When do you think PC building and PC in general will die?

[tech.guru]

On 12/14/2020 at 1:20 PM, LazyLand said:

No, this is not one of the annoying stupid websites claiming pcs are dead or something. But I think we will need to accept that in the near future, pcs will die due to the much lower power consumption chips we will use. There will be no need for pcs anymore, only laptops and mini pcs like the mac mini.
What do you guys think ? I bet we don't have more than 25 years left. 


EDIT: I MEANT GAMING/EDITING PCS, NOT INCLUDING SUPER COMPUTERS OR HUGE SERVERS!

Yep ill be gaming on my fridge in the few years

[Roswell]

We’re at the end of silicon shrinking right now with no viable alternative ready to take over. A silicon atom is 0.5nm wide. The best we could hope for is a true 2nm process and even that is up in the air because quantum mechanics says “no thanks bro” at that size and introduces all manners of data inconsistencies.

 

So... if anything, we will be seeing the literal opposite of power efficiency if we want to continue with performance improvements on silicon. A good foreshadowing of this is Nvidia continuing to push their expected gains generation over generation with diminishing returns in the power efficiency department due to die shrinks being unable to keep up and compensate. Their current cards consume staggering amounts of power because there’s no other way to keep the train moving outside of increasing power envelopes.

 

Anyway, what I’m getting to is that gaming, workstations and everything else is moving towards high power draw components which suit desktops more than anything else as long as silicon stays in use.

[Joseph K]

On 12/14/2020 at 10:23 AM, LazyLand said:

That's the whole point, once we move to low enough chips with small enough transistors not even a high end gaming machine will be big.. At some point it will happen, dening it is false. 

This makes no sense. Transistor size get's lower, and density goes up. Sure due to square cube law the denser chips get the more latency in an equal size chip, eventually chips will be pretty small. But we're already at a point where it's becoming so costly and low yield to actually manufacture with smaller and smaller lithography, that soon there will be very few companies trying to push performance in hardware the way it has been for the past 50 years.

[thrasher_565]

imo its going to come down to cost. everything is rising in cost (or getting smaller) there was a point when we use to be able to do custom water cooling, and aluminum case are just not a thing anymore. or cost too much now. when the prices go up in food they wont drop. so less in the pockets means less pc building witch mean less products. you still get a hell of alot of entertainment with a pc for the price so there will be still around just upgrade less. 

 

i do work in a grocery store so i no the rising cost....

[thrasher_565]

8 hours ago, tech.guru said:

Yep ill be gaming on my fridge in the few years

hmm gaming on my watch.... one handed...never thought this day would come...

[thrasher_565]

14 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

Ultimately the "middle" will keep getting hollowed out of the market until there's only all-in-one devices (eg an iphone that can be plugged into dock for a standard keyboard-mouse-monitor setup) and high-end devices (eg i9/Ryzen 9 devices) for consumers.

 

If you ask "who is the target customer" of desktop celeron, pentium, i3, and AMD's APU parts, it's basically all rubbish-tier parts that nobody should be using as a desktop. There are certainly applications where they are useable, still (eg IoT devices) but when I see these things being marketed as "developing world" hardware, I immediately ask "if you're trying to sell to the developing world, what they need are energy-efficient devices, of which desktops are not that." Likewise, when they're promoted as being used in education/chromebooks, again you have the problem of giving kids these poor-performing devices, which then hinders their ability to work with their peers in other schools who might have better, or even different devices.

 

 

i think its just an side effect of manufacturing. they got all these broken dyes that they can kinda make work and sell. yes there are expensive crap gpus and cpus that linus has done many videos about that no one should buy but if they sell who can blame them?

 

i mean p4s are still fine for word documents its not like business have changed there ways so much were they wont work anymore. but it guys wonk fix em so there forced to upgrade.

 

there was an extra food that they built new in my home town and it was in probably like 08ish anyway it had an apple computer (the one with green text) on the customer desk because it used some ordering thing still) i wish i was making this up...

Edited December 16, 2020 by thrasher_565

[thrasher_565]

On 12/14/2020 at 11:01 AM, zhnu said:

Maybe about the same time Legos die, look there will always be either special use cases, the need and will to customize things, I think you're thinking of a pc like you see it today, paradigms shift with time but that doesn't mean you're not going to be allowed to customize your compute device.

lego is so dam costly people 3d print it now.

[thrasher_565]

On 12/14/2020 at 11:07 AM, wall03 said:

The games will keep on getting more and more demanding as our PCs get more and more capable. The average gamer will be attracted to those graphics, then want a more powerful computer, therefor needing something better then the consumer market.

