works perfectly !

With windows xp on that GPU, how many hours does it take you to complete a task? Curious because I might buy another pc, but I don't think a core 2 duo would be good for me because of the pci being really old, unless I am wrong.

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

Curious because I might buy another pc, but I don't think a core 2 duo would be good for me because of the pci being really old, unless I am wrong.

Do you intend to replace your current system with a new … or buy a second one? Frankly it’s the GPU in your current system which is the bottleneck … as the Sandy Bridge i5-2400 CPU is fast enough to feed a 1060 or even 1070 Nvidia, so you don’t need to replace it.

If it's the i5-2400 / 12GB / GTX 670 then the Corsair CX600M should be good enough. There are better PSUs around, but you don't need to worry.

Yes, as Zoltan wrote, the 600W PSU is fine anyway, even for Upgrades, as your gtx670 already draws 170W TDP, almost as much as a non-OC gtx1080.

If you want to upgrade for GPUGRID crunching, I would propose the following … get a gtx 1060 (~70% more speed but 50W less power consumption) or 1070 (depends on your funds). And in case there are still 30-40€ left then, you may want to upgrade your i5-2500 by an i5-3570 (same socket 1155, but may require a BIOS update). That doesn’t make much a difference in speed but reduces the heat and power consumption by another 20W. Ivy Bridge is a Sandy Bridge shrink, that's why.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

My goal was to either buy a 2nd pc or use my one that I've recently built myself, just need a new psu, gpu and a case for it... so might be better off buying a 2nd whole system at that point...

But anyways, I understand your point about a gtx 1060, but I rather hold off on a new gpu for a bit and keep my 670 a little longer, considering it gets tasks done fairly fast and windows xp is still supported.

Maybe what I can do is get a second hand system like my current one and instead of getting a 750ti, I can save up money for a 1050ti, install linux on it, and bam. I just like the idea of a 2nd computer considering I used to run 2 systems at once.

I feel like I shouldn't focus on the upgrades until my current is no longer supported, or if it takes over a day to complete a single task. Am I looking at this from a wrong perspective?

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

I just like the idea of a 2nd computer considering I used to run 2 systems at once.

Frankly I prefer to have a single up-to-date system, instead of two old. What is the idea behind?

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

I just like the idea of a 2nd computer considering I used to run 2 systems at once.

Frankly I prefer to have a single up-to-date system, instead of two old. What is the idea behind?

I don't understand why it matters if my GPU is old. My tasks get done fairly quickly as I stated. So this is why I was considering another system. I consider this system fine by all means.

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

I figured having another system would help the project even more

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

I don't understand why it matters if my GPU is old

That may be my European way of thinking... energy is more expensive on this side of the big lake and therefore we Europeans possibly tend to replace power eaters early.

PS: we Europeans also consider the greenhouse effect possible by the way.

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I would love to see HCF1 protein folding and interaction simulations to help my little boy... someday.

I figured having another system would help the project even more

RAC or average credit per day is what helps the project the most.

I don't understand why it matters if my GPU is old

That may be my European way of thinking... energy is more expensive on this side of the big lake and therefore we Europeans possibly tend to replace power eaters early.

PS: we Europeans also consider the greenhouse effect possible by the way.

Oh, okay. I understand what you mean.

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

I figured having another system would help the project even more

RAC or average credit per day is what helps the project the most.

Yes, I see what you mean. Wouldn't another machine mean more RAC, though?

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Cruncher/Learner in progress.

A faster machine means more RAC, you can achieve this by having a faster single computer or multiple slow computers. The difference is, the faster single computer uses far less power for the same RAC, reducing your power bill significantly.