Laptops haven't changed much in past five years, why buy a new one?

Every year I go down to Best Buy and try out the new XPS 13 with mine alongside them and go NOPE, gonna wait until next year.

In the last 5 years laptops haven't really improved much in terms of stats, resulting in PC makers trying to add a bunch of gimmicks to sell their products. I was looking at the newest XPS 13 inch ones at Best Buy and from Dell catalog they send me every few months and Black Friday deals.

The new ones still only have 8-16 MB of memory and same 'ol i5 or i7, mildly improved over former ones. My five year old Dell XPS with i7, 8MB Ram, 256GB SSD, Full HD. 1080p holds it's own with the new ones at Best Buy with the same 'ol specs, but high prices of $1K and up. I know because I try them out. The secret is to take care of what you have.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-9380-laptop


I'm really happy with mine and will keep using it until it quits. Maybe in a couple years I'll buy a new XPS.

 

I mean laptop technology has changed over the past five years. The low power i7 in that XPS13 is as fast as the high powered laptops of five years ago. Those gimmicks as you put it may be meaningful to the user. OLED screens are beautiful and as good as say the 9550's 1080p screen is, it's not even close. Not to mention the GPUs in today's laptops are pretty awesome. I guess all and all I totally disagree with you, lol.

 

...and I disagree with you. As for the 13" screen, you can't tell the difference with the higher resolution screen unless you have a much bigger screen. I've played with the new ones at Best Buy and don't see any difference at all.... Heck, I don't see much difference in the GPU usage either. I've used mine every day and compared to relatives and friends newer laptops and it either holds it own or smokes them. many times I have at least ten web pages loaded, watch videos, and use Adobe CS6 all at the same time and no hiccups at all. Fast! It also helps that I use my SSD just for loading at startup etc, everything goes to my Passport 4TB .... so to each their own. Any more it's just milliseconds and the idea that you "maybe" have the latest and greatest.

I imagine if your a gamer, then the new GPUs are better, but other than that you can't tell the difference. But who uses the XPS 13 for games???

I see I have my old Samsung ATIV Book 6 NP680Z5E-X01US in my sig... gonna have to change that.

 

I can tell the difference screen wise when it comes to colors and blacks. You didn't mention what XPS you have, but if it's older than the 9550 then hardware wise the smaller more power efficient 13 in your picture would probably be faster.

I guess I really don't understand the point of your first post. If you would like to run some benches or something and post the results, I'd be happy to compare them to my Aero 15 OLD or Aero 15x... Sadly I don't have a new XPS 13 to run benches on.

 

If your gaming, the newer XPS is most likely better. My testing is when I'm down at Best Buy with my XPS next to theirs and I try different things like up to ten websites open while doing photo editing.
I don't see much difference there. The new XPS don't have the power hungry Adobe CS6 I use either. I also try to see the difference in the screens... you can't, not with a 13" screen. I only test what I use daily.

I actually like the finish on mine better too... It has an aluminum lid, a carbon fiber bottom, which is attractive, and stands out from other ultraportables on the market. Inside, the magnesium deck has the black soft-touch finish. A thin strip of aluminum, running along the outside, frames the whole deck nicely. No plastic at all. There is a silver XPS Logo just below the screen as with the new ones, no XPS anywhere on the lid, keyboard or screen area... I take such good care of mine, there still is NO scratches or scuffs anywhere. Looking at it, you can't tell if it is new or not.

The point of my post is....Since I don't see any real difference from mine and new, I'd rather spend the extra money I don't spend on a new XPS on some goodies for my Corvette or Ram truck.

I'm sure if I were to try to play some games, the new ones are better, but I haven't played games in years... no time for that. I do photography for a living and what I use the XPS for.

 

I'm glad you are enjoying your XPS of unknown specs. My point is that the screens are indeed better when measured with a colorimeter which is something that is important for photos, and the cpu is likely faster, also important when doing photography for a living. I realize you don't game, but the big thing you say you do for a living would benefit from these so called gimmicks...

Either way I'm glad you like your laptop, I just don't agree with your assessment of current laptop technology vs 5 years ago.

 

Like I said earlier, that is moot. I go by what I actually see when comparing. I don't need gimmicky programs like a colorimeter or CPU speed test as my eyes are fine and the real test, what I see what is in front of me. Gaming & video the newer XPS ones are likely considerably faster with the newer cpu and gpu, but for photography viewing and photoshop work, no.

