[arghwhat]

Calling 3900 “very old” is stretching it, but they’re certainly “old”.

Chips from the early 2010s are very old and inefficient - it’s just that you listed tasks that demand nothing, and if battery power is not required it will certainly do the trick.

Being very old and being usable are very things, as any senior person or tech collector will tell you.

[Vegenoid]

> Calling 3900 “very old” is stretching it, but they’re certainly “old”.

No, I will contest <5 years old CPUs being called "old". This perspective is warped by the marketing teams of computer hardware companies. There are many 3000 series processors which are perfectly powerful enough for powerful modern software.

[arghwhat]

To nitpick, they are not “<5 years”, they are officially more than 5 years and one month old depending on the model. They have been superseded 3 times (5000, 7000 and now 9000), fallen off comparison charts. Even 5000 to 9000 nets you 2x real-world performance for the same power, 3000 was slower and hungrier than that.

There is nothing wrong with using or intentionally buying old things that work. But being “powerful enough to run modern software” doesn’t mean more than “is AMD64 and support a minimum of 8GB of RAM”. I also have a 3rd gen intel i7’s laptop that is “powerful enough to run modern software”, but it’s still very old and incredibly power hungry for the little work it does. I also have a 14 year old car that performs its functions as well as when it was new - much to my dismay - but it’s still objectively old.

[Vegenoid]

If we're nitpicking, then the some were released in July 2019, some were released in October 2019, and some in 2020. And practically, if the earliest they were shipping was July 2019, the wide majority of owners will have had the unit for <5 years.

> But being “powerful enough to run modern software” doesn’t mean more than “is AMD64 and support a minimum of 8GB of RAM”. I also have a 3rd gen intel i7’s laptop that is “powerful enough to run modern software”, but it’s still very old and incredibly power hungry for the little work it does.

If the hardware can run just fine, what makes it old? Why call it old? Increased power efficiency? That is a good thing to strive for, but from a carbon emissions perspective, most computers cost much more carbon to manufacture than to operate across their lifespan.

> I also have a 14 year old car that performs its functions as well as when it was new - much to my dismay - but it’s still objectively old.

It isn't "objectively" old. "Old" does not have an objective definition. I also have a 14 year old car, that I do not consider to be old. I don't consider it to be old because it functions well, matches the aesthetic style of the majority of cars on the road, and getting maintenance on it is easy, as the wide majority of mechanics will be familiar with it. Sounds like your car is in the same boat as mine.

That you consider a 5 year old processor and a 14 year old car to be old is a reflection of your own opinions. I do not agree and think that perspective is consumerist, exactly what corporations spend lots of money to try and make people think.

[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...

[arghwhat]

> the wide majority of owners will have had the unit for <5 years.

No one cares about how long you had the CPU in your possession, nor are we worried about the silicon expiring. If you restarted the factory line and got a brand new chip today, it would still be considered 5 years and 1 month old. Like finding a factory-sealed retro console.

> If the hardware can run just fine, what makes it old?

When something is "old" is context specific, related to how fast the world moves away from it.

To give some easily digestable examples:" A 1 year old person is very young, a 1-year old ant is very old. A 70-year old CEO is old, but might perform the best they ever have in their entire life. A 50-year old car is old, but fully compatible with modern roads and fuels (depending on spec). Despite no formal definition, these are quite objective in that no-one not playing devils advocate could possibly disagree.

For chips, they are old after 4-5 years because the chip world moves fast. This chip has been superseded many times (a great-grandparent at this point), is in the bargain bin as of late last year at somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/6th the price depending on ongoing sales as shops clear unwanted deprecated stock, and now does the work in more than twice the time and with more than twice the energy than the current product in its own line. No one would reasonably look at this side by side with the current offering and think "that's not old!".

(Note: Pre-Ryzen and Apple silicon, the "time to old" was longer because Intel's monopoly and laziness had caused complete stagnation within desktop CPU development, which is what we have grown sued to.)

Buying an old chip is done for the same reasons as buying an old car: If you don't really need it much, it also can't bring you a lot of value and so something something brand new won't mean much to you. Getting a bargain on something old and/or used is great. Whether it is a chip or a car, efficiency doesn't matter if its mostly off anyway. And just like any NES plays NES games as well as it did from day one, the old car if serviced still does the same job it did when it was new.

> It isn't "objectively" old. "Old" does not have an objective definition.

