April 7, 2021
I have two computers that I regularly use. One is a desktop PC and the other one is a laptop, which are both quite old (at least it feels like they are old, while reading tech sites about the newest hardware)
I bought most of the parts for my custom-built desktop PC while working at a K&M Computer shop during my school days around 2008. It still works even for some good-looking games, but lately there were a few games that I couldn't even start (e.g. Horizon Zero Dawn because the CPU is missing an instruction set extension...)
The laptop is a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad X220 that needs a new battery from time to time and has a crappy display. It could be faster, but it even handles multiple Docker containers running in the background while developing with IntelliJ IDEA. It's amazing how small and powerful this machine is. Never regretted buying it.
Nevertheless, with every new hardware generation, I feel the urge to replace my computers with a new one, to gain extra speed and in the hope that I will be more productive and everything will be better.
This happens whenever AMD introduces a new iteration of their Zen architecture or lately when Apple disclosed their new M1 chips. Both offer incredible speed and who doesn't want a laptop that does not have to be recharged during the day?
One of the best measures to dampen my euphoria is still to wait a few weeks before making a decision and then ask myself again: Do I really need this new gadget? Surprisingly this works (most of the time), the answer is no, and it saves quite a few bucks overall.
That's not the only benefit: A colleague of mine recommended the book Sustainable Web Design by Tom Greenwood as we regularly have a discussion in our team how we could improve the sustainability of the work we do and reduce its environmental impact.
One of the insights from the book is, that with every new hardware generation, the hardware becomes faster and more efficient, but the software becomes more and more inefficient, because the developers don't have to optimize their code anymore.
As I care about the environment myself, I do not only have to take responsibility in the real world, but also in the digital one.
Therefore, I decided on the one hand that I will not buy new computers until my old ones are broken beyond repair, but take better care of my existing ones.
Last week I completely disassembled my laptop in order to clean the fan and replace the heat paste on the CPU. I was a little nervous when I had put everything back together and tried to start it, but everything worked fine, the temperatures decreased and therefore the fan does not spin up as much as before. Overall a huge success.
On the other hand, I want to reduce my digital footprint by minimizing the resources that I waste in my free time.
So for the first step, I'm currently trying to reduce the number of servers that I manage as a hobby. Most of them are just idling anyway, but I thought once that it would be cool to have a fleet of servers to manage. So let's get rid of them!
Back to the question: Do I need a new computer? Probably yes, at some point in the future, but not now.