Why the Debate Over Desktop Enhancements Fails to Hold Water in Today’s Tech Landscape

Key Takeaways

• Upgrading components in a desktop can lead to an “upgrade death spiral” of replacing multiple parts.
• Only cheap components, like chassis and power supply, are future-proof through multiple upgrades.
• Performance increases for CPUs and GPUs are too small to justify upgrading every generation.

One of the key benefits touted for desktop computers, as opposed to (for example) laptops, is that you can upgrade anything you want later down the line. Which makes more financial sense and offers you endless options. However, the upgrade argument for desktop computers may not be as strong as it once was.

The Upgrade Death Spiral

The idea that you can simply upgrade one component sounds great on paper, but in many cases it can result in what I call the “upgrade death spiral” where you effectively end up buying a whole new computer in pieces anyway.

This happens because upgrading one component of your computer can unbalance the system . Now, adding more RAM or storage usually doesn’t present this issue, and of course, you can upgrade these in most laptops anyway, but the core performance components aren’t so benign.

Let’s say that you’ve just significantly upgraded your GPU. If you were getting the most out of your CPU with your previous GPU, there’s a good chance that your new GPU will be held back by your older component. So now, you need a new CPU or some percentage of your new GPU’s performance is wasted. Except, getting a new CPU that’s worth the upgrade usually means getting a new motherboard , which might also require new RAM, and so on.

Of course, upgrading like this has the benefit of spreading the cost of the total upgrade over time, with lopsided performance in the interim, but when this happens it’s little different from just buying a whole new computer.

Only the Cheap Components Are Future-proof Anyway

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It’s true that some parts of your computer can persist through multiple upgrade cycles, which may seem like a win. However, these components are things like the chassis , power supply, and perhaps your storage devices, assuming they aren’t too slow to keep up with your other new components. These usually make up a pretty small percentage of the cost of a system, so overall you’re not gaining that much compared to simply selling your old system as a complete working machine and putting the funds towards a new one.

Then again, sometimes you can get more for a computer by selling its parts individually rather than as a whole, but of course, that’s a much larger time and effort investment. Even if you don’t sell your old computer, having a completely working second computer is more useful than having a pile of parts.

Generational Performance Increases Are Too Small

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The performance gains for components like CPUs and GPUs have become smaller and smaller as manufacturers started pushing against the laws of physics . Unless you’re one of the tiny percentage of computer enthusiasts who need the latest components no matter what, it doesn’t make sense to upgrade every second, or even third generation of components. If you’re waiting half a decade for something worth upgrading to appear, then chances are you’re going to replace every part of your computer anyway.

Platforms Change Too Often

While AMD has done a phenomenal job of keeping the same CPU sockets and making motherboard chipsets compatible over many generations, the simple fact is that Intel currently holds 80% of the desktop CPU market. When it comes to Intel’s CPUs, you’re lucky to get two generations of compatibility these days, so if you want a worthwhile upgrade on the CPU side, that upgrade death spiral is practically guaranteed.

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The Illusion of Freedom

Desktop computers have many real and relevant advantages. It’s the only way to get the best absolute performance as well as the best performance per dollar. It’s much easier and cheaper to repair or replace faulty components, and you can indeed use the desktop form factor to spread the cost of building a PC out over time by, for example, buying a cheap GPU now and getting a better one later.

However, the idea of spending good money on a PC today with the promise of extending its life far into the future is a more comforting illusion than something most people will actually do.

Ask yourself this: how much of your current desktop computer has components from your PC from five years ago? What about ten years? I think for most of you, the answer is closer to zero than even 50%.