Have new computers even been required over the last few years?

euser1984

For a lot of people who might only use office and chrome/ie etc. it doesn't seem to matter if the processor is a few years old or not....or you have less than 4GB of memory.

I installed a new ssd and my computer is faster than anything still using the old drives....

Am I correct in saying the above things?

Yellowblackbird

Your psu will blow eventually.
Then you'll have to buy a new computer.
intel 1 - 0 euser1984

Dravokivich

What I don't like is how they seem to be marketed as a consumable item now. Which is what's going on with a lot of electronics as well.They are certainly designed to be disposable when you look at the budget end of the market.

I wouldn't get too caught up in the amount of RAM on a PC though. At the end of the day it's the CPU doing the work. With your SSD, faster times Reading/writing will simply mean your CPU doesn't have to wait as long as it did with a HDD.

STEINBERG

I have a 2009 imac and it is still going strong, even with a vsphere homelab on it using fusion.

i have thought about getting a new machine, not another mac but possibly building a few for a better homelab. But it suits me for what i need now

TerrorFirmer

For casual home use - browsing, media, office, no. PC's from 2007 onwards with Core 2 cpu's are still perfectly adequate. An SSD will make the biggest difference.

johnobertie2

I have a Dell Core 2duo from 2006 I believe

Still going strong here, plenty fast for me
I'll probably get an ssd drive soon

PropJoe10

Nah. I have various old machines from the early to mid 2000s that are running fine and do everything I want them to. Stick a lightweight Linux distro on any old machine with 2GB RAM and a half decent processor and its absolutely perfect for general browsing and office stuff. People that spend a couple of thousand on brand new Macbooks just for basic internet use need their heads examined!

imitation

Even for gaming its been less of thing to need to upgrade every year or two like you did in the 90s. Hardware has overtaken software pretty much, and any sanely coded os or office software isnt going to need a big rig.

If your into specialized stuff like vr gaming, CAD, modelling, video editing, etc though you still going to want the best machine you can get.

Linux on an old Celeron M laptop and works perfectly fine for internet, light office stuff, downloading and DVD watching. It's from 2008/9 (I think).

Only reason that I have a stfonger PC, HDMI connected to TV, is for games and media downloads

timetogo

I've a 4 year old PC that I use at home for coding / general home work and a laptop that I use for work that is 6 months old.

The PC originally cost €400 and I've put in a SSD.
The laptop I'm using was about €1000.

For the work I do there's no difference in the performance that I can see. Both are more than enough for my work. I don't play games on PCs anymore. I'd imagine I'd have upgraded a bit more if that wasn't the case.

PropJoe10

People underestimate the difference that installing an SSD will make to your computer. Its pretty much the best upgrade to make nowadays, for a computer with adequate RAM installed.

SSD by far makes the most improvement

who_me

I had a 2003 desktop (PowerMac G5) which I was using for browsing/email/media server at home which finally died this year. Great machine, very stable - admittedly a bit slow but very usable. Now, the 2103 iMac which replaced it is gorgeous and so much faster, but I didn't NEED it until the old machine died.

At this stage, aesthetics are nearly as important as performance in driving new purchases.

peter_dublin

Same here. Have a 1500 euro i7 company laptop which I hated bringing home every evening to use at home so now use a €50 core 2 duo machine with 4GB Ram I bought off adverts. Will throw in an SSD as some stage.

For IT Labs etc I have a Dell 2900 Server with 48GB RAM, 10 SAS drives etc which I use when required otherwise it's my trusty little desktop.

unkel

My main PC is coming up to 7 years old now. Base is a good Asus mobo + C2 Quad 6600 CPU. SSD, plenty of RAM and running Windows 10 pro 64 bit perfectly (and completely silently as my system has no active moving parts, not even case fans ). As much as I want to upgrade, I just can't justify it. I don't game or do heavy video editing though...

ED E

unkel wrote: »

My main PC is coming up to 7 years old now. Base is a good Asus mobo + C2 Quad 6600 CPU. SSD, plenty of RAM and running Windows 10 pro 64 bit perfectly (and completely silently as my system has no active moving parts, not even case fans ). As much as I want to upgrade, I just can't justify it. I don't game or do heavy video editing though...

Im on a similar enough rig, Workstation board with a Q6600. Only reason Im going to upgrade is I need more than 8GB of ram and the board doesnt support more.

yoyo

The Q6600 is still an excellent CPU. Still have a machine with my old Q6600 lying around. Casual users do seem to be less interested in investing in new laptops/desktops these days. I think it is partly to do with computers in recent years (Core 2 and beyond) being considerably faster, and Windows software has got better at performing automated maintenance tasks so Windows 7 is less likely to slow down massively over time like XP used to.
I think the biggest reason for the lack of PC sales is people are investing in smartphones and tablets instead. This is an area that is interesting as the top Android and iOS tablets and phones are very expensive, and after software upgrades to each device all you seem to hear about are performance issues or functionality has been broken or buggy since the upgrade. People seem to upgrade smartphones and tablets quite a bit more than they would have changed their desktop/laptop it seems.