Just so you know I'm not a windbag, I've owned over 2o different laptops since 1996. I've done photography "probably before you were born" for over 45 years, with first film cameras and old style darkroom and digital cameras with modern photoshop CS6. I sell many of my photos to WA State Forest Service and many other local agencies, Mt Rainier being one who has my photos for sale in their Visitors Center Store. My work?

https://moskovita-photography.com/

 

I don't doubt that you indeed do photography. You still never gave me real specs (i7 literally means nothing aside from the tier of processor), but that's totally fine, the point is moot as your mind is made up based on what you "see." Yes that is longer than I've been alive, but I've done tech work for 20 years and have a fair understanding of hardware. I am fortunate enough to have both OLED and non OLED screens, screens with 100% adobe RGB and 72% adobe RGB coverage, and I can most surely see a very big difference, especially if they are next to each other.

My hat is off to anyone that can shoot photos, I just don't have the creative side although I do enjoy messing around. Anyway I'll stop the back and forth with you, neither of us will be swayed by the other, I'm sure of that.

 

Thanks for all the input you gave. It is OK to disagree. I know a little about tech as I repaired and built computers for a few years, but dropped that as there was just too much competition in the area with Microsoft being one. Now it's just for myself and relatives. Been awhile since I've had a Desktop though. I love laptops. Here is a website from those days:
https://moskovita-photography.com/jacks-resume.htm
and
https://moskovita-photography.com/Antec900.htm

Tech is kinda like this:
A 2013 Corvette which I own, has a ton of tech and is faster than most cars out there.
But my Ram truck gets me to point A and point B just as good, just not as fast and not as much tech as the Corvette.
That's the way it is with XPS & Photography for me... The photos I get are the end results.

 

I've enjoyed reading the back-and-forth in this thread, and my conclusion is that both of you are making valid points.

I have a 10 year old desktop computer that I had custom built when the first generation of i7 quad core processors became available. The computer has 24 gb of RAM, and, along the line, I upgraded the system drive from a Velociraptor drive to an SSD and the operating system from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I do serious photography work with large RAW and converted TIFF files, and the computer still is snappy in doing everything that I need to do.

I have no question that there have been performance improvements in processors, RAM, and other components every year, but, in recent years, those improvements have become more incremental than revolutionary. While those incremental improvements may result in noticeable performance difference to some small number of critical users, for the vast majority of users, if they buy a computer with high end components, it should still perform superbly a few years later, and those incremental improvements in things like the processor are not likely to make noticeable improvents in performance.

With regard to screens, while I agree that OLED screens, when new, are superb, as someone who ruined an OLED screen in less than a year with permanent burn-in, I'm more than a little leery of OLED screens . I have the 4k non-OLED touch screen on my XPS 9560. and while a new OLED screen might look marginally better (when new) than the 4k screen that I have on the XPS 9560, the screen on the XPS 9560 is excellent, and I find comfort in knowing that, a couple of years down the road, I won't have to be worried about it suffering from burn-in or other picture quality decreases that come with OLED screens.

I have no question that the computing power of computers has increased over the last 10 years, but for me, the bottom line is that, over the course of the last decade, my computing needs have also increased, but they have increased only marginally. So, the incremental improvements in processors, RAM, etc. have exceeded the increases in my computing needs. Thus, even a computer with high end components that is several years old is still likely to meet my needs.

 

Well said lesz
Your system reminds me of the one I built ten years ago, last one too before just using laptops... I need laptop for photography field work. I still use that desktop at home.
https://moskovita-photography.com/Desktop-Build.htm

 

I'm still waiting for Dell and others to give us 32Gb (preferably 64) in the XPS 13 size format. I'm hitting my 16Gb limit in my 9370 constantly. A bump on ram size would really make a bigger difference than CPU or GPU improvements.

 

How are you hitting the limit with 16GB's???
I can run photoshop CS6 with 10-15 web pages open at the same time with ease using 8GB's. Just curious?

 

The 13" 2in1 has the option for 32GB

 

I still have the 9550 (6th generation SkyLake) and it is fine.

