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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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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]