6 ms·

That's not a fair comparison. PCs have barely gotten faster in the last 10 years. 20 years ago you could spend $2000 every 3 years and get a 10x better computer

That's not a fair comparison. PCs have barely gotten faster in the last 10 years. 20 years ago you could spend $2000 every 3 years and get a 10x better computer. Not so last 10 years. Aside from graphics cards the hardware has not gotten noticeably better or faster for day to day work. So of course you can upgrade to windows 10. Phone hardware has. Very much so.

hyko 6y ago
PCs have gotten a lot faster in the last 10 years. Not 10x every three years better, but significantly better. The high end PC of 2020 would crush the high end PC of 2010.
- majormajor 6y ago
  Performance has increased, sure, but it's different. Compare the best PC from 1990 with the best one from 2000. That change makes 2010-2020 look like it was standing still. Phone evolution for maybe 5-10 years after 2007 was more like the nineties, though it's definitely starting to slow now. And Windows 2000, from 1999, for instance, only supported ~4 year old hardware. Windows 10 has it much easier!
  - hyko 6y ago
    Yes, the rate of change for PC performance in the 90s was insane, and the effect was magnified by the fact that most horizontal applications benefitted from the extra power. The OP was claiming that there’s barely been any change in performance in the 2010s, which is just not true.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  Yeah, but does it make any difference in day to day usage? I don't think it does. I'm using a 4770K at the moment. A Ryzen 3600 compiles my C++ project 30-40% faster, but that's literally the only time my old CPU is a bottleneck. If I wasn't working with C++, I can't see any reason I would want to upgrade the CPU -- even 7 years later.
  - stepbeek 6y ago
    A Ryzen 3600 is a different tier than a 4770k though. So you're effectively saying a mid-tier CPU today will handily beat a top tier CPU from 7 years ago.
    - boring_twenties 6y ago
      It doesn't matter what tier it is. The point is that compiling C++ is the only thing that even comes close to maxing out the 7 year old CPU.
- basch 6y ago
  a mid grade 2010 PC with an SSD upgrade will still be extremely usable. Go 5 years to something like a Broadwell i7, and many people might not be able to tell its 5 years old. I would expect that CPU to function fine for 5 more years. (albeit it no longer has support or security patches.) The biggest improvement, from a most people perspective, in the last 5 years is power usage. They run cooler, and batteries last longer.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    Indeed. I just picked up a laptop from my shelf the other day that had been collecting dust for years (literally booted it last in July 2017), as a friend needed a replacement laptop. The laptop was bought in 2011. It was a fairly cheap one then, and has a dual-core i3 with hyperthreading, and it came with an SSD. I added another some RAM I had laying around so now it has 8GB. After getting a fresh copy of Win10 on it, it's surprisingly usable. Webpages loads just fine, YouTube is accelerated so is smooth. I could totally use that for my daily laptop had it not been for the rather lackluster 1366x768 screen.
- scarface74 6y ago
  That’s true. But a high end PC released in 2010 can still run the latest version of Windows, Office, and Chrome well. This was my work laptop in 2010 with 8GB of RAM and a 2.66Ghz Core Duo. They let me keep it after the company folded. Until late last year, it was my Plex server and I used it occasionally since it sat right by my work computer. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-latitude-e6500-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-latitude-e6500-review/ The only time that it felt slow compared to a modern computer was disk access. I could have upgraded it with an SSD if I wanted to.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  I still do most of my Java, .NET, C++ development on a 2009 laptop, it does the job, doesn't matter what will crush it on 2020.
cogman10 6y ago
Yeah, but that's not why windows 10 still works on 10 year old hardware. Windows works on 10 year old hardware because hardware manufactures don't get to modify the windows kernel. Instead, they have to push out drivers which work with the windows kernel. It's really that simple. There are several solutions here. Google could make their own kernel which is closer to the microsoft kernel methodology (Fuchsia is basically just that) Google could ban devices that with custom kernels from the play store (They MIGHT be able to do that now, then again, Android could be forked). Google could create a private kernel repo and have manufactures submit to it. They could have their own kernel build profiles. (if getting things into mainline linux are deemed too difficult).
tokamak-teapot 6y ago
It’s not obvious when doing just normal stuff on an iPhone SE vs an iPhone 5s, which is about 7 years old now. I use the 5s as a Spotify player and when I wiped it and set it up for the task, I was pleasantly surprised at how snappy it still felt and how everything I tried with it continued to work. The hardware doesn’t have to be incredibly fast to support most of the functions supported - it’s only a small subset that really benefit from extra CPU speed and hardware acceleration.