Obviously the XPS lineup looks the same. From a performance perspective my 2c:

- GPUs continue to evolve rather rapidly so that matters for gamers etc.

- For some power users, consumer laptops are now available with 64GB of RAM (and workstations 128GB of RAM). Those were not options a few years ago. RAM is dirt cheap again.

- nvme drives are at 4th gen and they are very well sorted. Samsung is awesome but the competition has closed the gap with very good prices. QLC is dirt cheap.

- OLED screens available for movie fans.

- CPUs have not evolved much from Skylake. But Intel packages more cores which can be a good boost for some tasks (like video editing), assuming you don't run into thermal throttling. Some of those 15w 8th gen CPUs were excellent and @unclewebb got them running at 4Ghz+ at 40W. Intel (finally) is moving beyond Skylake so we can hope for a bump in performance and power usage.

- Unfortunately, with the XPS, here has been a decline in XPS low latency performance so my 9550 is better for music production.

I also think there are a lot of premium gaming and home laptops. A few years ago the XPS had no competition. Now there are a lot of options in that space. This forum is quieter as a result.

 

Well, I'm not a gamer or watch movies with my XPS so I'm in good shape. It does everything I want very well and fast. Just photography and online, email, facebook stuff.

 

Things that frustrate me with the 9550:
* Only two lane thunderbolt
* Only HDMI 2.0 output
* USB-C charging @100W throttles at really odd times (like when its fully charged with no GPU usage)
* No next day warranty / repair

But in general I agree, there currently isn't a big enough a bump to warrant upgrading right now.

Usage: Software development: C++ / Typescript

 

I still am using the dell xps 15 9550 from 3 years ago.


It has the i5-6700hq quad core processor, 8gb ram, 250gb ssd and 56wh 3 cell battery. The issue i have is i need to get a new laptop battery because this is wearing out. I got one a while back and i know you need to get one every 1 or 1.5 years or so if you use it a lot.


Also my ssd is sort of running low in space, only have about 40gb left. But I would prefer to get the bigger battery... either the 84wh or 97wh one but if i do this, i need to get a big m.2 ssd that is either 500gb or 1tb. Im sort of running a bit low in space so i would want a ssd upgrade. I mean i could get a new 56wh battery but i also want more space in my ssd so best idea is get the bigger battery and m.2 ssd right? The 250gb ssd i am currently using is an old samsung 2.5 inch ssd that i used in a previous computer and had it put in this dell xps 15 9550 at a computer store.


But how is the i5-6700hq processor compared to the dell xps now? Again i got this laptop over 3 years ago. I still think its good. The thing though is i have tons of chrome tabs opened... think at least 30+ minimum at once when i open chrome up. The thing is i have them opened because i have to look at things and those things change with numbers etc... I was told you shouldn't do that because that uses a ton of memory. But would upgrading to 16gb ram or even 32gb solve this issue? Or is no amount of ram going to work for this. Again i have like 30+ chrome tabs opened at once minmum usually.


Is the xps 15 9570 or 7590 much more superior than the 9550 i have now? The thing is my laptop is 1080p as well and also... its not 4k. It is the regular screen size. I dislike 4k display or anything like that because i know that uses a ton of battery.

 

I sold my XPS 15 9560 i7 in September and bought an Aero 17 w/9750H. Worst computer decision ever. It is near impossible to avoid circuit whine with six core i7s. Only option is to disable turbo. And there is little difference in power on battery, due to (non-thermal) throttling. Add poor software/firmware execution by Gigabyte has me selling it and buying back a 9560.

My hope is that someday Intel and laptop makers will make some breakthrough, because new laptops stink for my needs.

 

You should really try the ram. Upgrade on your machine. For the cost. It's well worth it for the photography aspect. I had 4gb in my Dell first with a 500gb spinny drive. I used to my photo and video editing on it and it did it. Then I put a 2tb sshd in. It was faster for sure. Next up I installed 16gb of ram. Photo and video editing had a very noticeable increase in speed again. Then when the sshd capped out I went with a 1tb ssd. More speed for everything. So the ram upgrade is well worth it. I think the processors today are little increases instead of huge leaps when we were using 386 and stuff like that.

 

If your talking to me, I agree, however my XPS 13 is stuck with 8GB memory as it's soldered on. I don't think I should try soldering on 16GB as the system might not support it? Everything else is upgraded, faster bigger ssd, new battery etc. It's pretty fast does all my Adobe CS6 and photography software and editing.

