Hey /g/, I'm gonna get a pretty big paycheck soon and I was thinking of building a new PC with DDR5 and such. Right now I use an Ivy Bridge chipset motherboard and an i7 3770.so I started wondering: what if I just didn't upgrade? What spurred this thought was obviously me thinking of ways to save my money, but also because I feel somewhat sentimental about my current PC build. I didn't build it all in one go, it's basically the culmination of about 5 or so years of me scrounging for computer parts. So it feels kind of lame to throw that all away (not literally) just for some flashy new stuff from Micro Center. Obviously, it's a perfectly capable CPU. Although, since it's about 14 years old at this point, it's missing some features like AVX2 and AVX512 and probably plenty of other stuff I haven't looked into yet. My GPU is a shitty old nvidia card and I'm gonna upgrade that for certain. Anyways my main question is: what experiences do older people have sticking to old PCs? Of course nobody is using a 486 or earlier nowadays but you could feasibly still use a Pentium III or 4 for a lot of contemporary tasks. What was the PC build you kept around for the longest, what CPU generation was it from, and why were you fond of it?
Having a modern CPU is pretty important if you want to GAYME or do local AI or even use Win11. If you just want a web browsing machine and are running Linux, you can keep your current CPU. But really you should at least look at used DDR4 boards and a Ryzen 3600 or better. Do not buy anything older.t. Haslel Xeon EP owner who now upgraded to a Ryzen 9950X3D2
>>110295334what CPU intensive tasks do you actually do? if its nothing more than gaming then dont bother, your 3770 is fine
>>110295334I gave a child an old i5 3rd gen laptop with Linux Mint to draw on it. He got a Wacom usb thing and if it breaks oh well
The current PC I'm using was built in 2019. The way things are currently, I fully expect to still be using it for years to come. X570 motherboard, I've since upgraded the CPU (3700X to 5800X3D) and RAM (16 to 32GB), and added another 2TB nvme drive. Still have the same GPU - 2070 Super, because I waitfagged too long. Before that, my previous PC was built in 2009 and it lasted me a full decade. I bought it right before I moved out of my parents house, and from that point on I basiacally had no money, so it had to last. Overclocked core i7 920, X58 motherboard, upgraded RAM from 6 to 12GB, boot drive was changed from a HDD to SSD. 2 graphics card upgrades - 9800GTX, GTX 560ti, GTX970. It still worked okay for most of my needs, but it was getting slow. It got me through a degree where I needed to do lots of homelab and virtualisation stuff. It did the job. But I wanted to get a VR headset and my motherboard didn't support USB 3.0, so it was time.I still have it, and was going to clean it up and use it for retro fun, maybe get one of those mega overclockable Xeons and play with it. But the PSU is 20 years old and is getting flaky with some serious droop on the +12v, which was causing some weird issues with corrupted downloads, and random crashes in games. So if I ever upgrade the GPU in my current rig, I'll need a new PSU too (it's only 600W). That one can replace the flaky one.
>>110295334My favorite CPU ever was the APU series from AMD, for one specific reason: noise. If you're keeping an old box around, its largely because its acting as a server. Maybe you play media from it, or it does some job in your office. Point is, its useful furniture. An A8 APU had enough GPU power aboard the processor die itself to run complex photoshop brushes over high res layered images at 60fps, so its a digital artist's dream, and it did it on 60 watts. A single thermaltake tower cooler with no fans is more than enough to keep it cool at 100% load. So the machine is literally dead quiet - zero moving parts.tl:dr; the best old-computer CPUs are the ones with low enough power needs that you don't need fans.
>>110295334I've got a PC build with a Ryzen 9 7050X3D. 64GB DDR5 and an RTX 4090. it replaced my old PC that is an i7-3770k, 16GB DDR3, GTX 1080ti.the ryzen is barely used other than for gaming and occasional VR and should last decades due to barely any use, my old i7 is still on 100% of the time doing all the donkey work.
>>110295334Desktop shit is in the gutter especially for used stuff. You can get a 11850h system for $400 and no desktop you can buy new or used can touch it in value. I got my "new build" for about $1200 and now this model is $1700. Is my mobile 5070 as good as a real one? No, but the 9955hx smokes the 5950xt I could have bought, and it was cheaper than actually upgrading my desktop.
