I haven’t thought about it in a while but the premise of the article rings true. Desktops are overall disposable. Gpu generations are only really significant with new cpu generations. CPUs are the same with real performance needed a new chipset and motherboard. At that point you are replacing the whole system.
Is there a platform that challenges that trend?
Edit Good points were made. There is a lot to disagree with in the article, especially when focused on gaming.
Storage For the love of your data : storage is a WEAR component. Especially with HDD. Up until recently storage was so cheap it was crazy not to get new drives every few years.
Power Supplies Just because the computer still boots doesn’t mean the power supply is still good. A PSU will continue to shove power into your system long past the ability to provide clean power. Scope and test an older PSU before you put it on a new build.
I disagree that you need to upgrade your CPU and GPU inline. I almost always stagger those upgrades. Sure, I might have some degree of bottleneck but it’s pretty minimal tbh.
I also think it’s a bit funny the article mentions upgrading every generation. I’ve never done that, I don’t know a single person who does. Maybe I’m just too poor to hang with the rich fucks, but the idea of upgrading every generation was always stupid.
Repairability is a big deal too. It also means that if my GPU dies I can just replace that one card rather than buy an entire new laptop since they tend to just solder things down for laptops.
I typically build a whole new PC and then do a mid-life GPU upgrade after a couple generations. e.g. I just upgraded my GPU I bought in late 2020. For most users there just isn’t a good reason to be upgrading your CPU that frequently.
I can see why some people would upgrade their GPU every generation. I was suprised at how expensive even 2 generations old card are going for on ebay, if you buy a new card and sell your old one every couple years the “net cost per year” of usage is pretty constant.