Update computer, good idea or waste of cash?

[jim555]

I have a i5 2500k I built from 2011, 8gb, 256 SSD running Ubuntu.  The new Ryzens are out and it is so tempting to throw down some cash for a new system.  The problem is the current computer does everything I need it for.  A new build might be snappier, but is that worth the cost of an upgrade?

In the old days a new computer would make a huge difference in performance.  But 8 years have gone by and it seems performance hasn't kept up.  It is frustrating since I like a new system with all the bells and whistles. 

Is anyone else pondering an upgrade, I would love to hear your thoughts.

[BudgetSlasher]

I just "updated" but likely appears to be a "downgrade."

I had been using a mid-2010 macbook pro that probably cost $3k new.

I have switched to a 400 dollar Chromebook. In every way the Chromebook is as good or better (processor, ram, video result (despite being integrated vs discreet), hard drive space, touch screen, and on and on).

I love the new and shiney technology, but I realized that as I have grown and other hobbies and responsibilities have taken hold I mostly use a computer for email, internet browsing, youtube videos, and other streaming services. Until my old computer began to fail to boot, didn't support certain graphics, and other issues it was perfectly usable (aside from poor battery life).

[Laserjet3051]

ive got a 2011 i5 processor.  last year i upgraded to 64GB RAM. Shit, its like a whole new desktop! Upgrade cost me <$100. Figure the upgrade will stretch its useful lifespan another 3-4 years, I hope.

[CatamaranSailor]

Generally speaking, the best bang for your buck is to upgrade RAM and (if you don't already have one) upgrade the video card. This can be done cheap. However, depending on what you're doing, there comes a time when you'll start seeing bottlenecks that simply can't be addressed. Even with a decent video card, a Core 2 Duo will struggle with a modern 3D gaming or CAD engine. It's really less about the age of the machine and more about what you need it to do. My father still runs a Pentium machine with Word 97. He doesn't web surf, he doesn't use it for anything other than printing up reports. My son just bought a Core i9 machine with a high end iNvidia GPU because he wanted to play FarCry.

If you're looking to run modern stuff or CAD...I'd think about upgrading the motherboard and chipset to something modern. If you're machine is handing your day-to-day just fine and you just want a performance boost, start cheap with the RAM.

[FIREstache]

I have a i5 2500k I built from 2011, 8gb, 256 SSD running Ubuntu.

I have exactly the same hardware specs on my main desktop computer, although mine is overclocked to 4 Ghz and is running Windows 7.  My laptop and HTPC use later generation processors, but I don't actively use them much the way I use my desktop.

I use very new computers at work, and they don't really feel any faster to me during general use than my old i5 Sandy Bridge from 2011.  And for what I do, my overclocked i5 with SSD is pretty snappy.  So I see no point in throwing money away on a new computer.

I do not play video games.  If I was into playing the latest video games, I might be more inclined to upgrade, especially the graphics card, but I'm not into games, so I use the Intel built-in video.

[Abe]

My desktop is a 2009 iMac, and I updated the RAM to 16GB then a year later installed a 200GB solid state drive. Both of those really sped it up (SSD especially), and I have no plans to buy a new computer. Boot time is 10-15 seconds, and everything else is pretty much instantaneously. As part of my work I use a statistics program that analyzes 100-150MB databases (compressed), and processing time for complex models is a few seconds since everything is running off solid state memory. Thus it's probably never going to need an upgrade for my purposes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in general only video games or video editing really push the limits of processing power these days?

[bacchi]

I have a i5 2500k I built from 2011, 8gb, 256 SSD running Ubuntu.  The new Ryzens are out and it is so tempting to throw down some cash for a new system.  The problem is the current computer does everything I need it for.  A new build might be snappier, but is that worth the cost of an upgrade?

In the old days a new computer would make a huge difference in performance.  But 8 years have gone by and it seems performance hasn't kept up.  It is frustrating since I like a new system with all the bells and whistles. 

Is anyone else pondering an upgrade, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, the new Ryzens are very tempting. Agree about the performance -- I think Moore's law transferred to mobile chips.

I last upgraded in 2012, also with an i5. It handles the current games but the games in development are being built on faster chipsets and faster GPUs. I'll probably upgrade later this year.

My (former?) work laptop is a 2013 i7 Macbook Pro and it can still handle dev tasks fine.

[ender]

I'd only upgrade if you have an objective reason for it.

You literally said your system does everything it needs. Why upgrade?

[jim555]

I'd only upgrade if you have an objective reason for it.

