Today's computers should be good for 20 years

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Syzygys said:
I got curious, just how good a gaming computer one can get for the lowest possible price. At Walmart, this is just slightly more than my usual $500 limit as low budget:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Cyberpowe...e-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium-Monitor/17811825

"This is an AMD quad core processor desktop with features that include 3.60GHz, 4MB L2 Cache. 1TB SATA drive, 8 GB memory, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edition."

So Asguard can tell us, if we get this today, how long it would last and be able to play most of the games. Mind you, this is the lowest priced gaming machine on the list.
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Gaming machines are all about the video card...one reason that machine is so cheap is because it only has a $50 video card in it. My 2 year old Nividia GTX280 still sells for more than $200.

While that $50 card would be "ok" for games. Most gamers would want a little more performance than that.
 
MacGyver1968 said:
Gaming machines are all about the video card...one reason that machine is so cheap is because it only has a $50 video card in it. My 2 year old Nividia GTX280 still sells for more than $200.

While that $50 card would be "ok" for games. Most gamers would want a little more performance than that.
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GeForce GTX 690 $1003.58 - $1349.95 (for the serious gamer)

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Syzygys said:
What say you, how long would it take for this system to become obsolete?
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If you want to stay on the bleeding edge of new technology, every two or 3 years.

Don't know much about video cards (duh), how fast do they improve?
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Whenever I shopped for a new computer I would always go for the best card I could afford at the time and then upgrade the drivers as soon as new drivers would come out. I would usually get 2 or 3 driver upgrades during the life of the video board. But then I could never afford the bleeding edge upgrade pace.
 
I got my first computer, an old 486 hand me down, in late 2000. Times were tight, so I was trying to upgrade on the cheap. Athlon CPUs, and ATX cases were what was hot, but I had neither. I found this, Tom's Hardware, Oldie tuning and I had my solution. Here was a way to use my AT case, and my 72 pin SIMM EDO memory, but really boost my speed. The motherboard was available cheap on Ebay, and I think I paid $50.00 for the 475 MHz K6-2+ CPU. Once I put it all together, it was a huge performance improvement over what I had, and combined with a Pine TNT-2 PCI video card, I could actually play some games at lower resolutions.

Just for fun, I put it back together a few years ago. This motherboard from 1997, when combined with a CPU from 2000, 512 megabytes of EDO, and a hard drive controller card, and a newer PATA hard drive, ran Windows 2000 pretty well. But it was still slow compared to what I was used to then. It couldn't play back YouTube videos without stuttering, they are too CPU intensive. Limited to USB 1.0, etc. I could pull it out, load Windows XP on it, and use it as my primary computer. But I'd have to be a glutton for punishment. Websites heavy with flash animation would slow it to a crawl. No watching any video (it can play a standard DVD with no issue, but that's it). I wouldn't even give something like this away. It's a novelty item, and nothing more.
 
The card lm about to replace is a GTX460 and it's NOWHERE near good enough to run anything NOW at anything but it's lowest settings so in answer to the question, due to a useless graphics card that machine wont play the average games NOW
 
200? You do realise that the card I'm REPLACING is worth more than that, the card I'm about to put in is probably worth between 800-1000 (not 100% sure because it's my father in laws and I'm getting it for nothing). Most gamers want two graphics cards, also most PC gamers expect to run 2 or 3 screens.
 
I don't care that much about video cards, but...

Asguard said:
200? You do realise that the card I'm REPLACING is worth more than that,
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McGyver said it was a $50 card, complain to him. By the way I call bullshit on that this cheap system wouldn't play today's games...

Most gamers want two graphics cards, also most PC gamers expect to run 2 or 3 screens.
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Thank you for confirming the special needs status...

Anyway, I kind of lost interest in the gaming aspect... Will enjoy the pretty games on 1 screen...
 
