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When Is A Good Time To Upgrade?
Andru Edwards writes "In an article which looks at the techie's mindset as it pertains to upgrading, Hector Martinez takes a deeper look at what makes us want to buy the latest gadgets. What are your options, and when should you actually just keep what you already have?"
when it doesnt do what i want it to do. i generally buy top-of the range stuff so i dont have to upgrade for a very long time (if ever)
-Mike Whitehurst www.mike-whitehurst.co.uk
How do you never have to upgrade your electronics? Even if you buy the latest and greatest (i.e. the new NVidea or Radian card) you will still have to upgrade in a 2-3 years if you want to play the latest and greatest. As for things like DVD players. Well I could have stayed with my four year old DVD player - but I like being able to play .avi, vcd, mpeg, etc files and that simply wouldn't do it. I have had my latest DVD player for almost two years and probably will have to upgrade it in another two years, if not sooner depending on market trends.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I'm not a gamer, I'm not a graphics editor. What I do on the computer rarely pressurizes my computer so much that I have to update often. Thus, I update my computer whenever I start noticing slowdowns and bottlenecks in my system. My last update was over a year ago, I'd think, I'm still going good and don't think I'll be updating any time in the near future.
I never saw what was so "cool" about wasting all your money on bleeding-edge CPUs, RAM, and such, and the spending even more money overclocking it to the max. I have no need for it, I stick to what I need, easy as that.
I can see the gamer wanting to be a it ahead, but taking it to the extreme like that is kinda useless. It just wastes extreme amounts of money on just getting those few extra 5FPSs that you probably won't need anyway. I can understand wanting to stay ahead, but there's no need to stay WAY too ahead way too often.
In short: I upgrade when my system feels like it's being dominated and spanked by all teh software I run.
personally, it's when they start to show up on the surplus market! For one thing, if something lasts long enough to be resold it's probably well built,
which usually means professional quality as opposed to consumer quality. If it's in the toy/entertainment/personal research class I could care less about owning cutting edge gear and paying the premium to get it. For example: A box of 10 18Gb scsi disks for $100.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
There's a lot of truth to that. I've been saying for the past 4 years that I'm going to upgrade my 1.2ghz tower. But when it comes down to it, it's definitely quick enough for what I need it for, so why upgrade?
So I go through this every year, and every year, I decide to put off the upgrading for another year.
Truth be told, the "upgrade" cycle was caused by PCs. PCs used to be so underpowered, that you'd need to occasionally upgrade just to run the simplest of programs. Here's my upgrade cycle:
~1985 - PC jr (upgraded because of lack of memory)
~1988 - Laser XT (upgraded because of 640K and GUIs)
~1992 - 486 DX2 (upgraded because 4MB wouldn't run Win95)
~1995 - Pentium 120 (upgraded because 16MB was too little for modern programs)
~2000 - Homebuilt PIII 733/512MB/80Gig
Note that the last item shows no "upgrade" cycle. That's because I haven't upgraded. I built my machine for capacity, and it has held up for about four years. Even more interesting is that I have no current plans at upgrading that machine. All of my current thoughts are leaning toward getting a used Ultra80, and wiring up the entire house with thin-client services.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If I wasn't into PC gaming, I wouldn't be needing to upgrade every two years for CPUs, motherboards, etc. Even my P3 1 Ghz office computer does well for what I need to do that doesn't do gaming.
:P
I reuse old parts for other machine as my Linux workstation which doesn't do gaming. Basically, I reuse stuff for at least four years. Anything else older that I positively won't use again, I donate to charity, sell, etc. Anything broken (e.g., dead mice, printers, etc.), I get rid of them.
Fact: I finally retired my SB 16 ISA in September 2004. I had it since December 1993. Amazing that it still works. I can't use it anymore with the newer motherboards due to lack of ISA slots.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
My laptop doesn't really run the latest distros very well. I added more memory for about a hundred bucks. I run programs off the server in the basement or off my work computer. If I am away from both, I am careful to use programs that don't stress its capabilites. I am happy to type in emacs and format later in OpenOffice. I use iceWm rather than KDE or Gnome. I hope it is a long time before I fork out for a new laptop.
Recently, my strategy has been to buy the very last model in Apple's PowerBook lines. It's worked really well.
