I got everything clock capped and undervolted, as much as I can. Fans aggressive. I get upset if I forget to turn her off at night.
Hold on, baby, hang in there.
Me 8 years ago building my PC, “I’ll go used this time so I can get the best PC possible for my budget, and I’ll slowly upgrade to new as I need to.”
Me today,
It’s going to be rough on students this year - our university is looking to “retire” pc labs so everything becomes “use your own laptop” to “ensure a more comfortable student experience” (I.e. cut costs).
Trouble is, when student laptops fail this year, they’re not going to be able to afford new ones.
Depending on what they’re supposed to use them for, they can most likely use refurbished hardware without issues. That’s unless they have to use them to do some really heavy lifting, but that’s unlikely.
They’ll need windows 11 (Linux works but they’d then need to learn Linux), or they’d be going refurb Mac which is pricey.
The windows 11 push has come at an oddly bad time.
Oh no, a university student needs to learn his way around Linux :0 then there’s really no possible way to finish the degree
Have you taught any undergrads recently? They think files are stored inside apps (“where is your data file?” - “it’s in excel”).
It’s called “natural selection”. They are there to learn things after all.
“How will this piece be graded sir?”
“Natural selection.”
It will not be graded, you did not upload your attachment. Also you failed class, let that be a lesson of natural selection to you.
I am using a backup budget PC from 2014, which has 12gb of DDR3 memory. It has Windows 11, after using RUFUS to install the .iso while stripping away Microsoft’s hardware restrictions. MASgravel was used to register Windows.
This PC sucks, but is usable for basic browsing. I believe nearly any laptop after 2020 will soundly beat this machine.
You overestimate the average undergrad!
Aren’t they going to have to learn Linux anyway?
Depends on where their lives take them - our IT department are solid windophiles, so no Linux to learn here (though myself and a friend are looking to shift that over time).
I’m just not so sure that windows has that much of a future. I believe Microsoft will move to thin clients with everything on servers and a subscription model.
Of course a lot of people will be fine with that and will just give up on their PCs.
Yeah, that’s why I’m going the route if getting older (senior) staff onto Linux on their home machines.
If the powers that be decide Linux is better…
I built my PC in 2021, and while it didn’t have top of the line components or anything, it was probably upper low-range to low mid-range back then (minus the GPU because I only bought that after the pandemic, when prices went down a bit). If it lasts me 10 years, I’ll be happy tbh. Building a PC right now, or having to replace broken parts, sounds like an absolute pain in the butt q-q
I’ve got ten year parts in two machines but I got a weird blessing in disguise when my old DDR4 mobo died a couple years ago and forced me to go full DDR5, new CPU and so on. I was upset then, not so much now.
You just never know when a bad thing ends up being a good thing.
My AC has a tendency to drool indoors when a hose gets clogged up. I wasn’t aware of the mold it was causing to grow under my bed and on some walls, because I live in a confined space.
The problems with my DDR4 machine gave me some free time to do assorted homekeeping tasks, and the discovery of my bed’s infection was a blessing. I now got the mold cleaned away and disinfected, also moving to a bed that doesn’t get rained upon. Quite honestly, sleeping under droplets of water and having exactly half of my body damp is an experience that I wish on no one else.
So…yeah, the technical issues with my PC aren’t a genuine drawback, longterm.
I might not have the fastest processor (Ryzen 5 3600) and my graphics card is long in the tooth (5600 XT), but damn am I smug for buying 64GB of DDR5 years ago.
Just wish 2 years ago I’d talked my boss into upgrading my work laptop from 8GB. No chance now.
I got crazy lucky and built my pc right before the prices skyrocketed. I accidentally did a ship of theseus because every time I bought a part it was incompatible with another part until I had a brand new pc except for the hardrive.
I got lucky and my mobo died right before the ram spike, so I upgraded from ddr3 to ddr5 for cheap compared to current prices.
I share the same feeling in my bones.
This is pretty much my situation with my gaming PC.
I did do a small upgrade on the Graphics Card after a few years, in between the mining price peak and the AI price peak so it wasn’t too expensive, and also bought second hand for €14 a CPU that fits that CPU slot (which is twice as powerful as the original one I had and which, had I bought it new, would have cost about €200), so that extended that PC’s life a bit.
Another thing that helped a lot was replacing Windows with Linux - 16 GB memory is absolutely fine with Linux.
I starting to think about a replacement - which would have to be a full one as that motherboard can’t really support any further significant improvements (PCI isn’t really fast enough to really fully use better and more recent Graphics Cards, memory is maxed and the for that CPU slot there’s just 1 better CPU and it’s a tiny performance improvement over what I have) - but then the AI bubble came and that was that.
Mind you, similarly to that cartoon, I totally think “just keep going a little bit more, please, please, please” when I look at this PC.
All that said, my gaming needs are still served just fine with this machine since I don’t tend to go for glitzy recent AAA titles since I generally find them too linear and intellectually unchallenging for my taste.
My last PC purchase was in 2021, which seems to have been just about the optimal time to buy before everything went to shit
Same, I only regret not getting a new case and a better build
glad I splurged and bought a 4070 when cross shopping with a 3060
glad I bought 16GB more ram on a whim bc I knew I wasn’t going to pay for a new mobo any time soon
glad I bought a couple 2TB SSDs when streaming services could not longer provide me an experience worth paying for
glad I don’t care to play the newest AAA games or watch shows/movies as soon as they come out
I’ve got several computers in pieces and two other old af ones now running Linux perfectly fine
the problem is not the hardware. the problem is the inefficient software that requires you to get better hardware.
really glad my wonderful partner got me a refurb’d mobo/CPU combo for christmas last year
and also that one of his online friends was generous enough to just ship him a 4080 for free earlier this year when they upgraded their own card and he offered me his 3060, which has been working better than i expected under linux (i wanted to go all AMD but i’ll take what i can get atp)
I used to advocate saving one’s money and building a fresh system when DDR6 is released - the transition means that many people will be selling off their older hardware, thus a glut of cheapness.
Unfortunately, I suspect that most folks, especially Americans, won’t have much money by the time DDR6 is a thing. So I pulled the trigger and built a fresh DDR5 machine. Partially due to PBO issues with my DDR4 beast’s CPU, but also a desire for local AI roleplay and projects. It is best to build now, before Weimer hyperinflation takes America by storm.
In any case, my 128gb DDR4 machine will hopefully find its way into the hands of a happy owner. I got the new 5950x CPU, it just needs to be installed, and my future machine in good order.
Nothing concrete yet, but there is hope. The fact that mainstream media aired this may actually cause investors to start pulling out. The bubble is kept inflated by investor confidence, after all.
This makes me glad i splurged on parts in college, i upgraded to a used 3090 when the 4090 came out, all in all got a pretty decent deal on it
