That's not the point anyone is making at all. The point is, while casual users will more than likely move to laptops or multimedia devices, the market for people currently using tower PCs will still be there.
Desktops Obsolete in 3 Years
- Thread starter ThatNickGuy
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GasBandit
Staff member
Actually, no, those two things are incomparable. And the american electronics sector died out with commodore, philco and zenith. THAT would have been the more appropriate analogue to your cars.
To put your analogy in car terms, what you're saying is that 18 wheelers are going to be obsolete because everybody's going to buy a prius.
For those of us that lived through the whole, my computer is a year old and is now obsolete time, we will still buy desktops. Old habits die hard. 10 years ago, I'd tell friends that were buying computers to get the second most expensive computer that you can afford. That was just in the hope that it would still be a decent computer in 4-6 years. I just can't see spending large amounts of money for a computer that can barely meet my needs of today. I try to buy with an eye for the future. Hopefully I would have the processing power to handle the "next killer app" that will be out next year.
For offices, and for a lot of people's homes, I, for one, can certainly see a merging of the console and pc market. An apple isn't much different anymore, anyway.
What people -want- is a machine they can use for e-mail, games, some office work, showing pictures to friends, and keeping in touch (friendslists, facebook, whatever). You can do all of those except office work with a PS3. You can do all of those (except for some games) on a mac. A pc with windows and whatnot, for the average user, is horribly overcomplicated. They don't -want- to have to look under the hood. Some people want to be able to do more; but those are unfortunately going to be facing the problems Linux users are facing now.
My guess for the future: everyone has a computer/digital tv/console hybrid at home, a severely handicapped pc at work, and some smartphone/netbook/palmpilot hybrid for in between. The regular laptop will, for the most part, disappear - only people who really need to be able to do presentations on the move and such really have a need for them. The home desktop will become more rare - hobbyists and fanatics will still use them, but most people will have migrated long ago.
What people -want- is a machine they can use for e-mail, games, some office work, showing pictures to friends, and keeping in touch (friendslists, facebook, whatever). You can do all of those except office work with a PS3. You can do all of those (except for some games) on a mac. A pc with windows and whatnot, for the average user, is horribly overcomplicated. They don't -want- to have to look under the hood. Some people want to be able to do more; but those are unfortunately going to be facing the problems Linux users are facing now.
My guess for the future: everyone has a computer/digital tv/console hybrid at home, a severely handicapped pc at work, and some smartphone/netbook/palmpilot hybrid for in between. The regular laptop will, for the most part, disappear - only people who really need to be able to do presentations on the move and such really have a need for them. The home desktop will become more rare - hobbyists and fanatics will still use them, but most people will have migrated long ago.
C
Chazwozel
Wait, that era is over?
Wait, that era is over?[/QUOTE]
It seems to have slowed down a bit. A computer I built to play Doom3 on full settings, still kinda rocks. 5 years later and it is still pretty up to date.
Of course I think the obsolescence has slowed because so much happens on the web now. Now you can get a $400 emachine and be done with it in 3-4 years or build $1200 machine and hope for 6 years.
I have been getting more life out of my graphics cards. I'm currently running 2 8800 GTX in SLI and they'll still run everything out there with all the bells and whistles even though it's a few generations obsolete now. I remember upgrading my video card literally every other year at one point.
GasBandit
Staff member
Wait, that era is over?[/QUOTE]
In the desktop world, it's been over a long time. Basically, since the advent of the standardization of the affordable multicore processor. Ever since then, the only thing that needs to be upgraded every year or two is your video card. Thus, the advantage of a desktop.
Also, I forget who it was, but somebody said they looked forward to not having to upgrade your graphics card anymore because we couldn't get much higher resolution? I say, dream on. It stopped being about resolution 3 or 4 years ago. Now it's all about shaders, postprocessing effects, and of course, the eternal question of how many polys can be rendered at better than 30fps. Thus, the GPU upgrade treadmill shall continue into the foreseeable future.
C
Chazwozel
Wait, that era is over?[/QUOTE]
In the desktop world, it's been over a long time. Basically, since the advent of the standardization of the affordable multicore processor. Ever since then, the only thing that needs to be upgraded every year or two is your video card. Thus, the advantage of a desktop.
Also, I forget who it was, but somebody said they looked forward to not having to upgrade your graphics card anymore because we couldn't get much higher resolution? I say, dream on. It stopped being about resolution 3 or 4 years ago. Now it's all about shaders, postprocessing effects, and of course, the eternal question of how many polys can be rendered at better than 30fps. Thus, the GPU upgrade treadmill shall continue into the foreseeable future.[/QUOTE]
So you're saying I can get an i7 now and expect not to require an upgrade for like 6 years (processor wise)?
figmentPez
Staff member
The problem with your statement is that a mainstream Honda can drive 80mph down the highway just as well, or better, than any car without electronic engine control and whatnot, and do it for cheaper. Laptops have yet to become even price competitive for gaming, and are generally less practical to use as an HTPC (a growing market, BTW.)
Not only that, but computer enthusiasts who buy gaming, home theater, video editing, etc. capable PCs drive the technological advancement of the market. The profit margins are better on those PCs than on mainstream laptops. PC makers aren't going to give that market up just because they're making less desktops. They're more likely to try and expand the desktop market, and get people to consider buying an HTPC as a second (or third) computer in a household.
