Will our hobby die?

[john3850]

The net is here to stay so servers are here to stay.
Even if the cheaper desktops go away we will still have LGA2011 style chips to play with.
I believe the intels K chips took away big time from our oc hoppy.
For the first time our oc is controlled by intel and intels Management Engine which limits how we oc.
Now you can now buy a cheap mb leave it on auto default and move a multiplier and get a good oc this is intel version of what oc is about.

 

[Idontcare]

Now you can now buy a cheap mb leave it on auto default and move a multiplier and get a good oc this is intel version of what oc is about.

Back in the early days of my OC'ing adventures with x86 PC's this was more or less how we overclocked back then too, albeit it was a jumper we were changing on the mobo.

There wasn't much to be done in the way of overvolting unless you were ready to break out the soldering gun, everything was stock 5V or 3.5V at the time and it was not readily changeable.

It wasn't until the mobo guys got into the "soft BIOS" craze that we enthusiasts all of a sudden had a plethora of tweaking options made available to us for "overclock tweaking and optimizing".

In a sense things are just coming full circle now.

The coolest thing that has happened with OC'ing is what AMD did with their "change your multiplier on the fly directly within the OS" app. This prompted the GPU guys to come out with theirs and then Intel had no choice (as is typical for them) but to roll out theirs as well.

So now I can setup my OC so that its whisper quiet, low temps, low power for my usual desktop work stuff, and then when I am going to load the system up with a big encode job or something that really stands to benefit from a 5GHz clocked cpu I can just change the clock multiplier from within windows itself - no need to reboot or anything - and likewise vice versa when the heavy stuff is done and I don't need or want the high OC I can just dial it back down from within windows.

I appreciate that convenience, its an innovative feature for OC'ing that I definitely find to be value-add.

 

[john3850]

In a sense things are just coming full circle now Sad
Sure wish I had gotten into pc in the mid 80s instead 94 or the pentium days.
My first build came way too late a abit BE6.
The moding stuff was cool and kept changing.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

As long as PC gaming, as we know it, lives on there will be people like us with powerful desktops.

What really holds back "the cloud" world is bandwidth and latency. I wouldn't have a problem with most of my files being clouded if I could access them very quickly and not be restricted by the variables of reception, data plans, wi-fi network availability, etc etc. Till that day comes powerful desktops with lots of personal storage and computational power will persist. The majority will become more clouded, but we will likely still run our monolithic desktops.

 

[shortylickens]

I started doing it in the late 90's to save money and eventually it became neccessary to also ensure I got quality components.

These days theres not much advantage unless you need something very specific that a prebuilt wont do.
I'm not upgrading either of my current systems anymore. Next computer will be HP or something along those lines. (If HP is still making them in a couple months.)

 

[udontneed2know]

In my opinion laptops are incredibly overrated. My brother just bought an incredible 1800$ laptop that runs anything but you should really feel how hot the thing gets. I doubt that system will survive more then 2 years.

That seems to be the kicker with laptops. Great, but when the battery dies unless you can afford another your basically stuck with a plug and play desktop. The internal components go out faster, the keyboard loves to lose keys, the power supply barely seems to want to survive 6 months, etc.

I've had or have been around about 6 laptops so far and none of them are something I would go out and spend 600-1000$ on. They just do not have the lasting appeal of a Desktop computer.

So will it ever die? No way. Never. Until they have desktop level, cool running all - in - one touch screen tablets running a good OS and supported by the game developers of today the desktop will live long and prosper.

 

[Grooveriding]

Why would I ever want to use a little clunky laptop monitor. Or game on an HDTV at a lowly 1080p resolution ? I don't see the desktop market ever dying, diminishing surely. It already has quite a bit.

I'm not in the tech field, but miniaturization seems to be a sort of constantly chased process in making chips. The most powerful ones always come in a larger footprint, then they shrink that down slowly, while the newer more powerful stuff goes through the same process.

