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PC obsolescence is obsolete

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Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#21

Post by monkeyfacebag »

Silhouette wrote: post #13
monkeyfacebag wrote: post #5

No doubt it has been replaced by device obsolescence, where the screen, camera, wireless radio, etc. are bundled together and improvements in any one component compels the purchase of a whole new unit.

Sad, but true. Faced with the reality that well-designed, flexible, modular systems have simply become too good, manufacturers are now effectively building in forced obsolescence, either tying components together (the Apple way) or arbitrarily declaring that only certain combinations are permitted (which also works with consumables, like the way my HP colour printer refused to print a black and white document the oth…

To be fair, I don't think the integrated device model is worse than the beige box model per se. Tablets and smartphones afford us completely new ways to interact with computers (and each other). Recent ones, such as the Nexus 7, are reasonably priced to boot. There are some perhaps unavoidable consequences of replacing whole devices rather than individual components (environmental, to say the least), but in the abstract I think it's hard to say whether one model is necessarily worse than the other.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#22

Post by cynicalkane »

Silhouette wrote: post #13
monkeyfacebag wrote: post #5

No doubt it has been replaced by device obsolescence, where the screen, camera, wireless radio, etc. are bundled together and improvements in any one component compels the purchase of a whole new unit.

Sad, but true. Faced with the reality that well-designed, flexible, modular systems have simply become too good, manufacturers are now effectively building in forced obsolescence, either tying components together (the Apple way) or arbitrarily declaring that only certain combinations are permitted (which also works with consumables, like the way my HP colour printer refused to print a black and white document the oth…

The computer market is not a conspiracy of manufacturers that get together and decide to screw customers. And absent a conspiracy, there's no profit in that. Actually, I'd argue that the computer world has been increasingly tending toward openness, not away from it; but consumer devices are special a use case where almost all of computer-buying humanity simply doesn't care about the things you care about.

Anyway, I'd like to see a "modular, flexible" hardware device that meets the specs of an IPhone or Macbook Air. As for printers and gfx drivers, those have sucked since the beginning of time.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#23

Post by Synaesthesia »

ZoFreX wrote: post #9

> Now, compare an early Core i7 system (Nehalem) against what’s shipping today (Ivy Bridge). Clock speeds are up a bit, and there are cheaper/lower-end options available, but the Core i7-920 that launched at 2.67GHz with four cores and eight threads is still absolutely capable of powering the latest games and applications. A big, big factor in the slowdown of obsolecense is that the current generation of consoles has…

I disagree, we're simply just not seeing the growth in performance we used to, on the high end of the spectrum. This is valid for consoles too. It's not because of the consoles.

On the mobile side however, the recent performance increases have been very dramatic, just like in the early days with the 386 and Pentium and stuff.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#24

Post by pasbesoin »

Two (well, three) things have helped me extend the effective life of a few machines for self and family. 1. (Particularly for laptops,) Purchase top-end discreet graphics processing.); 2. Max out the RAM before it becomes terribly expensive (as its form factor is passed by); 3. When storage space becomes constrained, throw a new hard drive in there.

Particularly the graphics processing on laptops. Inevitably, this ends up making the difference between a machine becoming "a little slow" versus it becoming "unusable", for general, day-to-day use.

In the next ten years, who knows? But I'm betting that going with the best graphics processing available (again, particularly in laptops, where this is often un-upgradable) is going to be a good investment in terms of extending a unit's effective lifespan.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#25

Post by pooriaazimi »

donpdonp wrote: post #11

Core i7? PC Hardware hit a usability plateau with the Core 2 Duo. For modest tasks, my 4.5 year old thinkpad and home desktop are both Core 2 Duo and perform most tasks fabulously. I do look forward to an upgrade but I have thought the same thing that this article states - that PCs are lasting much much longer than they used to. What is more interesting is smaller hardware. Mini-ITX systems, The RaspberryPi, and ATME…

Indeed. My 2009, 15" 2.53GHz C2D (with 8GB RAM) is still ridiculously fast for most things. I don't play any games, but for development, I don't feel a need to upgrade. I would love to upgrade of course, but that would be out of pure whim, not a need. I'll probably wait till next year's rMBP (hopefully it'll be cheaper and more powerful) and fully expect that machine to work for me till 2018 (that is, unless the battery dies on me).

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#26

Post by leviathant »

It really depends on what you do with your computer. I had a Core 2 Quad system that was perfectly fine for me in 2008, but as I dabble further in HD video editing, I dropped money on a new system a month or two ago. Now I can preview effects in real-time, and the rendering time is so much faster. Likewise, working with photos from my Canon T2i. The ability to chuck 24gb of memory in the system doesn't hurt either, and SSDs? I actually put my 4-year old computer on Craigslist for free because it seemed pretty useless to me after upgrading to this new system.