hyko 6y ago

PCs have gotten a lot faster in the last 10 years. Not 10x every three years better, but significantly better. The high end PC of 2020 would crush the high end PC of 2010.

majormajor 6y ago
Performance has increased, sure, but it's different. Compare the best PC from 1990 with the best one from 2000. That change makes 2010-2020 look like it was standing still. Phone evolution for maybe 5-10 years after 2007 was more like the nineties, though it's definitely starting to slow now. And Windows 2000, from 1999, for instance, only supported ~4 year old hardware. Windows 10 has it much easier!
- hyko 6y ago
  Yes, the rate of change for PC performance in the 90s was insane, and the effect was magnified by the fact that most horizontal applications benefitted from the extra power. The OP was claiming that there’s barely been any change in performance in the 2010s, which is just not true.
boring_twenties 6y ago
Yeah, but does it make any difference in day to day usage? I don't think it does. I'm using a 4770K at the moment. A Ryzen 3600 compiles my C++ project 30-40% faster, but that's literally the only time my old CPU is a bottleneck. If I wasn't working with C++, I can't see any reason I would want to upgrade the CPU -- even 7 years later.
- stepbeek 6y ago
  A Ryzen 3600 is a different tier than a 4770k though. So you're effectively saying a mid-tier CPU today will handily beat a top tier CPU from 7 years ago.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    It doesn't matter what tier it is. The point is that compiling C++ is the only thing that even comes close to maxing out the 7 year old CPU.
basch 6y ago
a mid grade 2010 PC with an SSD upgrade will still be extremely usable. Go 5 years to something like a Broadwell i7, and many people might not be able to tell its 5 years old. I would expect that CPU to function fine for 5 more years. (albeit it no longer has support or security patches.) The biggest improvement, from a most people perspective, in the last 5 years is power usage. They run cooler, and batteries last longer.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  Indeed. I just picked up a laptop from my shelf the other day that had been collecting dust for years (literally booted it last in July 2017), as a friend needed a replacement laptop. The laptop was bought in 2011. It was a fairly cheap one then, and has a dual-core i3 with hyperthreading, and it came with an SSD. I added another some RAM I had laying around so now it has 8GB. After getting a fresh copy of Win10 on it, it's surprisingly usable. Webpages loads just fine, YouTube is accelerated so is smooth. I could totally use that for my daily laptop had it not been for the rather lackluster 1366x768 screen.
scarface74 6y ago
That’s true. But a high end PC released in 2010 can still run the latest version of Windows, Office, and Chrome well. This was my work laptop in 2010 with 8GB of RAM and a 2.66Ghz Core Duo. They let me keep it after the company folded. Until late last year, it was my Plex server and I used it occasionally since it sat right by my work computer. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-latitude-e6500-review/ https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-latitude-e6500-review/ The only time that it felt slow compared to a modern computer was disk access. I could have upgraded it with an SSD if I wanted to.
pjmlp 6y ago
I still do most of my Java, .NET, C++ development on a 2009 laptop, it does the job, doesn't matter what will crush it on 2020.

cogman10 6y ago

Yeah, but that's not why windows 10 still works on 10 year old hardware. Windows works on 10 year old hardware because hardware manufactures don't get to modify the windows kernel. Instead, they have to push out drivers which work with the windows kernel. It's really that simple. There are several solutions here. Google could make their own kernel which is closer to the microsoft kernel methodology (Fuchsia is basically just that) Google could ban devices that with custom kernels from the play store (They MIGHT be able to do that now, then again, Android could be forked). Google could create a private kernel repo and have manufactures submit to it. They could have their own kernel build profiles. (if getting things into mainline linux are deemed too difficult).

tokamak-teapot 6y ago

It’s not obvious when doing just normal stuff on an iPhone SE vs an iPhone 5s, which is about 7 years old now. I use the 5s as a Spotify player and when I wiped it and set it up for the task, I was pleasantly surprised at how snappy it still felt and how everything I tried with it continued to work. The hardware doesn’t have to be incredibly fast to support most of the functions supported - it’s only a small subset that really benefit from extra CPU speed and hardware acceleration.