What tier of hardware would you consider "worthless"?

[TetraSky]

27 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Most of them are limited to 1.5 to 2GB at the most, if even that. That Person will not be able to do much.

It's enough for basic word processing. 

Like what this crazy person who has yet to release their last book of a certain series, uses
https://jamesclear.com/george-rr-martin

 

And if they install an older x86 version of linux, they should be able to do most things, still. Will just be slow and they can probably forget about things like youtube, netflix or really anything that is not just images and text.

[Giganthrax]

I'm guessing anything can have a use still, as long as it still works.

 

Here's a story.

 

Some months ago I found this ancient nvidia card that I'm pretty sure is at least 15 years old in a random drawer. I dont remember owning it at all, but it mustve been a part of the cheap prebuilt my dad bought me when I was still a student or something. I didnt really know anything about hardware back then.

 

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. I was having problems connecting my 2nd monitor to my computer at my parents' home due to the monitors being VGA and me only having one VGA to DVI adapter that could fit in the old radeon gpu I use in it.

 

So I remembered the ancient card. I opened up the computer, placed the ancient one into the 2nd pcie slot, connected the 2nd monitor to the ancient gpu via an also-ancient VGA to DVI adapter, and lo and behold the ancient GPU still works and has no problem providing the image to the 2nd monitor.

 

So there you have it. Even a 15 year old GPU still has a role to play in my 2ndary machine. Hardware truly isnt dead until it's dead.

 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

It depends on your use case but there's def a catagory of hardware usually old enough and not powerful enough and not interesting enough that it even has almost no cash value to even the collectors market.  Retro PC folks usually look for specific high end, rare or 'interesting' products and the rest is cheap.  The Radeon X800 series are the fastest ATi/AMD cards on the AGP slot that also has Windows 9X drivers, a unit can go for $100-200.  Meanwhile an old Radeon 7000 or 7500?  Someone might trade you a can of Coke for one if you ask nice.

 

Look at my signature and you'll see one of my UnRAID servers is running an E5 2603v2 Xeon CPU.  Ivy Bridge E, 1.8ghz, no hyperthreading, no turbo, but still has 40 PCIE lanes.  You can get one for $8 on eBay right now.  This is one of the least desirable Socket 2011 Xeons on the market and you can barely give them away.  But me?  I'm the weirdo who needed a Socket 2011 CPU for an X79 board but only needed it to do parity in UnRAID and nothing else.

[Uttamattamakin]

As others have said it depends on the person.  To some if the computer runs the software they want it to run then it is just fine for them.  Examples: 

Here in Chicago go into many government and corporate offices.  They were often the first to computerized way back in the 1980's.  They bought what must've been a 50 year supply of forms that MUST be filled out with a dot matrix impact printer.  They are not compatible with any other printer.  You know they use them on the kind of form where to keep the contents private it is like an envelope with carbon inside it.  The printer hits the outside of the form and the printing is on the inside.  Yeah, I've seen some of those old, yellowed plastic printers still working in the 2020's. 

Ever heard of the You Tube Channel LGR?  His whole thing is the opposite of the LTT thing.  It's all about retro tech.  To someone who likes the old and retro stuff it is worth it.  

So yeah keep any computer long enough, and in working order and someone somewhere will want it.  Either for nostalgia or to do actual work.  

[Ripred]

I used an FX 8320 with a GeForce 550ti until two years ago only stopped using it and rebuilt because of hardware starting to fail

[TempestCatto]

Intel® Core™ i9-11900K

[Giganthrax]

7 hours ago, lotus10101 said:

I used an FX 8320 with a GeForce 550ti until two years ago only stopped using it and rebuilt because of hardware starting to fail

I used my FX-8150 system until about a year ago. Mobo failed, so I sold most of the system to a friend who's a very casual gamer. He now plays games on it and is extremely happy with it.

 

Truth to be told, I wouldve still been using that system as my 2ndary machine if the mobo hadnt failed. It was good and snappy as long as I wasnt trying to do stuff like video editing on it.

[Ripred]

1 hour ago, Giganthrax said:

I used my FX-8150 system until about a year ago. Mobo failed, so I sold most of the system to a friend who's a very casual gamer. He now plays games on it and is extremely happy with it.

 

Truth to be told, I wouldve still been using that system as my 2ndary machine if the mobo hadnt failed. It was good and snappy as long as I wasnt trying to do stuff like video editing on it.

Pritymuch my story lol

[OCNewbee]

19 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

I'm guessing anything can have a use still, as long as it still works.

 

Here's a story.

 

Some months ago I found this ancient nvidia card that I'm pretty sure is at least 15 years old in a random drawer. I dont remember owning it at all, but it mustve been a part of the cheap prebuilt my dad bought me when I was still a student or something. I didnt really know anything about hardware back then.

 

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. I was having problems connecting my 2nd monitor to my computer at my parents' home due to the monitors being VGA and me only having one VGA to DVI adapter that could fit in the old radeon gpu I use in it.