 

Tru but if you look at home computers from the 1980s and notice that the only cooling is some heat sinks and a tiny fan. We're pulling more power from the wall, not less. Yes, efficiency and what not, but the rate in which devices are more efficient is too slow

 

are the game really getting more demanding? last  i checked cyberpunk came out...

Edited December 16, 2020 by thrasher_565

[thrasher_565]

On 12/14/2020 at 4:46 PM, Caroline said:

try playing something or even reading on a five inch screen, come on.

you can in vr...just saying...

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

i think its just an side effect of manufacturing. they got all these broken dyes that they can kinda make work and sell. yes there are expensive crap gpus and cpus that linus has done many videos about that no one should buy but if they sell who can blame them?

The thing is, not even the operating systems will run on these broken dies well. I've had multiple users at the company I do work for, who have 16GB, 6th gen Intel i7 laptops who are having issues working on their Excel sheets. Everyone still running dual-core/8GB systems keeps having problems opening documents or using Outlook.

 

An artist I know, needed more than 32GB of ram to work on art projects, on a Ryzen 9-3900X. 

 

There hits a point where the rubbish parts are not good for anything at all.

 

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

i mean p4s are still fine for word documents its not like business have changed there ways so much were they wont work anymore. but it guys wonk fix em so there forced to upgrade.

 

No, they aren't, not unless you're working on a P4 with no internet access, on Windows XP. Yes some people are willing to hang on to their old computers until they die, but when they die, there's no parts to fix them.

 

2 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

there was an extra food that they built new in my home town and it was in probably like 08ish anyway it had an apple computer (the one with green text) on the customer desk because it used some ordering thing still) i wish i was making this up...

 

If you're talking about Loblaws-Westfair foods companies like Real Canadian Superstore and Extra Foods, they literately use dumb-terminals, green-monochrome screens, and dot-matrix printers. Those are not Apple II's. It wouldn't surprise me if they still use them. Likewise they used handheld inventory computers that were from the 80's or something, in the 2000's. Grocery stores don't cycle their equipment frequently because there is no need to, it's not like food has evolved since the 1900's. Only with the internet shopping experiences (especially this year) did these stores have to actually catch up and offer home delivery over the internet, and that is a relatively new development, like in the last 3 years.

 

[bmwbob]

I built my own PCs when Windows 95 was the operating systems and 500 GB HDD was the norm, but stopped once DELL made it cheaper to buy prebuilt. Build your own is back! 

[thrasher_565]

8 hours ago, Kisai said:

Quote

The thing is, not even the operating systems will run on these broken dies well. I've had multiple users at the company I do work for, who have 16GB, 6th gen Intel i7 laptops who are having issues working on their Excel sheets. Everyone still running dual-core/8GB systems keeps having problems opening documents or using Outlook.

they probably just dont no how to use a computer... there no way that cant run Excel sheets or documents.

 

Quote

An artist I know, needed more than 32GB of ram to work on art projects, on a Ryzen 9-3900X. 

sounds like they work in an professional job so i would think they would be using  professional equipment for the job ... i hope...

 

Quote

No, they aren't, not unless you're working on a P4 with no internet access, on Windows XP. Yes some people are willing to hang on to their old computers until they die, but when they die, there's no parts to fix them.

p4 have internet access? i had a p4 it was my first computer...

 

ok maybe p4 are a little too old but you get my point. any 4core, sata, and4gb ram should be plenty.  the only reason to upgrade is to support windows7/10 and the it guys wont work on them. pules there software they uses all works with windows 10.

Quote

Grocery stores don't cycle their equipment frequently because there is no need to, it's not like food has evolved since the 1900's. Only with the internet shopping experiences (especially this year) did these stores have to actually catch up and offer home delivery over the internet, and that is a relatively new development, like in the last 3 years.

i no we have 2 hand helds at the store i work at now one of them the button is sticky and can order 44 things of vinegar...

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by thrasher_565

[thrasher_565]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

Thanks but I'd like to keep my eyesight pristine as it is

i dont think there any proof were vr can degrade your eye sight...

[Kisai]

11 hours ago, bmwbob said:

I built my own PCs when Windows 95 was the operating systems and 500 GB HDD was the norm, but stopped once DELL made it cheaper to buy prebuilt. Build your own is back! 

I think you meant 500 MB, because the hard drives available during the Win98 era topped out at 8GB.

 

9 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

 

I used actual, real life examples, of what is typical office use today. 8GB RAM/2-core 2.0Ghz machines do not cut it at all. Microsoft Office 365 will drown you.

 

 

[thrasher_565]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

 

 

I used actual, real life examples, of what is typical office use today. 8GB RAM/2-core 2.0Ghz machines do not cut it at all. Microsoft Office 365 will drown you.

