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Stop Buying PCs Expecting Them to Last 10 Years

Ismar Hrnjicevic

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  • If you spend twice the money on your PC today, you won’t get twice the performance, and it won’t last twice as long. The law of diminishing returns applies here: as you move up the price scale, each additional dollar you spend will provide less and less of a performance increase.
  • The best of 2017 has been surpassed by the “worst” GPU of 2023. This example gives you a good idea of how your expensive PC of today will perform six years from now—it’ll be comparable to a budget PC.
  • When building your PC, you want to strike a sweet spot between your current needs and performance per dollar. Instead of spending $3,000 on a high-end machine that’s supposed to last 10 years, you’ll get far more value by building a $1,500 PC now and another $1,500 PC five years from now
  • You’ll save a lot by reusing parts like the PSU, RAM, cooling, and case, allowing you to focus on performance parts instead. For instance, if you want to build a [[Legion 7i Pro|gaming PC]] that can do over 60 FPS in AAA titles at 1440p before upscaling and frame generation, the RTX 4070 Ti Super or RX 7900 XT are probably good for the next 4–5 years. When the time comes, get a new GPU, and you’re good for another couple of years.