I don’t know why you’d assume that an older system is lower footprint.

If you’ve got something consuming 100 watts average over your 24 hour period, and your electricity costs 20 cents per kWh, you’re already spending almost as much as a Claude subscription.

Just on electricity, this assumes your hardware never fails and you never incur any additional costs.

There’s a big reason why newer more efficient hardware is in demand. Something that’s 10+ years old has drastically worse performance per watt.

Obviously I am not saying to throw away your old hardware as a rule but there is a point where some of this old stuff just isn’t even worth running.