Of course correct me if I'm wrong and there is some new fangled technology that will have everything super small from the get go. I could live with my computer being uber powerful but the size of a kleenex box. Likely would be super quiet and not use much power then.

So long as I can continue to have huge super high-resolution screens to game on I am good.

 

[Fritzo]

Why would I ever want to use a little clunky laptop monitor. Or game on an HDTV at a lowly 1080p resolution ? I don't see the desktop market ever dying, diminishing surely. It already has quite a bit.

I'm not in the tech field, but miniaturization seems to be a sort of constantly chased process in making chips. The most powerful ones always come in a larger footprint, then they shrink that down slowly, while the newer more powerful stuff goes through the same process.

Of course correct me if I'm wrong and there is some new fangled technology that will have everything super small from the get go. I could live with my computer being uber powerful but the size of a kleenex box. Likely would be super quiet and not use much power then.

So long as I can continue to have huge super high-resolution screens to game on I am good.

You'll still be able to do that, but you'll have to realize that type of setup is more of a fringe hobby anymore than the norm. It's probably going to turn into something like people going to swap meets to get high performance parts for classic cars (actually, PC modding was exactly like that in the early/mid 90's - it may revert back to that).

 

[VirtualLarry]

The number one maker of branded PCs is leaving the market. What does that tell you about the desktop PC market?

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+HP+to+Sell+Off+PC+Unit+/article22490.htm

 

[sangyup81]

The number one maker of branded PCs is leaving the market. What does that tell you about the desktop PC market?

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+HP+to+Sell+Off+PC+Unit+/article22490.htm

About the niche market of DIY PC builders? Maybe that we've been stealing pre-built desktop PC customers. How many times have people tried upgrading the video card in their dell or hp only to find that it's not well supported? A lot of them end up turning in to DIY people. Of course that's only a small number of people. Everyone else buys a laptop.

 

[trollolo]

gaming/work will be done on desktops just like it always has. but for people who just want to email and browse facebook (90% of current desktop owners), a tablet will be just fine for them

 

[Dribble]

The number one maker of branded PCs is leaving the market. What does that tell you about the desktop PC market?

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+HP+to+Sell+Off+PC+Unit+/article22490.htm

Tell's me that their CEO is a fool who is trying to kill his own company.

That said the glory days of the desktop PC are over.

 

[trollolo]

The number one maker of branded PCs is leaving the market. What does that tell you about the desktop PC market?

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+HP+to+Sell+Off+PC+Unit+/article22490.htm

it tells me that you have poor reading comprehension. they're splitting the companies, rome did that when they realized that their empire was starting to crumble, and east & west rome functioned just fine for a good while. companies split and merge every day, just because you don't understand economics and believe everything you read on the internet for its face-value doesn't mean that you should spout your ill formed opinions from the roof tops.

 

[djshortsleeve]

Yes, x86 may die at the hands of ARM, but I think there will still be desktop machines.

 

[Idontcare]

The number one maker of branded PCs is leaving the market. What does that tell you about the desktop PC market?

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+HP+to+Sell+Off+PC+Unit+/article22490.htm

This is the same HP that decided to kill off its then lucrative PA-RISC architecture so that it could jump all over the wisdom that was Itanium.

Or when Intel dumped the DDR dram technology to pursue rambus DRAM.

Behemoth companies like HP and IBM make monumentally stupid business decisions all the time.

Attempting to make prognostications based on their tea leaves is a fool's errand IMO.

 

[CuriousMike]

The work aspect is a big one.

It's hard to write cellphone apps on a tablet.
It's hard to write tablet apps on a cellphone.

 

[VirtualLarry]

it tells me that you have poor reading comprehension. they're splitting the companies, rome did that when they realized that their empire was starting to crumble, and east & west rome functioned just fine for a good while. companies split and merge every day, just because you don't understand economics and believe everything you read on the internet for its face-value doesn't mean that you should spout your ill formed opinions from the roof tops.

Who has bad reading comprehension here?

