Not to mention if you build your own PC you can upgrade the parts as and when, unlike with the new Mac where you'll eventually just be replacing the whole thing.
I believed that until I realized I couldn't individually upgrade my CPU or RAM because I have a mobo with LGA1150 socket and only supports DDR3 (and it's only 6 years old).
So eventually you still have to "replace everything" to upgrade a PC.
You were unlucky to buy ddr3 near its end of life then (like someone buying ddr4 now), but you could still upgrade stuff like your GPU or drives independently. My first SSD (a 240gb Samsung 840) is still in service after 9 years with its smart metrics indicating only 50% of its expected lifetime cycles have been used, for example.
You could also put a 4790k, 16gb of ddr3 and a modern gpu in that system to get a perfectly functional gaming system that will do most titles on 1080p high. Though admittedly we've passed the point where that's financially sensible vs upgrading to a 12400 or something as both devil's canyon CPUs and ddr3 are climbing back up in price as supplies diminish
> I believed that until I realized I couldn't individually upgrade my CPU or RAM because I have a mobo with LGA1150 socket and only supports DDR3 (and it's only 6 years old).
DDR4 was released in 2014, which would suggest you purchased your mobo two full years after DDR3 was already deemed legacy technology and being phased out.
Also LGA1150 was succeeded by LGA1151 in 2015, which means you bought your mobo one full year after it was already legacy hardware.
You can still buy DDR3 new for not that much? 16GB is about $50 from numerous brands on Amazon at the moment. I bought some for an old laptop a couple months ago.
To do CPU upgrades you eventually have to replace the motherboard but you can keep using whatever your GPU/storage/other parts is. Sometimes that also means a RAM upgrade but it's still better than the literal nothing of modern Macs.
Since the context here is using these machines for work, a mid-level engineer will easily cost an extra $1000* in his own time to put that together :)
EDIT: I’m quite confident this is not at all an exaggeration. Unless you have put together PCs for a living. $100/h (total employment cost, not just salary), 1-2 hours of actual build & setup, 8 more hours of speccing out parts, buying, taking delivery, installing stuff and messing around with windows/Linux (I’ve probably spent 40 hours+ in the past couple years just fixing stuff in my windows gaming pc. At least 1 of those looking for a cabled keyboard so I could boot it up the first time, ended up having a friend drive over with his :D)
momothereal|4 years ago
So eventually you still have to "replace everything" to upgrade a PC.
Macha|4 years ago
You could also put a 4790k, 16gb of ddr3 and a modern gpu in that system to get a perfectly functional gaming system that will do most titles on 1080p high. Though admittedly we've passed the point where that's financially sensible vs upgrading to a 12400 or something as both devil's canyon CPUs and ddr3 are climbing back up in price as supplies diminish
fivea|4 years ago
DDR4 was released in 2014, which would suggest you purchased your mobo two full years after DDR3 was already deemed legacy technology and being phased out.
Also LGA1150 was succeeded by LGA1151 in 2015, which means you bought your mobo one full year after it was already legacy hardware.
goosedragons|4 years ago
To do CPU upgrades you eventually have to replace the motherboard but you can keep using whatever your GPU/storage/other parts is. Sometimes that also means a RAM upgrade but it's still better than the literal nothing of modern Macs.
mixedCase|4 years ago
ricardobeat|4 years ago
EDIT: I’m quite confident this is not at all an exaggeration. Unless you have put together PCs for a living. $100/h (total employment cost, not just salary), 1-2 hours of actual build & setup, 8 more hours of speccing out parts, buying, taking delivery, installing stuff and messing around with windows/Linux (I’ve probably spent 40 hours+ in the past couple years just fixing stuff in my windows gaming pc. At least 1 of those looking for a cabled keyboard so I could boot it up the first time, ended up having a friend drive over with his :D)
gtvwill|4 years ago