You literally said your system does everything it needs. Why upgrade?

True.  Shaving a half a second off some task doesn't seem worth the cost.

[Sibley]

I'll be "upgrading" this year - meaning replacing my 6 year old laptop which is slowly losing functionality. The impetus is that Windows 7 is going to be losing support next year, and that's a security risk that I can't ignore. I'll get a laptop likely fairly similar to my current one, running Win 10, that still has functional usb ports.

[jim555]

I'll be "upgrading" this year - meaning replacing my 6 year old laptop which is slowly losing functionality. The impetus is that Windows 7 is going to be losing support next year, and that's a security risk that I can't ignore. I'll get a laptop likely fairly similar to my current one, running Win 10, that still has functional usb ports.

I think you can still upgrade to Win 10, see article link.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

[FIREstache]

I'll be "upgrading" this year - meaning replacing my 6 year old laptop which is slowly losing functionality. The impetus is that Windows 7 is going to be losing support next year, and that's a security risk that I can't ignore. I'll get a laptop likely fairly similar to my current one, running Win 10, that still has functional usb ports.

I think you can still upgrade to Win 10, see article link.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

I already upgraded my desktop (like yours) to Windows 10 once on a spare hard drive after creating an image.  I put the original SSD back in and decided to hold off to upgrade to Windows 10 until January.   I upgraded an even older and slow ultraportable laptop to Windows 10 that had previously had Windows 7, and it performed better with Windows 10.

[Sibley]

I'll be "upgrading" this year - meaning replacing my 6 year old laptop which is slowly losing functionality. The impetus is that Windows 7 is going to be losing support next year, and that's a security risk that I can't ignore. I'll get a laptop likely fairly similar to my current one, running Win 10, that still has functional usb ports.

I think you can still upgrade to Win 10, see article link.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade/

I already upgraded my desktop (like yours) to Windows 10 once on a spare hard drive after creating an image.  I put the original SSD back in and decided to hold off to upgrade to Windows 10 until January.   I upgraded an even older and slow ultraportable laptop to Windows 10 that had previously had Windows 7, and it performed better with Windows 10.

Key bit in bold. The hardware is slowly failing, it's easier and cheaper to buy a new laptop than to repair the failing bits on this one. It's had quite a bit of use for 7ish years, that's pretty decent I think.

Edit: I bought it December 2012. however long it's been since then.

[Syonyk]

The problem is the current computer does everything I need it for.  A new build might be snappier, but is that worth the cost of an upgrade?

You've answered your question in one.  It does everything you need it for.  Don't upgrade without a good reason.

In the old days a new computer would make a huge difference in performance.  But 8 years have gone by and it seems performance hasn't kept up.  It is frustrating since I like a new system with all the bells and whistles. 

Which bells and whistles do you think you're missing?

You've got what makes the biggest difference - enough RAM and an SSD.  The only thing I'd suggest is enabling zswap (not zram - they're different).  8GB is on the low side for a lot of use, and while SSD swap is fast, compressing into memory is faster.  I'd allow 12.5% of your system RAM to go to the compressed region (1GB), probably use lzo, and make sure you're running a recent enough kernel (I know 4.19 has it) for same filled page collapsing.  That should effectively net you almost the same as another 3-4GB of RAM in practical use with no real downside unless you run benchmarks optimized for driving zswap into pessimal states.

But if you're hankering for something to do, clean it out.  Dust your heatsink, dust the board, vacuum out all the cobwebs, etc.  And then put it back together, run an "apt-get dist-upgrade," and continue using it.

My desktop is a 2009 iMac, and I updated the RAM to 16GB then a year later installed a 200GB solid state drive.

*eep*

That's pretty far off the back end of the support wagon, isn't it?  You use it on the internet?  Ill-advised, IMO.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in general only video games or video editing really push the limits of processing power these days?

Yeah, pretty much.  Or big compile jobs.

[jim555]

Decided to upgrade the cheap way.  Got a refurbished Dell Optiplex i7 4770 (Haswell), put in 16gb RAM, new 256gb Intel SSD, dual boot with Win 10.  Going with Manjaro Linux with the Mate desktop (Gnome 2) and Ubuntu themes and fonts.

[habanero]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in general only video games or video editing really push the limits of processing power these days?

