I depends on what you start off with. The best computer money can buy (i7+ddr3+gtx295 etc) will last about 4 years before an upgrade. A more modest budget will get you a good computer to start off with, but the average pc gamer needs to upgrade his video card about once every year/half, cpu upgrade every 2-3 years (motherboard usually upgraded with the cpu), but the other parts you can keep forever (psu, hdd, dvd drive etc).
I built about 18 months ago and haven't upgraded anything... I am looking at doing it soon... I am very unlucky because I built right before a phase change into a new socket... (I built with LGA 775 in mind) and now LGA 1366 will become mainstream with the i7's... so if I want to upgrade... I will have to replace everything... So my upgrade will pretty much be a new build... and probably won't be anytime soon because I don't have $1200 laying around that I am not using...
I will consider my rigs Very High, so I tend to upgrade them every 1 and half year or so. I only upgrade component if it is malfactioning or doesnt work.
I normally buy a new rig every 3-4 years. Not topline CPU but top -1 or 2. Plenty of RAM, new disk PSU etc. Gragphics are normally top -1 (eg when 8800GTX was top, I bought a 8800GTS 640MB.
It has served me well, although I havent tried Crysis. I play 1680 x 1050 and canplay the games I play on High settings (Mass Effect, The Witcher, FO3 etc). The card is getting somewhat dated, and I'll either soon upgrade it or the entire machine.
Bits and pieces here and there with some frequency and no regularity. Upgrading my CPU/Mobo for the first time in 23 months. Upgraded my GPU after 20 months.
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