Would the equivalent amount of DDR5 actually feel any different to DDR4 to the end user? It seems like hardware is getting better but basic software (web browser etc) is getting more complicated/bloated at the same rate, so things don't actually feel 10x faster than they did a few years ago.
Computers with good SSDs and not too much bloatware (relevant on Windows) do feel faster to me than computers used to be.
I think people can get nostalgic accidentally and overestimate how fast things were in the past. I remember multi-minute loads for games on my Commodore 64. I remember multi-minute Windows 3.1 bootups. I remember watching a JPEG progressively creep in on the early web. I remember watching my school projects in C++ take noticeable time to compile despite what we would now consider their absurdly simple nature. I remember when I was reluctant to click on a 1MB download.
But you do want to avoid having a modern Windows machine on a slow spinning-rust hard drive. Yeow.
Yeah I think you're right - moving from mechanical to SSD made more difference in perceived speed than more/better RAM and faster CPU. Boot times are for sure a happy thing of the past, even opening up programs like Photoshop used to take long enough for me to alt-tab into the web browser for a bit while it started up, whereas now it's instant.
I've recently switched from 8GB MBA to 16GB MBP and to be honest, I'm not sure I've noticed any more speed above what's to be expected from any brand new machine before it gets bogged down with shit. My MBA used to be able to handle multiple big programs running in the background - 2 of the Adobe suite + Chrome + small stuff, so I haven't felt much use for the extra juice day-to-day, though I imagine the RAM is useful for video editing etc.
"Only cheapskates and the stubborn would pass on an SSD."
Even a year ago I was still going "eeehhhhhh, weeelllll, maaayybee..." but sometime in the last year I'd say we crossed over for any professional. It's no longer a matter of paying $100 for a big-enough spinning rust or $600 for a too-small SSD, now it's more like "Do I want a really fast 512GB or a slow 4TB for the same price?", which are both as of right now ~$150 give or take $30 depending on your quality needs. (I just checked.) That's still quite the spread on size, but you can fit a lot in 512GB.
The people that I had in mind asking me would not know what an SSD is (the less technically literate). The people who go to Dell, HP, etc, and are trying to decide on a "good" laptop.
>Would the equivalent amount of DDR5 actually feel any different to DDR4 to the end user?
Most likely not at all. Browser speed has more to do with network speed and browser/website design than your hardware.
Browsers and websites still make poor use of multiple cores,
and making sites performing well is a never ending chase between designers adding more ads, images and visual effects, browsers trying to figure out tricks to make coping with that possible and developers implementing those tricks.
