The truth is that 10+ yo computer built with an eye to gaming is adequate and satisfactory for 85% of what you’d use a computer for. So long as you’ve done basic (and cheap) upgrades like SSD/M.2. Don’t get mad at me, but I picked up a RAM kit over the summer because it was so affordable. (DDR4)
But I’m not going to roll the hardware enthusiasts that act as early adopters for bleeding edge tech that I can afford used or surplus five years later. And they’re exactly the people getting railed the hardest by the component shortages. So it seems like a time for computer-people solidarity.
IMHO: upgrading every 10 years is fine, both for money and performance.
I like to think of myself as a pretty tech competent person but I do tend to buy pretty high end hardware when I do replace a computer every 8+ years or so. I feel like it will likely last me longer and I won’t have to change computers again as soon.
On the other hand, high-end computing is often binned and factory-overclocked; more likely to bug out and less efficient. Also more expensive.
I am running a Ryzen 5 3600 (not a 3600X), and a GTX 1660 Super.
It still gets the job done. And when it doesn’t, it’s in games that use DLSS as a crutch instead of properly optimizing it. And fuck those games.
Worse are the entry level RTX cards that struggle to run the guso pre-DLSS games because their raw processing power is so much behind.
Oof!
Just 5 more years and I might think of upgrading over my trusty old RX 580.
A friend advised me to sell mine when the GPU prices were crazy, I could get like $200 for it, or a bit more (years prior to that, I bought it for $150 from another friend, used, he tried to mine some Etherium with it). I was lazy, and perhaps the friend was right, I could buy something better for the price now. But I’m really satisfied with the card and feel no need to upgrade any time soon. Runs everything I want.
I just upgraded to an arc b580 from an RX 580. Linus Torvalds did the same, so it is good enough for me
Old hardware = better drivers
Oh fuck yeah, especially for laptops. I was pleasantly surprised when all of the hardware on my new to me 13 year old laptop just worked out of the box with Debian 13. I was expecting to have to fix something.
Depends how old. I have a Phenom system with an iGPU and an audio chip that went unsupported fow a few years. Then after a few cycles of updates, it became supported again.
Same with the GPU of an old laptop with an Optimus system. At some point nothing would be working correctly but then new nouveau (huh) modules got out and this old hardware could suddenly work much better than before.
Apparently I have a lot of hardware that goes through a phase of being unsupported in Linux for a while, to working better than ever before.
I love my GTX 1050 Ti. Still works fine, albeit with a broken fan. It’s okay though, as long as it still turns on, I’ll find a way.
I love old hardware. It took me eleven years to finally decommission a top-tier CPU I got in 2015. And that’s only because I got an extra CPU and motherboard from a work upgrade.
I feel like I occupy all places on this bell curve. Main rig gets retired into a server which I usually over build to have it’s later years be fine as a server. Which then it becomes old stuff. For tinkering around on projects, old stuff is preferred until it’s usefulness is proven, then it gets an upgrade. Old potato goes behind the TV until the steam machine comes out.
Built a new home server last year for literally everything.
Ryzen 5800xt.
It’s fine. Does the thing. Fuck off.
I’m still running a 1950x in my desktop. It works fine for most stuff, but the gaming performance is a bit low now with all of the spectre mitigations. I was planning on upgrading, but that will have to wait a few more years now.
I ran my previous laptop from 2012 until it died last year. I used it as my electronics workbench PC for several years because the battery wouldn’t hold a charge, but it still worked fine for running KiCAD and programming microcontrollers. I replaced it with a used Thinkcentre that I got dirt cheap on ebay just before the RAM prices went crazy.
Same here, I’m waiting for DDR6 in 2028. Great CPU, at that date, it will be 10 years old.
but the gaming performance is a bit low now with all of the spectre mitigations
If it’s only gaming, you can disable them. Although i heard rumors, that some things work better now with the mitigations enabled than without.
I’ve got some games that are choppy with mitigations on, but they run smooth with mitigations off. I do temporarily disable the mitigations when playing those games, it’s just inconvenient since it requires a reboot.
I’m using a 7700k from like 2017. I got me a 3070 and 32GB of ram and I can still play 4k @60fps on games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Dead Island 2 Starwars Outlaws (great game) and Cyberpunk (yes fine with DLSS).
And older stuff like F04, Battletech, HL2, Black Mesa, Fallen order.
Would I like something more powerful. Sure. Cyberpunk natively rendered would be cool. But it won’t really change my day to day. For that I’d need to spend way more on a fancy monitor which seems kinda moot when I’m already at 4k @ 60hz.
Old hardware can be fine for sure. I’ve been thinking about replacing my 9 year old laptop with a newer used Thinkpad but I’m probably going to by a racing wheel instead. I think I’ll end up using that more.
This is so true! lol
At least in my social circle, the ones who use older hardware are either the ones who just do very basic tasks with them, or the ones with advanced tech skills. The average users tend to be so consumerist, expecting that a better hardware will compensate for their lack of skills…
Yeah, but that’s kind of Windows’s fault too, because the Windows system progressively gets slower with every update, the only remedy being completely reinstalling a clean system or better hardware. Planned obsolescence at its finest.
At one point I thought like the middle guy, but I didn’t have the money to do it so my computers were made from whatever parts I could scrounge up from dumpster diving, school auctions, or whatever. I was building or upgrading my computer every six months or so with what I found.
Once I had the money to buy basically whatever computer I wanted, I would build a high end machine and then not bother to upgrade it until I had a friend who needed one. I pass my old one on to them and the cycle repeats.
My laptops are still random auction finds. My current one came as a pair for $40. I popped in a new SSD and battery in one and have ignored the other. I should see if Haiku supports it well enough to be worth daily driving.
