Older computers usable today

[Project Alice]

Speaking as someone who does trust Windows with their files, and generally lives in Windows, you can get fairly recent versions of Windows running on rather ancient hardware. And because of that, you have a library of software open to you on a computer 20 years old that would just be impossible on a Mac.

The Pentium 4 doesn't quite line up to anything PowerPC, though they were released around the same time the PowerPC G4 came out. But as slow as they are today, you have to consider the fact that the vast majority of Windows software can still be run on them. All one needs to do is run Windows 7, and you've got something like 90-95% support, still.

Linux has its own issues, as 32-support has been dropped from mainline support on the major distros. But there are still plenty that support it, and in current versions, too, from what I've been able to dig up. It does look like, if it's not already been cut, support for it is on the chopping block, though, depending on the distro.

But that comes down to community support, as most Linux things do.

If "getting on the internet" is the number one test of if a computer is worth using, and I personally don't think it is, those old 32-bit systems aren't in that much of a better place than our old Macs, but they'll likely have access and development for years to come.

If only because Windows doesn't change much, and backporting forks of Firefox to XP is apparently not nearly as hard as it is for anything else.

I do not think the internet and youtube is the end all be all nor measure of a computers worth.
This test was to see how well a similarly spec’d PC with a modern (or 90-95% support like you said) faired against a PPC Mac.

I actually set up a PC for XP awhile ago, it’s a 3.06Ghz Core2Duo and it was actually a Windows 7 PC. I did it to play a couple games that don’t work on anything above XP (Rise and Fall in particular)
It was extremely easy getting XP on the web, and I found many browsers still working for XP. By comparison it is insane as XP came out around the same time as Mac OS X 10.1 Puma.

Little known to this forum, when I was in middle school up to my junior year I had two main computers, an iBook G3 500Mhz, and an IBM ThinkPad A22m which was an 800Mhz Pentium 3. I got an iBook G4 around 9th grade though. Prior to the G4, I ran that ThinkPad with Windows Vista, and then 7 when it came out.

 

[z970]

@repairedCheese As I understand it, the competition went like this:

Pentium Pro = PowerPC 604
Pentium II = PowerPC 750
Pentium III = PowerPC 7400
Pentium 4 = PowerPC 7450
Pentium 4 HT = PowerPC 970

Each line competed with its opposite in marketing, rough comparable performance scale, and time period.

And most all Pentium 4 computers manufactured after 2003 possess Hyper Threading, Intel 64, and SSE3, making them compatible with pretty much everything today, with acceptable performance to boot (unlike certain capability-similar platforms which were afforded just a comparatively paltry 6 years of support total ) ...

@TheShortTimer had once put it best ...

These machines are titans that have never received their dues.

 

[repairedCheese]

I do not think the internet and youtube is the end all be all nor measure of a computers worth.
This test was to see how well a similarly spec’d PC with a modern (or 90-95% support like you said) faired against a PPC Mac.

I actually set up a PC for XP awhile ago, it’s a 3.06Ghz Core2Duo and it was actually a Windows 7 PC. I did it to play a couple games that don’t work on anything above XP (Rise and Fall in particular)
It was extremely easy getting XP on the web, and I found many browsers still working for XP. By comparison it is insane as XP came out around the same time as Mac OS X 10.1 Puma.

Little known to this forum, when I was in middle school up to my junior year I had two main computers, an iBook G3 500Mhz, and an IBM ThinkPad A22m which was an 800Mhz Pentium 3. I got an iBook G4 around 9th grade though. Prior to the G4, I ran that ThinkPad with Windows Vista, and then 7 when it came out.

I don't remotely think The Internet and Youtube make or break a platform. If there's software, and nowhere else that runs it well, that's what I want it for. With Windows, most of the workarounds in Windows 10 are good enough that I can get most of what I want running in Windows 10 directly, and the rest works well enough in an XP Virtual Machine that I don't really need an old X86 system.

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't get the pull to actually build a Windows 98 computer around the old Voodoo 5 5500 I have. Talk about a wonderful dead end in hardware.

What I have been is tempted to actually set up XP on my I7-2620 laptop. It's an old workstation with all of the drivers needed to run XP, and I can only imagine how fast it would be. I've already run it in a VM on the thing, and it's just that fast with the overhead of Windows 10, an OS it was never made to support.