I'm looking forward to what kind of technology will be available in 2016.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#27

Post by quaunaut »

ZoFreX wrote: post #9

> Now, compare an early Core i7 system (Nehalem) against what’s shipping today (Ivy Bridge). Clock speeds are up a bit, and there are cheaper/lower-end options available, but the Core i7-920 that launched at 2.67GHz with four cores and eight threads is still absolutely capable of powering the latest games and applications. A big, big factor in the slowdown of obsolecense is that the current generation of consoles has…

This can't be emphasized enough- the only reason nothing has moved forward is because gaming hasn't paved the way. Most major hardware advancements on the desktop we've had have been a result of devices added for higher requirements in games. And right now, with the death of the B-tier game studio, there's no one pushing PC-only experiences that really has a reason to ignore the consoles. That's it.

Now, whether the next console tier will actually allow that or not? I don't know. Investors seem to be catching wind to just how low-margin the games business is, and as a result seem to think social gaming is the way to go(if Zynga's large and horrible decline hasn't convinced you that they are wrong yet, give it time. It will.)- which means less marketing dollars justifying that new console, and thusly, less reason to push the desktop.

But we haven't stopped because there's no more need. Just, the market is in a bit of a wonky place right now. Console manufacturers would love to have a new one to sell, but developers are pushing back because to actually develop at the kind of fidelity required to go past where we are now, your average game's budget will quickly double or more, with few returns in terms of profits- those margins just keep getting thinner.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#28

Post by rodly »

icefox wrote: post #20
ZoFreX wrote: post #9

> Now, compare an early Core i7 system (Nehalem) against what’s shipping today (Ivy Bridge). Clock speeds are up a bit, and there are cheaper/lower-end options available, but the Core i7-920 that launched at 2.67GHz with four cores and eight threads is still absolutely capable of powering the latest games and applications. A big, big factor in the slowdown of obsolecense is that the current generation of consoles has…

In a way the article yells out trouble for Microsoft and friends. If their customers hardware from the last five years is "good enough" they wont go looking for an upgrade. (They will go looking for a _new_ toy with the ipad though). If next generation consoles really did drive desktop sales it would have been in Microsoft's interests to get out the next generation xbox sooner right?

I don't think it's easy to see Microsoft profiting by leveraging its Xbox division to boost PC sales (Windows license sales). I can't find a source for this, but I doubt Microsoft made much money if at all on the Xbox 360. The money is in Xbox live subscriptions and taking a percentage from sales on the marketplace. This is similar to how Amazon sells its Kindle line at a negative profit but makes a killing in Prime memberships and eBook %'s.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#29

Post by roc »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #23
ZoFreX wrote: post #9

> Now, compare an early Core i7 system (Nehalem) against what’s shipping today (Ivy Bridge). Clock speeds are up a bit, and there are cheaper/lower-end options available, but the Core i7-920 that launched at 2.67GHz with four cores and eight threads is still absolutely capable of powering the latest games and applications. A big, big factor in the slowdown of obsolecense is that the current generation of consoles has…

I disagree, we're simply just not seeing the growth in performance we used to, on the high end of the spectrum. This is valid for consoles too. It's not because of the consoles. On the mobile side however, the recent performance increases have been very dramatic, just like in the early days with the 386 and Pentium and stuff.

The problem of desktop performance gain isn't that the gains aren't there, it's that people aren't buying them even when they are. People aren't buying 6GB of RAM, let alone 8. They're not buying SSDs for their desktops, even though those represent real-world speed boosts right in line with years-ago trends.

So with desktop demand tapering off, the performance jumps taper off. And with laptop demand still strong, performance jumps there remain strong. And with mobile demand sky-high: the performance jumps there are as high as computing has ever enjoyed.

If anything, consoles have been languishing for the same reasons desktops have been: there's simply not a lot of demand for a bigger/faster console.

Sure, eventually there will be new ones; just as Intel inevitably releases new motherboards and chips, despite soft competition from AMD and flagging demand. But the growth and clamor isn't there and the performance increases likely won't be either.

Re: PC obsolescence is obsolete

#30

Post by mikeash »

Silhouette wrote: post #13
monkeyfacebag wrote: post #5

No doubt it has been replaced by device obsolescence, where the screen, camera, wireless radio, etc. are bundled together and improvements in any one component compels the purchase of a whole new unit.

Sad, but true. Faced with the reality that well-designed, flexible, modular systems have simply become too good, manufacturers are now effectively building in forced obsolescence, either tying components together (the Apple way) or arbitrarily declaring that only certain combinations are permitted (which also works with consumables, like the way my HP colour printer refused to print a black and white document the oth…

Integrated devices aren't some grand conspiracy. Modular systems have costs, both in terms of money as well as size and weight. Consumers are deciding on their own, by and large, that modularity isn't worth the cost.

Likewise, it's easy to buy non-stupid printers right now, today. But few people want to pay what they cost. Even techies would rather spend $50 on a printer and then complain about how it screws them over with ink than spend $200 on a good printer.

If you want people to fight the trend, start with yourself. No, you can't fight it everywhere (not enough people want a modular cell phone for anyone to actually manufacture one), but you can fight it in a lot of places. Start by not buying crappy and restrictive printers just because they're cheap.

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