Hey, recently I’ve been browsing r/thinkpad alot and have been a part of the ThinkPad craze. I’ve noticed that lots of people, especially on that subreddit, still use Dual-Core CPUs, and deem them as more than capable, or enough.
I’ve been in the US for almost 5 years now, but I used to live in Brazil back in 2019. I’ve never owned a laptop with a quad-core CPU if I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 8GB of RAM (except on a Desktop) before moving here. I’ve grown accustomed to having a decent laptop, and desktop while living here, as well as a up-to-date phone, etc.

I’m curious to know what are people’s thought on older CPUs and usability of older hardware. I currently own a laptop with an i7 6th gen, which is Dual-Core and 8gbs and it really doesn’t get any attention, be it for watching youtube or doing online, browser-related study or just reddit browsing.

I couldn’t really picture myself using anything that doesn’t have 16GB Ram, and 4 cores, and preferably not freezing or having slowdowns, but after considering moving back to Brasil, and knowing the situation, especially for tech, since everything is harder to obtain and wayy more expensive, I’ve started question myself how many people are still using dual-core systems, that are happy with it and don’t see anything wrong with that.

I’d like to give the old X1 Carbon 4th gen another try and see how much my view could change. I know hardware has been getting a little cheaper in some ways and quad-core and higher CPUs have been popular for a few years, but I’m not sure that it’s still accessible to everyone as I’d like to think.

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Thanks in advance!

  • nday76@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I daily drive t450 i5 5300u to this day.

    I swapped ssd, 8gb ram 4x4 dual channel, and it has windows 10 on it.

    I can basically do every light tasks without much of discomfort. It is slower than modern pcs obviously but It is fast enough to google search and watch youtube.

    When I bought T450(like 5-6 years ago), general consensus was that do not get the Haswell 4th gen 22nm intel cpu or below.

    5th 6th and 7th gens are 14nm and has better power efficiency and way better igpu performance that it was a huge jump for the laptops. (Desktop was different as 2th~4th gen could push more mhz and rival 5~7th gen by feeding more power)

    I can’t remember well but it was $250 refurbished when I got it from the best buy and it is like $180 now on amazon and walmart.

    I would recommend this for any kids or older folks who doesn’t know much about Pc. Old Thinkpads are made like tanks, it just won’t break. But if you are any techie person, just buy modern day thinkpads.