The problem with your statement is that a mainstream Honda can drive 80mph down the highway just as well, or better, than any car without electronic engine control and whatnot, and do it for cheaper. Laptops have yet to become even price competitive for gaming, and are generally less practical to use as an HTPC (a growing market, BTW.)[/QUOTE]
The point is that most of the computer market are NOT gamers! PCs will lose market saturation because the wider market will find that small, powerful-enough computers are sufficient for their uses and have the added benefit of excellent mobility.
Laptops and pocket pcs drive innovation as well, just not an innovation on computing power. There is no question that handheld devices and laptops have both grown at an incredible rate and their increased popularity and usage has driven micronization and low-heat solutions that require fewer working (and thus breakable) parts.
GasBandit
Staff member
Wait, that era is over?[/QUOTE]
In the desktop world, it's been over a long time. Basically, since the advent of the standardization of the affordable multicore processor. Ever since then, the only thing that needs to be upgraded every year or two is your video card. Thus, the advantage of a desktop.
Also, I forget who it was, but somebody said they looked forward to not having to upgrade your graphics card anymore because we couldn't get much higher resolution? I say, dream on. It stopped being about resolution 3 or 4 years ago. Now it's all about shaders, postprocessing effects, and of course, the eternal question of how many polys can be rendered at better than 30fps. Thus, the GPU upgrade treadmill shall continue into the foreseeable future.[/QUOTE]
So you're saying I can get an i7 now and expect not to require an upgrade for like 6 years (processor wise)?[/QUOTE]
I'd guess around 5, but yeah. I've still got a box running on a Core2Quad 6600 ("Kentsfield") from back in '07 and it still blows the doors off of most other rigs these days... and it wasn't even the best/most expensive. It was the "budget" quad core. The thing is, there's precious few tasks these days that really stress your CPU. You'd think games would, but they actually are mostly GPU intensive. Hence, the importance of being able to swap it out. It's got a now-last-gen Geforce 8800GT in it, and there's still nothing it can't play at good framerate.
The computer I had BEFORE the ones I built in 07 (had to build two, one for me, one for the little woman.. only difference is I built MINE with a GTX instead of a GT) lasted me 5 years as well, but I went through 3 video cards on it.
Or not, if the following video is to be believed.
Not only GPU-intensive, but also getting data in and out of that GPU. Hence the move to PCIe instead of AGP and PCI. Heck, my main PC is still a (server-based) dual PIII-S that I built in Mid-2001 with an AGP 4x GeForce 6800-class GPU, and it easily handled every game I threw at it until about the start of 2008, when I started bringing home games where I finally had to reduce graphics settings down from 'Max' to eliminate sub-30 framerates. If I ever do decide I need faster graphics in that box, I'll commandeer the BFG AGP 7800GS from Kati's machine (once she upgrades), but that's really about as much as I'm ever going to get from this box. The 1.4GHz P3 (even two of them!) isn't going to be able to generate the geometry information fast enough to keep the pipelines fed on any of the newer/faster AGP cards anyway.
I might have spent too much on it when I built it, but I suppose I saved by planning ahead enough to not have to build/buy another machine in the meanwhile. It is my opinion that upgradeability should be an essential part of the planning for any build.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
The video didn't follow.
edit: ok, I extracted the URL out of your code:
That's interesting... but it smells a bit odd. We'll see if it's as advertised. Also, you have to wonder how it will handle things like variable transparency, motion, etc... all the models in their demo there were completely opaque and static.
If it does come to pass, you'll have to completely retrain graphics designers and artists to use it, and it's a much bigger leap to this from polygons than it was from sprites to polys.
edit: ok, I extracted the URL out of your code:
That's interesting... but it smells a bit odd. We'll see if it's as advertised. Also, you have to wonder how it will handle things like variable transparency, motion, etc... all the models in their demo there were completely opaque and static.
If it does come to pass, you'll have to completely retrain graphics designers and artists to use it, and it's a much bigger leap to this from polygons than it was from sprites to polys.
figmentPez
Staff member
Why does the majority of the computer market matter? If desktops still serve a purpose, be it gaming, home theater, workstation, or whatever, then they are not obsolete. Computer gaming may be small compared to the entirety of the computer market, but when major games sell millions of copies, the computers needed to play those games are in general use.
GasBandit
Staff member
Why does the majority of the computer market matter? If desktops still serve a purpose, be it gaming, home theater, workstation, or whatever, then they are not obsolete. Computer gaming may be small compared to the entirety of the computer market, but when major games sell millions of copies, the computers needed to play those games are in general use.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, there's a difference between "loss of prevalence" and "obsolescence." I can possibly see laptops becoming more popular in general than desktops, but when it comes to computers, when you start talking about how "X makes Y obsolete," it generally implies "Y will not be manufactured or sold new anymore."
Weird. Both of them show up just fine for me.
Honestly, my biggest concern is that the market for the high-end ('enthusiast') home PC will shrink to the point where nobody wants to make them due to the inability to make a profit off such a small segment of the market. Or worse, they still sell the products, but mark them up 10x normal price to make up for the difference. As an example, it used to be that people worked directly with electronic components, but now it's all about modules, not components. This can come back to bite you if you are not electronics-savvy ($400 for a full PSU v. about $8 for a few parts).
--Patrick
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