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.
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.
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.
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 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.
