Discussion the Death of the Desktop CPU

[Hulk]

#1 reason why public wanted both desktop and laptop was because laptops were
either Very Slow
or Heavy Loud Hot

now you have Very Fast + 2.5kg Cold Quiet with near equal top-end desktop performance

desktop already died but awareness doesn't happen overnight

I'll quote your post around 1 year from now

As laptops have become stronger from a compute standpoint as well as lighter and more full-featured I have at times considered doing away with my desktop.

But then I think about having to connect my laptop to a "proper" display when I need to really get work done. Also, as fast as laptops are they still don't compare to a high-end, well-cooled desktop when it comes to memory subsystem and high loads. I will routinely call on my 9950X to dissipate 170W for extended periods of time while multitasking. That simply isn't possible with laptops.

As is usually the case the truth of this isn't that desktops are going away any time soon, nor are they going to reclaim market, it's somewhere in the middle. While people are moving to laptops many people, even not even enthusiasts such as ourselves, know it's nice to sit down at a 27" 4k screen with a full size keyboard and simply turn it on and get to work/play. I get tired looking at the tiny (in comparison to my desktop display) laptop display. Although I will admit that my current 13.3" laptop with 370HX CPU, 5050 GPU, and 14" OLED display is good enough that I do, for the first time on mobile, edit my photos using PureRaw 5 and Photoshop. With my previous Surface Laptop 2 it was impractical... meaning waiting 3 or 4 minutes to process a photo in PureRaw was ridiculous, or waiting a few seconds for every command in PS.

While my Asus mobile can do all of this, battery life is not great, especially when hammering CPU/GPU. Laptops have come a loooooooong way but I'm personally not at the desktop replacement point.

As I've posted before I'm waiting for the day where I can put my phone down near my display, full sized keyboard and mouse, and it automatically connects and I can work from it. Same with a laptop, make it basically just a display with a battery and let the phone be the brains and display.

One device to Rule Them All!

 

[fastandfurious6]

$2500 for a laptop that will be outdated CPU/GPU wise in a few years

Hell no.

top-end laptop from 5 years ago (zen 3 + 3080) is still perfectly good today, similar to upper midrange $1000 machine

9955HX3D (literally 9950X3D...) will last even longer, similar to "no reason to upgrade from 5800X3D"

If you resell your aging machine and buy new, the cost of total upgrade is similar to what you would pay on desktop with same motherboard... can even be cheaper

'Upgradability' argument may be the strongest but it's getting obsolete

Only one NVMe slot?

Two. 16TB full speed NVMe is a massive amount... need more = very niche

(every decent laptop has two slots. the 4kg ones have 4 slots)

small display and crappy laptop keyboard and touchpad for all their usage

legion 7 pro has OLED and very good keyboard touchpad

some laptops have mechanical keyboards too

soon laptop monitors will be expandable / rollable OLEDs

what's the reason why you spent twice as much to buy this as a laptop if you're going to use it as a desktop?

what's the reason to buy a desktop when you can get the same thing at same price on 2.5kg all-in-one device...

 

[fastandfurious6]

Laptops have come a loooooooong way but I'm personally not at the desktop replacement point.

most people here are super-powerusers i.e. max 2% of the total market 😉

my argument is that even for 99% of powerusers, proper 2025 laptops replace desktop 100%
(except edge cases needing more than 16TB NVMe storage or full desktop 5090 for 4K 120fps lol)


when super-powerusers here try to reach out for niche arguments like more than 16TB storage or other inaccurate arguments,

then....

One device to Rule Them All!

yes lads

 

[In2Photos]

And how many RTX5090s have been sold? Yeah the desktop PC market is dead.

Trying to remove certain segments to make your argument work is disingenuous. People moved from desktop to laptop because of portability. Even most desktops sold weren't at the top end of the performance segment. They were basic PCs for household and office use. Yes, eventually laptop and SFF became good enough for most of those use cases. But people that use their PC for gaming, content creation, CAD, simulation, AI and more still use desktop because it offers the least amount of compromise. Anything more than basic use cases will still lean towards desktop.

 

[CP5670]

I use the desktop and laptop for different things. The desktop is for games and music and a bit of content creation (imagine/video editing), and the Surface Pro laptop is for all work and everyday browsing. I often work from coffee shops and other places with it, the portability is much more valuable than performance because it's just used as a thin client for cloud services. A gaming laptop is too heavy to take around everywhere and I would only want to game with it when plugged into a big HT TV/audio setup anyway. So it doesn't serve either purpose very well.

 

[poke01]

The battery life of a 9950X3D laptop is so bad and same with Strix Halo these are way too power hungry

Most people want very light laptops that sip power on idle and while on the go

 

[fastandfurious6]

The battery life of a 9950X3D laptop is so bad and same with Strix Halo these are way too power hungry

wrong, Halo does 12 hours of video on battery

zen 6 10950HX will do more than that, it's the low power interconnect that 9950X/9955HX didn't get because release time

Trying to remove certain segments to make your argument work is disingenuous.

what segments?