 

I was, I didn't realise the older xps units had soldered on ram. I thought that was newer ones. But since time flies like it does, 5 years ago is a second in my world! ha ha.

 

Yup, the older you get the faster time flies!

 

Yep. Like a roll of toilet paper..... Think about that one.

 

I like my laptops to be in warranty. I ain't paying Dell $300, $500, $750 to fix a mb issue. I always sell my laptop on eBay and buy a new one before warranty expires. My latest one, I just got 4 months ago, is a XPS 13 7390 2 in 1 with 4 years onsite and complete care warranty. I'll be good for a bit

 

I feel the same way about smartphones (Galaxy Note 4 still does everything as well as I need today), Sure 5G might change that when the coverage is good. But this really is a good thing, means you can't spend money on other things you enjoy, rather than buying new tech every 2 years.

 

Yes, it's all the same. The only difference with smartphones (mainly android) is that you dont get software updates to the latest OS version. Only one update. At least on apple, iOS gets updated for a longer period. I have an iphone 6s that is on the newest and current 13.3.1. In some cases it's faster than my iphone 8 at things. Most things, no, but some, yes. Thats 5 OS version updates on one phone. It's 5 generations of iphone old and still works as a current new iphone, minus the faceID garbage and silly swipe stuff. I am hoping that the new "cheap" iphone will keep touch ID and form factor of my 8. I am in on that phone. Or I may wait it out a little longer and see if they come up with a full screen touch enabled phone in 2021. It's coming because apple knows FarceID is garbage compared to touch.

 

Are there many ppl still using their dell xps 15 9550 from years ago still? If so, how its ? Anyone with a 9550 plan to get a 7590 or whatever comes out soon?


Also does this mean you cannot buy the 9570 now once the 7590 now on dell's site


Can someone compare the xps 15 9550 to the 7590?

 

I've always repaired my own laptops. Use to build custom desktops but haven't done that for several years now, don't own one. I have four laptops. I've replaced motherboards, SSD etc on on laptops... buy my parts on ebay... beats the heck of paying Dell to fix it and their outrageous part prices. I've been lucky with my current laptop of five years, only had to replace the battery last month. Got that one off Amazon.

 

I still use the XPS 15 9550 (i5 6300HQ). This is for low-latency live audio work using big virtual instruments.

I upgraded to lowest CAS latency 32 GB RAM & a good quality fast 1TB nvme SSD.

The 6th gen Skylake chips are essentially unchanged and I don't need more cores. The chassis and cooling is rather similar. Also the newer XPS models have DPC latency problems so the 9550 likely performs better for my work.

I use ThrottleStop to undervolt and boost performance via SpeedShift & "disable power limits".

Some 15W CPUs run higher clocks than the XPS 45W in the real world so those are interesting options for some.

 

Same with me. Also, if you are not working for a huge production company, or gaming, the lower end stuff can do what you need. I do everything with my 13 5000 2 in 1 with the lowest spec CPU. No, it's not the fastest, but it gets the job done.

 

The notion that laptops haven't improved in five years is absurd.

I won't even mention the new Ryzens since they didn't exist until recently, but my i7-9750H is way, way faster than OP's i7-3537u, it's not even close.

It's twice as fast in single-threaded tasks, and around six times faster in multi-threaded tasks.

Sure, it's an unfair comparison in that one is a H CPU, and the other is a U, but a lot of the benefits of the U CPUs are becoming less of a concern. My 6-core H cpu is in a 4 pound laptop that's less than an inch thick. The days where powerful components required 8 pound chassis have passed. That's another change from the past 5 years. Battery life has improved as well. My laptop despite having a 6 core i7 gets over 6 hours of battery life if just browsing the web, etc.

My 1660 TI is also 49% faster than a 980M. 980M was the top GPU in 2014. 1660 TI isn't even close to the top GPU from 2019.

Laptop with 1660 TI= $1,000.
Laptop with 980M? Closer to $3,000.

$1,000 laptops being 50% more powerful and more energy efficient than $3,000 ones from 5 years prior is very far from "not much change".

