i'm currently using a ryzen 2200g. it's pretty humble, it's 4-core 4-thread 3.7ghz (it can't even do zoom virtual backgrounds lmao but that's on zoom honestly i think), but that plus the integrated gpu is enough for every game that i'm interested in (i don't play recent AAA stuff). i'm having my eye on a ryzen 5600g, which is an immediate upgrade at 6-core 12-thread 4.4ghz, better igpu, all that jazz.

but as i said before, basically all of my needs are already met by the 2200g. the only thing i do that i can think of that will be massively helped by that upgrade is me reencoding miscellaneous videos to av1. which i can already do with the 2200g. but the jump in thread count in particular will be a massive speed boost (though some would argue that even with a 20-thread cpu you set ffmpeg to 4 threads anyway because high thread counts result in pretty crazy drops in transient quality i.e. the overall quality of the video is similar to low thread count, but you get some really janky individual frames here and there). though it's not like i have time pressure anyway. i can just leave the computer running overnight to encode a 1-hour video, it's whatever.

it's not an expensive upgrade: you see how cheap 5600g is on amazon and the like, it's even cheaper where i live, i think because budget gaming is more ubiquitous here. but the fact that i'm really not gonna use it to really do anything with it makes it really hard to justify a purchase. i'm really wondering if this is just me being depressed and thus being in my 「be shopping」 era?

i've also been considering upgrading my laptop (an hp with a8-7410, 4-core 4-thread 2.2ghz), for a longer time actually, and this one's actually justified: it struggles to do even basic browsing (i basically can't use tumblr's rich text editor at all because firefox types out one character per second for some reason; at least chrome stutters before typing a lot of things and then stuttering again. google docs is also uncomfortable to use with firefox. for some godforsaken reason i needed to use canva a lot this past year and that was impossible with firefox and only barely tolerable with chrome) (an aside: this is a thing that the "stop using chrome use firefox" folks miss: firefox fucking sucks on admittedly very low-spec computers but chrome just fucking works somehow), and recently i started using a usb wifi adapter with it because the built-in one is giving me a lot of agita. but aside from those things, it does everything i want from it just fine (admittedly i'm really not asking much from it); it boots fast enough with an ssd upgrade, 8gb of ram is enough for general browsing and stuff, battery replacements are laughably cheap (i just unplug the battery for usage at home even), and also i'm pretty sentimental about it.

the laptop i'm looking at to replace it with is a fujitsu u939 4-core 8-thread 4.8ghz; i'm pretty much gonna do the encoding on the laptop instead of the desktop (though i do have some misgivings about running hot a laptop with a non-removable battery). it's gonna be a larger investment, 3 times the price of the ryzen 5600g. but as i laid out, in practice it might solve more "actual" problems (though that's assuming that everything's gonna be smooth sailing and i don't have to wrestle with the laptop's peculiarities and whatnot).

i've been thinking about all this. the justifications, them being depression purchases, the like. though i don't really mind having something to ponder about. it's kinda nice.

i wanna hear y'alls thoughts and suggestions. suggest me a new thing to do that would actually use high cpu capabilities, even! (no AAA gaming, though)