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The PC is interesting again

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Re: The PC is interesting again

#41

Post by nemothekid »

snvzz wrote: post #26
delegate wrote: post #7

Yep. Yesterday was the first time in many years when I decided to check out how much a good gaming PC would cost me today. The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). Add a €360 27" Monitor and the total goes to € 1875. Let's round that up to €2000. A similarly powered iMac (i7, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and an inferior Radeon R9 M395X) costs exactly:…

> The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). That's not a gaming pc. That looks more like a gaming-capable Workstation. Absolutely overkill CPU (games are seldom cpu bound), and too much RAM (games don't care). I suggest a glance at Logical Increments [0], which is definitely biased towards gaming, to see what you can do at a given price point.…

I think at 1080p gaming, CPU power is more important nowadays. Overwatch benefits greatly from the i7 6700k over the i5 6600k, going from 240-260fps to 300fps (the cap imposed by the engine, hitting this cap is useful for reducing input lag). As a result I've seen many gaming builds rocking the 6700k (and even 3000Mhz RAM!)

Re: The PC is interesting again

#42

Post by onli »

snvzz wrote: post #26
delegate wrote: post #7

Yep. Yesterday was the first time in many years when I decided to check out how much a good gaming PC would cost me today. The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). Add a €360 27" Monitor and the total goes to € 1875. Let's round that up to €2000. A similarly powered iMac (i7, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and an inferior Radeon R9 M395X) costs exactly:…

> The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). That's not a gaming pc. That looks more like a gaming-capable Workstation. Absolutely overkill CPU (games are seldom cpu bound), and too much RAM (games don't care). I suggest a glance at Logical Increments [0], which is definitely biased towards gaming, to see what you can do at a given price point.…

If I may, Logical Increments is nice, but sometimes leads astray. I develop a hardware recommender, and this is in my eyes a good gaming PC for 1440p: https://www.pc-kombo.de/share/OqqYoLX. i5-6600K with 16GB DDR4-3000 on a Z170 board, good psu and good cooler. When playing on a lower resolution like the usual 1080p, AMD with a RX 480 would be a good choice, otherwise there is no alternative to the GTX 1070.

Intel just released the Kaby Lake processors which are tiny bit faster (because they are clocked higher), currently integrating this. But does not change much.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#43

Post by seanmcdirmid »

zouhair wrote: post #8

When did they stop being interesting?

The PC market stopped growing a few years ago, post market growth usually means innovation slows down because everyone can see the ceiling of the market.

The market still isn't growing that much, but we are seeing interesting innovative computers nonetheless. Perhaps a redefinition of the market to cross over with tablets.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#44

Post by literallycancer »

freehunter wrote: post #14
zouhair wrote: post #8

When did they stop being interesting?

I would actually argue that this is the least interesting that PCs have ever been. The only thing they're doing that's interesting is copying features from more interesting form factors like tablets and cell phones. The PC (laptop/desktop, doesn't matter the OS) is complete. This years fastest processor is exactly the same speed as last year. This years video card plays the same games as last year. What interesting t…

High refresh rate screens are quite interesting. Which also means you need better components to run things at reasonable FPS.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#45

Post by [deleted] »

mrob wrote: post #38
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my iMac not because if any brand cachet, but I program a lot and love crisp typography on the screen. It is quite simple, you don't have to buy one, no it isn't a gaming machine. No reason to fuck Apple about it.

There are lots of programming fonts designed to be used without anti-aliasing. This is a much cheaper way to get crisp typography.

