5 Year Old PCs Are Still Powerful

[Amaris]

I'm writing this post in response to some responses I got on a PC World FB page. I was wondering when so many people gave up on improvement and decided "just buy the new thing" was the best path to take.

Technology is amazing. Even though I'm surrounded by it everywhere, it never fails to make me pause and think about all that we have, and all we can do.

For example, I just read an article on PC World's website that discussed people needing to upgrade their computers for Windows 10. The article was mainly discussing Windows XP systems, which is true. Certainly, if you have 12 year old hardware that you've never upgraded, you're going to face some significant challenges when running Windows 10, and you likely will have to upgrade a few components.

Still, Windows 10 will run on a system with a 1 Ghz processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a system with a hard drive larger than 20 GB. So if your system is newer than that, you will run Windows 10. My computer is 5 years old, and was built right before Windows 7 came out. It has a 2.6GHz dual core 64 bit processor, 3 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, and an ATI/AMD Radeon 4670 (1 GB RAM) video card. There's no need to upgrade to run Windows 10.

Yet, according to a number of people on PC World's website, my system is a toaster; antiquated, even. I know there are always people like that, but it made me think about how our society consumes technology. People stand in lines to buy the newest iPhone, trashing the "old" one (the one they bought last year) for being slow, outdated, almost worthless. It applies to more than phones, however, but in almost everything we have. TVs, audio systems, computers, tablets, you name it.

Now, some of that is definitely advertising having its desired effect, but you'd think at some point people would stop and say "wait, why am I paying $600/$800/$1000 every year to buy something that does almost exactly what the previous model did?" But that doesn't seem to be the prevailing narrative.

Aldous Huxley once wrote that people would become consumed with consumerism, that they would buy new instead of repairing, even if it wasn't damaged, but because it was "old". I mentioned that in my response to some of the folks that replied my computer was a toaster.

I also explained that my computer could author HD movies, edit high resolution images, play the latest AAA games, and run it as my home media server (which I do). It may be 5 years old, but it runs like a champ, and the Windows 10 beta I had on it ran flawlessly, because the hardware more than exceeds the necessary requirements. I mean, sure, I could boost it a bit in the RAM department, but that's always a given.

My point is that 5 year old PCs are still powerful. Do people not realize the powerful technology under the hood? My AMD Athlon X2 64 bit processor is still a monster, and can still number crunch like a math obsessed cookie monster.

It's as if people don't understand what they have. I get that not everyone is a power user, but when you buy something, don't you want to know a little about it? Wouldn't you like to push it to its limits? Get your money's worth? I'm not saying never upgrade, I'm just saying needless upgrades waste money, and then the "old" technology gets thrown away. What a waste!

What do you guys think? Do I have any semblance of a point?

 

[RoJoHen]

Most people probably don't know what they have. I'd fit in that category. I've always been in the "just buy a new one" camp, but that's also because it's fun to buy something new and shiny.

That said, I've had my MacBook for nearly 7 years now. I upgrade the OS whenever Apple comes out with a new one, and they all run just fine. Unlike, PCs that I've used in the past, my MacBook still runs just as well as it did when I first got it. PCs, in my experience, tend to get bogged down with crap and start to run incredibly slow after a few years of use. I never knew much about computer software, so it never really occurred to me to fix the issue; rather, I'd just buy a new computer.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

CPU's haven't been upgraded as much in the last 5 years than the previous several years. I mean, they up over 4GHz now, and there's 6 & 8 core models.

I just scrapped my computer of the last several years. Too many problems & I couldn't pin down what was causing them. I pulled the drives and dumped the rest.

I had replaced some parts over the years, and reinstalled the OS several times, but decided it's time to start from scratch. I still have a good laptop I'm using, docked & plugged into my monitor. I can access the former desktop drives externally, so I really haven't lost anything.

If I go the same route as before, the new machine will be utter overkill, but I'd rather go over the top than wish I had later.

 

[Amaris]

Most people probably don't know what they have. I'd fit in that category. I've always been in the "just buy a new one" camp, but that's also because it's fun to buy something new and shiny.

That said, I've had my MacBook for nearly 7 years now. I upgrade the OS whenever Apple comes out with a new one, and they all run just fine. Unlike, PCs that I've used in the past, my MacBook still runs just as well as it did when I first got it. PCs, in my experience, tend to get bogged down with crap and start to run incredibly slow after a few years of use. I never knew much about computer software, so it never really occurred to me to fix the issue; rather, I'd just buy a new computer.

