I started in 2007 and I'm now on my third DAW PC. The second one, based on an i7-950, lasted nearly 7 years and replacing it was never a priority as it always coped easily with large projects. The only real reason for replacing it was when the old family computer started to die last year. I began building a new DAW PC so that the existing one could be put to general use in the lounge room. As it turned out this was timely, as suddenly out of the blue I was asked to edit some complex video. The old DAW PC would not cope with it, so I had to quickly finish building the new one before dealing with the video.

slartabartfast
...There has not been a truly useful word processing feature added to MS Word since 2000.

 
I agree. I still use Office 2000. It requires some fixes to run properly on recent operating systems, plus an add-on to read DOCX files etc., but otherwise it's still ok.

I'm still on a Sandy Bridge i7 with even older MOTU + M-audio hardware and very happy with how everything has aged although it is showing signs of wear.  I really like the new intel i7 9700k and if prices drop next year I'm looking to build something fresh.

Leadfoot
I've got a DAW that's about 10 years old. It's got an Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad(2.83Ghz), 4Gb RAM, a 480Gb SSD system drive, and 2 WD Blue 1Tb drives, one for audio and one for whatever. I've upgraded hard drives over the years, but that's it. I'm running Windows 7 Pro with Splat, Mixbus 32C v5, and Samplitude X3 Suite. Unless I find some money somewhere, I'll be running this rig until it dies. It's been real solid for me these last ten years.

 I have a system running a Phenom II 945 on W7.  It's still a decent processor

There's a lot of DAW users who still upgrade those Mac 6 boxes that had them from 2010.

razor
Studio Cat is great, but after ADK went under this year, I'm very leery of small "ma and pa" shops for anything that might need future service. Here's where I'm leaning now --> pcaudiolabs
 

I can't speak for numerous others, but this "Ma and Pa" shop was open quite a bit before ADK started... and we're still here. 
We've seen a lot of good competition go over the years (Lee's Computers, Mission Recording, Sound Chaser, ADK, etc).  
 
We've been here for right about 25 years.
That's longer than PC Audio Labs.  
 
Use whoever you're comfortable with...
As far as overall knowledge/experience as computer technician, DAW user, and active musician... few (if any) on the planet have a more broad/encompassing background than mine.
 

no less than 10 years for me.

I roll my own.I usually upgrade every 5 years. I actually forget when I last built one. I think I'm maybe three years out or thereabouts. Solid machine.Not a commercial studio. I don't track loads of tracks. 5820K over clocked to 4.4ghz. 6 cores. Never stalled on me. Never had any issues. 

In this day and age, and depending on what you do besides audio...a good gaming laptop, somewhere in the range of 2500 to 3000 dollars Oz should last between 3-5 years - depending on factors like cleaning the fan and SSD drives versus spindle drives.

Honestly, no one needs to faff about with building a DAW computer anymore...I stopped doing so 8 years ago, and I haven't built a DAW computer for 10 years. My Acer Nitro has 32 gig of ram, thunderbolt, SSD drive for programs, spindle drive for storage and a 4k monitor. I have a portable SSD drive hooked up to the thunderbolt port and I can run over 100 tracks with 20 busses at 64bitfp audio and 48khz, and only then was I pushing it to the limit. I froze all the audio tracks but on each of the 20 buss/aux tracks I had a slew of Wave's plugs, and binaural type effects too.

In the year since I brought this laptop, the CPU specs have gone through the roof and I believe we should be able to run a live rig natively - as long as you have a thunderbolt audio interface and you stick to 24bit audio recordings. I have yet to test this, but I do believe from all the data I've got that it should be possible.

One of the reasons why, I'm advocating getting rid of building computers and buying a good gaming laptop is - there's less faffing about and more music making. The issues that plagued PC laptops for creativity are gone - so long as you don't go under 2000 dollars Oz and their designed for games. And with thunderbolt or USBc you have can upgrade the laptop with new types of ports and even add on a desktop gpu - how neat is that?

For me to fully answer the OPs question, because I do 3d animation, film editing and vfxs I try and upgrade my laptop every 2 years. I suspect that my next upgrade might last a bit longer because the next gen gaming laptops with be at least as half more powerful than the one I've got currently due to hexa core cpus and 8gig GPUs

Ben

BenMMusTech

One of the reasons why, I'm advocating getting rid of building computers and buying a good gaming laptop is - there's less faffing about and more music making. The issues that plagued PC laptops for creativity are gone - so long as you don't go under 2000 dollars Oz and their designed for games. And with thunderbolt or USBc you have can upgrade the laptop with new types of ports and even add on a desktop gpu - how neat is that?

For me to fully answer the OPs question, because I do 3d animation, film editing and vfxs I try and upgrade my laptop every 2 years. I suspect that my next upgrade might last a bit longer because the next gen gaming laptops with be at least as half more powerful than the one I've got currently due to hexa core cpus and 8gig GPUs

Ben

I think that is great that you can afford to do that, but really doubt that applies to the majority of users around here.
 
I view laptops with the opinion that if it breaks you cannot fix it yourself easily.  To me they are only disposable toys, and I am reluctant to spend more than $300-400 USD on one.  So laptops are a low priority for me, but they are useful for use as a mobile office, or musical scratchpad when on the road.  Even a cheap one can do decent remote location recording with a proper interface.
 
I would stick with a desktop for home studio use, unless I absolutely needed a laptop for live performance, and had the income from that to afford to do so.