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PCs are dying

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Ivy

Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2011
@ Ivy
Anyone who wants the absolute best doesn't care about power consumption or price.

Also people have been heralding the death for the PC for years and we are anything but dying. Tablets are great for tablets, but you can't do stuff like video editing and photoshop on a tablet or laptop.


Let's keep this clean for new Kepler info. Start a new thread if you really want to discuss this.

1. If you got to much money just give it to me, ofc they do care... everyone do want more for less.

2. Video Editing/Photoshop still is in need of a Desktop PC but thats buisness related, not mainstream.


More Info here: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=696881&page=3
 
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Because they say that they want to talk about Kepler... although its not even out yet, and it wont for many months. ;) Everything is pure speculations till that point.
 
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Its a speculation thread. That's the entire point of it.. but on to your thread;

PC's are fine. There are tons of them selling, nothing to be alarmed about for a while. I think this belongs in the General Discussion forum if anything, its a general opinion about your negative outlook on PC's and looks more like a debate than actual PC discussion.
 
Uhhh, if I don't have a PC to mod I will have to find another expensive hobby. I need the ability to check my email at 5 Ghz, and a tablet just won't do!
 
In the business sector, yes PC's are and will die out very soon. Thin-clients and zero-clients will replace your standard end-user desktop machine, which will eliminate much of the cost of support. If you currently work in a company IT department as an end-user support tech and want to stay in IT, start studying for advanced certs and specialize in something. I predict within the next 5 years end-user IT support departments (primarily field support personnel) will be reduced by 50% industry wide.

I can see developers and home users holding on the the PC a lot longer; especially home users. As networking technologies improve, thin-clients may be able to supply equal or greater computing power as todays workstation grade machines at a lower cost. I see workstations joining the private cloud within the next 10 years.

It's kind of hard to say what will happen to the home PC. I believe that the performance-computing/gaming industry will still be there 10 years from now and people like most of us here at OCF will still build high-end desktop; the only difference I see is a slight increase in hardware costs, as demand will shrink. Already, tablets, smart phones, and laptops can suffice for nearly all the needs of the average joe-user (facebook, messaging, youtube, and music). The functions of the personal computer will likely become integrated in all other electronic devices.

One somewhat radical idea is that ISP's will start providing cloud processing power, scalable to users needs, along with internet access. I don't see this happening for at least another 5-10 years though; we kind of have the networking, however the infrastructure is not yet in place.
 
Thin clients already have replaced PCs once, maybe twice.
Then business software got more intense and the thin clients all had to be junked.

Same for zero-clients (dumb terminals).

I would be shocked if the PC market actually disappeared.
It's been said to be dying every 3-4 years since at least 1996.
 
Tell 3D animation techs / TV programmers, graphic designers, Engineers, scientists, PC gamers, that they will get those in exchange for their current machines, they will laugh at you.

If anything, PC will simply transition into smaller solutions, with more computational power with smaller footprints.

Maybe in the next few generations.. New form factor or something.
 
Don't worry PC's are not going to go the way of the dinosaur. There's too much that can be done on PC's (high end games, editing,etc) that can't be done easily on other form factors (tablets, phones, etc).

Tablets and smartphones are great for email and facebook but how often do you want to stare at a 3 inch screen going bug-eyed, when you have a nice monitor to stare at instead.

Mobility is nice, but you still can't burn a dvd, store gigs of stuff on them (unless you use an SD card), or even interact with the rest of your network (some people still have difficulty doing this due to MAC OS and Linux being a little finicky with Microsoft stuff).

Yes these might be poor arguments, but they are my arguments, hahaha.

But yes there is a large market for mobile computing and entertainment, where it will go, no one knows.
 
This is search terms using google in the last 8 years.

Blue = PC games
Red = ps3 games
Yellow = Xbox games
viz

http://www.google.ca/trends/?q=pc+games,+ps3+games,+xbox+games&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Blue = PC
Red = ps3
Yellow = Xbox
viz

http://www.google.ca/trends/?q=pc,+ps3,+xbox&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Blue = PC
Red = Laptop
Yellow = Tablet
Green = Slim PC
viz

http://www.google.ca/trends/?q=pc,+laptop,+tablet,+slim+pc&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
 
And.......that about does it for this thread. Nice stats diaz. I love it when there is proof in the pudding!
 