[deleted]

Re: The PC is interesting again

#46

Post by kfrz »

matt4077 wrote: post #22
delegate wrote: post #7

Yep. Yesterday was the first time in many years when I decided to check out how much a good gaming PC would cost me today. The price for a i7 6700K 4.1GHz, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and nVidia GTX 1070: €1515 EUR (case and CPU cooler included). Add a €360 27" Monitor and the total goes to € 1875. Let's round that up to €2000. A similarly powered iMac (i7, 32GB RAM, 500GB SSD and an inferior Radeon R9 M395X) costs exactly:…

I just tried to find a screen that's comparable to the iMac (resolution 5210 x 2880 and wide gamut colour space), and those I did find actually were around $2000 (i. e. http://amzn.to/2iPC5SZ ). I also believe the price difference is magnified by the options you chose – Apple does indeed charge too much for additions like RAM. The base model, with the same 5k screen, only costs $2000. All that's neither here nor ther…

Note the potential extensive value for someone who needs a display they can use with multiple inputs or wants to keep it for the future... There's something different about a standalone display panel. Besides all said and done a custom build PC + 2x 4k panels can be bought for the same price range so why wouldn't you? Because Apple socks the psychology of scale and experience at you so the price is a bit easier of a pill to swallow alongside any other hang backs you may have: closed ecosystem of software, oh and hardware, questionable design changes re: battery life and touch bar in latest MBP, their pattern of designed obsolescence, insert gripe here but that's plenty for me to laughably head to the nearest Dell or Lenovo product when it comes to a laptop and entirely self built when it comes to PC.

Right now I have a thinkpad e560 with 1tb ssd, 16GB rip jaws ram, i76500u at 2.5ghz. Now I know this anecdote is not really the same as what is on the market now but I paid $1.2k, I have a blu-ray if I want it, extra ssd if I don't. Also card reader. And plenty of USB 2/3 and network and even a Fucking VGA out. It's just as fast as my last retina MBP, and I used the cash differece for 4k panel.

Why people upgrade so often is beyond me. Maybe it's a capitalism thing. This human race is fucked.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#47

Post by wyclif »

roschdal wrote: post #33

I agree. As a developer, a desktop PC gives me the most value and peformance. I recently replaced my Asus zenbook laptop with a new desktop PC that I built myself, with an Intel i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and a great nVidia graphics card, at a price that no laptop could ever compete.

Just today I was listening to more grief and complaints about the new MBPs (I develop on an older one now), and I got so tired of it all and said to myself, "the way out of this cycle might be to build a desktop PC and put a Linux distro on it."

I don't take my current rig out of my office very often these days, though if I were living somewhere else I might. But I can get all my work done in my office for sure, so this is looking like a good way out for me. Did you price your components out on NewEgg?

Re: The PC is interesting again

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mrob wrote: post #38
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my iMac not because if any brand cachet, but I program a lot and love crisp typography on the screen. It is quite simple, you don't have to buy one, no it isn't a gaming machine. No reason to fuck Apple about it.

There are lots of programming fonts designed to be used without anti-aliasing. This is a much cheaper way to get crisp typography.

I use proportional fonts and feel most programming fonts are butt ugly. But even then, there isn't no reason to go with a crippled font designed for low resolution (1080p). The hardware is available now and while not "cheap", is definitely affordable when compared to my monthly salary. Most of us aren't living in the third world.

Re: The PC is interesting again

#50

Post by Chathamization »

freehunter wrote: post #28
0x0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. In 2013, macs were slightly more expensive than a comparable PC spec-wise, but still a fairly good deal. In 2016, the prices appear to have almost doubled and is totally unreasonable, while the specs are... malnourished. They even took away the escape key and the magsafe port. :(

According to their Amazon product page, the XPS 13 has a 2.5Ghz i5 and 8GB of RAM. It has a 256GB SSD and a 3000x1800 screen. It's selling for $1,350, original price $1,799. The 13" MacBook with touchbar has a 2.9Ghz i5 with 8GB of RAM. It has a 256GB SSD and a 2560x1600 screen. It's selling for $1,699, original price $1,799. I know people love to complain about the new MacBook and believe me, I have some complaints…

I noticed the same thing with phones. I've read a lot of comments that the iPhone was much more expensive than Android phones. But whenever I ask for Android recommendations, the very same people would recommend phones like the S7 that are just as expensive as iPhones.
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