Honestly most people just upgrade the GPU and ssd, after 10-15 years they buy a new desktop. Also one of the biggest reasons to get a desktop is that it is cheaper than laptops, last longer, and you can change any part that breaks. I had many laptops with one component basically making the entire device useless, if it was a desktop it could easily be fixed, for example soldered RAM.

Yes, desktop PCs challenge that trend. If you’re not chasing the newest of the new, you can keep using your old stuff till it dies. I’ve done one CPU upgrade, and a GPU upgrade, to my desktop in the eight years I’ve owned it, and it handles all of my games fine.

If you’re changing the motherboard, you’ll usually need a new CPU, and sometimes RAM. As long as your MOBO has a PCI/PCIE slot you can shove your old graphics card in there. Unless there’s a new RAM version, you don’t need to replace the RAM, and SATA’s been the standard storage connector for how long now?

Unless you’re going above your current PSU’s rating that thing’s good until it’s dead.

I just don’t see how this argument holds up. If your motherboard is old enough that they no longer make your CPU/RAM socket, and you’re looking to upgrade, chances are very good that thing’s lived far longer than most laptops would be expected to. But like. When I built my current desktop 8 years ago, it had 8gb of RAM and a… I don’t remember the graphics card, I know the processor was a pentium G something, and like 1tb of storage. It has an i7 (don’t remember the generation off hand), and an R9 290, and 32gb of RAM, and 7tb of storage now. Same motherboard. If I replace it I will need a new processor, and new RAM (the RAM is actively dying, so I haven’t been using it much), but these parts are all nearly a decade old, with the exception of the RAM. Well. One RAM stick is 8 years old, but that’s beside the point.

This just doesn’t line up with my own personal experience?

I have been ship of theseusing my desktop and server for 15 years. This article is fucking stupid.

Disposable my ass. I just did the final upgrades to my AM4 platform to be my main rig for the next 5 years. After that it will get a storage upgrade and become a NAS and do other server stuff. This computer 7 years in has another 15 left in it.

I don’t agree with this article. Everyone I know usually upgrades their GPU until the CPU is bottlenecking it heavily and that is only the case after a few GPU upgrades.

AMD challenges that trend, but the article writer dismisses them because of Intel’s market share.

Terrible article.

Laptop CPUs are crippled garbage compared to desktop CPUs of the same generation. So there’s that.

CPUs are the same with real performance needed a new chipset and motherboard. At that point you are replacing the whole system.

I find the quoted statement untrue. You still have all peripherals, including the screen, the PSU, and the case.

You can replace components as and when it becomes necessary.

You can add up hard drives, instead of replacing a smaller one with a larger one.

Desktop mobos are usually more upgradeable with RAM than laptops.

There’s probably more arguments that speak against the gist of this article.

Everything in this post is wrong, actually. But if you buy shit parts to build your desktop, you’ll have a shitty desktop.

Simple answer is at the motherboard level - you look at your motherboard’s future expansion capability and if you started with a good foundation you can do years of upgrades. Also your computer case needs to be big enough to fit extra stuff, full ATX motherboard size is great.

For example I have a VR gaming rig that runs VR games well on DDR3 RAM and a Sandy Bridge CPU, because it has a decent modern GPU and enough CPU cores + RAM.

I’d say that now is one of the strongest arguments for upgradability. Memory is really expensive right now. At some point in something like 1-3 years, it will probably be considerably cheaper. If anything, CPUs and motherboards are expected to be cheaper during this period due to reduced demand for new PCs. If you can tolerate less memory now and want to save money, upgrading then would be a good idea.

That’s a huge generalization, and it depends what you use your system for. Some people might be on old threadripper workstations that works fine, for instance, and slaps in a second GPU. Or maybe someone needs more cores for work; they can just swap their CPU out. Maybe your 4K gaming system can make do with an older CPU.

I upgraded RAM and storage just before the RAMpocalypse, and that’s not possible on many laptops. And I can stuff a whole bunch of SSDs into the body and use them all at once.

I’d also argue that ATX desktops are more protected from anti-consumer behavior, like soldered price-gouged SSDs, planned obsolescence, or a long list of things you see Apple do.

…That being said, there’s a lot of trends going against people, especially for gaming:

• There’s “initial build FOMO” where buyers max out their platform at the start, even if that’s financially unwise and they miss out on sales/deals.

• We just went from DDR4 to DDR5, on top of some questionable segmentation from AMD/Intel. So yeah, sockets aren’t the longest lived.

• Time gaps between generations are growing as silicon gets more expensive to design.

• …Buyers are collectively stupid and bandwagon. See: the crazy low end Nvidia GPU sales when they have every reason to buy AMD/Intel/used Nvidia instead. So they are rewarding bad behavior from companies.

• Individual parts are more repairable. If my 3090 or mobo dies, for instance, I can send it to a repairperson and have a good chance of saving it.

• You can still keep your PSU, case, CPU heating, storage and such. It’s a drop in the bucket cost-wise, but it’s not nothing.

IMO things would be a lot better if GPUs were socketable, with LPCAMM on a motherboard.

Everything is disposable. I don’t think you or the author who wrote that article has a clue. It’s a matter of getting things that’ll last longer than others do and making financially wise choices and purchasing decisions based on the needs of the moment.

Like, I’m not spending $5 on a toothbrush when you need to replace it every 30 days, I buy the cheapest toothbrush I can afford to replace it with since they’re all equally made. I will spend some more money on a computer component if I feel it will have a positive increment on my entire system. Replacing my entire system would just set me back big and it would make me waste the components that are already inside that are still good. Plus, if I decide to sell the old system, I’m not going to get a good value back.

The only thing I’ve yet to replace is the case. Why? Because it’s still serviceable to me.

I just don’t get this stupid logic where you have to replace the entire system. For what? just to be with the in-crowd of current technology trends? No thanks, I’ll build my PC based on what I want out of it.

Personally I still prefer the desktop because I can choose exactly where I prefer performance, and where I can make some tradeoffs. Also, parts are easier to replace when they fail, making them more sustainable. You don’t have that choice with a laptop since it’s all prebuilt.

Let’s say that you’ve just significantly upgraded your GPU. If you were getting the most out of your CPU with your previous GPU, there’s a good chance that your new GPU will be held back by that older component. So now, you need a new CPU or some percentage of your new GPU’s performance is wasted. Except, getting a new CPU that’s worth the upgrade usually means getting a new motherboard, which might also require new RAM, and so on.

This guy’s friends should keep him away from computers and just give him an iPad to play with.

Meanwhile I’ve been using an AM4 board and DDR4 for… well, it’s been awhile now.