If you don’t upgrade to Windows 11, you can’t use Recall, which is a great reason not to upgrade to Windows 11.
I upgraded to Linux. It worked out well for me since I mostly pay retro games and games from yesteryear.
I upgraded a Chromebook to Linux recently. That was a huge bump in performance that I wasn’t expecting, not even just for gaming.
What OS was it running before? ChroomeOS is Linux right?
Yeah it was ChromeOS. It is sort of linux, but google is an advertising company. You can’t ask them to not collect your data and recently they gave up pretending like they cared about user privacy. Linux is none of that. Complete opposite.
If you compare it to linux side by side, chromeOS is basically the alternate reality evil twin with the goatee
People want shiny new things. I’ve had relatives say stuff like “I bought this computer 2 years ago and it’s getting slower, it’s awful how you have to buy a new one so quickly.” I suggest things to improve it, most of which are free or very cheap and I’d happily do for them. But they just go out and buy a brand new one because that’s secretly what they wanted to do in the first place, they just don’t want to admit they’re that materialistic.
Can I have some tips too?
Free:
- clean fans and heatsink - others mentioned, and the reason is better cooling so it doesn’t throttle
- kill unnecessary services - that’s why reinstalling works
- install Linux - not reasonable for everyone, but Linux uses far fewer resources
- delete old files - as disks get full, it takes longer to find somewhere for files to go; try to leave 10-20% free
- try a small overclock - many older CPUs can give a little more without upgrading cooling; only do it if temps look good
Relatively cheap (<$200 each):
- upgrade drive to NVMe - huge difference if running an HDD, still noticeable of running a SATA SSD
- add more RAM (only if you’re constantly running out)
- upgrade CPU - esp if AMD since they release lots of CPUs for the same socket
It really depends on what’s making it slow though.
NVMe
This part was huge you for me. Almost same as from HDD to SSD.
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Appreciate the meme but yea that is one way to probably improve performance. Or upgrade the RAM, clean the fans, reapply thermal compound, clear out temporary files, disable unused services or reinstall Windows if they really need it just to run Chrome and Zoom which is all they do.
Even just blowing out all the dust from a passive cooler (under the CPU fan) can make your system run a good 10°C cooler.
The computer I built in 2011 lasted until last summer. I smiled widely when I came to tell my wife and my friend, where my friend then asked why I was smiling when my computer no longer worked.
“Because now he can buy a new one” my wife quickly replied 😁
If people are pushing you to buy stuff, they are not friends. Do not listen to them.
there is no way in hell a 2014 computer is able to run modern games on medium settings at all, let alone running well. my four year old computer (Ryzen 5 4000, GTX 1650, 16 GB RAM) can barely get 30-40 fps on most modern games at 1080p even on the absolute lowest settings. don’t get me wrong, it should still work fine. however, almost no modern games are optimized at all and the “low” settings are all super fucking high now, so anon is lying out of his ass.
It says the story took place in 2020. And that it played “Most games” on medium settings. 30-40 fps is playable to a lot of people. I’m inclined to believe them.
Yeah I’m daily-ing a laptop from 2019 with an i7-9750, a GTX1650, and 16 gb of RAM. No upgrades except storage. The GPU is the only thing that sometimes makes me go “hm.”
I’m daily driving a laptop with i7 9750h and 1660ti. Unfortunately I had to convert it to desk only as battery is dead and removed, and touch pad seems to have also broke. Still CPU and GPU work fine. I still wonder if I will upgrade and if I can afford it ever anymore. I bought this laptop for 800 new. Idk, I want a framework just because of repairable nature but I would need to spend close to 2k to match the current 64GB RAM and 2TB of storage.
If not playing competitive, there’s very little reason to go latest and greatest. Just buy something with software support, or use Linux where support is practically guaranteed for at least a decade
Linux is actually a problem area here, because various crucial libraries for running games have limited support for hardware that old. I tried for a long time to get it working with stuff from 2012, my problems disappeared after upgrading my cpu recently. Something with Vulkan compatibility I think.
Did you try cleaning your PC and replacing the thermal paste before upgrading? Linux struggles with CPU temperature
I always keep my PCs for about 8 years. Usually it is necessary to update the HDD/SSD and the GPU during that time, that is all. Mine will be 4 years old by the end of this year. I am now actively checking out 4TB SSDs in order to replace my current 1TB SSD.
This strategy may stop to work unfortunately. With the advent of ARM in desktop PCs, the PCs seem to become more monolithic. RAM and GPU not swappable, I think MACs don’t even allow you to plop in more RAM. I don’t like this development.