>>110295334I just upgraded my i7-3770 to a AM4/DDR4 system earlier this year. I'd still be running the i7 if I didn't need Win11 for school. The i7 is in my closet and probably has a future as a HTPC in my guest house.
>>110295334Upgrade if you hit a wall in terms of what it can do, basic web browsing is fine on older CPUs than that.Just realized I am repeating >>110295413 but it's really all there is to it. Maybe consider a PSU swap though.
>>110295334>but you could feasibly still use a Pentium III or 4 for a lot of contemporary tasks. no, you cantthe comfortable limit today is core2 duo and I am not talking about 1.6GHz modelyou need around 2.6GHz of core2 duo, quad is fine too but that too has to be around 2.6GHzrunning 4x cores at 1600MHz will not help youcomfortable memory lower limit is 8GB, I'm not sure if Pentoum 4 supports that either (core2 duo does)
>>110295509Many socket 775 boards that shipped for Core2 CPUs also supported Pentium 4 CPUs if you want to torture yourself. Some even support DDR3 RAM and getting to 16GB shouldn't be an issue in boards like the Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3P. With DDR2 boards and 4 RAM sockets you're limited to 8GB. Remember that the RAM controller in these old boards is inside the northbridge and not CPU dependent.
>>110295509Anything slower than 4c4t is pretty insufferable for 10 ltsc and web browsing. I wouldn't intentionally buy a c2q system, you can go get a much faster system for around a hundred bucks
>>110295334>Anyways my main question is: what experiences do older people have sticking to old PCs?Fairly good, I would keep the machine, maybe even upgrade the memory GPU etc if I can do it cheap buy you should get a newer one that is 12-14 1700 or higher and a 30xx or higher. Do not cannabailise the old machine tune it up make sure it has max ram and maybe put a but better GPU in it for it's generation like a 970 4GB or something or 1650 . Keep it as a browsing machine and as a backup because sometimes you need a second PC around to help recover yru new machine, prepare bios flashes, disk images etc. Light LAN multiplayer on old titles etc
>>110295464Interesting, I have an AM8 hp pavilion that my relative gave me that's just sitting around doing nothing. I ought to use it as a server or something
>>110295862SameI have older machines, dual core duoa and Pentiums BUT those are pure retro build because I have large libraries of games and software on physical media that does not require internet access mainly games but a lot of applications. Win xp and Win 7 had great libraraies. The closes I have top your machine are 32GB i7 4970 machines that are utility win10 machines. But yes my experience of keeping old machines and level maxing them has been good. I also have even older machines that run stuff like win NT and Windows 2000 pro on metal.
>>110295464I like the 17-4970s
i like the low spec hardware, i have an appreciation for it, but i like it modernits fun to see what the modern low end is capable ofive always daily driven stuff like this, a pentium m well into 2014 as my only computer, a haswell pentium, an athlon 5350, celeron n100, now this 300Tusually with some equally butt gpu, i have been a gt 430 guy, the gt 710 guy...
>>110295334Most PCs die after 10-15 years so it doesn't matter what anyone tells you, it'll be random.
>>110296399The worst thing that could really happen is an important part like the CPU or motherboard failing though? And you could just replace them.
>>110295464Having used ryzen APUs I almost believe you (the 5600G was insanely efficient and it had full 28 PCIe lanes AND it supported bifurcation, you could put in 3-4 NVME in an ITX build and still have x8 lanes free for a GPU if you wanted). It also idled at 20W with a proper board. 8600G dropped the ball hard, half the PCIE lanes and the IHS was not soldered so it has crap thermals but damn the igpu is speedy.But then you said A8 APU and I have to take back everything, those were complete garbage, I have one of those sitting next to me and it uses 100W just in idle without any load. It's also slow as molasses, although I suppose enough for a Win7 Facebook machine.
>>110295589>Remember that the RAM controller in these old boards is inside the northbridge and not CPU dependent.Which is great because you can push it way the fuck up. I remember my core 2 duo shipped at 2.3GHz but I could push it up to 3.33GHz, but I settled at something like 3.2GHz because anything more required upping the voltage. Still it was really fucking nice getting nearly 40% OC on it. It was a beast.
