"Realistically, no-one I know, needs a Desktop Computer, for the rest of their lives."

[Insomniator]

Your's is a much more correct statement. Most office workers don't need anything powerful, therefore laptops are sufficient for them.

But if you need the power for your work (complex calculations, 3D modeling, rendering, video editing, compiling large products, etc.) then even the best laptop struggles against say an i3 desktop. I think that I was mostly offended by someone working for IT management thinking that laptops are as powerful as desktops. People in the industry, of all people, should know the difference.

...what? This hasn't been been close to true for years in regards to an i3, but a 4900hs can beat a 9700k desktop processor these days in a $1000 4lb notebook. https://www.techradar.com/news/the-amd-ryzen-9-4900hs-is-faster-than-the-intel-core-i7-9700k

Sure, with 16+ cores being available relatively cheaply with Ryzen, you can make the desktop comparison as difficult as you want, and we can talk about throttling depending on the laptop design but the gap isn't nearly as large as you are saying. There's no i3 or i5 that can come close to new mobile chips like the 4900h. Plus since the Nvidia Pascal architecture, GPU's haven't been far behind either except at the absolute top end 1080ti/2080ti. We went from pathetic Nvidia 960M's to desktop level 1050ti's/1060's in the same price point in one generation.

I'm not saying professional 3d artists should all go out and buy laptops but the amount of performance available has exploded, and the delta between an average workstation and a good laptop has shrunk greatly over the last few years.

 

[dullard]

...what? This hasn't been been close to true for years in regards to an i3, but a 4900hs can beat a 9700k desktop processor these days in a $1000 4lb notebook. https://www.techradar.com/news/the-amd-ryzen-9-4900hs-is-faster-than-the-intel-core-i7-9700k

So you take a brand new top-of-the-line 16-thread AMD laptop processor, compare it to an 8-thread Intel processor from 2018 (and not even top-of-the-line for the coffee lake processors), run a single benchmark known to do far better on AMD processors and far better the more threads you have, and say that it is competitive? Sure, I'll buy that (and have changed my post from "i3" to "decent"). But, it isn't even remotely comparable for a general laptop vs a general desktop. One could build a desktop far more powerful than the 4900hs.

 

[JEDIYoda]

...what? This hasn't been been close to true for years in regards to an i3, but a 4900hs can beat a 9700k desktop processor these days in a $1000 4lb notebook. https://www.techradar.com/news/the-amd-ryzen-9-4900hs-is-faster-than-the-intel-core-i7-9700k

Sure, with 16+ cores being available relatively cheaply with Ryzen, you can make the desktop comparison as difficult as you want, and we can talk about throttling depending on the laptop design but the gap isn't nearly as large as you are saying. There's no i3 or i5 that can come close to new mobile chips like the 4900h. Plus since the Nvidia Pascal architecture, GPU's haven't been far behind either except at the absolute top end 1080ti/2080ti. We went from pathetic Nvidia 960M's to desktop level 1050ti's/1060's in the same price point in one generation.

I'm not saying professional 3d artists should all go out and buy laptops but the amount of performance available has exploded, and the delta between an average workstation and a good laptop has shrunk greatly over the last few years.

I really think you have no clue....prove me wrong...

 

[Craig234]

What I don't like about this, is the loss of economies of scale. If desktop purchases plummet, it will reduce improvements and increase prices.

 

[Insomniator]

I really think you have no clue....prove me wrong...

I have no clue when someone suggests a laptop can't keep up with an i3?

 

[VirtualLarry]

What I don't like about this, is the loss of economies of scale. If desktop purchases plummet, it will reduce improvements and increase prices.

This very true, Craig. The huge loads of money fueling the R&D for the high-end GPUs for Joe High-end Gamer, were largely paid for by the masses of Joe Six-pack, paying for their iGPU or low-end discrete GPU tech. Kind of like a food pyramid. Take out the multitudes at the low-end, and the few at the top, starve, eventually.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What I don't like about this, is the loss of economies of scale. If desktop purchases plummet, it will reduce improvements and increase prices.

That is my main fear. That and the stores that sell them will make less money and either need to charge more overhead, or they go under, and there's less competition.

We already lost Tigerdirect and NCIX here in Canada, those were the two biggest ones.

 

[Craig234]

This very true, Craig. The huge loads of money fueling the R&D for the high-end GPUs for Joe High-end Gamer, were largely paid for by the masses of Joe Six-pack, paying for their iGPU or low-end discrete GPU tech. Kind of like a food pyramid. Take out the multitudes at the low-end, and the few at the top, starve, eventually.

Perhaps there's some silver lining that the tech has already become so good, that CPU speed increases are difficult, and video is very high resolution and fast - it's not as if we're stuck in CGA. How much more hardware improvement do we really need?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

So, what kind of non-computer can process a spreadsheet data when there are 48 columns and 250,000 rows and spit out 10,000 scripts in say 15 minutes? What kind of tablet (not a laptop impersonating a tablet, Surface Pro), smartphone or the like can handle this?

