The useful life of PC components has grown to an unthinkable level

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componentes de pc 1 1000x600.jpg
componentes de pc 1 1000x600.jpg

PC components have a specific useful life that we can define in different ways, always depending on the approach from which we start. Thus, for example, we can define it by focusing on the time of use before they fail, a concept that has a fairly wide extension in many sectors, such as storage units, but we can also associate useful life with optimal experience of use, that is, with the time during which those components will provide us with adequate performance for our needs.

That second starting point is the one I am going to use in this article, because it is the one that has grown the most in recent years, and the one that leaves us with a more interesting vision in general terms. To understand it, nothing better than a couple of examples. A PC purchased in 1995equipped with a 133 MHz Pentium processor, 16 MB of RAM, a 1.2 GB HDD, and a 1 MB SVGA graphics card, had, overall, a very short shelf lifeand I know this from my own experience, as my first PC of my own used that setup.

In less than two years I already noticed that the computer was too small for me, and I couldn’t use it to play many new batch games well. In 1999 it was practically obsolete, and at the end its useful life did not reach four years because, as I said, I couldn’t use it for practically anything other than “old” games and apps. This reality was even more pronounced if we used the PC mainly for gaming, since 3D-accelerating graphics cards were greatly outperformed with each new generation, and it didn’t take long for them to stop measuring up.

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pc components

Stagnation of software and PC components

Over the years, that reality has gradually changed. Advances at the hardware level and a certain stagnation at the software level have been key to reaching the point where we find ourselves today. Think, for example, in everything we can still do with a PC based on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 8 GB of RAM and a 1 GB GeForce GTX 460 graphics card. The processor was released in July 2007, and the graphics card in July 2010, which means that the former is almost 15 years old, and the latter is about to be 10 years old.

Said machine can run Windows 10 without problems, and is capable of running many games from the PS4 and Xbox One era in more than acceptable conditions, especially those that were released before the debut of PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. Impressive, right? ? With that configuration of 1995 we could not do anything in 2005, not even install the latest operating system of the moment, a simple comparison but that perfectly illustrates the background of this article.

If you wonder how we got to this situation, the answer is very simple, for a marked stagnation of software which, in turn, has been accompanied by an enormous evolution in the world of hardware, and it seems that this trend is not going to change in the short or medium term. In the end, it is not without a positive side for the average consumer, who sees how the components of his PC age with greater dignity, and this allows him to get a better return on his investment.

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On the other hand, it also has a negative side, and it is increasingly difficult to really take advantage of the most powerful and advanced hardware on the market, and that stagnation at the software level that certain sectors, such as video games, fall into repetitive cycles where it seems that we are always playing the same type from sandbox. What can I say, personally I would like this theme to be better balanced and for us to return to that time when generational leaps were faster and more pronounced, what about you? The comments are yours.