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Is it true PCs don’t last has long as Mac? What is lifespan of PC computer today?
- Thread starter Bubble99
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maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Queen6
macrumors G5
Replaced my gaming PC last year, at the 8-year point. The old system continues to serve for lesser tasks. Is just BS an equivalent PC will last as long as any Mac. My oldest in use is a 2011 15" auto destruct MacBook Pro as wasn't willing to inflict it on family or friends. Speakers are gone, the Radeon dGP is isolated other than that is holding up as out offline media server.
Windows systems easier to move out, as who doesn't want a powerful computer. We have an OG HP at the farm and last I booted it up it was running ok, 20 plus years... Mac's lasting longer is just an internet myth driven by fanboys. Like to get my money's worth, but if someone else has a greater need that's good with me.
Q-6
Windows systems easier to move out, as who doesn't want a powerful computer. We have an OG HP at the farm and last I booted it up it was running ok, 20 plus years... Mac's lasting longer is just an internet myth driven by fanboys. Like to get my money's worth, but if someone else has a greater need that's good with me.
Q-6
IMO, the hardware in question life span is predicated whether the software loaded call for more pow-er, or when Apple stops supporting it.
Following that logic, PC last longer than Mac. For example, I used to run Photoshop 6.0, circa 1995 on my Windows 7 and that ran fine, there was no complaint from neither that I must update. Mac however will complain about 5-7 years, you must update to keep going. Plus PC hardware can typically be updated 1-2 generations, Mac are locked as purchased.
YMMV.
Following that logic, PC last longer than Mac. For example, I used to run Photoshop 6.0, circa 1995 on my Windows 7 and that ran fine, there was no complaint from neither that I must update. Mac however will complain about 5-7 years, you must update to keep going. Plus PC hardware can typically be updated 1-2 generations, Mac are locked as purchased.
YMMV.
SnowPenguin
macrumors 6502
Unless we are talking about cheaply made PCs (mostly laptops), then no. PCs can last as long as a Mac. From the software side of things, you could install the latest version of Windows on a 10-15 years PC, and get all the software support. It may not be that fast, but you get to decide when to retire your PC.
VictorKurgan
macrumors newbie
I just replaced my daily driver after 15 years, it still works, I just wanted something a little more modern lol.
lowendlinux
macrumors 603
If you spend Mac money on a PC it will last just as long as a Mac
It is all relative to cost no a weak processor and 4gb of ram and a 256 hd will not go the distance but equally spec'd will last just as long. As of this year in order to get close to the same performance level of the M5 it will cost a couple of hundred more for the PC using BestBuy and Microcenter as specs and pricing.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Dare I say longer since windows supports a lot older hardware where macOS, not so much
Not so sure about Windows supporting hardware longer in other forums they are complaining about not being able to move from 10 to 11.
That all depends whether the peripheral vendor wanna bother to write a new driver for the newer Windows, or they may decide meh, we rather want you to buy new hardware to keep our revenue stream.
It can depend on your vendor or your technical skills.
There's always the option of running Linux too.
The beauty of a PC, can upgrade as needed....
1BadManVan
macrumors 68040
Depends on a lot on the hardware you bought and the upgradability of it. Buy a cheap laptop that's lower/mid tier, won't last as long. Buy a higher end laptop with upgradeable ram and storage, it will last years. Same for desktop pc's, if you went out and bought AM4 today, probably be harder to stretch it for as long on a dead platform. AM5? Yea, zero issues and its upgradable
Also depends what its being used for. A gaming pc? If you want to keep playing current gen games and want decent frames and settings, laptops definitely wont last as long, and even a desktop you'll eventually hit a hardware limitation with it
Also depends what its being used for. A gaming pc? If you want to keep playing current gen games and want decent frames and settings, laptops definitely wont last as long, and even a desktop you'll eventually hit a hardware limitation with it
We have a case from 2011 and it's on its third motherboard and second PSU. SSDs have carried over (old SATA3 I think) too.
iHorseHead
macrumors 68020
My father built a PC in 2003 and it's still in use today for older games and downgraded back to XP from Windows 10.
My brother still uses his laptop from 2004, I think. Some HP laptop and is running Linux on it. All he does is read news.
He changes distros all the time, so I don't know what's on it now, but yeah… PCs can last you for ages as well.
My first MacBook was unsupported within 4 years and the maximum OS it could officially run was Lion. By 2015 it was quite unusable, so I installed Mavericks on it (Yosemite etc didn't run well on it) and nowadays it's unusable under Mac OS X.
