My desktop is from 2012, so 13 years old so far, but is still very capable at any task I throw at it. It was originally a high-end workstation, but by 2020 was worth so little that I got it for free from someone moving out of town. Last year, upgrading the CPU to the top of the line part that fit the motherboard socket cost $17 (versus an original MSRP of $2300), and upgrading it to 128GB of RAM cost $40.When even top-of-the-line older hardware is nearly free, it makes little sense to optimize for bottom-of-the-line older hardware.
It does very well on any modern internet task, as well as playing modern video games with a few-year-old used graphics card.
zokier|1 year ago
That is also one of the potential problems of pre-Haswell hardware, distros might stop supporting it in near-future