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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't get this. I used to build my own PCs and all that but now computers are so cheap and so rapidly evolving, buying a new supercomputer beyond comprehesion every couple of years seems fine. Upgrading GPUs out of cycle seems like it might make sense but you probably should just use a desktop PC for anything using a GPU.

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> Upgrading GPUs out of cycle seems like it might make sense but you probably should just use a desktop PC for anything using a GPU.

I've found myself moving back to desktops lately. The price:performance is astoundingly good compared to laptops. And I've found that my computer just doesn't really leave my desk much. As you mention, the ability to upgrade is also pretty great.

I think the big thing, though is that most laptops are "good enough" for most things. So I don't really mind taking an older laptop the few times I do travel.

My desktop is my "supercomputer" for heavy tasks. The philosophy of "supercomputer on the go" never made sense to me. Sure, it'd be cool, but you're limited by battery, heat, and upgradability/expansion. To me, a laptop has always been a temporary subset of your full computing power while you're away.

There is no one correct answer for personal computers.

Most people are probably (mostly) fine with nearly any available laptop you can buy today. Someone that needs battery-driven power might be vastly better off on Apple Silicon. Laptop gamers on a budget are probably better off with something from Acer or MSI. If you need maximum GPU power, then a desktop GPU is probably your best bet. If you need "a lot" of GPU power, a laptop GPU might be enough for you.

And if you enjoy buying some technology and assembling it, a Framework DIY laptop is probably a pretty cool purchase.

Desktops used to be no brainers for GPU power, but the discrete GPUs have gotten so outrageously expensive, especially new, that laptops sometimes make more sense for static use. AMD/Nvidia are just raking it in.

I was hoping Intel would disrupt the status quo, but they can't do it if their GPUs are late... or the bigger dies are canceled.

Buying a new computer every couple years seems pretty wasteful from an environmental standpoint. One of Framework's goals is to reduce electronic waste.

The old one is sold and reused, added to the used market. No waste.

What are the statistics on this? Because even in my higher than median income cohort, no one is buying a new computer every couple years.

First, it is a huge pain in the ass to migrate to a new computer, so the vast majority of people would be happier with one that lasts.

Second, computers have basically been the same since ~10 years ago for the vast majorities’ needs. Browsing the internet, messaging, watching media, spreadsheets.

The only improvement that really would have made a difference is heat and battery.

Honestly, I don't agree with this. The evolution of computers seems to have sharpy dwindled, to the point that I regularly switch between a 2016 Lenovo and an 2021 Framework and hardly notice the difference, at least performance-wise.

That's how I feel (also about smartphones), and then I try to launch any recent game and it runs at 42 FPS and I'm thinking: that's a nice number, but a better GPU would be nicer... Everything else works perfectly fine.

And so I was eyeing the Framework 16 announcement, but I'm not sure I'll be happy with the ports situation (especially when a Framework costs ~double what I'd otherwise spend). Luckily, Beyond All Reason (RTS) at my skill level is still playable even at the 10~20 fps that I get near the end of a game.

This is because Intel/Amd barely had performance improvements on Low Voltage chips since 2015. The Apple brought the M1 in 2020 and it was a huge jump

Maybe its your use case. I can definitely feel the difference between my 2018 and 2023 lenovo.

definitely use case. i can bang code on pretty much any computer since it's just text. compiling or anything like that is a different story. so as long as you're not building on your older box, the coding can use the older just fine.

swap hats, and go into video/photo editing, and the old box feels like a boat anchor to the process.

swap hats again, and start browsing the web, now it's a mixed bag depending on how bloated the devs made the site. my 2019 MBP still handles any and all video streams. it plays back my 4k edits just fine too.

The battery wears out. The Framework laptops make it easy to replace the battery yourself.

The ports and their positions are configurable. The Framework laptops enable you to have the ports you want in the positions you want. It's essentially dongles but integrated with the chassis and better than PCMCIA cards were.

On my past laptops, I've replaced batteries, keyboards, ssd, memory, and wish I could've swapped out a port I'm not going to use for something better. This ranged from "annoying but ok" in some, to "replace half the laptop because your keycap broke" in Mac, to impossible (port swap). Framework can handle them all and then some.

for starters waste. Electronics aren't degradable and throwing hardware away prematurely does contribute a fair amount to the poisoning of the environment.[1] Not to mention that cheap is relative. Not everyone's on a software engineering salary. The last winter quite a few people in rich countries had to choose between food, rent and heating. Being able to replace a battery rather than buying a new laptop makes a lot of financial sense.

[1]https://www.who.int/news/item/15-06-2021-soaring-e-waste-aff...

I have no idea why you assume I throw away computers.

> Upgrading GPUs out of cycle seems like it might make sense but you probably should just use a desktop PC for anything using a GPU.

There are external GPU enclosures, so no need for a desktop, even for that case.

Computers don't evolve as quickly as they used to

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