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The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

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Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#61

Post by abvdasker »

Yeah, I pretty much agree with that premise. In my experience, faster CPUs and RAM make little difference compared to the gains from an SSD. Hard drive disks are such a huge bottleneck compared to other upgrades that the average user gets the biggest gains in responsiveness from upgrading to an SSD. And for a lot of PCs that doesn't even necessitate buying a new one.

For laptops it's a different story. The big push seems to be in reduction of power consumption for longer battery life, which sounds pretty sensible to me. I guess if battery life is a big concern for a PC user, then it makes sense to go to a smaller process. That does seem like a pretty small reason to upgrade, though.

Another good indicator that the PC "game" has changed is that the two major commercial PC OS's just released their latest versions (Mavericks & 8.1) for free.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#62

Post by Osiris »

bennyg wrote: post #56
mortenjorck wrote: post #47

Five years ago, I bought a MacBook Pro to replace my PowerBook G4, which was itself five years old. The list of obsolescences was enormous: It had only USB 1.1 in a market teeming with new USB 2.0 hardware that couldn't have existed with the slower speeds; it had a single-touch trackpad just as OS X was introducing all sorts of useful multi-touch gestures; it relied on clumsy external solutions for wi-fi and Bluetoot…

I would just upgrade the RAM and put an SSD in there and you should be good for a while. Drooping an SSD in mine was the single biggest upgrade I've done for productivity and battery life.

I have an old Dell D830 with a 1.8 Ghz Core2. I put an SSD in there and it made it feel like a whole new machine. My parents were complaining out their slow computers. I had them buy SSDs.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#63

Post by jamesaguilar »

gtaylor wrote: post #8

I built a dev/gaming machine back in early 2010. It's stout, but not a ridiculously expensive (~$1,000) behemoth. The only thing I've done since then is toss some more RAM in so I could have two sets of triple channel DDR3 instead of one. I can still run just about any modern AAA game at the highest settings. The only time I felt like I've needed an upgrade is while playing Planetside 2, which is/was very CPU bound f…

I guess this will change for a little while as updated consoles come out and games can improve their graphics as a result, and also when 4k monitors start coming out. But yeah, until those two things come into play, older computers still play games just fine.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#64

Post by bluedino »

Don't worry, PC manufacturers are currently selling machines that are already obsolete.

My dad went to Walmart and bought a computer (why he didn't just ask me to either advise him, or ask if he could have one of my spare/old ones I don't know) and monitor for $399.

It's an HP powered by a AMD E1-1500. It's awfully slow. Chokes on YouTube half the time. My dad is new to the online experience, so he basically uses it for watching streaming content.

I could have grabbed him a $99 Athlon X4 or C2D on craigslist and it would better than this thing. I'm not sure if he'll ever experience a faster computer so I don't think he'll ever get frustrated with this machine, but it's amazing that they sell an utter piece of shit like this as a new machine.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#65

Post by handzhiev »

evo_9 wrote: post #35

The PC is dead, it's just not dead for computer professionals, and never will be. But for the rest of the world - think mom, dad, gramps,grammy - why on earth do the need the headaches of a full PC (mac or windows)? A good tablet is basically enough for almost everyone else.

I'll never get this point. Laptop - fine, yes, but a tablet? How do you chat, post FB status, or write an email from the virtual keyboard? It's painful. Especially if you are 50+. I don't see my mom or dad using these devices.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#66

Post by qwerta »

bhouston wrote: post #15

CPUs have not gotten significantly faster in the last couple years, especially at the high end. Back in Q1 2010 I got an Intel Core i7 980X which benchmarked at 8911 according to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+X+980+... Now in Q2 2013 (3 years later) the very top of the line processor available, an Intel Xeon E5-2690 v2, is only twice as fast at 16164: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=In…

CPUs are actually getting slower after overclocking

I have water cooled 2600k at 5GHz running 24/7. Bigger GPU and more cores brings additional complexity and more heat. No other CPU can handle this without blowing up.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#68

Post by fsck--off »

evo_9 wrote: post #35

The PC is dead, it's just not dead for computer professionals, and never will be. But for the rest of the world - think mom, dad, gramps,grammy - why on earth do the need the headaches of a full PC (mac or windows)? A good tablet is basically enough for almost everyone else.

Anecdotally, I've found that "non-technical users" have trouble adjusting to any new UI, including Apple laptops, phones and tablets.

For them the choice is between keeping an old computer, on which they already know how to send emails and compose documents, and buying a new tablet on which they will need to learn a whole new set of UI idioms. In addition, physical keyboards and larger screens (and no "ipad neck") make laptops and desktop computers more attractive.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#69

Post by eric5544 »

evo_9 wrote: post #35

The PC is dead, it's just not dead for computer professionals, and never will be. But for the rest of the world - think mom, dad, gramps,grammy - why on earth do the need the headaches of a full PC (mac or windows)? A good tablet is basically enough for almost everyone else.

I think even for the casual user there are a still a lot of use-cases in favor of a PC. Basically anything to do with managing large amount of content like photos, music or even fairly light content creation like writing long emails is much easier to do on a computer with a larger screen and mouse/keyboard.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#70

Post by drzaiusapelord »

DigitalJack wrote: post #32
bhouston wrote: post #15

CPUs have not gotten significantly faster in the last couple years, especially at the high end. Back in Q1 2010 I got an Intel Core i7 980X which benchmarked at 8911 according to http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+X+980+... Now in Q2 2013 (3 years later) the very top of the line processor available, an Intel Xeon E5-2690 v2, is only twice as fast at 16164: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=In…

Can you give an example of a faster rate in the past?

The jump from Pentium 4 to Core2Duo. You could go from a typical Penitum 4 in 2004 to a new C2D in 2006 and get a major performance boost.

The C2D to i7 jump was pretty significant as well.

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