But I was running Windows back in the bad old days of 9x, on computer hardware that barely ran it. Things were so different then, because "barely ran" was the sort of thing a 5 year old computer would do. Now we can run 10+ year old x86 hardware with most current software. I had a Core 2 desktop not too long ago, and it did the basics just fine.

@repairedCheese As I understand it, the competition went like this:

Pentium Pro = PowerPC 604
Pentium II = PowerPC 750
Pentium III = PowerPC 7400
Pentium 4 = PowerPC 7450
Pentium 4 HT = PowerPC 970

Each line competed with its opposite in marketing, rough comparable performance scale, and time period.

And most all Pentium 4 computers manufactured after 2003 possess Hyper Threading, Intel 64, and SSE3, making them compatible with pretty much everything today (unlike certain capability-similar platforms which were afforded just a comparatively paltry 6 years of support total ) ...

@TheShortTimer had once put it best ...

And this is why you can get away with such old x86 hardware. They picked a line in the sand, in the middle of the P4, and they've supported everything after that since then. And it really is about as old as the G5. That's one of the reasons I like trying to get PPC64 Linux running on my G5, it gets a taste of what could have been. If only they hadn't switched to little-endian, then the comparison would be basically identical. And, PPC64 software would all work on the G5 with very few problems, but I guess we can't have nice things, huh?

 

[RogerWilco6502]

That's basically how I am, I use my Windows box for things that need mainstream Firefox/Chrome, but do my creative stuff on my Macs since I find Macs much more fun to use.

That's how I am too. I have a ThinkPad I use for most things, but for music production in particular I still use my 2009 MacBook (which was my previous daily before getting the ThinkPad this past June). I also do photo editing that I need to on any given Mac that's at hand generally, although I also do photo editing on my ThinkPad. For video editing it depends. For DV stuff over FireWire I of course use a Mac, but for editing video that comes out of my DSLR I use my ThinkPad and Kdenlive. Nevertheless, old Macs (and old computers in general, as I have two older ThinkPads I also pull out on occasion) have a pretty secure place in my setup.

 

[iluvmacs99]

While people did work at home pre-COVID, COVID has made WFH (Working From Home) now a mandatory reality. Moving forward, WFH will become the norm as seatbelts is in cars despite some people are saying about the mass population moving back into cities once the pandemic is over. I don't see that happening on a large scale. The same goes for online schooling. I now see many courses are only offering online schooling and some courses even offer virtual classes using those virtual reality headsets. Not surprisingly, Best Buy in my local store kept selling out these headsets. Google Chromebook kept selling out.

Having said that, in the post COVID era, the internet will become a measuring stick of how useful a computer really is. Not only the bandwidth of the pipe of your internet, but how your computer manage virtual learning and if supports virtual headsets. COVID basically fast forwarded what was or would become that measuring stick.

I think that the debate between the PowerMac G5 and the Mac Mini Intel was a valid debate during pre-COVID times that eludes to the necessity of the internet to become the means to work from home, school from home or do online commerce from home. All of this will make post COVID ever more relevant that newer machines are the necessity for work. You are forced to upgrade if you want to keep working on most jobs. I have to upgrade mine recently to the fastest Intel machine with the option of using a virtual headset, because of where I see my future work will come. I don't see we will see the same work conditions pre-2019 ever coming back anytime soon while we have the bug still running loose if ever.

What was interesting just by looking at my former workplace are the sales of used but newer equipment, especially the Sandy Bridge and the Haswell desktops. Pre-COVID, we were having a hard time selling those used desktops with a lot of computing power. People pre-COVID just don't need them for anything mundane other than using their work computers at work which typically have more horsepower than their home ones. Which was why that debate between the G5 vs Mini Intel was valid and I knew that because I was actually selling older PowerPC machines as used as people can still use them for the internet; albeit with a bit of work.

But now with the requirement of Zoom and the latest browser to go to secure sites that even TFF and Webkit could no longer access due to the rampant fraud that was going on with the free money stimulus checks people were applying and getting, these sites are no longer allowing TFF and Webkit to get on. Plus the schools now mandate students to use Chromebooks and Google apps. Which was why my local Bestbuy and even my former employer were selling like gangbusters of their computer stock! In my former workplace, Sandy bridge and Haswell were just going out the door without any sales coercion. It is amazing what COVID could do to people's psychology as well. Pre-COVID, there were some people who were still reluctant to use a computer, even in 2020! After COVID and because you need a computer to apply for certain benefits, this also forced these people to no longer can avoid using computers. I know most people who use government stimulus money do buy a brand new computer.

