Funny you mention this, I am right now considering selling my laptop and building a small form factor gaming PC to connect to my TV and an ipad mini for general web browsing/book reading.
I can just get a lot more for my money if I get those two instead of one powerful laptop. I still have to convince my wife though and that will be more difficult!
Originally posted by ShakyMo You can't get around the heat.
A computer with the processing power of an IPhone would once have needed a dedicated room with an expensive air conditioning system built in.
So I think in time you can get around the heat.
Sure, heat can be gotten around but not with the existing commonly utilized tech. The early computers needed buildings and massive HVAC systems, but then they used Vacuum tubes. They (tubes) were huge, produced tons of heat and failed fairly regularly. Then the transistor changed things. The way I see it, you are both correct. You can't get around the heat unless a newer technology comes out that increase performance while decreasing the heat generated.
I don't think I will ever buy a desktop again. Laptops can do pretty much everything that desktops can. I don't see the point of having a desktop just for playing games (any other reason to have one?) I can do that on a console/laptop.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by ShakyMo You can't get around the heat.Over time computers used to get more powerfull and smaller and the same time.Look at the leap from building sized computers to server type boxes that were way more powerfull.However while the power is still increasing, the shrinking curve has slowed down. Todays high end desktops may be way more powerful than a High end desktop of 15 years ago by some magnitude, but they ain't smaller. If you look at high end phones and laptops they are actually bigger than the high end of a couple of years ago. Why - heat, they cant shrink any further because of the heat. And in the case of phones they've actually had to make them bigger so they can handle the extra heat from performance improvements.
Actually, if you just look at cell phones - not smart phones - they could be fit on a wrist watch today, but the just-plain-old-cellphone has stayed about the same size for a while. The size doesn't come from any need to dissipate heat. It comes from a) Needing to house a battery to keep the usable life good enough for day to day use b) Useability - make it too small and it's hard to dial/use, easy to lose, etc.
Smartphones (the ones that tend to actually have the processing power) are getting bigger - for two reasons - again, not to dissipate heat a) Battery life, smart phones need as much battery as you can pack into them b) Screen size - you can't make a phone with a 4" touchscreen much smaller than 4" (at least until we figure out a way to fold touchscreen glass). Some manufacturers have decided that larger screens may sell well, so that means the phone has to get bigger to accommodate the screen.
You can crank up ARM processors to actually create some heat, but generally in a smartphone, they don't, because in addition to createing some amount of heat - a phone that only gets 20 minutes of battery life isn't terribly useful, even if it has super-fast benchmarks as a marketing point. Talk time and standby time are cellphone selling points, not Geekbench scores or javascript times (which tend to be more aligned with the tablet market right now, as they struggle to convince people they are better than the iPad in some meaningful way).
Originally posted by dreamscaper The basic laws of thermodynamics will ensure that desktops are always a better choice for gaming than tablets or laptops.
+1 ^^
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
The only people that use desktops anymore are gamers and businesses. All other users either use a laptop, all-in-one, or tablet. I actually prefer a laptop over a desktop for gaming. The freedom of sitting on the couch or going to a friends house with my own computer to play on is a big plus for me. I know I won't get near the graphics or performance that I would on a desktop, but I'm not a graphics junky. I grew up with an atari 2600 and commadore 64, if you got better graphics than that, I'm fine with them lol.
This is were alot of game developers go wrong however. If you look at the most successful games, the overwhelming majority can be played on just about anything that has a cpu and 2gb ram. Facebook games, WoW, Rift, and various others are all low requirements, but if you have the power they also support very nice graphics. If you've never run WoW (which many believe have the "worst graphics evar!" lol) in DX11 with everything maxed on a upper mid range desktop, then you are probably one that says it has bad graphics. In Pandaria on max settings, the landscapes are Conan-esque. The Character Models are greatly detailed, and you can see all the way across pandaria...if a mountain doesn't get in your way. Like I hinted earlier, to run WoW on max settings you don't even need a $3-5000 super computer either.
By limiting the maximum potential playerbase by requiring a $1000+ computer to play the game, Developers cut their own throats. If you make a game that can run on just about any computer, your playerbase is guaranteed to be larger.
Edit: Not to mention Developers have to spend alot more time on those higher end graphics as well, which means more money and time. Time that could be spent on making better gameplay...which imho is the ultimate factor if a game is good or not.
so overall you can buy a 2000$ laptop and still save money to a 900$ dektop due to the electricy bill
If you spend $1100 on electricity to power a desktop, you're doing it wrong. Servers that have to burn a lot of power around the clock, sure, but not a single desktop. Even at 300 W * 8 hours/day * $0.10/kWh, you're under $100/year on electricity usage. And 300 W is fairly high for load power consumption of a gaming desktop, as is playing games for 8 hours per day.
