Hmm.
My main PC is 9 years old. It wasn't high end when I built it, but is starting to show its age. I'm debating on building another or just getting one of those little Intel/Asus/Gigabyte micro PCs, stuffing it full of SSD and RAM, and calling it good.
Chris
My original work laptop was a hand-me-down that would have been eligible to vote in the next presidential election. It featured a massive 4gb of ram and the work flow required accessing multiple programs which include image files and some video. Some of the rural areas had sub dial-up speed wifi.
About 10 months ago a replacement was ordered and 2 months ago it finally arrived. A nice 16gb commercial grade Dell and a dock to drive a pair of 24" monitors that got thrown in on the order. To say I was doing the "happy dance" around my office is not an understatement.Then a transfer opportunity came through and I moved to another facility in a larger town that has actual normal commercial speed connectivity!
Some of the people that also had purchase orders submitted around the time mine was are still waiting and that is for state level procurement. It's a hard time for new tech purchases!
Last edited by FNFAN; 04-24-2021 at 03:32 PM.
-All views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect those of the author's employer-
COVID, the Suez, etc aren't helping but chip shortages, of one sort of another, have been a thing 3 or 4 years. If I remember right it started with flooding at the South Korean RAM plants, and has never really bounced back as one disaster or another has hit year after year. Onesey, twosey consumer grade orders have been fine but bulk buys of computers have been months of lead time for feels like forever. Some of it is likely Just In Time manufacturing rearing it's head at a time when supply lines are constrained.Originally Posted by FNFAN
My original work laptop was a hand-me-down that would have been eligible to vote in the next presidential election. It featured a massive 4gb of ram and the work flow required accessing multiple programs which include image files and some video. Some of the rural areas had sub dial-up speed wifi.
About 10 months ago a replacement was ordered and 2 months ago it finally arrived. A nice 16gb commercial grade Dell and a dock to drive a pair of 24" monitors that got thrown in on the order. To say I was doing the "happy dance" around my office is not an understatement.
Some of the people that also had purchase orders submitted around the time mine was are still waiting and that is for state level procurement. It's a hard time for new tech purchases!
I see what you did there [emoji41]
The cryptocurrency boom turned graphics cards into unobtanium in that window.
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
Same issue with vehicles....
I buy most of my gear used anyways. 12-18 month off corporate lease equipment is like 10% of the original cost in a lot of cases, and way more than adequate for the majority of people.
Last year, with the stimulus checks, there was a buying spree on electronics. I avoided it. I started looking at the beginning of this year, and decided my wants (picked up on some NVME drives when I found deals), but pretty much everything else ground to a halt. (looked at stuff, and estimated date is long down the road, or flat unorderable).
So I have been pulling out my Raspberry PI's and doing more specific task use things, to take loads off my older pc's.
Might be the time to replace that old TV too. From Ars Technica:
In recent months, the price of larger TV models has shot up around 30 percent compared to last summer, according to market research company NPD. The jump is a direct result of the current chip crisis, and underscores that a fix is more complicated than simply ramping up production. It may also be only a matter of time before other gadgets that use the same circuitry—laptops, tablets, and VR headsets among them—experience similar sticker shock.
....
While the supply squeeze has been felt across the semiconductor industry, those display-bound integrated circuits pose specific challenges. Since they are not especially advanced, the circuits are typically made at chip factories that are several generations behind the cutting edge. With chipmakers focused on building more advanced fabrication plants that yield more valuable components, there has been little incentive to invest in capacity at older facilities. It’s simply not possible to churn out more of them even when demand spikes.
"Sapiens dicit: 'Ignoscere divinum est, sed noli pretium plenum pro pizza sero allata solvere.'" - Michelangelo
I decided to to ahead and get what I could now - i7 11,700K/MB/32G PC3600 RAM. Paid more (maybe $100 total for all 3), than I originally planned but it is a massive improvement from the i5 2500K system I had.
Who knows when the GTX 3080 video cards will be available at a non-inflated price.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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