Ten years ago, in 2007, using a machine from 2001. Probably a second generation Pentium 4 (https://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm#2001 https://www.

Ten years ago, in 2007, using a machine from 2001. Probably a second generation Pentium 4 (https://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm#2001 https://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm#2001) or Athlon XP, with less than a gig of RAM or if you had upgraded it by 2007, probably 2 gigs or less. A Yeah, that would be pretty crummy in 2007 even if you'd bought a high end system in 2001. If it was entry level, forget it. I mean you'd still be able to compute things in 2007, but the overall experience would be sub-par. And a lot of things would run technically, but it would be painful enough you wouldn't even want to bother. My take on it is that multi-core CPU's caused the amount of computing power available on even budget systems to grow exponentially faster than software demands for that power. Not only is it more cores, but the power of a single core has also increased steadily. And the first Core Duo's were easily faster per core than the previous fastest single core Pentiums on top of having two cores. More power, better multi-tasking, it's a no brainer. The amount of computing power has increased much faster while software demands just haven't kept pace, and most software just doesn't require 3.5ghz and four cores for an optimal experience. The result is five, six, seven year old PC's are still perfectly serviceable. The same just generally wasn't true in the era of single core PC's.