If you're so concerned about electricity usage, you could get a desktop that is slower like a laptop and not use that much power. Look into an A10-5700 if that's what you're after.
No but games are being dumbed down so it is cheap to make and they are not as in depth as PC games and marketed to be played on portable devices. But never will you see a console even close to what a PC can deliver for a gaming experience. Don't worry it is all going to change around when the real gamers find other means to challenge themselves since gaming is now mainstream but gamers are not mainstream.
so overall you can buy a 2000$ laptop and still save money to a 900$ dektop due to the electricy bill
If you spend $1100 on electricity to power a desktop, you're doing it wrong. Servers that have to burn a lot of power around the clock, sure, but not a single desktop. Even at 300 W * 8 hours/day * $0.10/kWh, you're under $100/year on electricity usage. And 300 W is fairly high for load power consumption of a gaming desktop, as is playing games for 8 hours per day.
If you're so concerned about electricity usage, you could get a desktop that is slower like a laptop and not use that much power. Look into an A10-5700 if that's what you're after.
we pay more like ~0.26 here (germany) plus i don't upgrade yearly, more like 3-4years, which makes it overall possible
i remember how we used to upgrade our rigs at least once a year but it seems that hardware requirements took a stop, there isn't a mmo i couldnt play despite my current system being 2-3 years old and even normal games run due to most being multiplat and therefore made with console restrictions in mind
so overall you can buy a 2000$ laptop and still save money to a 900$ dektop due to the electricy bill
If you spend $1100 on electricity to power a desktop, you're doing it wrong. Servers that have to burn a lot of power around the clock, sure, but not a single desktop. Even at 300 W * 8 hours/day * $0.10/kWh, you're under $100/year on electricity usage. And 300 W is fairly high for load power consumption of a gaming desktop, as is playing games for 8 hours per day.
If you're so concerned about electricity usage, you could get a desktop that is slower like a laptop and not use that much power. Look into an A10-5700 if that's what you're after.
we pay more like ~0.26 here (germany) plus i don't upgrade yearly, more like 3-4years, which makes it overall possible
i remember how we used to upgrade our rigs at least once a year but it seems that hardware requirements took a stop, there isn't a mmo i couldnt play despite my current system being 2-3 years old and even normal games run due to most being multiplat and therefore made with console restrictions in mind
Do they put huge taxes on electricity there, or is that just the price of massively subsidizing small amounts of "green" energy?
Anyway, whether you're using a desktop or a laptop, the main power consuming parts are the CPU and GPU. Desktops and laptops use the same chips for those, but just clocked differently. You can get low power, energy efficient versions of the chips in desktops, too, if that's your big concern. And you can still get them much cheaper than laptops.
I have all three options but for gaming I use my desktop. Bigger screen, easier upgradeablitliy. Can't imagine gaming for long periods on the laptop or tablet.
I'm not in a long post mood this evening so I'll keep this short.
The masses (those not in "the know") buy based on whats offered to them.
The few (those in "the know") buy what they what they want/need to suite their needs.
The masses help drive sales.
The few help drive technological advancement.
Is this painting a picture yet?
To the OP's question, it is highly unlikely we will see the downfall of the PC over laptops/tablets anytime soon. Technology is advancing thanks to the few but not quickly enough due to the masses. Which means the best tech will remain in desktop size format for many years to come.
I don't think they will vanish as much as Shrink in size .. the no comparision playing GW2 on a 24-27inch Monitor with 7.1 surround sound compared to a 15inch laptop or a 10inch ipad type..
Ive been PC gaming for the better part of 15 years, in the days of the 286's (actually the old 800XL but I never seriously gamed on it).
Ive heard the Desktop is dead for the better part of those 15 years. If I really wished I could dig up near 10 year old threads on this website no less with people preaching, with facts, how in 10 years it will be all consoles and laptops. Well its 10 years later and I just built a beast of a gaming PC that console makers cant even dream of releasing, that is until they can keep the cost around $500.
No, consoles and laptops and tablets will never replace a gaming desktop. Think of it this way. Why with gas prices hitting $5 a gallon, and sometimes higher, that people still buy 200hp-400hp cars when a 150hp car will get you 35+MPG and still let you drive near double the speed limit (100+mph). Its because people want and demand performance. The gaming market is no different. As a matter of fact the price of PC performance hardware is getting less expensive. Youre getting more power per dollar now with PC components than you were just 3 and 4 years ago.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Thats a ridiculous question really. A short look at the current hardware easily tells us, that the desktops will be around for a long time to come.
