Anyone else here self-hosting on absolutely shit hardware?

My cluster ranges from 4th gen to 8th gen Intel stuff. 8th gen is the newest I've ever had (until I built a 5800X3D PC).

I've seen people claiming 9th gen is "ancient". Like...ok moneybags.

Yep any core i3 is fine even for desktop given an SSD and enough RAM. Once you delve into the core2 era, you start having problems because it lacks the compression and encryption instructions necessary for the day to day smoothness. In a server you might get away with core 2 duo as long as you don't use full disk encryption and get an SSD or at least use ram for caching. Though that would be kinda a bizarre setup on a computer with 512 MB of ram.