 

[Amethyst1]

As I understand it, the competition went like this:

You forgot the Pentium M.

 

[z970]

@Amethyst1 What did the Pentium M compete with?

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

As someone who hasn’t used windows for a long time I honestly don’t know how am I supposed to purchase and activate windows XP or 7. That said windows does have its advantages in terms of compatibility.

I have a Pentium M laptop that runs Haiku os well, it has a browser with modern TLS but the engine (based off WebKit) is a bit old. On my bucket list is an IBM PC compatible that could run OPENSTEP.

I do use Linux but less and less so for “daily use”. Linux is still the best for “HPC” or server.

 

[Amethyst1]

@Amethyst1 What did the Pentium M compete with?

Given its release in March 2003, that would have been the 7455 and later the 7447(a).

 

[TheShortTimer]

As someone who hasn’t used windows for a long time I honestly don’t know how am I supposed to purchase and activate windows XP or 7.

Speaking hypothetically, you wouldn't. Beyond the computers I've owned that had Windows pre-installed I never have. If you know where to look, those versions of Windows have always been available in a form that forgoes any activation rigmarole. Completely illegal but tacitly condoned by Microsoft.

Here's Microsoft's business group president Jeff Raikes in 2007:

If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else.

In 1993 Bill Gates expressed the following on piracy in China:

And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.

 

[Amethyst1]

As someone who hasn’t used windows for a long time I honestly don’t know how am I supposed to purchase and activate windows XP or 7.

You could purchase second-hand licences on eg. eBay and still activate them by phone iirc.

 

[sanfrancisofont1984]

You could purchase second-hand licences on eg. eBay and still activate them by phone iirc.

Is it tied to a specific machine then? I guess I would go with 10 if C2D is still supported/usable.

 

[weckart]

Is it tied to a specific machine then? I guess I would go with 10 if C2D is still supported/usable.

Depends upon your jurisdiction. In EU countries, you can sell on OEM licences.

 

[MacFoxG4]

So in another thread, the topic about PPC macs being usable today came up yet again. Particularly the one video we all (sarcasm) love so much about a quad G5 and a 2006 Intel Mini.

That got me thinking; we all talk about how PPC macs can definitely be made usable for us today, even on youtube though it can be a pain. Most of us will agree that the number 1 limitation for our hobby is the software, not the outdated hardware. I wanted to test this in a very "average use" like way.

Right now I am typing this on an IBM NetVIsta PC made around 2000 or 2001. A machine made the same time as most our beloved PPCs. It originally came with Windows 98, and a 1.5Ghz Pentium 4. Today, it is running with a 2.6Ghz Pentium 4, and Windows 7 with the latest, official version of FireFox quantum 80.0.1 at time of writing.
It has 1GB of ram, a GeForce 6200, and a 10GB Hard drive because that's what I had laying around when I set this up. I believe the drive is a bottleneck for the system.
On paper, that 2.6Ghz P4 should be fast. I honestly cannot tell a difference between it and the 1.5Ghz one that was in here before it.
This machine is the closest I could think of to compare a PPC with modern architecture. Being as its x86 it can obviously run a lot of software our old macs can't.
View attachment 956651View attachment 956649View attachment 956652
To start, I went directly to youtube. It was actually very, very slow. It felt about the same as using TenFourFox on a 1.5Ghz G4 PowerBook. Even typing this feels pretty slow. I feel like I'm using a slower G4.
I don't generally go to youtube on PPC macs, but I visit this site quite a bit on them. This forum when viewed on my dual 1.8Ghz G5 is much more responsive than this Pentium 4 at 70% higher clockspeed than the G5. I'm sure the extra CPU core is an advantage there though. I can say the same about my dual 1.42MDD. Using this IBM right now feels about the speed of using my 1Ghz iMac G4, which I would think is a much slower computer on paper than this one is.
View attachment 956648
Now I haven't done any optimizations on this PC at all, and like I said this old 10GB HDD is pretty paltry for Win7. I know how to optimize Windows pretty well, and that this computer isn't quite yet at it's full potential. That said I feel confident saying that certain PPC macs, are actually more usable than this PC with a modern OS, and modern browser out of the box.