>>110297724If you have an old APU drawing too much power its broken. The voltage regulator is being pushed up, trying too hard to flip bits. That or the BIOS is misconfigured and/or doesn't support power throttling. >>110295874They're the best media-server processors ever. You can set it up in your entertainment space with zero noise and it pushes HD video without effort.
>>110295334I ran my lga 2011 for about 12 years before I finally upgraded. Its thoroughly obsolete. Even the 1080ti which I installed into the PC was a little bit bottlenecked..>I want to build a new PC. Just pick out a pre-built. Ibuypower has good ones and you can get rhe Y70 case.Spend what you want but you're looking at about 2800 to $3000k usd to get something thats worth it.My rec.. 9800x3d. 5070 ti and 35gb ddr5.Its $2800 with a coupon right now.. but wait a little bit for some black friday deals. It will probably go down a little.. or they'll all get sold out rapidly.
>>110296399I've never has a single one die and have machines that are 40, 30, 20 years old etc The only ones I had to do anything with were made in 1982 and cheaply at that . Just don't build spaceheaters and fuck around trying to run everything hot and clocked for fuck all return and let it breathe.
>>110295419>if its nothing more than gaming then dont bother, your 3770 is fineIf you're playing 10 year old games and not emulating any console released in the last 20 years yeah
>>110297334TRuth is aside from one bad run of caps that hit the industry about 15-20 years ago machines don't die unles syou break them by doing stupid shit off youtube to them. Repasting them sure, vacum the dust off, sure but I have never had to recap a motherboard for a PC and I have OG dell boxes that shipped with NT4 and Win2Kpro Never had a GPU fail, ner had a CPU fail, have seen many many dead HDDs but mainly in enterprise raid chassis and rarely in PCs. Have seen actual bad RAM maybe three times in servers in 30 years and probably due to very poor server room power electricals. Have sen cable creep. If you buiold a PC where the CPU is over 80 degrees and so is the CPU you have fucked up to begin with and need to start again. High wattage shit does not belong in an ATX case. I've seen 35 year old OS/2 boxes stuck in cupboards controling entire buildings. Access card systems running win95 as shipepd on them in basements controlling access card systems for building you name it. PCs do not 'die' after 10 or 15 years unles syou fill them with fairy lights anbd crap and use them to warm your bedroom.
I still have my lga 2011.. that has a 4960X. The only reason I could use that cpu which is the strongest for lga 2011 socket is becusse it was thoroughly depreciated by the time I picked it up on ebay. I think I paid $100 for the the 4960x. Its handily outclassed by the next few generations of cpus which by now are also very affordable..Anyway, I still have that old PC. I put it into an antec 1200 case and loaded as many spare HHDs and SSDs laying around that I could find. I primarily use it as our home mass storage and mincecraft server now. It doesn't get turned in that often. A fun thing I do with it is turn it on remotely with a switch bot. I can stsrt up our MC server away from home.
>>110295334I feel like I'm late for rhis but I do wanna say my piece.Hello. I live in a third world slum and this kind of thing is my everyday (Attached: The current laptop I use for a daily driver).Given that you're planning on buying a modern GPU you're cheating your way out of what I consider to be 'Low tier' and to be honest with the 8 threads the i3 3770 has if all you want is a PC to browse the internet and do your taxes you can install just about anything you want. I'm gonna make a recommendation everyone else in the thread will disagree with me on though, that being Antix.Antix is not exactly a beginner's distro if you want to use as a daily driver and do gaming but it comes with certain advantages, namely it can be modified to run on frugal mode as a GRUB entry with a few tweaks (You'll have to google it though) and unlike other lightweight systemd-free systems like Alpine here you're working with a modified debian base and as such have easy access to programs out of the box that other distros do not such as Steam and most emulators.Depending on your memory I'd say you should be able to play everything up to PS2 and maybe a few PS3 or WiiU games, as well as just about any native Linux game I can think of (The most demanding I can think of is probably Metro Exodus which you should be able to run at least on low with a modern GPU and 16GB of RAM).