You're right, memory and storage haven't changed much. They haven't needed to. 8 GB was plenty for most tasks five years ago. It still is. You know why most laptops don't come with 32 GB nowadays? You don't typically need or benefit from 32 GB.

I had 12 GB RAM in my laptop in 2009. I have 16 GB in my laptop in 2020. I still don't need more than 16 GB.

 

For what I do, not much difference. Maybe if your playing heavy games or videos, I don't watch any videos or play games. Mine is mostly photography related, Adobe Photoshop CS6 editing etc. I also have like 10-15 online pages open at the same time, (this would be where memory comes in) I've taken my laptop to Best Buy and compared the new XPS 13 against mine, very little difference. So the online hype tests and yak, yak here is moot. Hand on testing for what I do is the best test. Biggest difference is the battery life which is important and why I may make the jump eventually. The new ones smoke mine in that regard. So I'm going to hold out another year or so until the new i8 finally gets here if it does... 10th generation i7... C'mon, give me a break.

 

It just basically seems like you started out claiming that performance hadn't improved, and then sidestepped to acknowledging that it had, but that you didn't need the improvements so they were moot.

The i7-8565u in the opening post is about 60% as fast as my i7-9750H, but even at 60% of the performance of my cpu, it's still approximately 3x faster than the CPU in your laptop.

Maybe your CPU is still "fast enough" to suit your needs, but that doesn't mean huge advancements haven't occurred. Honestly, if you're happy with the performance of yours, I don't see why you'd even compare it side by side with a modern version to try and tell the difference.

The new one is faster, it's in fact, much faster. The thing is, you notice when a task takes 20 seconds when it used to take 60. You don't notice when it takes .03 seconds instead of .1.

TL;DR It's not that hardware hasn't advanced, it's that your use case seemingly hasn't required the advances that have been made, and as such they aren't noticeable to you.

That XPS is also just an awful deal.

It's $1,049. I paid $999 for my laptop.

My laptop that has a SSD twice as big, twice as much RAM, a 144 hz display, a CPU 75% faster, and a GPU that's 11-12x more powerful.

Oh, and it weighs a whopping 1.46 pounds more than it. 2.7 pounds vs 4.16.

 

Laptop portability, design and user operation had certainly changed, in the last 5yrs.

5yrs ago, most batteries are removable, 5yrs later majority are light and concealed, and to pick on those beefy power ones, we need not to carry extra batts compare to 5yrs ago.

5yrs ago, most laptops are still... i mean storage for the budget conscious, are still stuck with mechanical drives then. 5yrs later, SSDs are more affordable that owners can expand themselves if they like, with great savings.

5yrs ago, lots of laptops are still packed with optical disc drives. 5yrs later, we find ourselves using more on the removable SDcard memories.

5yrs ago...Ehh where were we? Win8?
What i'm trying to point to, when there's a change to OS, the rest of the ecosystem also changes from software to hardware. 5yrs ago, ignoring the type of CPUs we are using, just the RAM type is enough to confuse me... 2133, 2400, 2666, tp now 2933, 3200?

Dude... I'm confused dude...

 

That looks to be a GTX 980, a desktop GPU. Not a 980M, as seen by the i9-9900K CPU paired with it.

For all intents and purposes that "laptop" you own and benchmarked is just a desktop crammed into a laptop chassis. A very large and heavy laptop chassis I imagine.

Even then, my 4 pound laptop beats a desktop 980 in most games as well. It even holds its own vs a 980 TI.

 

980m was never the fastest mobile Maxwell graphics in notebooks.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-980-Notebook.150599.0.html

 

Ahh, okay, so technically a mobile GPU, but not a common one at all. And no, it doesn't appear that a 1660 TI murders that by nearly 50% like it does the 980M, but there's still definitely been progress made. You couldn't put yours into a 4 pound chassis and have it operate well, that was also very obviously not a $1,000 laptop.

Looks to be one hell of an overclock as well as you scored significantly above the numbers notebookcheck shows.

Fire Strike scores as per notebookcheck:

980M: 9682
980: 13047
1660 TI: 14735.5
980 TI: 16961

In actual games though I've found 1660 TI to hold its own fairly well vs. the 980 TI, and your 980 also scored more along the expectations of a 980 TI as well. Mine doesn't score as highly as the one you have in your comparison image, but above what notebookcheck shows as the average for a 1660 TI so I'm not too disappointed considering the relatively low price for my laptop.