 

So I remembered the ancient card. I opened up the computer, placed the ancient one into the 2nd pcie slot, connected the 2nd monitor to the ancient gpu via an also-ancient VGA to DVI adapter, and lo and behold the ancient GPU still works and has no problem providing the image to the 2nd monitor.

 

So there you have it. Even a 15 year old GPU still has a role to play in my 2ndary machine. Hardware truly isnt dead until it's dead.

 

not ancient at all, it has dual dvi ports. ppsstt kids

[MartinTheActor]

On 5/4/2021 at 4:08 PM, SpacePilot7132 said:

GT 710/1030, you can now buy a relatively low end laptop with a better iGPU(iris Xe)

This

Oh, and ANY prebuild Windows Laptop that ships with less than a 128GB HDD. It really bugs me that HP still ship new laptops with only 64GB of eMMC. Given how big Windows has gotten these devices become eWaste so quickly because users get the 'windows update failed' message due to low disk space. For me, or anyone techy enough they could just throw Linux Mint or other lightweight distro on the device to extend it's life, but that's just not what most users will do. They'll end up buying a new device. 

[primo007]

For me anything thats really useless would be between 2002 and 2008, too new to be retro and too old to be useful in budget builds. Though honestly most any computer is good for at least a bit of fun.

[Zodiark1593]

On 5/4/2021 at 9:16 AM, Middcore said:

The tier where your grandma couldn't safely and satisfactorily browse the internet with it. Remember that even hardware which can't play games at all could still be valuable to someone simply as an outlet for communication and information.

 

Of course this is setting aside the fact that even hardware older than that isn't necessarily "worthless" to a hobbyist who wants to build a retro machine, depending on what it is. 

For grandma, I’d rather set up at least a fast quad core, with plenty of RAM and good NVME drive. This way, I don’t get complaints of the PC running slow, even if grandma loads up a bunch of stuff on it years down the road. 
 

A techie can squeeze a lot out of slow hardware. I make pretty good use of my Atom z3735 systems. 

[Kisai]

On 5/4/2021 at 7:57 AM, WillOfTheLand said:

At what point, is it so old and so outdated, so underperforming, do you just consider it junk. It just can't keep up anymore (or in some cases couldn't keep up to begin with).

Depends on the context.

 

If you're talking about stuff I wouldn't even let my mom use, then nothing older than a 6th gen intel/ssd/ddr4 (basically anything released before 2016 would be "junk" tier.) If you're talking about stuff I could still find a use for, that would actually move the hurdle down to computers that still have an optical drive and still support floppy drives. However that is straddling the line between "I can find a use for it" and "the only reason I hung on to this hardware is because I still have media kicking around that I would need this for.

 

All current PC chassis have pretty much dispensed with ODD and Floppy drives, so unless you hung onto USB floppy and CD/DVD/BD units, or had laptop models that were intended to be connected and powered via USB, we're rapidly reaching a point where buying physical disc media is getting the VHS treatment. Yes, you can still buy and watch stuff on an optical disc, but it's been relegated to game consoles for distribution cheapness, not because of any inherent need to play movies on it. Like if you want to watch 4K BD's you are better off with a PS5. If you want to watch 3D BD's, you need a PS4, and a 3D TV, which are no longer being made, and very little has been released as 3D since.

 

Which gets to the reasoning behind hanging on to old hardware. Some companies, eg Sony, Nintendo, produced hardware that can play certain games or media, but the second that hardware stopped being produced, they expected you to buy their new hardware and never play the old media again, unless they sold it to you again in the new media format. Tough noogies if you are patiently waiting for that licensed movie tie-in that was only produced as a digital download. As soon as that console dies, the game dies with it.

 

[12345678]

most of the nvidia quadros and professional gpus

they are basically the same thing of mainstream gpus, no reason to exist besides suddividing the market (without taking in consideration those gpus with lots of vram, and those that are not from the same price tag)

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

Thought everyone here might get a kick of out of this.  This is from a channel called LGR.  I mentioned him earlier he's all about retro tech.  Here he is opening up and reviewing a "New old stock" 1997 IBM Think Pad that probably costed 4000.  There is no value to it beyond maybe using it to run older software native and unemulated.  (Which is a valid thing people do.  For example I'd wager there are modern MOBO's still made with PCI, not PCI-E or even ISA slots to use old but mission critical cards things like that.) 

To a collector like him though.  He talks about this Think Pad's vintage 1997 smell like a wine connoisseur talks about the peppery or fruity notes in a 2407 bottle of Chateau Picard.  

 

 So think of the latest greatest Nvidia Unobtanium ZTX 6080 GPU gaming computer with 4 TB or Ram or  16 x86 cores and 8 arm cores etc etc... computer from 2025 as being like good strong high proof Vodka by comparison.  You know... you bought it for a purpose to get as drunk as possible on the raw POWER as you can as fast as you can.  Older tech is like enjoying that old bottle of wine.    

[whm1974]

On 5/6/2021 at 9:27 AM, Kisai said:

Depends on the context.

