[jmrm]

I think we have reached a point in tech where there isn't a huge benefit about changing computer every 3 years like in the past.

You can have a computer with 10 years that can run modern OSs and software without being incompatible or too slow, a thing totally impossible 20 years ago.

If you do AI related developement or play videogames, you would require at least a new GPU, but outside that, I think the only couple things (pretty major IMO) making those computers less useful are more complex video formats not available to decode by hardware, and the vast amount of code some web apps use (try using YouTube or Twitter in an old laptop)

[Suzuran]

Security issues are the driver now. I had to shut down some machines at work last month because their CPUs have a microcode flaw that the vendor is not releasing a fix for.

[cesarb]

That heavily depends on your usage. Most microcode security issues are local-only, so if your use case doesn't require the local execution of arbitrary executable code, all you lost is one extra security layer, which would become relevant only if other security layers (the ones which prevent arbitrary local code execution in the first place) fail.

[Suzuran]

It is my understanding that due to the structure of modern web browsers it is by design that they execute arbitrary code from various sources, be it plugins or updates or whatever, and due to the microcode issue any flaw in any of those was equivalent to a full system compromise at the firmware level and could persist across a wipe/reimage of the machine. My management was not comfortable accepting that risk.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Even GPUs have quite a long lifespan. I finally retired my 980ti which was used for Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield. It's 10 years old!