How long?
How long?
Right now I enjoy playing all the newest titles smoothly with solid performance. I’m curious when that might change. My system includes an i5-4440 GTX 970 turbo, 8GB DDR3 RAM, an EVGA G2 550W, a H87M-G43 SSD, a 240GB SSD, and a 2TB HDD.
It will gradually decline over time, and within 6 to 12 months it’s unlikely you’ll be enjoying games at high settings.
It's hard to believe it's only six months... that's really disappointing.
Your GPU won't suddenly stop handling games smoothly. There isn't a built-in mechanism that will reduce its performance over time. The main reason for lower performance is playing games that require more power, whether they're optimized or not at high settings. Upgrading should only happen when you can afford it and still meet your needs for resolution and frame rate.
I’d improve everything, honestly. By then your CPU will be outdated, so you’ll likely need a bigger SSD, a stronger GPU, and more RAM. Or you could wait as long as you can. It really depends on what games you play—some might give you more time, others less. You might not need certain features that others do.