Hot take but I really don't know what people are doing on their systems to upgrade them every 2-3 years

[elly@donotsta.re]

Hot take but I really don't know what people are doing on their systems to upgrade them every 2-3 years.

I've seen someone describing GPUs like RTX3060 as "old" and I'm like "perfectly good GPU that lets you play any game you want?!".

We've gotten to the point where almost any piece of hardware (except for Celerons or cheap ARM SoCs) made in past ~6 years is good for any use-case.
Call me crazy, but my main workstation literally has a:
- Laptop CPU from 2021 (Engineering Sample of i9-11980HK)
- 32GB of DDR4
- Radeon RX7800XT (that I almost never used due to lack of time etc)
- Optane 900P 280GB (that I received from Intel few years back, perfect for a work drive)
- Kingston KC3000 1TB NVME

I do heavy stuff like compiling Linux kernel on this system and it's perfectly reasonable. I can play any game I would ever want on this system. I feel literally zero need to upgrade.

Same goes for my main laptop which I received from community member back in ~December 2022 to mainline it. It's a Samsung Galaxy Chromebook (Google/Hatch/KOHAKU) with:
- i5-10210U
- 8GB DDR3L
- 1TB NVME
- 4K AMOLED screen (touch, pen)
- Weights ~1KG, charges with any USB-C charger
- Great backlight keyboard, WiFi 6 etc.

Once again, it's a 6 year-old laptop. Of course I'm not going to compile a Linux kernel on it, but nothing stops me from SSHing into my workstation at home (or even container at work if I need to build something like OpenBMC) and using it essentially as a terminal.

Smartphones? Same thing. I bought a Google Pixel 6 back in 2022, it still has a great camera, performance and whatnot. Why would I want to replace a perfectly working phone just because it's ~4 years old?

People really need to stop following trends and consider upgrading their hardware only when it stops serving their purposes.
You (usually) don't miss anything by having older hardware, just some "nice-to-haves" that don't make a difference in grand scheme of things.

[jh@fe.disroot.org]

@elly

totally agree.

CPU: Intel i7-4790K (8) @ 4.500GHz
GPU: AMD ATI Radeon RX 5500/5500M / Pro 5500M
Memory: 4309MiB / 31971MiB

[fun@berkeley.edu.pl]

@elly I do all my things on a HP laptop from 2012, performance-wise, sure many other computers will be better, but it's really not like I need all that power. It can do most things I throw at it just fine.

And when I'm on the go and don't want to carry around my laptop, I use an even less powerful Samsung tablet. It can be used to do some light web browsing, IRC, and ssh so I can even ssh to my laptop at home to run more intensive things (waypipe also works just in case)

It's not necessarily about trends, it's about programmed obsolescence, because e.g. windows 11 no longer supports your computer, but in the FOSS world, some developers also write extremely slow and inefficient software, to then blame it on the hardware when it runs very slow (see: Element, gtk+libadwaita, etc). many people say that it's really just software moving on,

but I really don't understand why I would need a faster computer for the same usecases which years ago that very same computer would handle just fine. My usecases haven't really changed much in years at this point, so I don't get why performance/power requirements for them should change. Also, in this age of RAM sticks costing about the same as a full house, well, we can basically forget buying a new computer

But many people just buy something new and move on, repeat ad-nominem. And then they throw their old perfectly working computer away. Don't think anyone needs a reminder that the wrong ice is literally melting right now as I am writing this.

[moses_izumi@fe.disroot.org]

@fun @elly
>HP from 2012
Business-grade (probook, elitebook, ZBook) or consumer sludge?

I've considered getting an Elitebook 8560W because it's currently one of the cheaper second-hand laptops with an MXM GPU slot, mostly to help with replacement panels and to get 4K 60hz for my ridiculous 32 inch panel (christmas gift).

Decided to finish the botched 1440p mod of my T430 (blew the backlight fuse during testing) instead.

[moses_izumi@fe.disroot.org]

@fun @elly
Many smartphones would probably be alright laptop substitutes if they shipped with physical keyboards and mice (trackpoint, trackball, even trackpads): even with the absurdly wide aspect ratios and gross camera holes.

[fun@berkeley.edu.pl]

@moses_izumi @elly I use exactly that laptop, EliteBook 8560w with its default GPU, the Quadro 2000M. It handles 3440x1440@60Hz .... I'd say, yes, but barely (thanks nvidia...), and you can forget about 4k playback or much gpu-accelerated things due to the gpu being just bad.

But other than that it's pretty fine, with a better gpu it should still withstand .. I'd say, 5-10 years

[moses_izumi@fe.disroot.org]

@fun @elly
The cool thing about MXM is that it's just PCIe in a funny shape, so you could absolutely just use a low-profile bus-powered desktop GPU if you have more money than sense.
(breakout cable costs 200 USD 'cause it's a niche standard and demands signal integrity or something).