Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I've had my Ryzen 7 5800X for 5 years as of today. This might be the longest I've ever used the same CPU and yet I don't feel the need to upgrade. This CPU still does everything I need today. But looking back at the last 5 years compared to other 5 year generational gaps in the past it's easy to see why. We've really only seen a %30 jump in CPU performance in the last 5 years. Compare that to a 486 in 1990 to a Pentium in 1995 were you saw a %100 performance jump. What about 1995 to 2000? We went from a Pentium in the ~150 MHz range to a Pentium III knocking on the 1GHz ceiling! Clearly there was more than a %100 performance jump in those 5 years. So we went from seeing %100+ performance jumps every 5 years to only a %30 performance jump in the last 5 years. Combine this with the fact that prices are going up so you'll pay more for a smaller performance increase compared to the past. Now you have to ask yourself... do you really need to upgrade your CPU?
I've had my Ryzen 7 5800X for 5 years as of today. This might be the longest I've ever used the same CPU and yet I don't feel the need to upgrade. This CPU still does everything I need today. But looking back at the last 5 years compared to other 5 year generational gaps in the past it's easy to see why. We've really only seen a %30 jump in CPU performance in the last 5 years. Compare that to a 486 in 1990 to a Pentium in 1995 were you saw a %100 performance jump. What about 1995 to 2000? We went from a Pentium in the ~150 MHz range to a Pentium III knocking on the 1GHz ceiling! Clearly there was more than a %100 performance jump in those 5 years. So we went from seeing %100+ performance jumps every 5 years to only a %30 performance jump in the last 5 years. Combine this with the fact that prices are going up so you'll pay more for a smaller performance increase compared to the past. Now you have to ask yourself... do you really need to upgrade your CPU?