They do, and that's true. PCs, due to the Windows operating system, are more open to malware, viruses, and crapware, so if they're not maintained, they slow down and quit working properly. My system is a finely tuned machine that has served me well for 5 years, and hopefully more years to come. She has slowed down a little bit, but that's expected. No system can run at top speed forever. Hardware ages, sometimes it gives out. What's nice about being a penny pinching miser (out of sheer necessity), is that I will find the best price to performance ratio before ever buying, so my systems last a long, long time before needing any kind of upgrade.

I am biased, too. I love AMD. Intel makes great processors, but I'm an AMD fan all the way down to the core (heh). These processors have so much unused potential, that it irks me when people throw it all away because something is said to be faster/shinier. I'm fine with it when people don't cross me, but start telling me my system's worthless because it's not the new/shiny? It is on.

I was telling RobMax a few weeks back that I do plan on eventually upgrading, because while the rest of my system is solid, my motherboard's RAM expansion slot only goes up to 4 GB for some reason, which was a glaring error on my part. So if I want to, I can pay $65 and get a new motherboard that expands up to 32 GB, which is much nicer for future proofing. No need to buy the new shiny, I can make my system shinier without the expense.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, unfortunately, in the last couple decades we've also been trained to think that things just break down after a few years. "They don't make 'em like they used to" has basically become the motto of modern technology, so we think we're supposed to throw stuff out and buy new things. It probably doesn't even occur to people to try and fix things; they think it's perfectly normal for technology to wear out a lot faster than it probably should.

 

[Amaris]

Well, unfortunately, in the last couple decades we've also been trained to think that things just break down after a few years. "They don't make 'em like they used to" has basically become the motto of modern technology, so we think we're supposed to throw stuff out and buy new things. It probably doesn't even occur to people to try and fix things; they think it's perfectly normal for technology to wear out a lot faster than it probably should.

Bingo. We've become used to the idea that planned obsolescence is the rule. It has become a motto of our society that old means useless, or broken. I swear to god that a few weeks ago, someone asked me if I had a Kindle, I replied yes, and said it was a Kindle 4. The reply? "Ouch! I hope you get a new one, soon!"

I didn't even think about it until the PC World article, and I guess the recent spate of such incidents got me thinking about it all.

Oh, and to be fair, my Kindle 4 is worn out, but only because I read all of the time, and have worn a groove into the bottom left hand corner of the frame.

 

[Scout101]

my 5ish year old desktop has a core i7, holding up just fine. A little less RAM (6GB) than some newer ones, but not running into anything pushing me to build a new one just yet...

 

[Amaris]

my 5ish year old desktop has a core i7, holding up just fine. A little less RAM (6GB) than some newer ones, but not running into anything pushing me to build a new one just yet...

Exactly. Just because it's 5 years old doesn't mean it's useless, or underpowered.

 

[Mary Ann]

Problems can arise, however, if you're like me and know bugger all about computers* and your old computer needs so many upgrades, at least according to your son sleeps, eats and breathes computer games, that it cost a mere £50 more to buy an entirely new computer than to upgrade the 5-year-old computer. I bought the old computer because it had a lot of memory but put no thought into processing speed or graphics or anything like that because we didn't need anything fancy at the time, but as my kids grew older their requirements for the computer changed.

*Yes, yes, a Sci & Tech mod who knows bugger all about computers. { Emilia }'s the clever one who knows what you guys are talking about. I'm the overly maternal one with the social sciences background who can spot bad behaviour a mile off no matter what the topic of discussion.

 

[SPCTRE]

Thinking back to when I started to play PC games "seriously" (mid- to late 90s), the concept that my current quad-core CPU (Q6600) from 2007 is still kinda serviceable even for 2014 games at 1080p/30/medium boggles the mind indeed.

That CPU is almost eight years old. Eight! Ancient technology. Yet with a decent GPU, it's still able to run current games just fine on a single-monitor, 1080p setup (which is becoming kinda low-end at this point, to be fair) even without OC. The LGA 775 platform (with DDR2, PCIe 1.1 and SATA II still not as huge of bottlenecks as many people perceive them to be) - it's crazy. That shit is ancient!

