Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use • Hacker News Board

Re: Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use

#91

Post by leptons » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 5:04 AM UTC

sagarm wrote: post #88

leptons wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent $5000 on the fastest consumer computer available in 2011. It had a 6-core CPU which was pretty amazing at the time. I still use that same computer today as my main workstation. I've put a little bit of money into it over the years, expanding it. Most recently I bought the fastest CPU that would work in that motherboard, a 12-core/24-thread Xeon for $30 on ebay. So even with adding RAM, Hard drives, new video…

Did you overall have a better experience than buying mid range and periodically upgrading components? I'm skeptical. I've probably spent around that much (very rough estimate) on 3-4 builds over the same period, and for most of it I had a i7-6700k (4C/8T). If I hadn't just upgraded from a i7-12700F and RTX 3080 to i9-13900k and RTX 3090 within a year I'm pretty sure I'd be well under $5000. Perhaps I'll put together…

The i7-12700F is about 2x the compute power at about 1/2 the power consumption of my current Xeon CPU. The cost to power older hardware is not factored in to my calculations. I'm not also not necessarily getting 2x the work done if I had a CPU that is twice as fast - most of the time the computer is just doing menial stuff. I do have some tasks that max out all cores (no matter how big the system is) and that doesn't run too often, maybe once or twice a week typically. A faster system might save me a few minutes of my time. So far I haven't really needed to upgrade.

I don't game, I write software, and about the only thing I'd like to be faster is compiling an IoT/C project that does slam all my cores and slow things to a crawl. But it's rare that I need a full recompile and the old system does well enough.

I do also have a 12700F system that my work supplied, and while it's brand new and has Windows 11, it's rare that I find it performing any better or making me any happier than my old computer running Windows 10.

Re: Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use

#92

Post by sagarm » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 3:45 PM UTC

leptons wrote: post #91

sagarm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you overall have a better experience than buying mid range and periodically upgrading components? I'm skeptical. I've probably spent around that much (very rough estimate) on 3-4 builds over the same period, and for most of it I had a i7-6700k (4C/8T). If I hadn't just upgraded from a i7-12700F and RTX 3080 to i9-13900k and RTX 3090 within a year I'm pretty sure I'd be well under $5000. Perhaps I'll put together…

The i7-12700F is about 2x the compute power at about 1/2 the power consumption of my current Xeon CPU. The cost to power older hardware is not factored in to my calculations. I'm not also not necessarily getting 2x the work done if I had a CPU that is twice as fast - most of the time the computer is just doing menial stuff. I do have some tasks that max out all cores (no matter how big the system is) and that doesn't…

The premise is that spending more once is worth it. If you don't need a lot of compute, you probably could have gotten a still high-end machine for 1/3 the price.

Re: Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use

#93

Post by fragmede » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 12:15 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #75

cultofmetatron wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see somethign similar to this in poor countries I've visited. people who are very poor don't have enough money to maintain a bank account so they just store cash. they have a mindset of spending what they have and never saving. I thought it was stupid till I realized that having a bunch of cash at home just makes you a target for getting robbed. SO you end up with people who spend as soon as they have over a certai…

In a place like that, the banking infrastructure must be really poor. And as a consequence, anyone who can improve this banking infrastructure can reap the rewards from this infrastructure.

The US would be included in that category. The problem is that NSF fees are legal, and when you're close to the edge of your money, the payroll company having a problem and taking an extra day to deposit your paycheck, or two extra weeks at the start of a new job, means that the bank account gets hit with several NSF fees that you can't ever pay back, so you just have to let the account get closed for being overdrawn.

Re: Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use

#94

Post by leptons » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 3:49 AM UTC

sagarm wrote: post #92

leptons wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The i7-12700F is about 2x the compute power at about 1/2 the power consumption of my current Xeon CPU. The cost to power older hardware is not factored in to my calculations. I'm not also not necessarily getting 2x the work done if I had a CPU that is twice as fast - most of the time the computer is just doing menial stuff. I do have some tasks that max out all cores (no matter how big the system is) and that doesn't…

The premise is that spending more once is worth it. If you don't need a lot of compute, you probably could have gotten a still high-end machine for 1/3 the price.

That may be true, but it also generates 3x the e-waste.