If you believed this, it would invalidate your entire line of argument that the chip (and your car) cannot be considered old as age cannot be classified and is irrelevant: considering the chip not old is therefore also wrong.

Considering that you are specifically attacking the idea of considering the old with the idea that their useful life should be longer, completely ignoring that I mention that devices can be used irrespective of their age, I do not think you actually believe that the age should not be classified. At the same time, if you did not think it was objective, your argument would have focused on saying it was subjective or context-specific rather than saying the classification was wrong.

> that perspective is consumerist, exactly what corporations spend lots of money to try and make people think.

That consumerism is also why the chip is a bargain and new chips are affordable, and the only argument for buying an EOL chip is price. Having any sort of used market for things that get better with time requires people to often buy new things and get rid of old things. Having new things be affordable for anyone requires a significant churn.

> a carbon emissions perspective ...

... is not relevant as I make it very clear that being old does not mean it needs to be replaced. Even if it ends its service life with you, a responsible person would sell it or give it away so someone else can use it instead of buying new.

[Vegenoid]

> No one would reasonably look at this side by side with the current offering and think "that's not old!".

That is exactly what I did a short time ago when I was building a PC and deciding on parts for it. I thought it seemed like a perfectly reasonable option, given that:

1. It was readily available

2. Many other people were building computers with it, or recommending it for builds

3. I judged that it would function well and be compatible with the other hardware in the PC

You are letting the pace at which a company releases new products define what makes something "old" to you. Even if the model that is several releases "old" came out 5 years ago, still functions well and can be used effectively with the software and hardware coming out right now.

It's "old" because the company has released newer versions? It's "old" because it's less expensive? And because it is "old", according to actions taken by the company, it should not be supported, or repaired if there is fault with it? This is clearly exactly what companies want from their consumers to extract as much money as possible from them, and a recipe for massive consumption.

> Buying an old chip is done for the same reasons as buying an old car: If you don't really need it much, it also can't bring you a lot of value and so something something brand new won't mean much to you.

I don't understand. I do need a car, and my car from 14 years ago provides me tons of value. As does my main laptop computer from 6 years ago. I need that computer to make my living doing programming and IT work, and it does a fantastic job of it.

> If you believed this, it would invalidate your entire line of argument that the chip (and your car) cannot be considered old as age cannot be classified and is irrelevant: considering the chip not old is therefore also wrong.

To not have an objective definition does not mean that it means nothing, it means it has a subjective definition. We are disagreeing on our subjective definitions of "old" in this context, and I am saying that your definition leads to negative effects.

> I do not think you actually believe that the age should not be classified. At the same time, if you did not think it was objective, your argument would have focused on saying it was subjective or context-specific rather than saying the classification was wrong.

Yes, I was saying that it has a subjective definition. I thought "does not have an objective definition" in this context implied "has a subjective definition", not "has no meaning and classification of age is impossible".

> That consumerism is also why the chip is a bargain and new chips are affordable, and the only argument for buying an EOL chip is price.

What about all the people who bought the chip at full price 4-5 years ago? They're SOL the same as I am. And I didn't think it was EOL, and don't think it should be. There's no official EOL in the sense "this is how long we'll support this desktop CPU for before it stops receiving security updates". The only reason to believe that it wouldn't receive an update to fix a vulnerability several months later would've been a hazy guess, were I more tuned in to the CPU market. I believe in consumer protection laws that mandate support of products and repair of serious flaws for a longer period.

In terms of reasons for not keeping up with the Joneses: carbon emissions, slowing consumption, keeping things from the junk pile. These are immensely important.

> is not relevant as I make it very clear that being old does not mean it needs to be replaced. Even if it ends its service life with you, a responsible person would sell it or give it away so someone else can use it instead of buying new.

This whole discussion is about a flaw in the chip that leaves a serious vulnerability open. The problem is that if you are risk-averse, or sensitive to cyberattacks, it does need to be replaced. And as the chip could be unsafe, it can't (safely) just be handed off to someone else to use.

This isn't about free updates or improvements. It's about fixing a fixable flaw that leaves open a serious vulnerability that enables persistent infection of a computer. Few people will be capable of making a proper assessment of the risk, even among devs and IT folk.

[spencerflem]

Totally, I'm chilling with a 2016 skylake i5 and have no desire to upgrade whatsoever.