In normal use, almost nothing is CPU-limited. Gaming is mainly GPU-limited (but a beefy CPU comes in handy). Then you have, as you mention, video editing and some heavyweight image processing, 3D-modelling, very big compile jobs, video transcoding and probably a few other corner cases a normal user is unlikely to encounter. For normal use, almost anything does the trick as long as it has a SSD drive, enough RAM (8-16GB normally does the trick) and a CPU that's at most a few years old and wasn't designed to be a power saver. Almost everything is I/O limited due to network bandwidth and latancy, reading/writing to disk or getting data from somewhere else like a database system or whatever.

My mom uses my old gaming rig - it was just below top notch about a decade ago and frankly its still way overkill for her casual web surfing, word processing and emailing.

Over the last years the performance-per-core hasn't really increased a lot (clock speeds are pretty much stuck for example), but high-end CPUs have many more cores. This comes in very handy in some workloads, but is generally rather irrelevant for personal use.

Modern CPUs are blaizingly fast. During the time spent for a CPU core running at 4Ghz to multiply two 64-bit floating point numbers, add the result to a third number and store the total (aka a fused multilpy-add operation) light in vacuum has managed to move the massive distance of about two centimeters.

[LennStar]

If your computer does all you need, then there is no reason to upgrade.

That said, it really is old und you would feel improvements. The questions is for what price?
Unfortunately you didn't mention if you run a GPU or only the Intel's GPU (I don't know if your model has one, don't want to look it up if you even find the specs on that old stuff lol).


My suggestions would be to wait ~ a year. By then the next generation of Ryzen APUs should be out. (The current is name 3XXX but still uses 2XXX tech).
7nm Zen2+ that is what you want.
Get the cheapest of those APUs a few month after they are out (scheduled early 2020). Fast CPU and acceptable GPU in low energy. Even at same Ghz roughly 50% faster than your old intel while less demanding on power. And can use way faster RAM, of course.

Get at least 16GB RAM. Get a m2 SSD. They are a lot faster than even SATA SSD. Get a BeQuiet! 300W (80 Bronze) power supply.

Should be less than 500$ and you should be good for at least 5 more years, longer if nothing breaks. I think you are now in the high risk are for computers break down with 2011 parts ;)

[jim555]

Got a new 32" 2560x1440 monitor to freshen the system, replaces the 10 year old 24" 1920x1200 one.  And it saves on energy!

[Just Joe]

We have kept using our existing machines with RAM upgrades, a GPU upgrade, SSD at some time in the future.

The desktop is a Dell XPS 8900-i7 dual booting Win7 and Mint Linux KDE (18.3). 16GB RAM, a pair of 2TB hard drives - one Windows, one Linux. 

We have an older computer from early in the Win7 era that runs Mint Linux Cinnamon just fine. It has 8GB of RAM and a 1GB GPU. It is really only a Kodi machine and I rarely use it anymore.

We also have a Samsung Ultrabook i5/8GB with 256GB SSD and it too does just fine.

At this point like others here have explained, mostly using the internet, checking messages, playing media. Only the XPS plays any games. The Samsung does a little Solidworks CAD. Is capable of designing parts and small assemblies. If I need to work on a large assembly I do the parts on the Samsung, and the assembly at work on a workstation. The XPS would be good but its mine and I can't put the employer's software on it.

I delay replacing any technology that still gets the job done.

[ginjaninja]

I upgraded my computer before I needed to and my needs for the computer changed and it was a total waste of money.   Keep the computer you have until you are no longer able to use it. 

I have a 90 day rule for stuff like this.  Put it on your list for 90 days and envision how your life might or might not change with the item.  If after 90 days you can see a significant benefit to buying the new computer, then do it. 

[alsoknownasDean]

Yeah a Sandy Bridge machine with 8GB of RAM and an SSD should still be usable. I've got quite a few family members using Sandy Bridge based all in ones (running Windows 8) with about that much RAM and mechanical HDDs and they've not complained about the performance of them yet.

I've got a MacBook Pro that I've had since April 2009, now running Ubuntu MATE with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. It's working OK, but a Core 2 Duo is getting long in the tooth, and a few things are failing on it. Honestly, I don't really know what I want to replace it with. Refurbished Dell Optiplex, secondhand gaming PC, new Dell XPS or similar fancypants laptop, a Chromebook, a cheapish Windows 10 laptop from Gearbest with a Gemini Lake CPU and a 1080p display, a Mac Mini, etc.

I've been looking around at replacements since 2013 and just about bought a replacement back in 2016, so I've been dithering for a long time.

[BudgetSlasher]

Thought I'd chime in again to say I am building a new system for our household.

