About 20 years ago my dad bought me a $5k computer, it was future proof for about "5 years" before we had to upgrade its internal parts (more memory, new graphics card).

It was future proof but not really because it struggled a lot in its final years.

He had that option,l. However buying apple hardware todqy you are stuck and need to replace all of it even if for example the CPU is plenty fast but you need more memory or GPU power.

My 6 year old mediocre gaming PC is still a mediocre gaming PC.

I expect it to stay a mediocre gaming PC for the next 3 years maybe 5 years.

16GB RAM RTX 3060 TI (8 GB VRAM)

Nice. Curious, what do you play with that thing? Do you think you'll still play those in 3-5 years? And are there games you do want to play but can't?

I like to test new releases that are story heavy.

I also like 4K with 90 to 120fps which leads me most of the time to use almost minimal settings.

Look at steam hardware reviews. My setup is quite the default thing. Games optimize for it

> Computers are never "future proof".

Upgradeable components however could go a loooong stretch towards that goal. It can't be that hard to follow a common form factor for at least the housing across two or three generations to allow a reuse of everything but the main PCB.

Think it would have same memory bandwidth if the RAM was upgradeable?

Would be nice if someone knowledgeable about electrical engineering and manufacturing processes could lay out some valid reasons for manufacturers to integrate RAM onto the motherboard.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49041256#49082206

It isn't integrated into the motherboard, it's integrated onto the same package as the CPU/GPU which allows for better signal integrity and higher speeds. You can get somewhat close to the same speeds while modular with tech like LPCAMM2, but there are some pretty difficult challenges to overcome to close the gap completely. As an example, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro CPUs support up to 9600MT/s (same as M5), and Micron sells LPCAMM2 modules that can run at 8533MT/s, but the 13 Pro only officially supports 7467MT/s.

Each connector will introduce "insertion loss" to the chain, eating into your signal integrity budget.

The SO DIMM Ram slot, which is designed, idk, 30 years ago? is not really capable of handling the frequency we are targeting (close to 10GT/s)

If it was upgradable, then yes, spending more on top of it every year would make it future proof, but that's not the point. It's that spending 10 grand doesn't get you a future proof computer today.

The main PCB is pretty much everything that has value. The rest is a heatsink, case and PSU.

The way the Apple M-series does ram that might be difficult to pull off.

> The way the Apple M-series does ram that might be difficult to pull off.

Well it might be an idea to keep the layout of the mainboard and connectors the same.

That way, instead of having to upgrade the whole machine, all it would need is a new mainboard. Framework for example managed to pull that off, and in mobile at that, where constraints are much worse than for a desktop computer.

That actually would be interesting - yes, the computer itself is basically a PCB, but it’s also wrapped in a couple pounds of aluminum, a power supply, cooling fans, and a few other things that don’t need to be consumables. Upgrade a mini or a studio by swapping the new board into the old case - yeah, you’re not saving much money, but you also don’t need to throw out the entire rest of the case, and you can ship the main board in the space of a couple CD cases.

It’s a very non-Apple thing to do, but it’d be pretty awesome if they did.

> Framework for example managed to pull that off, and in mobile at that, where constraints are much worse than for a desktop computer.

It's not the same thing though. On the M-series, CPU and GPU share a unified memory architecture and ram is much more tightly coupled to get it to go faster. A closer example would be the Framework desktop, actually, where memory is also soldered in for the same reason.

I’d say something like a PS4 is future proof. $350 got like 10 years of modern software.

Nobody calls a PS4 a computer. We all know it is internally with the hardware, but the whole package makes it not a computer.

PS4 is as close as it gets to the colloquial computer; it's a AMD APU running BSD with homebrew linux builds available.

And if not, would you consider a raspberry pi a computer? or your iphone a computer?

i'd say it depends (as with everything)

i'm still using an old i7 3770k @ 4.8ghz with 16gb (ddr3) ram running linux for random tasks like executing tests. obviously, power consumption is higher.

my main machine is a MBP M1 Max which i use for everything. i also have my main linux desktop workstation that has a 5950x with 128gb (ddr4) ram.

i'll probably get 2-5 years out of my MBP, and my AMD workstation will probably be good for another 5-10 years.

i'm not a gamer, but i have a 3080. i'm sure my 5950x will still be good for gaming in 10 years if paired with a modern GPU.

They do however last a much longer time now.

A 8 years old graphics card can still play modern games. Ten years ago playing a modern game on hardware that old would've been unthinkable.

And with how the market is right now, we'll be stuck on the current "reference level" of hardware for a while longer.

I recently got a refurbished Strix Halo 128GB desktop for a steal ($2200) and I have a feeling it's going to be my last PC purchase for the next 3-5 years. Who knows how long this RAMpocalypse will last. My Lunar Lake 32GB laptop is already a couple years old, and it's not a speed demon but it ticks all the laptop boxes (portable, great battery).

>Computers are never "future proof". Till now.

My thinkpad t14g1 with 16gb ram somehow still relevant today.

My main PC at home is 15 years old at this point, running linux. It's fine.

I don't play games, but it still chugs along perfectly fine and for what I use it for I rarely think that it's too slow.

Same thing, I still have at home a desktop I've built when I was 17 (now I'm 30!) and still runs fine for day to day tasks, of course with Linux on it. It has 8Gb of RAM (DDR3), 512Gb SSD (not original of course because back then they did cost an astronomic price) and an i7 CPU that I've overclocked, an NVIDIA GPU with 2Gb of memory that still plays older games fine.

To me there is no reason to update a PC if you don't use Windows or MacOS that forces you to purchase a new hardware to do the same things. Just look at Windows 11, full of useless AI features, weights a ton, and in the end it's probably faster a PC from 25 years ago with Windows XP.