Nick

timetogo

I think Intels marketing has something to do with it too. In the old days if you had a 286 and a 386 came out you'd know you're behind.
Now, I've got an i5 in my old PC. If I go into PCWorld the Intel processors are still labelled i3, 5, 7. I obviously know they're not the same processors but it's harder to compare. How hard would it to call them i9, 11, 13 etc. etc.
My processor is probably 5 or 6 generations behind now so if I had an i5 and saw i15s in the shop it'd be a subliminal push to get me to upgrade.

maki

timetogo wrote: »

I think Intels marketing has something to do with it too. In the old days if you had a 286 and a 386 came out you'd know you're behind.
Now, I've got an i5 in my old PC. If I go into PCWorld the Intel processors are still labelled i3, 5, 7. I obviously know they're not the same processors but it's harder to compare. How hard would it to call them i9, 11, 13 etc. etc.
My processor is probably 5 or 6 generations behind now so if I had an i5 and saw i15s in the shop it'd be a subliminal push to get me to upgrade.

Because i3, i5, and i7 represent budget, mainstream, and performance respectively. If they brought out an i9 budget line, your average consumer would think that it was superior to an i7, which might not be the case.

People want simplicity. i3 < i5 < i7, easy. For the enthusiast we can still look at the micro-architecture milestones to gauge relative performance: Ivy Bridge, Haswell, etc.

riclad

MY theory is for 90 per cent of people,
a pc with 2.0 ghz dual core cpu, 2-3gig ram with windows 7,is fine.
Cost 90 euro on adverts.ie, computer hardware .
Designers ,programmers, artists ,games ,need fast pcs .8gig ram,i7 cpu etc.
IF you are in business you may as well buy new pcs, as you, can get tax credits for it as its a necessary expense .

Like in mobile phones , a dual core cpu, 2gig ram phone, is all i need ,cost 80-90 euro.
Companys mainly avoid windows 8 pc,s as its bady designed e
would need extra staff training.
Most people browse the web, use youtube,facebook,etc
You dont need a fast cpu or 8gig ram,to do that.

timetogo

maki wrote: »

People want simplicity. i3 < i5 < i7, easy. For the enthusiast we can still look at the micro-architecture milestones to gauge relative performance: Ivy Bridge, Haswell, etc.

Most users are the non enthusiast (business users, home users for office programs). Yes they want simplicity. I think the current model numbering is too simplistic though.

It does work in the consumers benefit though.

For example I've an old i7 laptop which has a processor that isn't as powerful as the current i5s. The general consumer is going to think, I've an i7. That'll do. If they're a bit more savvy they start looking at this kind of stuff (http://www.cpu-world.com/info/Intel/Intel_Core_i7.html) as a business user who really only cares about a handful of applications that's where I start to switch off.

I used to buy computers for my company in my last job. I could buy the corporate HP i3 PCs for about €350. In the old days a user would see their colleagues working on a newer model number and say I "need" the newer model. These days they're all on i3s or i5s and nobody knows who's is faster or better. In reality that's good for the business as even the bog standard i3 is more than enough for 90% of users.

I'm just saying the current model numbers don't try to get the consumer to upgrade. Obviously the enthusiasts will. I used to examine the speed of my RAM, bus, processor etc. Now I don't bother and when I used to upgrade every 2 years or so I find I don't want or need to and I'll get a new one when the PC dies. I never used to do that.

johnobertie2

unkel wrote: »

My main PC is coming up to 7 years old now. Base is a good Asus mobo + C2 Quad 6600 CPU. SSD, plenty of RAM and running Windows 10 pro 64 bit perfectly (and completely silently as my system has no active moving parts, not even case fans ). As much as I want to upgrade, I just can't justify it. I don't game or do heavy video editing though...

Is there no fan /heatsink on the cpu?

ED E

johnobertie2 wrote: »

Is there no fan /heatsink on the cpu?

With a big enough cooler he wouldnt need a fan. My 8-Core server is passively cooled.

B.A._Baracus

Sorry to ask a stupid question...
But what is a SSD? I did google it but from my brief search it seems that it's like a hard drive but people say its better?

or am I off my rocker? :pac:

ressem

It's Solid State Disk.
An old style hard drive has glass platters, a bit like CDs that spin at 5000 to 15000 rpm.

The SSDs commonly used do not have this. They have chips, like those used in your common USB memory key.

The big advantage is when you want to get data from two different places on the drive. I.e file1 and file2
There's no wait for the platter to rotate to the correct location under the platters reading device.
It makes a huge difference. An old 2007 XP desktop can go from a 5 minute boot time to 30 seconds without any other changes.

So data can be retrieved almost as quickly as you can feed in addresses, limited by the SATA interface only.

The next bottleneck that they are working on is to cut out the SATA cable and circuitry which is too limiting. They are connecting directly to the PCIe channels. e.g. NVMe interface, but they need a really new bios and operating system.

But for a small number of purposes that do heavy writing to the disk, or for archival, the old disks are still preferable, the new disks will wear out more quickly.

And some laptops and desktops from 2006 have BIOS that was not updated to allow them to boot from a SATA SSD

stanley1

Put a SSD in my old Dell D630, could not believe the speed improvement, best investment in ages.

unkel

johnobertie2 wrote: »

Is there no fan /heatsink on the cpu?

Nope