Is that chart showing us that people aren't interested in PC's as much, or is it telling us that people (like myself) have developed a good bookmark file and/or do their searching directly on the e-tailers that they've developed a preference for over the past 8 years?

**Even my Mom knew who Dell was, and how to get there. (she liked to keep presents a secret, even from other siblings).
 
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Not sure how many replies were directed towards my previous post, but for those that are, I'm thinking 5-10 years from now. There are no practical thin/zero client solutions today that can replace a workstation (just to be clear, workstations are high-end computers used for engineering, development, and (graphics) design). However, I'm certain that infrastructure technologies will eventually be able to deliver the processing power of a workstation to thin/zero client in the near future.

In the industry I work in, thin clients have already replaced 10-15% of desktops. You can cite the fact that it's been tried before and failed; however, the difference today is that we now have sufficient computing power and network infrastructure to actually support thin/zero clients. And there are so many benefits for an organization to use thin/zero clients over a full desktop:

1) Cost. They are probably already cost-effective for larger enterprises that would otherwise also have to spend a lot of money on infrastructure. Costs will continue to go down as this technology continues to become leaner and scalable... and it is.

2) Smaller surface area for support. Goes along with cost, but I feel this needs to be distinguished. Organizations will have less need for field support technicians and desktop support specialists. No need to re-image machines, replace hard drives, or troubleshoot a users computer to the component prior to restoring service.

3) Due to #2, we're also looking at higher uptime. A machine breaks, the USER can simply pull a spare client from a closet, plug it in and be back to work before the broken client is even given to the IT department for servicing.

4) Less data loss. Anyone who works in IT is probably accustom to telling users to back up their data on network drives, and nearly every seasoned IT person has probably had to tell several users that their PST file, on their local hard drive, with 5+ years of email is gone and won't be coming back because their hard drive failed. By nature, A thin/zero client infrastructure greatly reduces the likelihood of similar scenarios.

5) Security. The threat of Data loss--not the data loss from #4, rather data ending up in the wrong hands--is significantly reduced, because data no longer resides on your clients. Focus on edge security and sound business and authentication policies, and the only thing you loose if end-client gets lost/stolen is a couple hundred dollars, rather than a couple hundred more dollars (full clients are more expensive) and a hard drive potentially containing sensitive data.

Many vendors and organizations see these potential benefits and are quickly moving towards a private cloud desktop solution. The cloud will continue to grow more powerful and it won't be long before these engineers, developers, scientists, and programmers, who once laughed at this idea, find themselves in a tough spot when they try to justify to management why they are so special that they should keep their full-client workstation.


On a side note, I built my current main gaming rig (the one in my sig) January 2010 and have never overclocked it. It's about two years old and I've been able to play new games (Skyrim) at their maximum settings with no problems what-so-ever. With my previous builds, I've had to do at least a graphics card upgrade about every year, or a full system upgrade every 18 months to be able to play the latest games at the time at max settings. It seems to me that current hardware is more than capable of keeping up with the latest software. It appears that there may be a 'surplus' in computing power which will further drive hardware away from the end-user and into the cloud, simply because it's more economical to do so.
 
I'm not sure processing power and network infrastructure are going to do away with the PC any time soon. We've had both in sufficient quantities for thin/zero clients to be workstation-grade since the '70s, and yet once commodity (read: x86) hardware became cheap enough, we never looked back.

I think the problem has been cost. Sure hardware cost is dropping (and at the moment, faster than software demands are pushing it up), but a million dollar cluster is still out of reach for most businesses. Even if that price drops in half in a decade, that's still a pretty steep ticket. Unless you have more than low-hundreds of users, a thin/zero client setup (despite its many benefits!) winds up with a higher price tag than a merely somewhat-centralized solution (e.g. active directory + user directories on a network filesystem + standardized "fat" clients)

JigPu
 
Consoles and PC's have been fighting over the game real estate since the beginning of console gaming. PC's still have games, and they are still quite abundant, if anything, way more than 20 years ago. The demand for console gaming is much larger, but PC is far from "legacy". It is the flagship of gaming...

As soon as I hop on my PS3, I cringe at the crappyness of the graphics...

How about development of hardware? Look at all the hardware available out there. 15 years ago, there was a Voodoo 3 vs a TNT Riva 2. Now, there are a full series of cards for every price point, an entire industry around power supplies, a couple dozen models of ram...