The problem is heat.
A high-end system (single CPU and single GPU) draws 5-600 Watt under load. Dissipating the heat generated by these components is only possible in a desktop, where there's room for big coolers and fans.
To get the current performance of a high-end desktop into a laptop it will take another 5 years atleast, especially when talking GPU.
For the masses of users a laptop sure offers enough power to do their daily tasks of browsing the web, watching a movie or playing some casual games, but FPS-games and modern MMOs with advanced graphics aren't playable on these machines. Try running TSW on a laptop with 1920x1080 and all settings at maximum in that regard, forget about 4K-displays or multimonitor-setups. Or look at professional video-editing, 3d-rendering and all that stuff. This isn't doable on a laptop aswell.
Last but not least a desktop is way cheaper then a laptop, if we assume that both have the same technical specifications. Offices will allways use desktops because of that point and the fact, that a desktop can be easily repaired or upgraded by the own IT-guy.
So no. Desktops are not a dying breed and will be around for atleast another decade or two to come, especially when talking high-end and professional use.
Comments
A computer with the processing power of an IPhone would once have needed a dedicated room with an expensive air conditioning system built in.
So I think in time you can get around the heat.
Don't know if anyone put this?
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/142896-valve-confirms-steam-box-coming-in-2013-says-it-will-compete-with-next-gen-consoles
Funny you mention this, I am right now considering selling my laptop and building a small form factor gaming PC to connect to my TV and an ipad mini for general web browsing/book reading.
I can just get a lot more for my money if I get those two instead of one powerful laptop. I still have to convince my wife though and that will be more difficult!
Sure, heat can be gotten around but not with the existing commonly utilized tech. The early computers needed buildings and massive HVAC systems, but then they used Vacuum tubes. They (tubes) were huge, produced tons of heat and failed fairly regularly. Then the transistor changed things. The way I see it, you are both correct. You can't get around the heat unless a newer technology comes out that increase performance while decreasing the heat generated.
It will happen... eventually.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Actually, if you just look at cell phones - not smart phones - they could be fit on a wrist watch today, but the just-plain-old-cellphone has stayed about the same size for a while. The size doesn't come from any need to dissipate heat. It comes from
a) Needing to house a battery to keep the usable life good enough for day to day use
b) Useability - make it too small and it's hard to dial/use, easy to lose, etc.
Smartphones (the ones that tend to actually have the processing power) are getting bigger - for two reasons - again, not to dissipate heat
a) Battery life, smart phones need as much battery as you can pack into them
b) Screen size - you can't make a phone with a 4" touchscreen much smaller than 4" (at least until we figure out a way to fold touchscreen glass). Some manufacturers have decided that larger screens may sell well, so that means the phone has to get bigger to accommodate the screen.
You can crank up ARM processors to actually create some heat, but generally in a smartphone, they don't, because in addition to createing some amount of heat - a phone that only gets 20 minutes of battery life isn't terribly useful, even if it has super-fast benchmarks as a marketing point. Talk time and standby time are cellphone selling points, not Geekbench scores or javascript times (which tend to be more aligned with the tablet market right now, as they struggle to convince people they are better than the iPad in some meaningful way).
+1 ^^
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
i found buying a laptop more rewarding
a laptop needs 90-120 watt worst case, average desktop eats 3-5x more
so overall you can buy a 2000$ laptop and still save money to a 900$ dektop due to the electricy bill
and don't forget the real bonus: less heat = more tolerable in summer
Pi*1337/100 = 42
The future of gaming will be none of the above.
The only people that use desktops anymore are gamers and businesses. All other users either use a laptop, all-in-one, or tablet. I actually prefer a laptop over a desktop for gaming. The freedom of sitting on the couch or going to a friends house with my own computer to play on is a big plus for me. I know I won't get near the graphics or performance that I would on a desktop, but I'm not a graphics junky. I grew up with an atari 2600 and commadore 64, if you got better graphics than that, I'm fine with them lol.
This is were alot of game developers go wrong however. If you look at the most successful games, the overwhelming majority can be played on just about anything that has a cpu and 2gb ram. Facebook games, WoW, Rift, and various others are all low requirements, but if you have the power they also support very nice graphics. If you've never run WoW (which many believe have the "worst graphics evar!" lol) in DX11 with everything maxed on a upper mid range desktop, then you are probably one that says it has bad graphics. In Pandaria on max settings, the landscapes are Conan-esque. The Character Models are greatly detailed, and you can see all the way across pandaria...if a mountain doesn't get in your way. Like I hinted earlier, to run WoW on max settings you don't even need a $3-5000 super computer either.
