[TrackerFF]

I think people forget how fast prices declined, and how fast stuff got outdated / obsolete.

We paid something like $4k-$5k for a PC back in 1995. I think it was a 120 or 133 MHz, 16 MB ram, and 500 MB HDD. Came with Win 95. Probably 90% of its use went to Office and Excel.

3-4 years later, pretty much unusable for any kind of (then) modern application, like games. Even if you could buy a graphic card, like Voodoo or whatever, the CPU and RAM wouldn't cut it. Besides, a decent new PC would "only" cost you around half of what you paid back in 1994/1995.

When I purchased a gaming PC in early 2008, that PC could still handle modern games 10 years later! And that was a mid-level gaming PC I paid around $1k for.

[anthk]

It depends. 4 years later, you could get:

- A 64 MB Ram module, not bad for games and a boost for Win95.

AMD K6. Not as good as a late Pentium II/early Pentium III , but it would be much better than a Pentium 120.

https://www.forbes.com/1999/06/21/mu2.html?sh=4dc70c70494b

Then, the K7 was more expensive but damn cheap compared to a Pentium III.

[georgewsinger]

This post chronicles the cost of early computing hardware over time, and you're absolutely right about how expensive things used to be: https://simulavr.com/blog/paying-for-productivity/

[npteljes]

I agree, the churn, as I experienced it, lasted until 2010 or so. My last CPU, an AMD FX-8350, is a 2012 model, and I still use it for gaming in my main PC. Before that, new tech was a must every 3-5 years or so.