I get from your signature that you think mainstream laptops are trash, but I really don't see that a $999 laptop that scores 15,526 on 3d Firemark's Graphics Score is a bad purchase or a waste of $$$. i9-9900K alone retailed at $480. GTX 980 for $550, and that was the desktop 980, no clue what the mobile version ran, but I'd bet more, since mobile parts are usually more expensive.

That puts your CPU and GPU alone at quite likely, a higher price than my entire laptop. Even if this laptop dies in two years (it won't), I could spend another $1,000 then for a laptop that'd likely outperform your laptop in every conceivable way (including CPU performance, since the 9900K is only about 15% faster than a Ryzen 4900H as is, and in two years it's fairly likely AMD will have something even faster than a 9900K available in laptops).

 

Oh, I fully agree that yours is not obsolete. You can make do with old hardware for a long time, but it's fundamentally different to say there have been no advancements, than no advancements that you consider necessary.

Even the i7-740QM I had in my laptop purchased in 2009 is still plenty fast for basic productivity.

 

Well... putting myself onto TS shoes, I may had paid certainly a high price then on a XPS(with addition of jumping into Win10 then). So 5yrs later should there be any other person, including the sales guy tries to convince me changing to a new gear citing "lots of stuffs had changed in this 5yrs period...", i would tell myself i have no need to upgrade as "nothing had changed much".

 

The XPS has seen just minor improvements over the past 5-years.

- Same basic chassis and screens
- Same Skylake CPU architecture
- Minor tweaks to cooling and VRM
- Good GPU upgrades

Some tweaks may benefit some niche users, but the extra CPU cores and GPU processing power is generally thrown away by:
- poor cooling,
- poor power regulation,
- Dell's throttling schemes

 

Same SkyLake CPU architecture downplays how much the CPU's have still advanced.

i7-8565U:
Single-Core: 459
Multi-Core: 1518

i7-3537U:
Single-Core: 240
Multi-Core: 484

Those are cinebench 20 scores, with the way it scales, a 3x score is 3x the speed. The 8565U is nearly twice as fast for single-threaded tasks, and over triple for multi-threaded tasks. Calling that a minor improvement is incredibly disingenuous IMO.

The 8565U is incredibly fast for single-threaded tasks,even beats out my i7-9750H that scores 441 for single-thread and 2653 for multi-threaded.

Which makes sense, the 8565U boosts to 4.6 GHz, my 9750H only boosts to 4.5 GHz.

 

My point simply is that the current Skylake CPU gets long on the tooth 5+ years on, even if Intel changes the naming.

The amount of performance Intel has wrung out of that architecture is impressive. But I'm calling out Intel for dragging its feet on this old technology. AMD will be shooting fish in a bucket for a while, it seems.

 

Of course newer machines are faster, however, as mentioned before its not like the good old days of going from a 486 to a pentium based machine or from a pentium 3 to a 4. It's small incremental increase now. As I mentioned in other places, my 2007 acer 7720 is still fully supported by Microsoft and windows 10 on 1909 and runs quite nicely. Much better than going from my 486 to my first pentium class machine back in the day.

 

It really is the same kind of increase. You're just looking at the old advances with nostalgia goggles.

That Acer has a T7300. My 9750H is ~3.5x faster at single-threaded performance, and about 15x faster at multi-threaded performance.

There was not a big difference between Pentium 3's and 4's. At the same clock speed, 4 was about 20% higher performance.

Similarly, 60-90 mhz Pentium 1's were often inferior to 486's.

 

I know my acer is slower compared to today. But go from 3 year old machines to a new one it's not. Again, I'm not looking at it any other way than what is being talked out.

 

Ehh. Pentium 3's ran rings around Pentium 4's (Netburst architecture). Though for the current topic, My late 2019 XPS is quite similar to my former Latitude 7370. It's faster, and I like the newer hardware better, but it's not by a mile.