I got the last PowerBook G3 model in 2000. It was fairly maxed out, with a 500MHz G3 and over 300 megs of RAM. All the bugs had been worked out of that product line, and it performed very well. As a matter of fact, that laptop is still perfectly usable as long as I'm not trying to play modern games like KotOR or WoW on it.
A few years later, I got the last Titanium PowerBook G4 model. It's maxed out, with a 1GHz G4 and 1GB of RAM. All the bugs had been worked out of that product line, and it's performing very well as long as I'm not trying to play a bleeding edge modern game like KotOR. It makes Eclipse dance and sing. Office runs quickly and nicely. All the iApps work beautifully. I have no immediate reason to upgrade, unless I want to run real bleeding edge applications on it. (It's amazing -- I can run a portal server that services dozens of simultaneous users without having the machine even break a sweat, but fire up KotOR and everything grinds to a halt.)
My next purchase will probably be the last revision of the 15" Aluminum PowerBook G4. At some point they'll do something new, like add dual-core G4s or a G5. When they do, that'll be my signal to buy the last Aluminum G4 model.
Using this strategy has given me a great balance of inexpensive, well tested, and powerful machines with some serious longevity -- as I said, I'm still using that Pismo, and it's just fine for many applications.
You're absolutely right about the hassle. I'm not saying I'm rich, but I have a technophilic temptation that often interfers with my functional use of the device. I often find that a slightly older, classic and well-reviewed item works best for me, and I've had many occasions where I bought an "upgrade" that turned out to be less preferable when put to use than item i had it was meant to replace.
On the list of things that humans do that are bad for the environment, upgrading a new video card (which the average human does, well, NEVER) is a little bit lower than exhaling carbon dioxide (which the average human does a lot).
It'd surprise you to know how many toxic chemicals and heavy metals are in that video card that will find itself in landfill much sooner than necessary.
In most states, it is illegal to dispose of electronics, especially computers, in landfills or other conventional means without first processing them to some degree.
Otherwise the electronics recycling business wouldn't be flourishing like it is
do() || do_not();
Every 2-3 years I upgrade at least the mother board + cpu of my computer...just to be able to play games at a decent detail setting. I find that I usually end up buying a great (not top of the line, but great) combo. For example, in preparation for hl2 I'll be swapping out an athlon xp 1900 for the athlon64 3000 (as opposed to a 3400 or better) this weekend.
As far as phones/pda's are concerned, as soon as the one I'm using either starts to act up, or some new innovation in the product market makes the one I'm using obsolete or hard to find replacement parts for I upgrade to the new latest and greatest.
1) When the CPU speed has increased by at least a factor of 3 over the old box, and
2) when the price to buy such stuff descends to reasonable from stratospheric.
By then, the increased bus speed, higher/faster hard drives(?), and other up-to-date peripherals that tag along on the new motherboard (What? replace the whole box? Maybe, er... sometimes)are just icing on the cake.
p.s. Incremental upgrades, such as a USB 2 board, get added when on sale.
the company's flagship product has just came out. Most of the time, nobody needs the power of a product that just came out, such as the 6800gt/ultra. People got it for doom 3 but not everybody plays the game at 1600x1200.
Perfect example is cpu's and video cards, the most expensif parts of a computer in general, is where most people get screwed when upgrading.
A new video card comes out, and we all know another one will in a few months (or heard of) or the prices will go down. Generally speaking, consumers will buy it the second it comes out to show it off like a kid in a civic with a 10 foot high spoiler on a 115hp(?) engine.
Upgrading, I see it in two different situations:
1) Your pc is really outdated and you need something of today that delivers power for whatever task. In this case, you'll want to see what the future will reserve and WHEN will the future product be released. The when is very important. Reading reviews is the best way to get informed with what's going on in the world of hardware.
If you do so but you don't need the latest of the latest to accomplish your tasks, you can still wait for the latest gen (or latest series) to come out in order to save $$ on buying what used to be #1.
IF you are impatient, do not get the latest. Honestly, wheres the important performance boost between an fx 55 and fx53? Big price difference but is it worth it? That's your job, researching what you REALLY need and not just look at the highest of the product line when ready to upgrade.
2) You need to upgrade one piece because you believe it will improve your life by zombifying you for more hours. That's fine.
One thing: when you want to upgrade lets say, ram. You need ram, well anytime is good BUT the latest costs a lot. Look at Corsair's XMS with the leds. WHO NEED LEDS? Is your case a discotech? Again with the civic reference...
