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kuddlesworth9419 t1_iw2i810 wrote

Reply to comment by FenrirIII in Dell will sell replacement laptop parts if you just ask! by WolfIcefang

PC's can be pretty BIFL if you built it yourself. If something breaks or you want to upgrade a part you can easily enough.

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mets2016 t1_iw2pk9j wrote

Then it becomes a bit of a ship of Theseus issue. If you’ve replaced every component, is it even the same item?

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kuddlesworth9419 t1_iw2qhhl wrote

Most stuff in a PC never goes bad or breaks. I think the most common parts are the GPU and the PSU. CPU's, memory and motherbaords tend to just work forever in my experience. But yea if you upgrade it so often or manage to keep breaking stuff and you eventually replace everything then yea it's a different PC sort of. As long as you don't replace the CPU and motherboard you don't even have to install Windows again so technically I would say you can repalce everything except the CPU and the motherboard which are the two parts you likely don't need to change. Most modern CPU's are very powerful and will last at least 10 years.

I'm still on a 5820k for example and it's still playing new demanding games with no problem. It's the GPU that I change most but I've only gone from a 680 to a 1070 in that time because one of the VRAM modules was going bad.

If you replace components as and when you need to over a long period of time is it a new PC or is it just the same one you have always used? Like if one year I change one part eventually you won't have any of the original parts but does that really change anything? You original Windows install might not be around but you can still use you're install image to a new PC. It's an interesting thought at least.

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mets2016 t1_iw2qunn wrote

Eventually all hardware gets obsolete. There’s going to come a day when you replace the CPU and motherboard too

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kuddlesworth9419 t1_iw2r6g1 wrote

Sure but that doesn't mean that CPU and motherboard can't be used for another system. There are a lot of use cases to just keep an old system around just as a cinema PC or as a retro PC for older games that no longer run on new Windows properly. Obsolete doesn't mean it can no longer be used. Classic cars are obsolete but plenty of people daily drive them still. My 5820k is well and truly obsolete but it still works just fine and runs stuff fine, it's about as good as an i3 these days probably but it works well enough.

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