That kind of lifespan was unthinkable in the 90s and early aughts.

 

[Cutter John]

My machine was well over seven years old before I upgraded (i.e replaced the cpu, motherboard, and memory). For me it was more a case of future proofing it, as I knew eventually it wouldn't be able to handle faster Ram and video cards so I went for it. I fully expect to get just as many years out of this one.

I was also able to donate those old parts to a friend who had an even older machine that was really struggling with Win 7. So it was a win for both of us, and my trusty old 2.8 Ghz dual core Athlon continues on.

 

[Amaris]

Problems can arise, however, if you're like me and know bugger all about computers* and your old computer needs so many upgrades, at least according to your son sleeps, eats and breathes computer games, that it cost a mere £50 more to buy an entirely new computer than to upgrade the 5-year-old computer. I bought the old computer because it had a lot of memory but put no thought into processing speed or graphics or anything like that because we didn't need anything fancy at the time, but as my kids grew older their requirements for the computer changed.

*Yes, yes, a Sci & Tech mod who knows bugger all about computers. { Emilia }'s the clever one who knows what you guys are talking about. I'm the overly maternal one with the social sciences background who can spot bad behaviour a mile off no matter what the topic of discussion.

I understand that, and yeah, once upgrading costs about the same as a new computer, get the new computer!

Thinking back to when I started to play PC games "seriously" (mid- to late 90s), the concept that my current quad-core CPU (Q6600) from 2007 is still kinda serviceable even for 2014 games at 1080p/30/medium boggles the mind indeed.

That CPU is almost eight years old. Eight! Ancient technology. Yet with a decent GPU, it's still able to run current games just fine on a single-monitor, 1080p setup (which is becoming kinda low-end at this point, to be fair) even without OC. The LGA 775 platform (with DDR2, PCIe 1.1 and SATA II still not as huge of bottlenecks as many people perceive them to be) - it's crazy. That shit is ancient!

That kind of lifespan was unthinkable in the 90s and early aughts.

I'm on a socket AM2+ with an Athlon 4850e X2 64 bit processor. 3 GB of RAM, and an ATI/AMD Radeon HD4670 (1 GB onboard RAM). It seems the LGA775 and the Athlon X2 just don't die!

It's funny, though, because the guy I was having this debate with assumed my system was an LGA775, and then proceeded to tell me that those couldn't play AAA games. This from the guy who kept saying he was a "pro" when it came to computers. So I did the reasonable thing: I laughed in his general direction.

My machine was well over seven years old before I upgraded (i.e replaced the cpu, motherboard, and memory). For me it was more a case of future proofing it, as I knew eventually it wouldn't be able to handle faster Ram and video cards so I went for it. I fully expect to get just as many years out of this one.

I was also able to donate those old parts to a friend who had an even older machine that was really struggling with Win 7. So it was a win for both of us, and my trusty old 2.8 Ghz dual core Athlon continues on.

Awesome! It's always nice to share with friends! My aunt gave me a 5 year old laptop she had, as payment for installing Windows 8 on the new one she had just purchased. She figured the old laptop was junk, and I agreed to take it off her hands. 20 minutes of repair, $30 invested (a new LCD display panel was needed), and it was as good as new! I gave it to my mom, who is able to access the internet, where she couldn't do that before. Older does not mean useless; it does not mean worthless.

 

[Rarewolf]

Still using XP on one machine at home and several machines at work (though the later I have little control over) and you know what, they still release updates.

 

[SPCTRE]

It's funny, though, because the guy I was having this debate with assumed my system was an LGA775, and then proceeded to tell me that those couldn't play AAA games. This from the guy who kept saying he was a "pro" when it came to computers. So I did the reasonable thing: I laughed in his general direction.

You know, I understand elitism, I'm guilty of it myself at times (especially when it comes to tech), but that guy is just being stupidly ignorant

 

[MacLeod]

The question is what do you need your computer to do? If it serves your needs there is no reason to rush out and upgrade.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Those of you with 6GB or 8GB of RAM, are you running 64 bit OS?

I remember when I built that last machine, I put 8GB of RAM in, but wasn't aware I needed x64 OS to actually use it. Of course I upgraded to XP x64 pretty quickly.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I replace my PC mostly every 5 years give or take with a couple of upgrades in between.

Will keep my current machine for a while though, its barely a year old now.
Though I am having my eye on a solid state harddrive for a while which I might upgrade to.
Still using a regular one.