********* TO SUM THIS BIG PILE OF WORDS UP
Buy whenever, but not the latest if it has been just released cause you will just burn your cash and the corporations/companies will have a laugh.
Im not sure where I originally heard this, probably here, but the parent makes a good point. It is Gates' Law. Every 18 months, the speed of software is reduced by 50%
I personally run two 800Mhz machines. I upgraded one of them from a 250Mhz machine a few months ago for all of $200 - including an 80GB HD. The other was severance pay from my old dot.bomb.
I'm starting to consider moving to something in the multi-gigahertz range, but I'm waiting for a few things to pick up. PCI-X is a big one. I dont see the point in getting a 3.2Ghz processor with a slow-ass bus behind it. I'm also waiting for RAM speeds to catch up as well. the 400Mhz stuff floating around is pretty good, but im waiting for the 667Mhz stuff to catch on. At that point I'll feel like a 3Ghz machine will be balanced.
My problem has rarely been processor speed. Its RAM access and Bus access. Now they're catching up, and I'll wait til the price on them breaks to resonable levels. At that point I'll happily put the cheeper hardware into a machine and not feel like I'm throwing a huge processor into a machine without the ability to make use of it.
.
I was recently lectured by someone who worked in marketing in a UK HI-FI R&D company in the 1980's: his insightful comment (which must also apply to many other technologies, such as computers and mobile phones) was "the key thing we understood is that high fidelity market was not a technology market, it was a fashion market". I'd bet that a lot of slashdot readers are fashionistas more than technocrats - and I'd like to hear some ideas on what behaviours distinguish each type of person.
I agree too -- I don't need to upgrade, but for the past few years I've been "sidewaysgrading." I don't need anything faster than my Athlon XP 2100+, but I've gotten two other computers because they were substantially different: an iBook to take to class and a Mini-ITX to use as a media PC.
Now, there are only two possible reasons that I would want to upgrade: I need a new video card for Doom and Half-Life, and I want less maintenance and better synchronization between my computers (I might get a desktop/tower Mac to use as a server).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
According to Moore's Law (loosely), computers double every 18 months. So, I'll take a simple example like SETI@home, and use the top of the line computer, and run it for one unit of time (18 months), which I'll call a Moore-year. In one Moore-year, the amount of work it can process is deemed 1 work unit.
At the end of the Moore-year, I can buy a new computer which will be twice as fast as the first computer. In the next Moore-year, the new computer will be able to compute twice as much as the first computer. But, the first computer has had two Moore-years to work, so they have computed 2 work units.
At the end of the second Moore-year, I can buy a computer that is twice as fast as the second, and four times as fast as the first. In the next Moore-year, it will be able to compute 4 work units. The second computer will have computed 4 also, but the first has only computed 3. At the end of the fourth Moore-year, the scores for the first, second, and third computers are 4, 6, and 8, respectively.
But, I don't have the money to buy a new computer every Moore-year, so I have to maximize the number of work units I can produce, while minimizing the cost. The longer I wait, the faster the computers get. So, if I wait until the day before I die, the computer I buy will be the fastest I can possibly get, and should be to compute everything I ever needed to compute in my whole life in my final day.
Now, if only I can get the IRS to understand and wait for me to spreadsheet my taxes...
Ranger_Nemo
The most recent computer I've purchased is that I just got a Multibus card cage. It has two processor cards in it, each sporting an 8085 processor.
Before that my most recent computer purchase was an Altos 586 (8086 computer, 512K of RAM, runs a 5-user version of Xenix over serial ports where you plug in a terminal).
And before that, I finally upgraded my Laptop to a Pentium 100 machine. My previous recent laptop upgrade was from a Grayscale VGA 486 laptop to an active-matrix color VGA 486 laptop that had internal CD.
I'm thinking about moving the hard drives from my Slackware box from a Dell Optiplex that has a PIII 550 processor into an Optiplex that has a P1 233 processor (**). It would do most of what that box is needed for and I'd be able to hock the PIII for money on eBay.
(** I bought two skids, with 80 Dell Optiplex systems on them, at auction this past spring for $40. )
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
When the upgrade offers you something you want to do, but cannot cannot currently do, for a price you're willing to pay.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I can send back my Mac to Apple, they will recycle most of what's left of it. The whole process is explained in their recycle page.