Of course Intel will discard the GPU race.
What can be said for sure, the huge systems in the past 10 years increased in size and PSUs more and more. Now we indeed created endless amount of parts (of which many of those got same basic ingridients, but another brand), unfortunately the usual user doesnt need it anymore, and the PC gamers are getting shorter than ever before. Finally we will soon have a change in market behaviour, we are already inside.

Intel doesnt focus on creating a desktop GPU, to much competition already, they are trying to implement the stuff into the CPU for Notbooks and will aswell focus on Smartphones and such.

15 years ago, we kinda was at the stone age of consumer PCs for gaming. It took at least 10 year of development to barely create a mature environment. PCs was way to expensive at those point and every few years the stuff was just to weak to barely tackle a new game. So i needed new PC every few years. Ofc i didnt have the money because i was a Teeny (without rich parents) and then i simply had a very weak PC (which was a present from someone who wanted to upgrade) and was barely able to play online with others because i had like 2-3 FPS and then i was to shy to tell that my *censored* PC just was a weak junk container... new PC was totaly unaffordable, but i was able to afford a console... and thats where the console gaming started, kinda. I had lot of fun on console (and a very old TV)... for maybe 200$ (i was saving up cash for like a year to get that one) because i got me a old used console... more affordable. Those days, even the Windows OS was more expensive than that... seriously. Not everyone is rich on this world and console is cheaper if you are only getting a few games and the game will work for the next 10 years... no upgrade needed. Nowdays i simply got enough of being poor and thats why i act like rich... I just want to see the other side of the cookie. 15 years ago, a PC was considered for rich people and a OS was like the most expensive part of the PC. Everytime i got me a game (usualy a bargain, wasnt able to pay full price), i had to check out the minimum spec... and then i saw that this games minimum spec is possible on my PC. However, that doesnt mean that it will run well, some stuff was nearly unplayable.

The price for sufficient computer hardware surely did decrease a lot and finally more and more people was able to afford it, its not anymore for rich people only. But we finally are entering a new era, in which we have very small devices to be very powerful and for most casual users totaly sufficient. And even if we got the best infrastructure ever, we kinda have loss in market share for desktop PC, because simply.. we are finally at the timeline where desktop hardware isnt anymore the real limitation, its rather the ineffective and bad coding.

The crappyness of the PS3 graphic is mostly a TV issue. On a new Panasonic Plasma, i am surprised about the potency of only "720P", the TV or monitor does matter a lot. Ofc the PC is much better (1080P at max graphic is like goddess) but that hardware is several times the price and the support for those games is sadly soon very low (cheap ports is becoming very popular). An example of a game i cant play without PC is "Civ 5", that one just rules on PC, but usualy i only got a bunch because im annoyed at the endless DRM methods, its close to cracking down my PC. Mostly i use my PC as a media center. And i like to use my PC for DRM free classic games who got the original taste of a non castrated unleashed game.
Tell 3D animation techs / TV programmers, graphic designers, Engineers, scientists, PC gamers, that they will get those in exchange for their current machines, they will laugh at you.

If anything, PC will simply transition into smaller solutions, with more computational power with smaller footprints.

Maybe in the next few generations.. New form factor or something.

Ofc, im already doing the first steps, i can see the changes.

Google search Graph is nonsense, because you will need the same graph for economics... the world is only focused on economics, you should know that by now. ;) Thats why we lose PC devs on a daily rate. Another issue is, its simply much cheaper to develop a crap game with crap graphics and the mainstream is asking for... they do not want a unleashed game freshly made from a alien, all they want is a primitive junk of software perfectly tuned according to theyr brainstate, totaly castrated and hopefully able to fit inside a smartphone. They do not even understand why to use a big machine for and whats HD anyway? The inventor of "Unreal Tournament" Michael Schmalz was recently telling us that games on PC could be so much more enhanced but its simply to expensive to develop for PC only. He is sad about and he certainly hope that there will be a more powerful console soon. 512 MB RAM isnt anymore "up to date", he said (biggest issue he have to tackle). Nowadays they have to develop for several systems at once, which is usualy including consoles. The one getting the hard hit... is the PC system, who could handle so much more. But finally, its reality... nothing different. PC Games, cant be sold to other people anymore, so the market for "retro stuff" is close to zero. Therefore PC games is close to no real value for collectors, another weak spot. When i want to sell a old PC game, i get nothing for, could just trash it (people do not value DRM and all that stuff). On Steam they are aswell account bound, if you lose the account you lose all the games. The issues goes petty deep... and isnt described any easy.
**Even my Mom knew who Dell was, and how to get there. (she liked to keep presents a secret, even from other siblings).
I wish i would not know "Dell"; its mainstream ... *grabs a mistle tea... in a jittery manner*

