this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
8 points (55.0% liked)

Technology

79985 readers
4883 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
8
The upgrade argument for desktops doesn't stand up anymore (www.howtogeek.com)
submitted 20 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) by worhui@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
54 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I haven’t thought about it in a while but the premise of the article rings true. Desktops are overall disposable. Gpu generations are only really significant with new cpu generations. CPUs are the same with real performance needed a new chipset and motherboard. At that point you are replacing the whole system.

Is there a platform that challenges that trend?

Edit Good points were made. There is a lot to disagree with in the article, especially when focused on gaming.

Storage For the love of your data : storage is a WEAR component. Especially with HDD. Up until recently storage was so cheap it was crazy not to get new drives every few years.

Power Supplies Just because the computer still boots doesn't mean the power supply is still good. A PSU will continue to shove power into your system long past the ability to provide clean power. Scope and test an older PSU before you put it on a new build.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It’s been like that that since I can remember. Upgrading can extend the lifespan by a few years, but often it’s a good idea to replace the whole system.

It depends on a lot of factors of course. If you buy a midrange machine now, you can upgrade it in five years to a high end machine from today, then five years ago.

Rarely do you get to take advantage of technology shifts like hard drives to SSD. A couple of years ago, adding more RAM and an SSD made machines usable, that had these bottlenecks. Still the best thing you can do to an old laptop or desktop.

Over the last decade performance hasn’t improved that much for most typical use cases. An i7 from ten years ago with 16 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD, and a NVIDIA GTX 1080 is still a decent computer today.

What makes PCs great is that you’re more flexible regarding how you configure your machine. Adding more storage, more ports, extension cards, optical drives inside your machine etc. is just nice.

With a laptop you end up with crappy hubs and lots of cables.

[–] worhui@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

From a pure aesthetics standpoint hubs and cables suck. From a functional standpoint they are equivalent except for the GPU.