DW is starting a new job soon, which has the opportunity to work from home from time to time. She currently has a ~$200 ARM-based ~12 inch Chromebook as her only computer and I have a ~$400 dollar Chromebook Intel-Based (with hyperthreading off its a 2 thread machine). We've had both machines a couple years and the prices where what we paid for them at the time.

Both machines handle web/email/youtube well, but can struggle outside of the day-to-day. Based on that we decided to add a dedicated workstation to the household, to handle remote access, video conferencing, and document editing with reference materials available on screen 2. So I will be building a dual monitor setup powered by a Ryzen 2400g, (technically last generation, I suppose) on an X450 motherboard, with 16GB of RAM, an M.2 boot/Office Suite drive, and a 1TB 5400 RPM storage drive. (oh and running Windows 10 Pro to avoid as many compatibility issues as possible).

I could have bought a pre-built machine for around the same price and she would have been just as happy, but I am using this as an excuse to scratch the itch at no additional cost.

I briefly thought about making it a shared computer, throwing some extra cash at it and making it more of a gaming computer. But I realized that would increase the cost several-fold and realistically by the time I would have time to game again it would be time to upgrade anyways (at least GPU).

I had to fight my old instinct to buy the biggest and best under the assumption that it would remain relevant longer, as the past decade or so really has not seen my computer become outdated as quickly (outside of running AAA games at maximum settings).

I am looking forward to my first build in a long time (our last desktop was a full sized case with a CRT monitor that we pulled out of a closet and disposed of when we moved in 2009 and at that point it was probably 8 years old).

I also look forward to some degree of upgradability (RAM, a few more options of AM4 processors, discrete graphics cards) to keep the machine relevant a longer (rather than the non-upgradable disposable nature of laptops now).

 

[PDXTabs]

I have a i5 2500k I built from 2011, 8gb, 256 SSD running Ubuntu.  The new Ryzens are out and it is so tempting to throw down some cash for a new system.  The problem is the current computer does everything I need it for.  A new build might be snappier, but is that worth the cost of an upgrade?

Is anyone else pondering an upgrade, I would love to hear your thoughts.

I think that it depends what you actually use it for. Just for fun I looked up some benchmarks for the i5 2500k and i5 9600K and the 9th gen core is about 2x the speed as the 2nd gen core. This doesn't surprise me with incremental improvements in instruction-level parallelism. What generation of DDR does your current system have? If you got a new i5/Ryzen/etc with DDR4 and a PCIe SSD you might have a noticeable speedup, especially if you compile your own software projects, edit big photos, edit video, etc. But if you are just poking around on the web I would save your money.

[YttriumNitrate]

Thought I'd chime in again to say I am building a new system for our household.
DW is starting a new job soon, which has the opportunity to work from home from time to time. ... So I will be building a dual monitor setup ... with ... a 1TB 5400 RPM storage drive. (oh and running Windows 10 Pro to avoid as many compatibility issues as possible).

I work from home from time to time, and you may want to spend an extra ~$30 and get a storage drive with at least a few terabytes. Over on Newegg, a Seagate 7200RPM 3TB drive runs about $65.

The main reason I needed a larger drive was that my firm uses Dropbox and OneDrive, and my relevant directories automatically are synced to the storage drives on both my office and home computers.

[jinga nation]

I built mine too in 2011. i7-2600. Been running Win7 Pro on SSD since day 1, and some WD green drives for storage. Initially had 8 GB RAM (4 x 2 GB sticks).
Was getting sluggish around 2017.
Opened it up, cleaned it out. Removed the old original thermal paste which had dried. Applied new Arctic Silver.
Upgraded to 4 x 8GB RAM sticks (Ballistix).
Boom!
I don't play games on it, but wife and I have multiple browsers open for work, etc, and Lightroom for my photo retouching, etc. 8 GB RAM wasn't cutting it.

[BudgetSlasher]

Thought I'd chime in again to say I am building a new system for our household.
DW is starting a new job soon, which has the opportunity to work from home from time to time. ... So I will be building a dual monitor setup ... with ... a 1TB 5400 RPM storage drive. (oh and running Windows 10 Pro to avoid as many compatibility issues as possible).

I work from home from time to time, and you may want to spend an extra ~$30 and get a storage drive with at least a few terabytes. Over on Newegg, a Seagate 7200RPM 3TB drive runs about $65.

The main reason I needed a larger drive was that my firm uses Dropbox and OneDrive, and my relevant directories automatically are synced to the storage drives on both my office and home computers.

Well the 1TB is already here and their IT department is not very advanced, basically all you can do is offsite outlook and remote desktop.