...)
My computer is a Powerbook G3 400, I am still very happy about this computer, however, 7 years after I bought it, it begins to lack the vigor of before, and I am left struggling to play XVIDs for example. And actions that takes 10 minutes on my job's PC takes hours in here (thanks, no Altivec). And some parts are starting to crumble too (no more sound card, sometimes USB hangs,
So I decided to buy a new one for xmas. I plan on keeping the G3 for as long as it will support me, even upgrading its CPU to a G4 550. That way, I will be able to make this computer a perfect little multimedia station, all bundled in with TV out and many cool features like being able to go to the Internet and play MP3s. And when it will irrecoverably be dead, I will send it to be recycled by my nice folks at Apple.
So in other words, I do agree with you, torpor. I think reuse first, and recycle second. Now if white box manufacturers could do the same. *sigh*
Mike
I'm a Mac user. I'm used to getting good ROI, having low TCO. So far I've owned three primary (not counting hobby boxes) machines:
So far I've upgraded about every 5 or 6 years. Why? Not because my old machine felt too slow for what I was doing, but because software was leaving me behind. In '98 I wanted to start doing some Java programming. Nobody was supporting System 7.1 on 68k Macs anymore. I had to get new kit. In '04, virtually all classic MacOS development was done, I had to move to OS X.
Until recently I still had the 650. Whenever I booted it, it was still fine at what I wanted to do with it. I still have the G3, though it runs Linux now. It still does a lot of good work for me. If Jaguar had installed, I probably wouldn't have upgraded. If developers supported the older platforms a little longer, I wouldn't have to upgrade as often as I do. While there's something to be said for getting stuff done faster, we all know that most PCs spend most of their time just waiting for user input.
Constitutionally Correct
I've found (for me) that a good rule is to upgrade my main machine when I can quadruple my processor speed without needing to buy top-of-the-line parts.
By Upgrade, I'm referring to buying a new processor/main board/memory. All the rest of the guts get moved to the new machine. I find this works out pretty cost efficient. I went from a 200 to a 650 to a 2.4. All those speeds were fast when I bought them, but not the absolute fastest available. I'll probably upgrade again at 10Ghz.
Also, that's just for my main machine. I've always got extra Frankenstein computers lying around from parts that have been picked up at various times.
As far as accessories, I upgrade those whenever need calls. Hard drives get added frequently, fun new USB devices, and different types of media inputs and outputs are added whenever they are needed.
I think people who upgrade their processor/main board/memory whenever a "new" speed comes out just simply don't know how to use their computer. Back before I bought my 2.4 and was still using my 650 all of my non-tech friends with top-of-the-line computers (incorrectly) thought mine was faster than theirs simply because I could do more on it (video editing, 3-D modeling, yada yada). People have the false impression they need to upgrade all the time in order to keep up. Naw, unless you are into serious gaming, I just don't think you need to. I'll stick with the rule of quadruple and patiently wait for 10Ghz.
2 cents. Ka Ching!
--Jon
There was some research done on how useful it is to recycle computer equipment (for materials). Conclusion: energy costs of recycling weigh heavier than the benefit of turning the materials back into new products. From an environmental perspective, it helps most to just keep old equipment working as long as possible.
For about a year and a half, I ran an old Pentium box as router/firewall. The most costly thing over that period: hardware? No (pocketmoney). Software? No (a few floppy discs w/ free software). Energy! The electricity for running the box 24/7 over that period topped other costs.
After that, I sold the box for similar use elsewhere. So what if I had used an energy-efficient dedicated router, and dumped the old box for recycling?
- The dedicated router would have to be produced new, taking a lot of energy & costing me $$
- The old box would have become trash right away, cost lots of energy to recycle, and not around for resale.
So looking back, the advice above makes sense.However, with our current technology, that is not possible.
Maybe not, but you can make optimal use of equipment, give it a useful task for as long as possible, and have it recycled after use. Specialised companies are quite good at recycling electronic equipment. BTW. I think it's bad to throw computers in landfills anyway. When natural resources become scarce and recycling processes are refined, computer waste may turn into a very good source for materials like copper, lead, gold, etc.
When it comes to IT upgrades, I am more likely to skip the next generation product and go for the one that follows it. I didn't set out to do this, but it seems to just work out that way.
