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If you want a new CPU after a decade it's absolutely as you describe: you need a new mainboard and probably new memory (DDR5 just came out), and end up keeping
by wongarsu 2y ago
If you want a new CPU after a decade it's absolutely as you describe: you need a new mainboard and probably new memory (DDR5 just came out), and end up keeping only the case, drive, case fans and PSU, if that.
For other components it mostly works. You can smoothly upgrade from 8GB RAM all the way to 128GB, get a new GPU, whatever the current WiFi standard is, more silent cooling, more, bigger or faster drives, etc. If you replace something every 2-3 years you can ship-of-theseus the same computer for a surprisingly long time at pretty low cost
- stouset 2y agoI have been building and upgrading PCs for like thirty years, from 10 to 40 and through varying degrees of expendable income. I genuinely cannot ever remember there being a time where it made sense to upgrade a single component. I’m not going to say it doesn’t make sense to do so for anyone, but it certainly wasn’t in my experience.
- neilalexander 2y agoYou can hit a RAM limit on some lower-end motherboards quite quickly depending on the memory controller and you might only get so far with GPUs as well depending on the type of PCIe slots.
- wtallis 2y agoI'm not sure what decade you have in mind, but for all the recent ones, the memory controller has both been on the CPU, and not been part of the differentiation between low-end and high-end CPUs for a given socket. So the only significant RAM limitation coming from the motherboard is if it's a small form factor board with only two slots instead of four.