 

If you're talking about stuff I wouldn't even let my mom use, then nothing older than a 6th gen intel/ssd/ddr4 (basically anything released before 2016 would be "junk" tier.) If you're talking about stuff I could still find a use for, that would actually move the hurdle down to computers that still have an optical drive and still support floppy drives. However that is straddling the line between "I can find a use for it" and "the only reason I hung on to this hardware is because I still have media kicking around that I would need this for.

 

All current PC chassis have pretty much dispensed with ODD and Floppy drives, so unless you hung onto USB floppy and CD/DVD/BD units, or had laptop models that were intended to be connected and powered via USB, we're rapidly reaching a point where buying physical disc media is getting the VHS treatment.

I'm still using the Haswell System I built in 2013. You will have to go way back farther then that to find anything that still supports FDD. And yes there are plenty of Modern Cases that still have 5 1/4 Drive Bays.

 

And movies are still available on DVD and Blu-Ray Discs...

[CerealExperimentsLain]

6 hours ago, whm1974 said:

I'm still using the Haswell System I built in 2013. You will have to go way back farther then that to find anything that still supports FDD. And yes there are plenty of Modern Cases that still have 5 1/4 Drive Bays.

 

And movies are still available on DVD and Blu-Ray Discs...

I was using a 3770K in my #2 desktop till recently and just came up with enough spare parts including a 3900X and a B450 board to upgrade it.  Even then, that was fine for lots of casual gaming with it's GTX 1080.  If it's not even a discussion of gaming, for desktop applications, a *lot* of hardware is fine.  I'd argue that even a Q6600 with at least 8GB of RAM (16 would be preferable but still) and a graphics card that still has Windows 10 drivers will get you to all your internet, social media and such.

 

I largely feel that 'desktop usage', outside of gaming or content creation, plateaued years ago.  The demands of 'bumming around online while chatting on discord' are pretty static.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

On 5/5/2021 at 8:09 PM, Zodiark1593 said:

A techie can squeeze a lot out of slow hardware. I make pretty good use of my Atom z3735 systems. 

Yep.

I was able to get 1080p 60fps on portal 1 (low) with some work on a athlon 64tf-20 (stock 1.6ghz ram at 1.88ghz) and a hd 3200 (don’t remember msiab settings but I just took the sliders all the way to the right). Just needed msiab and setpll 
 

man those mobile hd series gpus had a lot of headroom for overclocks if they were left unlocked.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

24 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

I'd argue that even a Q6600 with at least 8GB of RAM (16 would be preferable but still) and a graphics card that still has Windows 10 drivers will get you to all your internet, social media and such.

Hell you don’t need that even. 4gb ddr2 666 and a hd3650 is enough for win10 64bit and some light gaming (720p optifine Minecraft and GeForce now fort nite). I didn’t even modify windows at all then. Just used a stock installl of win10 pro.

[Zodiark1593]

17 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Yep.

I was able to get 1080p 60fps on portal 1 (low) with some work on a athlon 64tf-20 (stock 1.6ghz ram at 1.88ghz) and a hd 3200 (don’t remember msiab settings but I just took the sliders all the way to the right). Just needed msiab and setpll 
 

man those mobile hd series gpus had a lot of headroom for overclocks if they were left unlocked.

I had a laptop with a Radeon 5470 that, stock ran at 750/800 MHz on the core/memory. Pushed it up to 850/1000 MHz, and it was quite stable. My GeForce 960 overclocks quite poorly by comparison, getting only a mere 35 extra MHz on the core before things go wonky. 
 

My old LG Optimus 2x, I pushed the Tegra 2 cpu from 1 GHz to a whopping 1.5 GHz. 

[whm1974]

2 hours ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

I largely feel that 'desktop usage', outside of gaming or content creation, plateaued years ago.  The demands of 'bumming around online while chatting on discord' are pretty static.

Desktops at least with Tower Cases do have harder to steal by Thieves on Foot...

[kasugatei]

On 5/5/2021 at 12:08 AM, SpacePilot7132 said:

GT 710/1030, you can now buy a relatively low end laptop with a better iGPU(iris Xe)

I use those all the time. Servers have GPU which will almost struggle with anything that is not command line interface. Sometimes you need server grade hardware which can display something more than just eg. Windows GUI and those GPUs are great for that.

[OCNewbee]

When it is difficult to find compatible parts or when you can find the compatible parts but there is a steep premium since it is so old then it is junk. For example, I still have ddr2 rams. Its been inside my plastic container for around a decade now along with other usually crap like spinning hard drives. 

[WillOfTheLand]

On 5/4/2021 at 3:16 PM, whm1974 said:

Most of them are limited to 1.5 to 2GB at the most, if even that. That Person will not be able to do much.

It really is a problem when old machines don't have enough ram to even do many things. Chrome alone has made that obvious. It also eats up a lot of vram if you're using hardware acceleration so a card with low vram will have trouble to.

[whm1974]

6 minutes ago, WillOfTheLand said:

It really is a problem when old machines don't have enough ram to even do many things. Chrome alone has made that obvious. It also eats up a lot of vram if you're using hardware acceleration so a card with low vram will have trouble to.

Or worse you can't upgrade the RAM or Video card due the to age of the Specs. You know, AGP Slots and either DDR or DDR2 Memory...