My brother still uses his laptop from 2004, I think. Some HP laptop and is running Linux on it. All he does is read news.
He changes distros all the time, so I don't know what's on it now, but yeah… PCs can last you for ages as well.
My first MacBook was unsupported within 4 years and the maximum OS it could officially run was Lion. By 2015 it was quite unusable, so I installed Mavericks on it (Yosemite etc didn't run well on it) and nowadays it's unusable under Mac OS X.
1BadManVan
macrumors 68040
Well thats a case lol, basically the cheapest part, but the actual pc has been redone then 3 times in 15 years.
I would say that the high end of pc hardware configurations almost always will give longer ROI because there is a limit to what I also consider to be genuine benefits of apples OS and ecosystem. While I have my doubts to the recently reported Neo being primed for years of great productivity with 8GB unified memory, it is at least true enough that PCs will not be nearly as performant as Apple at the lower end of hardware and system longevity. There is a lot of bloat and compatibility issues that, over time, make the systems sluggish.
However at the high end and possibly midrange, it is a different story. I built a desktop RTX 5090 system and bought a used Asus RoG Scar 18 5090 gaming laptop. It was a micro center poor manager priced set of open boxes I luckily came across for $2200USD that gave me an intel Core Ultra 9 275hx, 64GB DDR5 5600mhz ram, RTX 24GB DDR7 5090 and 2TB of SSD. That laptop is so competent to where comparing it to Unified system architecture PCs is rarely a negative. While I realize the Ai gold rush has a strong narrative on massive unified memory computers being King, it is way more complex than that and usually people avoided unified architecture due to benefits of discreet components with high PCIE bandwidth.
suffice it to say that the enthusiast laptops like what I mentioned when compared to the enthusiast MacBook pros, will most likely continue to have much longer longevity, even accounting for their different use cases and ecosystems. The reason I’d argue is that a close architecture similar to Apple silicon on the PC side is the APUs from AMD like the ryzen max 395+ which also has the iGPU AMD 8060s. These APUs are seemingly advancing faster and with nore significant increases in power and efficiency when compared to the more established discreet CPU,GPU format (whatever that is called I can’t think of it). Apple has always had the most ardent supporters and them charging significantly more for less is truly decades old practices that still does remain partially because they do tend to give more bang for the buck at the lower end of the configurator in terms of longevity and simplicity and consistency of performance.
However at the high end and possibly midrange, it is a different story. I built a desktop RTX 5090 system and bought a used Asus RoG Scar 18 5090 gaming laptop. It was a micro center poor manager priced set of open boxes I luckily came across for $2200USD that gave me an intel Core Ultra 9 275hx, 64GB DDR5 5600mhz ram, RTX 24GB DDR7 5090 and 2TB of SSD. That laptop is so competent to where comparing it to Unified system architecture PCs is rarely a negative. While I realize the Ai gold rush has a strong narrative on massive unified memory computers being King, it is way more complex than that and usually people avoided unified architecture due to benefits of discreet components with high PCIE bandwidth.
suffice it to say that the enthusiast laptops like what I mentioned when compared to the enthusiast MacBook pros, will most likely continue to have much longer longevity, even accounting for their different use cases and ecosystems. The reason I’d argue is that a close architecture similar to Apple silicon on the PC side is the APUs from AMD like the ryzen max 395+ which also has the iGPU AMD 8060s. These APUs are seemingly advancing faster and with nore significant increases in power and efficiency when compared to the more established discreet CPU,GPU format (whatever that is called I can’t think of it). Apple has always had the most ardent supporters and them charging significantly more for less is truly decades old practices that still does remain partially because they do tend to give more bang for the buck at the lower end of the configurator in terms of longevity and simplicity and consistency of performance.
It's got 6 TB of ancient SATA3 SSDs and 6 TB of NVMe Gen 3 and those are also pretty old. I imagine those SSDs are still worth a decent chunk of change today.
Intel held back chip advancement between Sandy Bridge and the appearance of the M1 chip. It was all their marketing dept that tried to milk every dollar from the consumer with their garbage 2 core chips in the lowend, etc. So a lot of HW from that lost decade never changed. Intel is a terrible company that deserves to die a slow, painful death. Good riddance to them and I hope AMD stomps them into the ground completely.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
It wasn't marketing, but ineptitude.