One somewhat radical idea is that ISP's will start providing cloud processing power, scalable to users needs, along with internet access. I don't see this happening for at least another 5-10 years though; we kind of have the networking, however the infrastructure is not yet in place.
We will need fibre connection, we are still far away from the condition, even the richest countrys only got it at big cities, but half of the people are still living outside city. And finally WE ALL do need it, not only a city hog. So for the next 20+ years its not real to make good clouding. Broadband over copper isnt only much slower, its aswell pretty unstable in many cases, its NOT a adequate way to massively deliver high amount of picture data. Its just not stable enough, quality is worse. But there is others issues too, you will have to pay monthly fee to a ISP or server station, and not every station will be on the same level and cost. It can even be forbidden to get a server outside a particullar country, i know many server hoster who doesnt allow foreign people to rent them, so they are stick to probably very worse offers bound to own country. Finally some people have to pay a fortune and get weak servers while others have to pay few and get strong servers. We simply never can act equal and we never will, because we are simply humans. The only thing we can actively affect is the own machine.. thats why we enjoy that one that much. Other stuff is usualy being lead by a "higher might". Either the goverment and the industry is awesome or it isnt... and people are close to powerless. Much easyer to buy a strong PC... you can even use a "power" PC in the middle of a desert. All you gonna need is a power generator, monitor, a PC and a game which doesnt require Steam. ;) So im not sure if the PC... will be dying out, but the classical PC... in the current shape... without taking care at efficiency...will be dying i guess because the demand is getting lower and lower. Its just not affordable anymore. Maybe it does still exist but, at a special price, that expensive that only a few can afford it. We can not develop for only a few people.. unless they pay same for theyr games such as the industry is doing it for theyr Adobe Photoshop. ;)

There is lot of factors why classical desktop PCs are decreasing, but some of them can be gotten in my statement. Can only hope that it will be stabilized at some point, and not cause even lesser dev support.
 
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Seems like with you Ivy we always have to beat a dead horse. :argue: Why can you not wrap your head around the fact that the PC is not dying and efficiency is not everyones prime goal when duilding a PC. (part of this is in response to a post he made in the Kepler thread). PCs are greatly improving in efficiency, look at the performance of a P4 and look at a i7 2600k. some pentium 4's ran upwards of 100 Watts the 2600k has a TDP of 95 Watts. So there is power saving with a 2600k and a enormous increase in efficiency. Same can be said with GPU's, just by looking at the nVidia Fermi Architecture. the GF 100 core was powerful and hot and a power hog, then come along the GF 110 and it was even more powerful, still hot and power hungry but it held the performance crown for a year and was much better all round than it predecessor.

So just because everyone is not trying to build a computer that functions like a netbook and sips power does not mean that power PCs are not efficient.

Just try to do photo shop on a netbook :rofl:

Also from the kepler thread;

the reason I am selling my 580's, my BD setup and my SB setup. all for Ivy bridge and a Kepler SLI setup is because Ivy will not be a flop because intel rarely fumbles the ball and they have a huge advantage with tri gate transistors and because nVidia usually delivers good products.

I also bench and can't afford to buy my new toys without selling my old ones. this hobby is just too expensive :p
 
PC gaming stronger than ever? Most developer doesnt anymore develop on PCs because to expensive, they will spread through several plattforms and the only reason high end GPUs are that awesome is because its a single GPU and not several at once, lot higher efficiency. Fake ethusiasts such as me enjoy them a lot.

Lets check the estimated Skyrim sells:
PC: 17%
XBox 360: 57%
PS3: 26%

Lead system: Xbox, same works for countless games. Why should the mod community be stronger than ever? They are locked down by DRM. They risk theyr accounts by doing it, i wouldnt feel save.

PC cant even top charts anymore:
http://www.vgchartz.com/

Console games are wiping the floors with PC games (lot of interesting dicsussions, so we dont have to tackle it, when its already here):
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/100057-25-console-losing
 
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