 

[sdifox]

So, what kind of non-computer can process a spreadsheet data when there are 48 columns and 250,000 rows and spit out 10,000 scripts in say 15 minutes? What kind of tablet (not a laptop impersonating a tablet, Surface Pro), smartphone or the like can handle this?

It's called Access :awe:

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Hey, I don't make the tools. AT&T is cheap. They use Excel with VB to digest large spreadsheets, import network data (sometimes to the tune of 1-2GB at a time) and then spits out stuff.

 

[sdifox]

Hey, I don't make the tools. AT&T is cheap. They use Excel with VB to digest large spreadsheets, import network data (sometimes to the tune of 1-2GB at a time) and then spits out stuff.

Tell them MySQL is free

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's called Access :awe:

Trying to use access on a touch device would be hell. I would rather eat a gun lol.

 

[sdifox]

Trying to use access on a touch device would be hell. I would rather eat a gun lol.

Still easier than Excel

 

[Midwayman]

Trying to use access on a touch device would be hell. I would rather eat a gun lol.

You can use a mouse with both android and iPadOS now.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I've been hearing about the death of desktops since 2007:

"Like OMG, you do everything on your smartphone. Who needs desktop oriented websites anymore?"

"Now that the iPad is out, desktops are a thing of the past. Heck, even Windows has a new Metro Interface. No more Start Menu!!!"

...and so on.

Truth is, desktops will never die, thankfully. Mobile computing is either too small, not as flexible and requires things like external mice, extra monitors and keyboards to even work correctly IMO.

About 20-30 years from we will still be hearing about "the death of desktops". Trust me on this.

 

[Red Squirrel]

You can use a mouse with both android and iPadOS now.

That's still unpractical vs a real keyboard, and proper sized monitors. And sure there are probably setups where you can do all that too, but at that point you may as well just use a proper desktop setup. I guess the only main advantage of using a phone at that point would be the power usage. You could run for like an hour on UPS if you needed to. The monitor would be the biggest power draw.

 

[jpiniero]

I've been hearing about the death of desktops since 2007:

Intel's desktop volume has been in a steady decline for some time, and you can't really blame AMD for that. Seems the last year Intel had an volume increase was in 2014 and that was a measly 3%.

 

[Midwayman]

That's still unpractical vs a real keyboard, and proper sized monitors. And sure there are probably setups where you can do all that too, but at that point you may as well just use a proper desktop setup. I guess the only main advantage of using a phone at that point would be the power usage. You could run for like an hour on UPS if you needed to. The monitor would be the biggest power draw.

That's it, you can run a real keyboard and another monitor as well. With Apple moving to ARM for its laptops that difference is going to get less and less meaningful. Their latest processors are certainly competitive with other laptop chips in power as well. The only real difference is probably going to end up what cooling solution is practical to package.

No competitive with a full on desktop of course, but the distinction is getting really blurry for anything mobile.

 

[jpiniero]

Now I could see The Rona killing demand to the point where the desktop becomes nothing more than a laptop without a screen.

 

[Fritzo]

People are already doing so with unRAID servers and KVM / Linux virtualization / IOMMU, and NAS units with beefy x64 CPUs, like some QNAP and some Asustor (and probably others, basically all of the x86/x64-compatible CPUs can do it, no ARM/MIPS, as long as the NAS also has enough RAM).

XBox, Playstation...

It annoys me that corps are so slow on updating their workflow. Still need each dev to install software on their laptop. How about just spin up a VM with software suite configured when you onboard a dev? I told them to switch to that model five years ago... Crickets.

MS and Citrix are ridiculous on their licensing costs right now. When those costs go down, you'll see leaps in growth.

 

[VirtualLarry]

XBox, Playstation...

That's something that I would honestly like to see... VirtualBox ported to PS4/5 and XB, and Windows 10 VM images made available. Or at least Linux images, in the case of Sony. Might go a long way to making up for their "removal of dual-boot on PS3" fiasco.

 

[mikeymikec]

That's something that I would honestly like to see... VirtualBox ported to PS4/5 and XB, and Windows 10 VM images made available. Or at least Linux images, in the case of Sony. Might go a long way to making up for their "removal of dual-boot on PS3" fiasco.

I wouldn't trust them a second time personally, considering that feature would logically be part of the purchase decision.

 

[Fritzo]

That's something that I would honestly like to see... VirtualBox ported to PS4/5 and XB, and Windows 10 VM images made available. Or at least Linux images, in the case of Sony. Might go a long way to making up for their "removal of dual-boot on PS3" fiasco.

Google has Stadia right now, and I guess it works really well. You just buy a controller and a subscription and off you go. Game systems will probably be the first to disappear into the cloud.

 

[walkur]

Meh, it's all about priorities...

I added a glass top to my desktop PC and now i sits in my livingroom next to the couch.

I use oversized cooling sollutions overspec my PC.
It's just always there in a corner silent on an available to do my bidding...

No more noisy laptops for me (too bad I have a work laptop that starts making a racket anytime the virus scanner is doing a scan... and games are even worse...