Given the amount of time people on hn spend using their computers, it isnt that surprising. Most people probably spend much less time commuting, but that amount of money is considered reasonable for vehicle maintenence expenses that probably recur more often than people buy a new computer
My last computer I put together about 5+ years ago (i7-4790k, 32gb ram) and did a mid-cycle upgrade a couple years ago (gtx-1080, 1tb nvme, large 4k display).
New computer is X570 mb, 64gb, rx5700xt, using an r5-3600 as a placeholder, I am still waiting on a 3950X, and only pulled the trigger early since my last system was acting up. I don't have the specific costs, but have spent around $1500 so far and will probably lose ~$50 on the 3600 when I upgrade and sell it off. Will probably be 4-5 years until I upgrade again, except I may drop a second and/or third nvme drive in or bump the ram to 128gb.
The difficulties I've had this time around have been around aesthetics, since I didn't have any experience with aRGB it tool a while to figure out what to get, and even then none of the aRGB supports Linux. The 5700 just got swapped in, and I've had trouble with that and will have to correct over the weekend, may wind up on Windows if it's too much of a pain.
I've mostly been working on my work-issued laptop, where I've had separate issues with the battery/charging etc the past month. In the end though, spending a couple grand on a computer every 3-5 years isn't so bad if you're actually doing work on it. I will say, I am surprised how much faster this system actually feels over my old one. Hopefully I can get it stabilized with the new video card soon.
Can you though? I played piano gigs at a country club where the starting family membership cost was $100k per year, which is the lowest tier of membership, the plebeian level.
Only if you need this much computing power. The typical webdev can probably get away with a quad core AMD/Intel cpu for <$200. Very few people actually need 12+ cores.
Considering I'm using docker to run databases and various services in order to do "webdev" I wouldn't underestimate how useful the extra resources are. I recently upgraded and still feel the strain in some instances.
(r5-3600, waiting for 3950x to drop, upgraded sooner because old system was acting up).
As a web dev running multiple applications at the same time with memory hogs like Chrome and Slack on a dual core work machine, having more cores do help.
It come to the point that I will have to ask my boss to replace my machine since it was so sluggish.
JS devs usually need quite a few threads/processes. The editor/IDE is 1 or more processes. Compiling is a separate, multi-threaded process. The webserver is another process. Tests are several more processes (which matters because 30+ minutes on a fast desktop isn't unheard of when running a complete test suite). Parsing the newest compile is multi-threaded in the browser. A separate core for the main website thread is especially important because opening the dev tools de-optimizes all the things resulting in significantly slower performance (a big thing with web apps). If service workers or webworkers are used, then there are even more processes involved.
Going from my dual-core Pixelbook to my Ryzen desktop is a huge change in the development experience.
It could be argued that some "developers" should be restricted to pencil and paper, but it's a different issue. Even hipsters deserve to multitask at their computer.
Computers are quite durable these days. You can easily run a useful, general-purpose OS on a computer from 10 years ago and perhaps more, even one with baseline specs. If that's not enough to be considered a 'durable good', I don't know what is.
They were quite durable 20 years ago too. It's just back then clock speed and performance was increasing very rapidly and it had a huge effect on the usability of your machine (especially if you were a gamer). You would likely upgrade and retire a working machine for the sake of a drastic performance boost every 3ish years.
Nowadays you could happily be using a 5+ year old i5 for full time development and moderate gaming with no issues at all. I'm personally at 5+ years now and I don't see myself upgrading for quite some time because everything I do still feels very snappy.
But compare that to something like a Pentium I at 75mhz (1994) vs a Pentium III at 1ghz (1999) and the performance difference was crazy. Over 10x the clock rate, but it's not just a "paper" boost. They are so different in performance that you can't even compare them. They are in leagues of their own.
Hey! Don't impugn the serviceability of appliances. When my toaster stopped staying down and heating on one side, I simply opened it up and crimped the broken connection.
I built a PC seven years ago (i7-3770K). It's lasted through multiple apartments and multiple jobs. I do all my dev work and gaming on it, and it's even able to run Slack. How much longer does something need to last before it's considered durable?
I have a food processor that my parents bought nearly fifty years ago. They had to replace the motor once, and then I replaced the wiring on the motor coil four years ago, but it's still ticking. Stainless steel, no plastic components.
(The buttons used to be plastic. Now they're wood.)
That's durable. It also does a much better job than any modern food processor, possibly because the motor is four times the size of what you'd get now.
The rate at which technology advances doesn't change whether a good is considered a durable good or not. That term has a specific meaning in economics.
There are 50-year-old cars still in service today. I wouldn't drive one, because I want to take advantage of the tech advancements of the past 50 years. But that doesn't mean cars aren't durable goods.
And even though computing is barely 50 years old, there are 50-year-old computers in service today. I wouldn't use one, because I want to take advantage of the tech advancements of the past 50 years. But that doesn't mean computers aren't durable goods.
This applies even if a 50-year-old car, which predates bluetooth, doesn't have built-in bluetooth. And it applies even if a 50-year-old computer, which predates HTTP, can't load websites.
I wouldn't consider that durable, just repairable. After all, that's like saying an old classic car is durable because it exists and only had its motor replaced once.
I'm still running an AMD cpu I bought around 2019 ( I think?) in a tower that is 10 years older than that. The PSU is a year old because I had to replace it. The video card is 2 years old. All that to say, I run my hardware for a long time.
