Hypothetical Situation - What do you think?

[davids_oz]

Hi there,

Let's say you have 2 identical PC's of all the same specs. You keep them both for 3 years using one as your everyday machine and keeping one unopened in it's box. After 3 years you completely format the used machines hard drive.

Would the used machine perform worse than the unused machine? I'm sure from a hard drive perspective yes but will the proccessing speed be affected?

 

[JogaBonito1502]

That's a great question. I would assume there would be a small decrease in performance. Like all things, I think old age would just get to the performance.

 

[Celegorm]

I think with wear-and-tear it would be slower. Heat and dust and worn fans will all take a hold of that system.

 

[edodity]

what about in a clean environment, no dust and fans were replaced?
i think the difference will be very minor.
After all in processing power, there are no moving parts.

 

[netBooger]

Well if you take two of the same cars, one used and one new, are they going to still perform the same (Speed, Acceleration, etc..)?

***May not be exactly the same type of scenario but it's the same concept.

 

[edodity]

wrong comparison. cars have moving parts, the CPU, motherboard doesn't.

better comparisons are speakers? telephones? maybe even ipods (Flash mem), discounting batteries.
Will they all perform as well as they did 3 years ago?

 

[CrazyTiger]

performance will drop in the CD Drives, HDD's, and PSU's. Thats it though. The rest are pretty much they work 100% or not at all (except RAM).

There is no logical reason for the rest of the parts to start to slow down.

 

[Celegorm]

but capacitors are still subject to wear and tear, and can stop switching as quick.

 

[edodity]

is that true about capacitors? Any capacitor expert here?

 

[Celegorm]

mmhmm. there is a reason why some pop open after excesive use.