A 5090 Won't Fix This
Friday, 27 March 2026
I've been chasing specs. For years.
Better GPU. Better CPU. More RAM. Faster storage. The next upgrade, the next generation, the next big leap in performance. There's always something faster, something that promises to make the experience better, smoother, more immersive.
I have access to really strong gear. As a Dell ambassador, I can get my hands on hardware most people will never touch. The kind of machines that make gaming smooth, that run Cities Skylines 2 without stuttering, that handle any workload like it's nothing.
And it doesn't matter.
The spec chase lie
We're sold this story: better hardware = better experience = happiness.
It's seductive because it's partly true. A smooth 144 fps is better than 30 fps. A game that doesn't stutter is less frustrating. But somewhere along the way, we started believing the lie: that hardware could fix what's actually broken.
I got deep into Project Zomboid. Loved it. The constraints, the survival mechanics, the way the game forces you to make real choices with real consequences. Then something shifted. A patch broke the spirit of it for me. Not the performance—the design. The soul. No spec upgrade was going to bring that back.
Cities Skylines 2 came out and I was excited. Finally, a sequel to one of my favorite games. But it's broken. Buggy. Disappointing in ways that more VRAM won't fix. So I chased better hardware anyway, thinking maybe if the performance was perfect, the experience would be too.
It wasn't.
The sad realization
Here's what I realized: even if I had a 5090—the flagship, the dream card, the "more than you could ever need"—I still wouldn't be happy.
Because the problem isn't the hardware.
The problem is that I don't have the energy to game anymore.
POTS doesn't care about your GPU. Dysautonomia doesn't get impressed by specs. When my body crashes, when the brain fog hits, when I'm too exhausted to focus on anything, a 5090 sitting in front of me is just an expensive reminder of what I can't do.
Gaming requires sustained attention. It requires sitting in certain positions. It requires the energy to engage with challenge and strategy and narrative. These are the things chronic illness takes first. Not your desire to play—your capacity to play.
I can want to game. I can have access to the best hardware. I can have games I love ready to go. But if my body is in crash, if my spoons are spent, if my brain can't focus—none of it matters. The 5090 becomes a monument to something I lost.
What I use the gear for instead
So I use the strong machines for what I can do: for work. For building Spooniversity. For running Medinformics. For the parts of my life where I still have capacity.
The irony is that the gear is better used this way. It's not sitting idle while I wish I had the energy to game. It's running servers, processing data, helping people. That's constraint-based thinking: use what you have where it matters, not where you want it to matter.
The thing nobody tells you
When you lose health, nothing really compensates for that. Not a 5090. Not a MacBook Pro. Not the latest VR headset or the smoothest monitor or the fastest internet connection.
You can't buy your energy back.
You can't upgrade your way out of post-exertional malaise. You can't spec your way around spoon depletion. You can't frame-rate your way to capacity you don't have.
The spec chase is a lie we tell ourselves to feel like we still have control. Like there's something we can do, some purchase we can make, that will fix the fundamental problem.
There isn't.
The hard truth is this: my gaming days aren't over because my hardware isn't good enough. They're over because my body gave out. And no amount of computing power changes that.
I'm not sad about it anymore, honestly. I'm just clear about it. The gaming dream is gone, and buying better hardware won't resurrect it. What I have now is different. Smaller. Quieter. A little less magical.
But it's real. And real is better than the fantasy of a 5090 bringing back something that chronic illness took.
Sometimes the best upgrade is accepting what you can't upgrade out of.
This explores ideas from Revolution from My Bed