I genuinely dont understand this. On time my friend bought an rtx 3060 (was using rx580).
I asked “oh cool, whay new games are you gonna play?”. She said “none, I’m just gonna play the same ones”. I asked “what was wrong with the old card?” And she said “idk just felt like I need a new one.” We play games like tf2…
I just don’t get this type of behaviour. She also has like 14 pairs of sneakers.
People want shiny new things. I’ve had relatives say stuff like “I bought this computer 2 years ago and it’s getting slower, it’s awful how you have to buy a new one so quickly.” I suggest things to improve it, most of which are free or very cheap and I’d happily do for them. But they just go out and buy a brand new one because that’s secretly what they wanted to do in the first place, they just don’t want to admit they’re that materialistic.
Can I have some tips too?
Appreciate the meme but yea that is one way to probably improve performance. Or upgrade the RAM, clean the fans, reapply thermal compound, clear out temporary files, disable unused services or reinstall Windows if they really need it just to run Chrome and Zoom which is all they do.
Free:
- clean fans and heatsink - others mentioned, and the reason is better cooling so it doesn’t throttle
- kill unnecessary services - that’s why reinstalling works
- install Linux - not reasonable for everyone, but Linux uses far fewer resources
- delete old files - as disks get full, it takes longer to find somewhere for files to go; try to leave 10-20% free
- try a small overclock - many older CPUs can give a little more without upgrading cooling; only do it if temps look good
Relatively cheap (<$200 each):
- upgrade drive to NVMe - huge difference if running an HDD, still noticeable of running a SATA SSD
- add more RAM (only if you’re constantly running out)
- upgrade CPU - esp if AMD since they release lots of CPUs for the same socket
It really depends on what’s making it slow though.
Clean the fans.
Reinstall the os clean. That’s usually why a new computer feels snappy: it’s just fresh.
If you don’t upgrade to Windows 11, you can’t use Recall, which is a great reason not to upgrade to Windows 11.
I upgraded to Linux. It worked out well for me since I mostly pay retro games and games from yesteryear.
I upgraded a Chromebook to Linux recently. That was a huge bump in performance that I wasn’t expecting, not even just for gaming.
What OS was it running before? ChroomeOS is Linux right?
Technically yes, and so is Android. But neither work the way you’d expect a typical Linux distro to work.
They’re invested in PC gaming as social capital where the performance of your rig contributes to your social value. They’re mad because you’re not invested in the same way. People often get defensive when others don’t care about the hobbies they care about because there’s a false perception that the not caring implies what they care about is somehow less than, which feels insulting.
Don’t yuck others’ yum, but also don’t expect everyone to yum the same thing.
I use a gaming laptop from 2018. Rog Zephyrus.
fan started making grating noise even after thorough cleaning, found a replacement on Ebay and boom back in business playing Hitman and Stardew.
Will I get 120 fps or dominate multiplayer? nah. But yeah works fine. Might even be a hand me down later on.
Absolutely it totally depends on what you got originally. If you only got an okay ish PC in 2018 then it definitely still won’t be fit for purpose in 2025, but if you got a good gaming PC in 2018 it probably will still work in another 5 years, although at that point you’ll probably be on minimum settings for most new releases.
I would say 5 to 10 years is probably the lifespan of a gaming PC without an upgrade.
However my crappy work laptop needs replacing after just 3 years because it was rubbish to start with.
And even then, a few strategic upgrades of key components could boost things again. New gfx card, a better SSD, more/faster RAM, any of those will do a lot.
