This article inspired me to look and see what this computer is. Apparently it is a "AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor" from 2009. So 17 years old. It has 8 GB of DDR3 memory and runs at 3 GHz. It currently has OpenBSD on it, but at least one source thinks it could run Windows 10.

The fact that I didn't know any of this is what is significant here. At some point I stopped caring about this sort of thing. It really doesn't matter any more. Don't get my wrong, I am as nerdy as they come. My first computer was a wire wrapped 8080 based system. That was followed by an also wire wrapped 8086 based system of my own design I used for day to day computing tasks (it ran Forth). If someone like me can get to the point of not caring there is no real reason for anyone else to care.

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1970-01-01 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Your electricity bill alone could justify the cost of a new computer purchase if you're not shutting that down after every session.

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einr 3 hours ago | parent [-]

65W TDP? Let's say we want to run a PC so we're switching to a newer low-end Ryzen with a 35W TDP and that that's a 30W difference for the whole system. Let's say we're running the system 24/7 and the CPU is pulling its full TDP constantly. Average US residential electricity price is $0.18/kWh.

0.03 kW * 24 h * 365 d * $0.18 = $47.30/year

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intrikate 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Watts in TDP are not the same as watts in electricity, although they're both measures of energy.

TDP is a thermal measurement, it's how much heat energy your heatsink and fan need to be able to dissipate to keep the unit within operational temperatures. It does not directly correlate to the amount of electricity consumed in operation.

	▲	nehal3m 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It’s close enough. Computers mostly make heat with some math as a distant second.

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Aurornis an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

PC power draw at the wall is different than TDP. Idle power goes to a lot of components.

Even CPU TDP is not an accurate measure. My latest AMD CPU will pull more than it’s rated “TDP” under certain loads.

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cjs_ac 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the UK, residential electricity tariffs are currently capped by the regulator at 27.69p per kWh, resulting in a total yearly cost of £72.77. Much higher than in the US, but still much cheaper than a new PC.

	▲	1970-01-01 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		£72.77 is more than enough for a PC: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/377057425659

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1970-01-01 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So $50/yr for 4 years gives you ~$150 with $50 extra for shipping or whatever, which gets you a decent Lenovo M700 Tiny with much better performance in both power and power consumption.

	▲	einr 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I guess. It's hardly an open-and-shut case of "throw your old computer away!" though, especially when this is a worst-case scenario of running a desktop computer at full blast 24/7 without it ever going into sleep mode or being turned off, and when you don't know what the user's needs are. Maybe a mini-PC with basically no expansion just won't really work for them?

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SeanAnderson 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Someone's never tried to locally compile a Rust program. :)