 

 

i find this hard to beleave but i guess ill take your word i never used 365 and never will. not that people at work have a chose on what is installed any way. and you will have to use a legit word thing.

[WhitetailAni]

Once the Ryzen 5 3600 is what the Pentium 4 is today, Cyrix will return.

Then PC building will die due to shock.

[thrasher_565]

On 12/14/2020 at 7:10 PM, 2plash6 said:

Gaming PCs and home gaming systems will be up for a while, because for the next few decades(or even further) people will always enjoy to sit down, take a break, and play a game.

vr will change everything but its not the norm yet. why i dont no i guess. i tryed it for an hour and loved it thow i found all the games i played didn't really have much of a how to use vr when your in a vr cafe for the first time.... other then that i love it. i guess they want it controller less, wireless , and i guess cheap? but that's also a problem when there stuff is too cheap and expensive people dont want to buy it.

[PlayStation 2]

It dies whenever it dies. I'm not good at reading the past, the present and the future so at least I'm not gonna pretend to give you a rational answer.

[whm1974]

1 hour ago, ragnarok0273 said:

Once the Ryzen 5 3600 is what the Pentium 4 is today, Cyrix will return.

Then PC building will die due to shock.

I think Via is still produces Cyrix branded CPUs. They are available in Asia and maybe Africa.

[Darkkrus]

On 12/14/2020 at 12:20 PM, LazyLand said:

No, this is not one of the annoying stupid websites claiming pcs are dead or something. But I think we will need to accept that in the near future, pcs will die due to the much lower power consumption chips we will use. There will be no need for pcs anymore, only laptops and mini pcs like the mac mini.
What do you guys think ? I bet we don't have more than 25 years left. 


EDIT: I MEANT GAMING/EDITING PCS, NOT INCLUDING SUPER COMPUTERS OR HUGE SERVERS!

I believe you are looking at this wrong.  Hand drawn carts=horse drawn wagons=internal combustion engine=electric engine.  campfire=pot belly stove=gas stove=electric stove=microwave.   These things all do basically the same thing, It has just gotten more convenient and energy efficient.  The components of computers will change, and it may even become a hobby, But people were building computers before it made sense and I am sure they will continue  We may just not recognise it..

[whm1974]

47 minutes ago, Darkkrus said:

I believe you are looking at this wrong.  Hand drawn carts=horse drawn wagons=internal combustion engine=electric engine.  campfire=pot belly stove=gas stove=electric stove=microwave.   These things all do basically the same thing, It has just gotten more convenient and energy efficient.  The components of computers will change, and it may even become a hobby, But people were building computers before it made sense and I am sure they will continue  We may just not recognise it..

Most Cars are still using ICEs and burn gasoline. Many people do perfer to have Gas stoves for baking Bread and Pizza.

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/15/2020 at 10:50 PM, tech.guru said:

Yep ill be gaming on my fridge in the few years

that was actually also one of those crazy IBM / Ken Kuturagi ideas, since every little thing should have been CELL™ powered, your fridge could have actually helped you render things on your gaming console when it had "spare" computional powers... 

 

 

I think the idea was actually pretty good, and something like this may still be the future, reason why it didn't work was those cell chips were a bit premature and were power hungry af while also running hot as hell, no one wanted them in their every day devices such as fridges and DVD players... it simply was highly impractical. 

[whm1974]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

that was actually also one of those crazy IBM / Ken Kuturagi ideas, since every little thing should have been CELL™ powered, your fridge could have actually helped you render things on your gaming console when it had "spare" computional powers... 

 

 

I think the idea was pretty good, and something like this may still be the future, reason why it didn't work was those cell chips were a bit premature and were power hungry af while also running hot as hell, no one wanted them in their every day devices such as fridges and DVD players... it simply was highly impractical. 

Why would I want to turn the Fridge into a computer to begin with?

[Mark Kaine]

33 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Why would I want to turn the Fridge into a computer to begin with?

because how could you live without 

Quote

From meal planning to photo sharing — and everything in between — the Family Hub™ refrigerator keeps you in sync with the moments that matter.

https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/family-hub-refrigerator/overview/

 

So yeah, this is actually a thing, they just don't use cell processors (most of them anyways) and don't 'help' you with rendering your games... 

[Unimportant]

This question isn't really relevant Imho.

 

Whatever power efficient new technologies they invent. If you take such a powerful low power chip and crank up it's voltage and give it more power it'll always go faster still. But now it requires substantial cooling and thus requires a desktop. But that is the main point. Whatever they invent, if you make it bigger and run hotter it'll be faster.

 

And there'll always be reasons to use the increased processing power. Any pretty game can be made even more detailed, for any processing task it can be desirable to be done faster.