Not really very useful, replacing them with something that is significantly more powerful and uses 1/4th the power (or less) would quickly pay for itself.
Which is why old servers on ebay go for very cheap.
This mentality is why many beautiful 80s home computers were tossed back in the day. They have aesthetic and cultural value that will be recognized one day.
80s computers still wouldn't be worth much of anything if 99% of them didn't get recycled.
I don't think there is anything beautiful, interesting or unique about a couple of million outdated generic x86 2U servers, nor will there really ever be.
I felt this way about some of my early “generic” x86 systems and threw them out. Now I feel like an idiot because I’d love to fire up my old 486 again.