In my mind, I can't justify spending the premium to purchase the latest and greatest when what I have still works, and is a sunk cost. By the time what I have is two generations old, the latest and greatest is a LOT better, when I have may or maynot work so well, and that sunk cost was sunk a while ago so I don't feel the sting as much.
So when what I have is frustrating to use because it no longer functions properly or just far poorer than new tech, I upgrade.
A few examples from my own life:
- I own a 2 megapix digital camera that is a couple years old and has some issues with certain modes. I am going to soon purchas a 5MP camera to replace it.
- My laptop, a PowerBook G4 400Mhz is a great machine but as I have moved more and more towards an Apple centric home, I kinda want the more powerful systems to do home movie (DV) editing with iMovie and store all my digital music I didn't have when I bought the laptop. I will but buying a G5 iMac in January.
- That same laptop has an 802.11b Airport card. I have a similar base station but the antena range isn't very good and I cannot get an external antena. I saw a CompUSA sale on 802.11g access points to I pounced last month.
Is this information interesting? well no, but it held your attention for a few moments anyway.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
There are two types of people: those who pay interest, and those who collect it. I don't know where that quote is from originally, but I've found it to mostly be true.
Nathan's blog
In the Netherlands you pay a small amount in advance, and you can bring back old equipment to stores that sell the equipment. Unfortunately they did away with that for stuff like building materials (you have to pay them to pick it up), which means that that stuff gets dumped a lot. People should always pay in advance to get rid of their trash.
The people here, as usually, caught the contradiction virus. Suddenly, every post modded up extols the virtues of not upgrading at all. I am sure, if the story was about prolonging the life of old software and hardware, everyone would keep blubbering about sucky Win 3.11 and boast downloading a new distro every day.
But enough complaining. My question/idea/point was how much more expensive is always living on the cuttin edge? Assuming that your local computer stores have liberal upgrade/return/replacement policies and that they have new gear in store as soon as it's released, how much, on average, would it cost to replace everything you buy every 3 months? Every 1 month? Every 6 months? Once per year? Every 3 years? Yeah, you can spend 500$ every 5 years to get a new computer (the cheapest and the slowest), but you are doomed to drag behind the curve, unable to play new games, unable to enjoy the latest technology, etc.
Alternatively, you can preorder all hardware and keep your hardware on the cutting edge. How much would it realistically cost (without spending for the sake of spending)? Instead of buying 150$ video cards every 2-3 years, worrying about framerates and basically throwing old cards away, you can buy 400$ ones when they are released, but sell your old card each time for 300$. Yeah, it's more expensive, but considering you are getting more for the money, may be it's worth it?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I was taking a class in Data Structures. We had our usual assortment of objects, linked lists, binary search trees, mazes, and graphs to do. I did mine on an old 386SX I had laying around. Borland Turbo C version 3 for DOS.
There was great mirth in the classroom when the first assignment was due. I was working alongside people with Pentium 3's and thousands of dollars worth of cutting edge software, against just me and a computer I pulled out of the dumper, and a copy of a compiler that showed up in a discarded magazine CD. I wanted to do this just for fun.
You see, I think *anyone* can throw lots of money at any problem, and eventually overcome it. I find solving the problem using just what I have on hand to be the real challenge.
Especially, if the problem came nowhere near requiring the resources of such exquisite equipment.
I had no trouble submitting the entire coursework for the entire sequence of classes using only that old 386SX, which I lated donated to a needy student ( with my programs still on its old 40-megabyte MFM disk ).
I often wonder why so many businesses these days wanna kill a fly by running it over with a Mack Truck, as the flyswatter lays unused. Too much money floating around?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
If you're waiting until you NEED to upgrade, you should upgrade much sooner. While it is true that existing machines are capable of running most of the software out there, you have to factor in productivity. I sell custom built computers, so I see this a lot. If your machine is capable of operating faster, you aren't sitting there waiting for it to do something. In my part-time job I have an old PIII 550MHz laptop. True it runs Visual Studio .NET and I can get what I need done. However, I actually get more done by leaving the office, going down to the lab, and using the P4 2.4GHz machines (including factoring in the walk time (initial time and each time I need something from my office)).
To anyone who says I need to upgrade, its not my laptop and I'm not in charge of purchasing for that office. If I was, I would.