Bloomberg reports that HP, which is helmed by Leo Apotheker, wants to leave the hardware business behind and focus on its more lucrative software and cloud services offerings. “This is the direction we want him to take,” stated ISI Group analyst Abhey Lamba. “Get out of a low- margin business and focus more on his core competency, which is software.”

"Leave behind"
"Get out"

Do those terms suggest to you that they are simply just splitting up the company? They don't to me.

 

[Minerva]

The CPU/memory are on a single chip the size of your fingernail. There's no customization to be had.

If you want to build tablets, go work for Foxconn.

Suicide is illegal here.

 

[Iron Wolf]

Who has bad reading comprehension here?



"Leave behind"
"Get out"

Do those terms suggest to you that they are simply just splitting up the company? They don't to me.

I've read articles that say that this guy is so much of a software guy that he wants to leave the printer business as well. HP can't right now because it is so big a part of their business, but they may start working towards that goal.

 

[aigomorla]

i feel the hobby has almost died.

When i help people on new systems, its not complicated anymore.

I tell them, get a good 1155 board... throw in a SB cpu, set voltage to 1.3-1.35 depending on what sink they got with the combo.

Then set multi - Test - Multi - Test again - Multi --- and your done.

:\

This is not fun!


What used to be fun was when we had to do ram timings... followed by a QPI frequency... I admit setting GTL values on 775 was painful, but it was still "tuning".

Sandy Bridge made Overclocking So easy Even your Grandmother can do it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GR5_X1CfUA

 

[Minerva]

Locked multipliers and other restrictions are killing the hobby.
Of course the hardcore dopes still can do it, unlocking chips, changing parts on boards to give parts more juice, extreme cooling of parts with liquid helium, etc.

All the scammers out there are giving water cooling a bad rap though. There are quite a lot of shills and just plain scammers on other boards I won't mention. Nothing more than hacks and quacks that could not give a damn less about the actual hobby just saying what they are asked to for hardware in exchange. It's rather sickening to say the least.

 

[Idontcare]

All the scammers out there are giving water cooling a bad rap though. There are quite a lot of shills and just plain scammers on other boards I won't mention. Nothing more than hacks and quacks that could not give a damn less about the actual hobby just saying what they are asked to for hardware in exchange. It's rather sickening to say the least.

I'd love to have an inkling of what it is that you are talking about here...but at first blush all I can say is

 

[Minerva]

I'd love to have an inkling of what it is that you are talking about here...but at first blush all I can say is

Head over to OCN or XS. Both places are full of 'em.

 

[RussianSensation]

Desktops will never die. Some people love 3d gaming which laptops will never have the power to use. Some people game in surround which laptops cant do. Not to mention desktop prices are way way lower and they last alot longer.

Unless AMD or intel crams the GPU power or 2-3 top end chips(so 580 ot 6970 right now) into a die(like fusion but superpowered) we have nothing to worry about. Desktops will be here to stay.

I agree with you, esp. in the short-medium term.

However, imagine if every laptop had Thunderbolt (version 2 or w/e) and with it the ability to drive 3x 2560x1600 30 inch screens? That's one of your concerns alleviated. Eventually this will be in the realm of possibility.

If we look at the sad state of current generation of consoles, they have been around since 2005/2006. Outside of the Wii U, the next Xbox and PS4 are still 2-3 years away it seems. I bet the next generation of consoles will truly have a 10 year life cycle. With AMD strongly focused on Fusion, the embedded GPU will continue to become much more powerful. While in the past, PC graphics continued to evolve at an astonishing pace, you can see that in the last 3-4 years they pretty much stagnated. With the next generation of consoles I bet we'll see even more PC console ports and therefore less associated demand for very powerful desktop GPUs.

I think the core group will remain (us) but less and less people will care about the desktop moving forward. What puzzles me is how people now have a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone? Who needs 3 portable devices?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think the core group will remain (us) but less and less people will care about the desktop moving forward. What puzzles me is how people now have a laptop, a tablet, and a smartphone? Who needs 3 portable devices?

Just like someone that has a laptop, two desktops, and a HTPC? Sometimes variety is good.