Anything more than basic use cases will still lean towards desktop.

you missed the main memo of this thread: $2500 coldquiet laptop has near-equal power with desktop 9950X + 5070ti

 

[poke01]

wrong, Halo does 12 hours of video on battery

That’s cute most recent 128-bit SoCs can go over 20hrs

 

[johnsonwax]

most people here are super-powerusers i.e. max 2% of the total market 😉

my argument is that even for 99% of powerusers, proper 2025 laptops replace desktop 100%
(except edge cases needing more than 16TB NVMe storage or full desktop 5090 for 4K 120fps lol)

I did 15 years of data science off of a 15"-16" laptop, no 2nd screen. Coding, data cleaning, modeling, presentation production, etc. I'd certainly put myself in that 2%.

One of the reasons I went in that direction was that I struggled to find good solutions to my RSI, but laptop in my lap with feet up worked great for that, so that's how I worked. I did work with datasets that my laptop would struggle with, but really those were applications that should have been on a server or dedicated hardware and so that's where it went - either on prem servers or AWS, etc.

The 2% that isn't well served by laptops aren't usually due to traditional compute limits. Most of the I/O differences have vanished over the years. After all, the window between a top end laptop and a top end desktop is pretty damn small on those. If the laptop doesn't serve you, the desktop probably won't either, so you're shopping for a cluster. Increasingly that 2% is really constrained by time/location or some sort of I/O requirement. If you're really pushing GPU, that's a case, but that's not many users outside of gamers. And of course a lot of people discount the benefits of being able to take your workstation with you.

 

[Thunder 57]

I use the desktop and laptop for different things. The desktop is for games and music and a bit of content creation (imagine/video editing), and the Surface Pro laptop is for all work and everyday browsing. I often work from coffee shops and other places with it, the portability is much more valuable than performance because it's just used as a thin client for cloud services. A gaming laptop is too heavy to take around everywhere and I would only want to game with it when plugged into a big HT TV/audio setup anyway. So it doesn't serve either purpose very well.

And plugged into an AC outlet.

The battery life of a 9950X3D laptop is so bad and same with Strix Halo these are way too power hungry

Most people want very light laptops that sip power on idle and while on the go

Again, you are either tied to an AC outlet or you have a thin and light power sipper that does great on the go.

 

[Thunder 57]

Hell no.

top-end laptop from 5 years ago (zen 3 + 3080) is still perfectly good today, similar to upper midrange $1000 machine

9955HX3D (literally 9950X3D...) will last even longer, similar to "no reason to upgrade from 5800X3D"

If you resell your aging machine and buy new, the cost of total upgrade is similar to what you would pay on desktop with same motherboard... can even be cheaper

'Upgradability' argument may be the strongest but it's getting obsolete




Two. 16TB full speed NVMe is a massive amount... need more = very niche

(every decent laptop has two slots. the 4kg ones have 4 slots)




legion 7 pro has OLED and very good keyboard touchpad

some laptops have mechanical keyboards too

soon laptop monitors will be expandable / rollable OLEDs




what's the reason to buy a desktop when you can get the same thing at same price on 2.5kg all-in-one device...

I'm sure it's a great screen but what size? I don't want to be working on some 15" display all of the time. Give me a 27"+ any day.

most people here are super-powerusers i.e. max 2% of the total market 😉

my argument is that even for 99% of powerusers, proper 2025 laptops replace desktop 100%
(except edge cases needing more than 16TB NVMe storage or full desktop 5090 for 4K 120fps lol)


when super-powerusers here try to reach out for niche arguments like more than 16TB storage or other inaccurate arguments,

then....



yes lads

Right, because 8TB SSD's are just so affordable. Being more reasonable you would get a 4TB and if you want cheap archival storage you have no option but external. With a desktop I can put in 3.5" HDD's with massive capacity for things like backups or large data that doesn't need SSD performance for far cheaper. And again, it's all pretty much upgradable if/whenever I choose.

 

[Doug S]

what's the reason to buy a desktop when you can get the same thing at same price on 2.5kg all-in-one device...

And if one part of it quits working the whole thing needs to be replaced. Yours is the same argument people used to make why people should buy AIO PCs like iMac in the past, and it is wrong for the same reasons.

You might be OK with a laptop scale display, many of us want something bigger, or want multiple screens. And I don't care how good of a keyboard some laptops may have it isn't as good as a GOOD keyboard because there isn't enough room. And if this PARTICULAR laptop you think is so wonderful doesn't have all that great a keyboard, then what? And there is no such thing as a touchpad that doesn't suck, at least for me. I've always carried a travel mouse with me for my laptop and disable the touchpad, because not only does it suck but it gets in the way and I make accidental mouse moves while typing! I suppose you'll say I'm "typing wrong" and should change the way I've done that all my life just to fit into using a device I never wanted in the first place?