They struggled with process nodes, they couldn't get off of 14nm. They announced 10nm in 2014 (or 2015) and didn't ship a CPU on 10nm until around 2020
They also let AMD leap frog over them with the zen design and core counts, chiplet design, and better power consumption. Overall they stopped innovating.
Theoretically, PCs can last 'indefinitely' if you DIY build your own machine, and replace/upgrade parts whenever required. You won't be at the mercy of OEMs and their worthless 'warranty' packages.
All bets are off, however, because of the appalling state of Windows 11 today. Every update could be you being unlucky in a game of Russian roulette and brick your machine.
Macs and MacBooks should last a long while assuming you don't abuse them or neglect basic care of them. And Apple stuff tend to have better resale and trade-in value. Keep buying, and keep making the Apple stockholders happy.
All bets are off, however, because of the appalling state of Windows 11 today. Every update could be you being unlucky in a game of Russian roulette and brick your machine.
Macs and MacBooks should last a long while assuming you don't abuse them or neglect basic care of them. And Apple stuff tend to have better resale and trade-in value. Keep buying, and keep making the Apple stockholders happy.
I'm running Windows 11 with no problems. It is as comfortable and reliable as my MacBook Pro and the form-factor and screen are a lot better.
I suspect most of the people here can deal with the issues found in 2026 if even affected by them. I haven't been and I assume that's due to the hardware I'm using and the software that I'm running.
macOS, has had its own problems with a particular version of Tahoe bricking some Macs.
It's going to be more common in the Windows world because you have a much larger hardware set to deal with but that's also the attraction of Windows.
ftaok
macrumors 604
The answer is, "it depends".
I think Macs can be useful for a longer period of time than a Windows computer. For instances, I'm still using my Macbook Air (2013). It's 13 years old and can still do what I need it to do. Is it fast? no. Can I surf and manage my photos? Yes.
If you were to give me a 13 year old Windows laptop, I would not want to use it at all. My previous work laptop from 2018 was a complete dog and I was happy to get a new one about 2 years ago. A lot of the buginess could have been the IT stuff that gets put on top of Windows and stuff, but man, the experience of using it sucked. It had 32GB and a big SSD too.
My current work laptop is pretty nice and doesn't bog down at all. It's a much more capable than my MBA, but my wife's M4 Mac mini runs circles around it, so I'm thinking a new MBA would run much better (and for a longer lifetime) than my current Dell. The only downside is that I like to have all of my photos on my laptop, so I need/want 2TB of storage and that would be really really out of my price range.
I think Macs can be useful for a longer period of time than a Windows computer. For instances, I'm still using my Macbook Air (2013). It's 13 years old and can still do what I need it to do. Is it fast? no. Can I surf and manage my photos? Yes.
If you were to give me a 13 year old Windows laptop, I would not want to use it at all. My previous work laptop from 2018 was a complete dog and I was happy to get a new one about 2 years ago. A lot of the buginess could have been the IT stuff that gets put on top of Windows and stuff, but man, the experience of using it sucked. It had 32GB and a big SSD too.
My current work laptop is pretty nice and doesn't bog down at all. It's a much more capable than my MBA, but my wife's M4 Mac mini runs circles around it, so I'm thinking a new MBA would run much better (and for a longer lifetime) than my current Dell. The only downside is that I like to have all of my photos on my laptop, so I need/want 2TB of storage and that would be really really out of my price range.
uacd
macrumors 68000
One of the main advantages of a PC is that it is modular. Even if it feels out-of-date you can replace aging components for new ones. While it probably won’t be as fast as new PCs, it still gonna be a good computer for daily stuff.
Nevertheless I am a Mac user and I can tell: Macs last too, just kinda frozen in time.
My legendary 2012 iMac is still working. By 2027 it will be a 15 years old computer. While 8GB RAM might be tight these days, I am still not noticing any slowdowns. BUT I am using it off external SSD, internal HHD died in 2014. But I am not sad about it since computer is stationary anyway so few more wires do not bother me, as well as SSD is way better than HDD
Nevertheless I am a Mac user and I can tell: Macs last too, just kinda frozen in time.
My legendary 2012 iMac is still working. By 2027 it will be a 15 years old computer. While 8GB RAM might be tight these days, I am still not noticing any slowdowns. BUT I am using it off external SSD, internal HHD died in 2014. But I am not sad about it since computer is stationary anyway so few more wires do not bother me, as well as SSD is way better than HDD