By limiting the maximum potential playerbase by requiring a $1000+ computer to play the game, Developers cut their own throats. If you make a game that can run on just about any computer, your playerbase is guaranteed to be larger.
Edit: Not to mention Developers have to spend alot more time on those higher end graphics as well, which means more money and time. Time that could be spent on making better gameplay...which imho is the ultimate factor if a game is good or not.
If you spend $1100 on electricity to power a desktop, you're doing it wrong. Servers that have to burn a lot of power around the clock, sure, but not a single desktop. Even at 300 W * 8 hours/day * $0.10/kWh, you're under $100/year on electricity usage. And 300 W is fairly high for load power consumption of a gaming desktop, as is playing games for 8 hours per day.
If you're so concerned about electricity usage, you could get a desktop that is slower like a laptop and not use that much power. Look into an A10-5700 if that's what you're after.
we pay more like ~0.26 here (germany) plus i don't upgrade yearly, more like 3-4years, which makes it overall possible
i remember how we used to upgrade our rigs at least once a year but it seems that hardware requirements took a stop, there isn't a mmo i couldnt play despite my current system being 2-3 years old and even normal games run due to most being multiplat and therefore made with console restrictions in mind
Pi*1337/100 = 42
Do they put huge taxes on electricity there, or is that just the price of massively subsidizing small amounts of "green" energy?
Anyway, whether you're using a desktop or a laptop, the main power consuming parts are the CPU and GPU. Desktops and laptops use the same chips for those, but just clocked differently. You can get low power, energy efficient versions of the chips in desktops, too, if that's your big concern. And you can still get them much cheaper than laptops.
I'm not in a long post mood this evening so I'll keep this short.
The masses (those not in "the know") buy based on whats offered to them.
The few (those in "the know") buy what they what they want/need to suite their needs.
The masses help drive sales.
The few help drive technological advancement.
Is this painting a picture yet?
To the OP's question, it is highly unlikely we will see the downfall of the PC over laptops/tablets anytime soon. Technology is advancing thanks to the few but not quickly enough due to the masses. Which means the best tech will remain in desktop size format for many years to come.
I don't think they will vanish as much as Shrink in size .. the no comparision playing GW2 on a 24-27inch Monitor with 7.1 surround sound compared to a 15inch laptop or a 10inch ipad type..
Let's see. I have a thousand euros and I want to play PC games. Two options
a) A laptop with a 15-17 inch screen, mobile CPU, mobile GPU, 4GB RAM and a slow, small HDD
b) A desktop with a 24 inch screen, desktop CPU, desktop GPU, 8GB RAM and an SSD + big HDD
Geez. Which one should I pick?
Ive heard the Desktop is dead for the better part of those 15 years. If I really wished I could dig up near 10 year old threads on this website no less with people preaching, with facts, how in 10 years it will be all consoles and laptops. Well its 10 years later and I just built a beast of a gaming PC that console makers cant even dream of releasing, that is until they can keep the cost around $500.
No, consoles and laptops and tablets will never replace a gaming desktop. Think of it this way. Why with gas prices hitting $5 a gallon, and sometimes higher, that people still buy 200hp-400hp cars when a 150hp car will get you 35+MPG and still let you drive near double the speed limit (100+mph).
Its because people want and demand performance. The gaming market is no different. As a matter of fact the price of PC performance hardware is getting less expensive. Youre getting more power per dollar now with PC components than you were just 3 and 4 years ago.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
Thats a ridiculous question really. A short look at the current hardware easily tells us, that the desktops will be around for a long time to come.
The problem is heat.
A high-end system (single CPU and single GPU) draws 5-600 Watt under load. Dissipating the heat generated by these components is only possible in a desktop, where there's room for big coolers and fans.
To get the current performance of a high-end desktop into a laptop it will take another 5 years atleast, especially when talking GPU.
For the masses of users a laptop sure offers enough power to do their daily tasks of browsing the web, watching a movie or playing some casual games, but FPS-games and modern MMOs with advanced graphics aren't playable on these machines. Try running TSW on a laptop with 1920x1080 and all settings at maximum in that regard, forget about 4K-displays or multimonitor-setups.
Or look at professional video-editing, 3d-rendering and all that stuff. This isn't doable on a laptop aswell.
Last but not least a desktop is way cheaper then a laptop, if we assume that both have the same technical specifications. Offices will allways use desktops because of that point and the fact, that a desktop can be easily repaired or upgraded by the own IT-guy.
So no. Desktops are not a dying breed and will be around for atleast another decade or two to come, especially when talking high-end and professional use.