For those people consumerism is the hobby. They don’t get anything by buying new computer every 2 years, other than the act of buying itself. For wast majority of gamers the cycle is closer to 8-10 years. Personally, I’m playing on a laptop that I bought in 2020 and it runs everything I want it to run no problem, and I’m planning to change it only when it breaks irreparably.
laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
A hobby where 40% of people need a new fancy computer every 2 years is bad for the planet.
Nalivai@lemmy.world 1 week ago
GenChadT@infosec.pub 1 week ago
Personally, I’m playing on a laptop that I bought in 2020 and it runs everything I want it to run no problem, and I’m planning to change it only when it breaks irreparably.
Look up a YouTube video on how to disassemble it and clean out your fans and radiators. Then replace your CPU/GPU die thermal paste along with thermal putty and you can greatly extend your laptop’s lifespan. I also have a gaming laptop from 2020 and doing this dropped average temps significantly (somewhere around 10-20 degrees), and on my device the teardown was pretty simple. I used Honeywell PTM 7950 on the CPU/GPU dies and and upsiren utp-x ultra putty for my VRAM and VRMs. You will need 91% iso alcohol and some paper towels for cleaning existing paste and ideally compressed air for blasting out stubborn areas of dust, for this I use a rechargeable air duster but canned air and air compressors work great too.
ScriptSage@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I honestly can’t remember the last time I played a game that couldn’t be played on a potato. No AAA games have interested me in years
blargh513@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Don’t count out us cheap bastards. I love buying used gear. I don’t play games on them, I just run my own stuff. Local llms home servers for media and such.
Of course with proxmox, my need for multiple devices has shrunk considerably. I’d be happy if I could get an old mining rig with a few midrange gpus in them. I’d rather run my own llm than pay a premium for a subscription. I can have it run my home automation and use it for filthy sexy chat bots. Could also use them for coding agents.
If you’re dumping 2-3 year old nvidia hardware, I’m buying.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Who said every 2 years tho?
I’m planning to build within the next 2 years because my GPU came out in 2020 and my CPU in 2019. So I’m part of that 40%.
I was going to build a new rig last year since I use it for work more than gaming and could use a faster CPU and more RAM, but I think we all know why I’m postponing.
I think most of the 40% will be people whose setup was already getting old and then the goddamn LLM-induced RAM crisis hit.
ragas@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
I upgraded my RAM to 96GB in 2022, any new PC will have to be significantly better to be worth upgrading to. Currently I would have to pay 750€ just to have the same RAM as I already do, which is more than half of what my whole system originally cost.
There is just nothing to reasonably upgrade to right now. Games will not require faster hardware because of this, causing even less incentive to upgrade to a new system.
My current system will probably last another 10 years if the current slop continues like this.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
I wanted to upgrade to at least 64 or ideally 128 last year. Ideally a new build with AM5 and DDR5, though an upgrade in-place would’ve been useful too. Then RAM prices started shooting up and now I don’t know if I’m upgrading anytime soon at all.
Though now I’m considering just biting the bullet and getting 2 extra sticks of DDR4 and a zen 3 CPU to keep my rig going for another 4 or 5 years. 32 -> 64 GB and 6 -> 12 or 16 cores. Trouble is, if I upgrade my current computer, I’d have to do it out of my own money, whereas if I build a new one, I can make it a business PC since I do in fact use it for work more than gaming. Between income tax, VAT and everything, a business PC is like 50% cheaper than a personal PC for me. So now I’m riding out decision paralysis hoping that RAM will get cheaper again and I can build a brand new PC in a year or 2 lol
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 week ago
What are you doing to be struggling with 32GB of RAM? Like my home server is definitely RAM limited right now with 32GB but that’s a server not a PC
laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
you forgot what thread you are in lol:
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Building one in the next two years doesn’t imply the last one was just built yesterday though.
Steam hardware survey shows RTX 3060 as the most common single GPU model at 4%. Other 20, 30, 40 series GPUs are still common too. As are 50 series, but they’re far from dominant. 10 series and older are uncommon but still in use.
On the AMD side, a significant amount of people are still rocking old GPUs like the RX 580 and a few even still run lower end old GPUs like the 550. All in all, most GPUs in use are not the newest generation at all. For CPUs we unfortunately don’t get data beyond core count, but I imagine the average CPU is even older than the average GPU because a ton of people are still on AM4. I’m one and I’ve got friends who are as well.