Analysts love to point at Windows 8 as well as the rising popularity of tablets and smartphones to explain the industry's accelerated sales slump. While they've certainly played their part, we can't ignore the fact that nowadays you just don't need to upgrade as often, as hardware has gotten to a point that any decently spec'd computer you bought or built three years ago is probably still good enough for most tasks today.

Even more so if you bought a high end system. Any "Westmere" Core i7 system paired with a first generation SSD and Radeon 5870 / GTX 480 graphics will still fly next to a decent mid-range machine today and run most games reasonably well – though PC enthusiasts often have other reasons altogether for upgrading.

Today we want to hear about your upgrade cycle. How often do you phase out old hardware to make way for the latest and greatest? What's the last thing you replaced and what parts do you plan to buy in the near future?