You can live in your fantasy world that desktop PCs are going to be gone in a year, but if anyone remembers this thread a year from now and calls you out on your lunacy, you'll probably point to some IDC stats showing that laptops gained 3% more PC market share from desktops and say "see its happening, just wait 'til next year" and post about another laptop you fantasize will finally kill off the desktop PC market.

Even Apple, the company that is wedded to laptops more strongly than any other, still offers a line of FOUR desktop Macs! They're inarguably in a better position than anyone to go laptop only if they wanted since their SoCs are more power efficient than AMD/Intel's but they EXPANDED their desktop line a few years ago when they introduced the Studio. If even Apple - the one company most willing to say screw traditionalism and piss people off with unpopular change - doesn't agree with your claim that the desktop PC is dead, how the heck do you expect the hidebound PC market to make such a radical move? Let alone in a YEAR! 😂

 

[poke01]

If even Apple - the one company most willing to say screw traditionalism and piss people off with unpopular change - doesn't agree with your claim that the desktop PC is dead, how the heck do you expect the hidebound PC market to make such a radical move? Let alone in a YEAR! 😂

true the desktop is only dead when the mac pro dies

 

[eek2121]

And how many RTX5090s have been sold? Yeah the desktop PC market is dead.

Trying to remove certain segments to make your argument work is disingenuous. People moved from desktop to laptop because of portability. Even most desktops sold weren't at the top end of the performance segment. They were basic PCs for household and office use. Yes, eventually laptop and SFF became good enough for most of those use cases. But people that use their PC for gaming, content creation, CAD, simulation, AI and more still use desktop because it offers the least amount of compromise. Anything more than basic use cases will still lean towards desktop.

Yeah this whole argument is silly to me. It is just like the “ARM is going to kill x86” argument.


Desktops serve specific segments that even high end laptops can’t replace. The laws of physics cannot be overcome on a wish.

Also, PC gaming now is bigger than it ever has been, and most (but not all) of that is done on the desktop.

i own both, and while my gaming laptop is great for traveling, it will never replace my high end PC.

 

[fastandfurious6]

And if one part of it quits working the whole thing needs to be replaced. Yours is the same argument people used to make why people should buy AIO PCs like iMac in the past, and it is wrong for the same reasons.

1. reliability has exponentially increased

2. all replacement parts on aliexpress.com etc

You might be OK with a laptop scale display, many of us want something bigger, or want multiple screens. And I don't care how good of a keyboard some laptops may have it isn't as good as a GOOD keyboard because there isn't enough room. And if this PARTICULAR laptop you think is so wonderful doesn't have all that great a keyboard, then what?

3. plug in monitors the same way as desktops. not an argument

4. legion 7 pro the keyboard is very good 🥰 I'm very picky

while my gaming laptop is great for traveling, it will never replace my high end PC.

5. try the legion 7 pro 9955HX3D and see if you hold the same opinion

You live in the reality that desktop PCs are already obsolete for 99% of users

yes!

 

[poke01]

try the legion 7 pro 9955HX3D and see if you hold the same opinion

you can't upgrade cpus on a laptop

 

[511]

you can't upgrade cpus on a laptop

You sure

 

[poke01]

You sure

yep no mobile CPU is LGA

 

[fastandfurious6]

you can't upgrade cpus on a laptop

6. 9955hx3d will last 5+ years

7. in 5 years sell it and with just 1000 more buy brand new zen 7 3d

 

[In2Photos]

1. reliability has exponentially increased

2. all replacement parts on aliexpress.com etc

And yet there are countless channels on YouTube that repair laptops daily requiring specialized tools and extensive electrical engineering experience. Even your "Super powerusers" don't have these tools.

You can't buy a replacement Dell/Lenovo/HP motherboard with CPU for latest Gen laptops on AliExpress.

But you can buy a replacement CPU or motherboard for desktop.

 

[fastandfurious6]

countless channels on YouTube that repair laptops daily

8. what kind of laptops. there are 1000s models in the market, most are not good by design

but the good models are here to stay, their mobos rarely fry

You can't buy a replacement Dell/Lenovo/HP motherboard with CPU for latest Gen laptops on AliExpress.

9. wrong, you can buy replacement laptop mobos. if so worried just pay $200 extra for 3-4 years warranty

 

[poke01]

9955hx3d

boring not a laptop cpu

 

[fastandfurious6]

everyone seems to be missing the core argument which is:


9950X3D-class CPUs are becoming so flexible/cold/light to run that are even in handheld devices

let that sink in...... most commenters here live in the past


the future of computing is embedding top-end CPUs in small factors everywhere

desktop was simply a necessity of the past which does not apply anymore


I call this.... the fastandfurious6 law

 

[poke01]

wtf, you use a desktop CPU thats been soldered onto a mb.

This is your "laptop" cpu, its a 9950X at 105w tdp

 

[fastandfurious6]

yes it's a 9950X3D on a 2.5kg laptop and it runs cold, quiet and fast 😉

what's your point?