I want to do a better test than this, with a larger more modern drive. Maybe even an SSD. There is only 2GB free space on this thing which has a huge impact on performance; do all the Windows tweaks for performance, max out the ram, this should be able to fit 1.5GB in it, as it has 3 ram slots like a QS PowerMac. I wanted to run some benchmarks but I don't think it would be a fair comparison with this HDD in it right now.

It's interesting to see how a Pentium 4 handles today's web. I used to own a 2002 2.0 ghz Pentium 4 IBM ThinkCentre back in the late 2000s to very early 2010s. I had a number of different OS configurations on it (including DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 at one point), but the one I used the most was a dual boot between Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000 Pro. On that configuration, I would use either Firefox 2 or Netscape 9 under 98 and Firefox 3 under 2000. I used 98 SE the most, booting into 2000 for specific tasks. I often wonder how a Pentium 4 like the one I used to have would fair in today's web, so it's cool to see a post like this.

 

[Amethyst1]

I have a Pentium M laptop that runs Haiku os

I'm also playing around with Haiku on a Core 2 Duo laptop - nice to see the spirit of BeOS being held up. Loved playing with the free BeOS 5 Personal Edition released in 2000.

 

[1042686]

While people did work at home pre-COVID, COVID has made WFH (Working From Home) now a mandatory reality. Moving forward, WFH will become the norm as seatbelts is in cars despite some people are saying about the mass population moving back into cities once the pandemic is over. I don't see that happening on a large scale. The same goes for online schooling. I now see many courses are only offering online schooling and some courses even offer virtual classes using those virtual reality headsets. Not surprisingly, Best Buy in my local store kept selling out these headsets. Google Chromebook kept selling out.

Having said that, in the post COVID era, the internet will become a measuring stick of how useful a computer really is. Not only the bandwidth of the pipe of your internet, but how your computer manage virtual learning and if supports virtual headsets. COVID basically fast forwarded what was or would become that measuring stick.

I think that the debate between the PowerMac G5 and the Mac Mini Intel was a valid debate during pre-COVID times that eludes to the necessity of the internet to become the means to work from home, school from home or do online commerce from home. All of this will make post COVID ever more relevant that newer machines are the necessity for work. You are forced to upgrade if you want to keep working on most jobs. I have to upgrade mine recently to the fastest Intel machine with the option of using a virtual headset, because of where I see my future work will come. I don't see we will see the same work conditions pre-2019 ever coming back anytime soon while we have the bug still running loose if ever.

What was interesting just by looking at my former workplace are the sales of used but newer equipment, especially the Sandy Bridge and the Haswell desktops. Pre-COVID, we were having a hard time selling those used desktops with a lot of computing power. People pre-COVID just don't need them for anything mundane other than using their work computers at work which typically have more horsepower than their home ones. Which was why that debate between the G5 vs Mini Intel was valid and I knew that because I was actually selling older PowerPC machines as used as people can still use them for the internet; albeit with a bit of work.

But now with the requirement of Zoom and the latest browser to go to secure sites that even TFF and Webkit could no longer access due to the rampant fraud that was going on with the free money stimulus checks people were applying and getting, these sites are no longer allowing TFF and Webkit to get on. Plus the schools now mandate students to use Chromebooks and Google apps. Which was why my local Bestbuy and even my former employer were selling like gangbusters of their computer stock! In my former workplace, Sandy bridge and Haswell were just going out the door without any sales coercion. It is amazing what COVID could do to people's psychology as well. Pre-COVID, there were some people who were still reluctant to use a computer, even in 2020! After COVID and because you need a computer to apply for certain benefits, this also forced these people to no longer can avoid using computers. I know most people who use government stimulus money do buy a brand new computer.

Id say anyone over the age of 50, especially if they are rural or low income (or both) you'll find a reluctance to use computers outright - it's outside of their lexicon and the money it takes up front to purchase and in monthly maintenance (broadband for example) is prohibitive. Now add home schooling into that mix and caregivers are essentially forced out of work and you have a population of people who are truly stuck economically - real, current day economic enslavement to a government welfare state.