The case case that the wife thought was "cute" (micro-itx) only takes 2.5 laptop format HDDs (which makes a 3tb 5400RPM seagate barracuda in the ~125 range on newegg). If it turns out that she has a need for a larger hard drive we will cross that bridge when we come to it (and I can rehome the 1 TB).

[jinga nation]

@jim555 when was the last time you opened up the case and cleaned it out?
are the fans running quietly?
maybe you need new thermal paste on CPU.
just a few minutes of work would make a difference.
how old are the hard drives?
maybe install OS on a SSD and use a secondary 2-4TB HDD for data storage.

[jim555]

@jim555 when was the last time you opened up the case and cleaned it out?
are the fans running quietly?
maybe you need new thermal paste on CPU.
just a few minutes of work would make a difference.
how old are the hard drives?
maybe install OS on a SSD and use a secondary 2-4TB HDD for data storage.

I did a few things.  New 6TB HD, new monitor, refurb i7 4770 Dell, new 256gb SSD, 16gb RAM.  Runs very fast.  Should be good for a few years.

[RangerOne]

If you are upgrading just to get the new fancy chip it is probably a waste. In reality jumping on ebay and getting a last gen intel chip and mobo would also be a massive upgrade and far cheaper. You could probably even find friends and co-workers who would give you some of those new pieces for free since they are wasting money on upgrades.

I generally do buy new components and keep my computer updated a few pieces at a time. Some of my updates I made that felt worth it:

1. Grabbed a new video card to run a new game. (felt good because the game looked better)
2. Upgraded amount of RAM(went from 4 gigs to 8 gigs which allowed me to multitask while gaming)
3. Switch from hard-disk to SSD ( better boot and load times)
4. Upgraded monitors ( more size, better picture, and freesync )


Upgrades that were super underwhelming have been:

1. Upgrading CPUs, I have rarely been bottle necked by a CPU so upgrading CPUs also feels underwhelming and like a waste of money. At least since the days of the core 2 duos when mores law kind of died.

2. Upgrading a video card when I didn't need it. ( I bought a few new video cards before I really needed the extra performance and it just doesn't feel worth it. Wait till you cant run a new game then upgrade)

3. Updating RAM. (Most RAM upgrades are a waste of money if you aren't noticeably RAM constrained. Increase RAM speed and having more RAM than you need just doesn't improve anything noticable)

I would say the worst part about updating a CPU, when you don't need a new one, is that its so freakin expensive. Because you generally need a new Mobo, new RAM and a new CPU all together. That new Ryzen chip may only be $200. But then the new Mobos that natively support them are also around $200. And decent RAM for them is $100.

So by the time you are done you have just spent $500 to upgrade to a system to run programs that probably ran fine on your old setup... Sounds kind of depressing.

[LennStar]

I paid 70€ for my Ryzen Mobo.

You probably mean the gamer 470x or what they are called chipsets, now at release time.

And all you mentioned - except the SSD - is only if you don't really use your computer. I mean my Ryzen gaming rig opens 10 Firefox tabs at least 50% faster than my Trinity APU "typewriter" comp, not to mention more stuff at once.

Of course it is always the use-case that decides. But compared to 7+ years ago you will feel a difference with any load more than single tab browsing. And if you are a heavy user and save only 5 minutes a day waiting time, it's probably worth it in hourly wage ;)

[BudgetSlasher]

I have a i5 2500k I built from 2011, 8gb, 256 SSD running Ubuntu.  The new Ryzens are out and it is so tempting to throw down some cash for a new system.  The problem is the current computer does everything I need it for.  A new build might be snappier, but is that worth the cost of an upgrade?

In the old days a new computer would make a huge difference in performance.  But 8 years have gone by and it seems performance hasn't kept up.  It is frustrating since I like a new system with all the bells and whistles. 

Is anyone else pondering an upgrade, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thought I would chime in again as a fellow (although on/off) computer lover/builder.

I have historically overbuilt/overbought with the stated reason of "it will last longer" and the real reason is I like the "bells and whistles."

Here are my thoughts, based upon you have an intel and mentioning new Ryzen processors as a replacement. (The cliff notes is I would end up replacing mostly everything).

Intel -> Ryzen = New motherboard and processor
Ryzen performance is times to memory speed = New RAM
New Ryzen Supports PCI 4.0 = New Hard Drive
If you are talking gaming after 8 years = New graphics card
New graphics card can push a higher refresh rate = Time for a high refresh monitor / G/Free-sync

So new bells and whistles means keeping the case, power supply, monitor, mouse, and keyboard.