Ask HN: Will there ever be classic “muscle” microprocessors?
There are cars out there that are very old but well maintained. They go for more money then they were originally worth and are often still fairly capable vehicles. I’m wondering if we might eventually see a similar situation with microprocessors. Obviously there are many factors that play into this, but I’m amazed that I can currently sell my gtx 1080 ti that I custom cooled for more than I bought it. Part of me is sad to see it go because it still can handle a huge workload and it looks sweet. Will I one day look back and see my card on the market for 5 figures? Will any generation ever look back and see their old chips on the market for 5 figures? One major difference is it's hard to "supe up" an old computer. Harder in general for the layman to repair or modify means you are more likely to need a fully functioning device to be able to use it, less gray area. Also cars are inherently harder to store so there are less of them floating around at any given time if they aren't immediately serviceable they might get junked or otherwise rust into pieces. That being said writing software for "dead" platforms might level that out it's hard to "supe up" an old computer Except Amigas for some reason. People are still making Amiga upgrade kits! In addition to Ataris as well as the old Macintoshes with NuBus expansion slots. I’m no expert on hardware. However, is it possible in the future that our progress towards faster and faster chips slows to the point where a 30 yr old chip is actually not that slow compared to a modern chip? Moore's Law is definitely slowing, although it's hard to imagine things getting that bad. Right, dropping a Ryzen or a Rocket Lake into your old Compaq is going to take serious work. Probably not in the fast or powerful sense, but if you’re looking to fire up something old and energy inefficient then I’m sure you can find something. How did you custom cool your 1080 Ti? I'm sure the chip shortage created a better market for you than you would have otherwise had. I have an mITX setup and the card was overheating under load. I took off the shroud and backplate. I then got the artic accelero kit and installed the mini heatsinks and big heat sink. With the fans from the kit, it wouldn’t fit. So, I put two noctuas underneath the card. Now the card idles at whatever the room temperature is. It is quiet as a mouse because of the noctuas. I’ve only seen it touch 90c one time and that was while training a resnet over the course of 3 days. There's definitely a market for rarer, more unusual machines out there. I'm thinking of NeXTcubes, BeBoxes, 20th Anniversary Macintoshes, etc. Heck, the prices for Commodore 64s and Apple IIs in decent condition are skyrocketing. These machines can't compete with modern hardware, but their rarity and the nostalgia factor are driving their prices. This is a fantastic article — thank you for sharing it!