 

Well, there is some merit to both sides of the argument. As with everything. The comment about 1000$ new and 3000$ five years ago is not that true, to be honest, because they have very similar efficiency NOW, when the five year old machine costs change in comparison to the one with 1660. As an example, my Alienware 17 R1 cost me with all the fancy parts, such as the 120Hz screen, 4910MQ,a Quadro P4000 and 2133MHz DDR3L around the 1000$ mark, maybe less. My father in law got himself shoved with an Acer Nitro with fabled 1660 Max-Q and 9750 CPU, and in benchmarks his brand new 1200$ machine is reliably 2-3000 points short in benchmarks with my 6,5 year old 4th gen i7 machine. Of course he has warranty and I don't, but if something breaks in my AW or I spit beer on my GPU I don't have to replace everything. Of course his laptop weights 1/4th of my AW, but my metal case won't crack from looking at it too hard. It's a matter of what one wants and needs. I am a hater of BGA, especially in brands that prided themselves as early adopters and bearers of the flame that later discarded the idea in a vain following of trends that lead to a ton of electronic waste. Not to mention my wet dream machine that now I am ashamed to have had, the Acer Predator 21 X that had an incredible design, just to find out it has two BGA 1080s... And it had such a potential...

Of course there is an increase in performance in CPU and GPU technology, but unlike the '90s and early 00s, nowadays it's a slow evolution rather than a revolution. With my 1998 machine I was never able to run anything in 2008, while with my 2010 AW m15x R2 I do. Upgraded, yes, but within few years of specs (2014 card).

As for the screens - this puzzles me a lot. I have no idea why the fantastic RGB LED screens from 10 years ago that can honestly compete with newest OLED/QLED displays and not be left behind too much, disappeared from the face of the earth. I can not for the life of me understand why they weren't everywhere. My AW M17x R2 with RGB LED can be provably better than many not necessarily budget laptops.

Power consumption has definitely gone down, so there's that, but as with every generation top range GPUs are still 100+W, do is there really that much of a difference?

The most true of the 'no change' argument is CPUs staggering steps. Ever since I'd say the second generation of i-X processors, there was never much of a leap in processing power and core/thread ratio. Ever since i-7 720QM until the 7th or 8th generation all we got was a couple of Watts shaved off the TDP, a 100 or 200 (if we're feeling generous, and in most cases not even that) increase in clocks, and all we seemed to get was a standard 4 cores with Hyperthreading. AMD was the one to make a breakthrough with multicore processors, but that's what, like last year? Or maybe two years back? And that's for top of the line machines, so in most cases early adopters and tech-junkies will get them. We have to remember that for general use one doesn't need that much processing power. Even for professional use, one hardly needs to go with anything higher than a 6 cored Xeon and 2x1050/1060 when it comes to even desktop use of video editing (a friend of mine does that with such a machine, on DDR3 no less, and it fits him quite well even for 4K video editing), unless you do multiplex 4D 16K videos, but in that case you won't go for a general use machine, rather a top of the line workstation, AND AGAIN, there are some devices from a couple of years back that can suit you with some manual upgrades.

And of course the benefits of older machines will always be the price. If it's modular, like <4th gen Alienwares, or Dell, or HP Z-Books, with some tech savvyness (especially with driver support that tech companies drop like a depleted uranium hot potato) these devices will most likely not be outclassed that much for at least a couple of years. That is at least until we really have a breakthrough - quantum computing springs to mind, but that's tech that I keep hearing about being 'just around the corner' for last 15 years so that's an incredibly long corner. As for gimmicky tech - one must always na cautious about that. We've lived through the future that was 3D, the future that was motion control, eye tracking, wireless displays, WPS was handy but now gone, and many many more 'futures'. Be cautious. Be reasonable, don't get yourself hyped, because you will finally be able to run your beloved Minecraft in Ultra with Raytracing in glorious 10fps (yes, ten, because it's incredibly computation heavy idea and in all honesty, kinda silly. With some top range hardware some guys were able to test it and with RTX on, the FPS was cut heavily.)

Wait until the technology is perfected to get it and when prices are reasonable and a jump in performance is noticeable. Hype is a disease on which companies like Nvidia, AMD, Intel and especially (cr)Apple feed. Buy gear that works for you. Fight against planned obsolescence and for your right to repair (I hear that US is getting especially bent over and fisted with studded boxing gloves over that when it comes to (Cr)Apple lobbyists), don't get stuff just because it's just been released, since in a month you'd have been able to buy two of those for the same price.

Damn, another thread concerning this topic for me to ramble over...