Where I see no reason to upgrade at all is my 5.1 hometheater hifi receiver which is running for over 15 years now.
And it is still not showing any signs of wear out.
Pretty amazing really.
Sometimes I secretly wish it would develop a defect so I could talk myself into a new shiney, but I just can't justify it if it keeps running like it does.

 

[Scout101]

Those of you with 6GB or 8GB of RAM, are you running 64 bit OS?

I remember when I built that last machine, I put 8GB of RAM in, but wasn't aware I needed x64 OS to actually use it. Of course I upgraded to XP x64 pretty quickly.

Yes, of course Limit for a 32-bit system is 4GB, is it not? So hopefully anyone that paid for more than that installed the system to take advantage of the hardware...

Where I see no reason to upgrade at all is my 5.1 hometheater hifi receiver which is running for over 15 years now.
And it is still not showing any signs of wear out.
Pretty amazing really.
Sometimes I secretly wish it would develop a defect so I could talk myself into a new shiney, but I just can't justify it if it keeps running like it does.

I'm having a similar 'problem' with a LCD tv I own. Got a 46" Samsung LCD in 2007, and really want an excuse to buy a bigger, nicer, cheaper one (this monster cost like $2300 at the time, and that was a GOOD price!). Damned thing just won't die, though. I've demoted it to the basement/man cave TV, but thing just keeps on ticking, so can't justify replacing it. Rare example of something not shitting the bed after like 3 years, feel like I'm getting my money out of a product. Sadly, such a rare feeling these days...

 

[SPCTRE]

Limit for a 32-bit system is 4GB, is it not?

Yup, that's the theoretical limit. The exact limit for your use case depends on your OS (e.g. up to 192 GB on Win7 Pro, 64-bit architecture).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

My current PC is 3.5 years old. It's a refurbished desktop I bought for about $400. It was a quad core with 4GB RAM. I only started putting serious upgrades into it in the past year:

* New video card (a GeForce GTX 650 or something)
* More RAM (16GB)
* New PSU (600W to handle the new video card)

There aren't really any upgrade options for the CPU. I'd have to replace the motherboard to get that, and I see no real reason at this point.

There are three things that have been holding down the PC upgrade curve in recent years:

* The market shift toward multiplatform game releases means the lowest common denominator platform sets the minimum spec. In the previous game generation, that was the Xbox 360. (Let's not count the Wii since it never really factored into multiplatform strategies.) This kept PC game requirements at a roughly 2005 level for a long time.
* The increasing prevalence of tablet/mobile hardware. Given that ARM-based devices are pretty underpowered compared to x86 hardware, and given the popularity of games and apps on ARM hardware, many games have been targeted at mobile/tablet devices and thus have very low spec for PC. Couple this with Microsoft's mobile-heavy initiatives (starting with Windows Phone and Windows 8), this means OS releases that demand lower specs, not higher--a (theoretically) meaner, leaner operating system that runs better on old hardware than previous versions.
* The laws of physics. The gigahertz race ended years ago, turning into a core race instead. Now, that is slowing down, as well. It's becoming harder and harder to cram more transistors into the same space, and it's challenging to manufacture more and more cores onto a single die. (Quick education: all the cores in a given CPU are made on a single die, and there are statistically-known failure rates per die, so for every batch of 8-way dies you manufacture, there will be a number on which only 4 or 6 function reliably. You sell those are 4- or 6-way CPUs. But the more cores you try to put on a single die, the more you're looking at high failure rates.) Anyway, this deceleration of CPU power trends is also acting as a brake on PC upgrades.

While I just bought a new laptop yesterday, the laptop it's replacing still works very well, despite being a low-power AMD E-Series model that's a few years old. It's fine for everyday use and light gaming.

One thing that's helped older PCs remain relevant is the presence of media decoding chips in hardware. As an example, I still have a Pentium 4 desktop, and its performance on YouTube is abysmal because neither the CPU nor the video card have hardware decoding of H.264 or any other popular codec. A much less powerful PC equipped with a hardware decoder performs much better, and so we're likely to see more and more of that. Less focus on CPU/GPU power (except for gaming), more focus on hardware chips to supplant common software tasks.

All this is to say that I agree with the OP's assessment, I think it's just useful to examine why this is the situation right now (and likely to remain so for a while.)