How long before....

how long would it take for a graphics card to become outdated?
Is it like 2-3 years 3-5 years what would you consider it?

I would say about 3-4 years since i have a 6 year old nivida nForce 440MX in my desktop and suprisingly i can play FSX on Med-low at about 20-30FPS
My processor is a old 2.4ghz Intel pentium 64

 

depends on how you define outdated...

for the high end on a desktop a 7950 gxt.. is outdated... but it is still a very capable card.

if you mean outdates, as in 'it can't play anything at any settings' is usually 2 years with mid range and for high end it's more.

 

You can't measure computer hardware in years. You measure "outofdateness" by how long before the next hardware release that will be faster than your current piece of hardware is.

Usually this tops out at 6 months. Most of the time the stuff in Notebooks is out of date compared to desktops and the midrange stuff is for sure out of date.

 

Technically, all computers and the like are outdated the DAY THEY LEAVE THE WAREHOUSE, because the technology to replace them is already being developed/researched. For computer processors, they used double in capability every 2 years, Intel claims that they can now do it in 18 months. In terms of graphic cards, considering outdated as unable to play current games at even reasonable levels, they are outdated approx. every 3 years. Games developers are far ahead of the hardware companies, there are awesome games in the works but the hardware just isn't there to support them, yet. Look at Crysis, release around the same time as the 8800gtx for laptops, coincidence

 

I'd give it ~ 5 years. I played with a 9500 Pro until it just died. Then went to a 6600 GT and still runs COD4 and Crysis. COD4 demo not playable, but Crysis playable. lol wut? This is on my really old desktop. lol I have a Athlon XP 2600+

 

Nice CPU, I'm running the same thing.

Outdated is all relative.

 

I hope Phenom will surprise us. Lately AMD/ATI has been lackluster. :\