The stress to an already tedious and fragile low income family unit that "remote learning" has brought is tragic really. It's unthoughtful - really quite bourgeois when you dive into it. The notion of remote learning dismisses an entire lower income and rural demographic of our nation spanning millions of people - children, parents, caregivers etc. leaving them to the whims of welfare state bureaucrats that want to "help" them.

The real answer is get kids back to school but I digress. My kids haven't missed a day of school through COVID19 and are absolutely fine, but I am lucky enough to pay through the nose for weekly tuition (practically going broke myself lol), not in a forced situation of having to rely on pathetic, spineless, gutless partisan bureaucrats to get their collective heads out of their rear ends. Millions of hard working Americans are not as lucky and do not have that option unfortunately. In otherwords, millions of our Fellow Americans are getting completely and utterly screwed by the US welfare state & gutless partisan operators.

On a side note, I am using my mac minig4 . 10.5.8. Leopard webkit to post this. My work computer is a i7 optiplex, so plenty of grunt to do zoom and the like.

 

[Project Alice]

While people did work at home pre-COVID, COVID has made WFH (Working From Home) now a mandatory reality. Moving forward, WFH will become the norm as seatbelts is in cars despite some people are saying about the mass population moving back into cities once the pandemic is over. I don't see that happening on a large scale. The same goes for online schooling. I now see many courses are only offering online schooling and some courses even offer virtual classes using those virtual reality headsets. Not surprisingly, Best Buy in my local store kept selling out these headsets. Google Chromebook kept selling out.

Having said that, in the post COVID era, the internet will become a measuring stick of how useful a computer really is. Not only the bandwidth of the pipe of your internet, but how your computer manage virtual learning and if supports virtual headsets. COVID basically fast forwarded what was or would become that measuring stick.

I think that the debate between the PowerMac G5 and the Mac Mini Intel was a valid debate during pre-COVID times that eludes to the necessity of the internet to become the means to work from home, school from home or do online commerce from home. All of this will make post COVID ever more relevant that newer machines are the necessity for work. You are forced to upgrade if you want to keep working on most jobs. I have to upgrade mine recently to the fastest Intel machine with the option of using a virtual headset, because of where I see my future work will come. I don't see we will see the same work conditions pre-2019 ever coming back anytime soon while we have the bug still running loose if ever.

What was interesting just by looking at my former workplace are the sales of used but newer equipment, especially the Sandy Bridge and the Haswell desktops. Pre-COVID, we were having a hard time selling those used desktops with a lot of computing power. People pre-COVID just don't need them for anything mundane other than using their work computers at work which typically have more horsepower than their home ones. Which was why that debate between the G5 vs Mini Intel was valid and I knew that because I was actually selling older PowerPC machines as used as people can still use them for the internet; albeit with a bit of work.

But now with the requirement of Zoom and the latest browser to go to secure sites that even TFF and Webkit could no longer access due to the rampant fraud that was going on with the free money stimulus checks people were applying and getting, these sites are no longer allowing TFF and Webkit to get on. Plus the schools now mandate students to use Chromebooks and Google apps. Which was why my local Bestbuy and even my former employer were selling like gangbusters of their computer stock! In my former workplace, Sandy bridge and Haswell were just going out the door without any sales coercion. It is amazing what COVID could do to people's psychology as well. Pre-COVID, there were some people who were still reluctant to use a computer, even in 2020! After COVID and because you need a computer to apply for certain benefits, this also forced these people to no longer can avoid using computers. I know most people who use government stimulus money do buy a brand new computer.

I'm not sure where you live, but here in Idaho things are already back to normal. Wasn't much different for me anyways, as my job cannot be done from home.
Though Idaho's governor tried to put in a stay at home order (which expired a long time ago) the majority of us didn't abide, and it was said to be un-enforceable by most the law enforcement agencies.
Even our neighbors in Spokane, Wa which is ran by Inslee is starting to go back to normal. I can't speak for Seattle, but the west side of the state isn't putting up with the Seattle lifestyle.

Id say anyone over the age of 50, especially if they are rural or low income (or both) you'll find a reluctance to use computers outright - it's outside of their lexicon and the money it takes up front to purchase and in monthly maintenance (broadband for example) is prohibitive. Now add home schooling into that mix and caregivers are essentially forced out of work and you have a population of people who are truly stuck economically - real, current day economic enslavement to a government welfare state.