The PC today could be used for just web surfing and other trivial things for 20 years but everything changes every 5 years so much that you really need to just buy a new PC every 5 years just to stay up with the most recent technology and operating systems. 5 years ago Windows XP was the hottest thing now we have Windows 7 with Windows 8 already coming on line and Windows 7 hasn't been out for 5 years as yet. I build my own PC's, using the best, within my price range, hardware I can afford. I only upgrade the video cards every 2 to 3 years before I start with a fresh PC all over again. Most of the newer cards are very pricey so I tend to find ones with a middle of the road value.
 
Buddha12 said:
The PC today could be used for just web surfing and other trivial things
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And guess what? That is what MOST people are using it for. Ask your grandpa. He wants to see and speak to his grandchildren and watch cat videos on youtube. And show vacatioon pictures to his neighnours. That is the average useage


for 20 years
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So we basicly agree.

but everything changes every 5 years so much
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Not true. As we already showed a quarter of all computers are still using an 11 years old OS. The Vista (5 years old) on my laptop is just fine and will be so for another 10 years.

What was the last really big change? Don't name an OS, because most computer can be upgraded to the next one...

I build my own PC's, using the best, within my price range,
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I buy my own PCs, always getting the cheapest. All the computers (2 desktops, 6 laptops)in the house are still working and can be used for the AVERAGE task, and the oldest is 7-8 years old, and kicking just fine.

Now I am not saying you shouldn't get a new one in every 5 years, just that today's computers... well, I already said it a few times... :)
 
A very good article. How long should a computer last?:

http://www.hearit.com/article/18/how-long-should-a-computer-last

"This is simple; a computer will last as long as the software needs of the user don’t exceed the capabilities of the computer."

Also read comments #4 and #5...

#4: " As technology improves, the life cycle of a computer improves too. My P3 system can’t even compare to my P4 system and my P4 system is so far, far, far behind the current (2010) systems, that it’s not even a competition. However it still manages Photoshop, HD video, internet, MS Office and games, all at a good speed, where my P3 couldn’t.

So for the average user, don’t be cheap. If you don’t know what to buy ask questions and read reviews. Todays i3/i5/i7 computers paired with a quality graphics card, ram and other goodies should easily perform video/audio/internet/application duties for the next decade."


#5: "A lot of is political mind games that computer manufacturers impose. I have an extremely power and fast Power Mac dual G5 from mid 2004, going on 7 years.... From a purely capabilities standpoint, I know this computer is good enough to last an additional 6 years, but I will probably “upgrade” sooner simply because they stopped writing software for my non-Intel machine..but theoretically if software WAS written for it, this beast could handle it easily."

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The only thing is where I disagree with #4 is his advice. Today's computers are so good, that you can be cheap and/or buy more often, for the average user, that is. So instead of spending now $1000, I would spend $500 now and another $500 4-5 years down the road. In the long run that works out better...
 
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Do realize that, since you will need to upgrade the graphics card in that rig, you would likely need to upgrade the power supply as well - most pre-build rigs only come with a PSU JUST powerful enough for the current hardware's demands...
 
Not to mention what is the HD? FireWire? Solid sate? SCATA? A new motherboard to allow for 2 graphics cards, probably a new tower, sound card because the onboard one are rubbish, new screen maybe basically the chip and keyboard are the only things you could salvage
 
uhm... I'm pretty sure they don't make FireWire internal HDD's, and I presume you meant SATA, not scata? And honestly, onboard sound cards nowadays are just about as good as discrete cards, trust me - also, most good headphones come with their own integrated sound drivers (even my Platronic 7.1 headset did, and it was only $70... it's amazing how good it sounds, even compared to my previous system with a Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS platinum edition sound card and a logitech 5.1 surround sound system)
 
Gustav said:
pick any component out of a computer and tell me how a manufacturer can intentionally design it to fail
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Simple- Laptop Hard Drives - they are manufactured using a set of thin GLASS plates coated with a super-thin sheet of steel on either side, providing the magnetic element.

However, unlike the Aluminum used in desktop hard drives, glass is not magnetically dead... so data corruption can occur MUCH more easily. Plus, the drives are HIGHLY susceptible to vibration, which occurs whenever you pick the laptop up while it is still powered on.
 
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