The stress to an already tedious and fragile low income family unit that "remote learning" has brought is tragic really. It's unthoughtful - really quite bourgeois when you dive into it. The notion of remote learning dismisses an entire lower income and rural demographic of our nation spanning millions of people - children, parents, caregivers etc. leaving them to the whims of welfare state bureaucrats that want to "help" them.

The real answer is get kids back to school but I digress. My kids haven't missed a day of school through COVID19 and are absolutely fine, but I am lucky enough to pay through the nose for weekly tuition (practically going broke myself lol), not in a forced situation of having to rely on pathetic, spineless, gutless partisan bureaucrats to get their collective heads out of their rear ends. Millions of hard working Americans are not as lucky and do not have that option unfortunately. In otherwords, millions of our Fellow Americans are getting completely and utterly screwed by the US welfare state & gutless partisan operators.

On a side note, I am using my mac minig4 . 10.5.8. Leopard webkit to post this. My work computer is a i7 optiplex, so plenty of grunt to do zoom and the like.

Yeah, I know quite a few elderly people that hate using computers or even phones. Luckily most of them are retired already. My grandmother lives in Portland, OR. The covid thing would've just put her out of work entirely if she wasn't already retired. She has had the same Dell laptop for 10 years and still doesn't know how to use it.

 

[timidpimpin]

SNB finally brought quad-cores to the masses, in desktops and laptops. And if you want, you can have Snow Leopard fly on it. As for them still being capable, that's probably because today's run-off-the-mill systems are still quad-cores, with six- and eight-cores trickling down into mainstream just recently.

When it comes to things like video encoding, the i7 2600 (4c8t) is actually a tad faster than a Ryzen 1600 (6c12t).

 

[Project Alice]

I ran Geekbench 2.2.7 on the IBM, and a 1.5Ghz 12" PowerBook. The IBM had a higher score, but not by much. Considering it's technically 1100Mhz faster than the PowerBook, that's rather impressive for the PowerPC chip.


I also exported them to HTML, macrumors wouldn't accept those extensions so I had to zip them.

 

[Amethyst1]

Considering it's technically 1100Mhz faster than the PowerBook, that's rather impressive for the PowerPC chip.

The P4/NetBurst is just hopeless - no wonder it was abandoned.

 

[Project Alice]

The P4/NetBurst is just hopeless - no wonder it was abandoned.

Yeah...Honestly I've never been a huge Intel fan. The Core series was good, prior to that AMD was definitely the x86 king IMO (like they are again). The first computer I built, around 2003 I think? Was an AMD Athlon XP. I always thought it was faster than the Intel computers I used. I didn't get a Mac until like 2007. My first Mac was a grape tray loader at 333Mhz so, not really a good comparison especially at that time lol

 

[Amethyst1]

Same here - have always been an AMD fan. I secretly wanted a Pentium M desktop when the first mainboards for that came out but they were too expensive for my liking. So I got an Athlon XP, followed by an Athlon 64.

 

[Project Alice]

Same here - have always been an AMD fan. I secretly wanted a Pentium M desktop when the first mainboards for that came out but they were too expensive for my liking. So I got an Athlon XP, followed by an Athlon 64.

I’ve actually got a Pentium M desktop sitting in a closet. I should hook that up and see how it fares.

 

[repairedCheese]

Yeah...Honestly I've never been a huge Intel fan. The Core series was good, prior to that AMD was definitely the x86 king IMO (like they are again). The first computer I built, around 2003 I think? Was an AMD Athlon XP. I always thought it was faster than the Intel computers I used. I didn't get a Mac until like 2007. My first Mac was a grape tray loader at 333Mhz so, not really a good comparison especially at that time lol

And here I went from an AMD K6-2 straight to a Core 2 Quad. I still actually have both, but the motherboard for the Core 2 died from the capacitor plague. After that, it was a bunch of laptops, until my current Ryzen system.

And I can tell you, each desktop I've gone through has felt like a massive leap in power. But it means the only time I ever got to use a Pentium 4 was either on a public computer, or through a laptop, and it never gave me an idea how powerful they could be. Or couldn't be, considering.

 

[Amethyst1]

And I can tell you, each desktop I've gone through has felt like a massive leap in power

Which proves that the upgrade was very worthwhile. Some upgrades I did to my PCs were less so.