What is going on with desktop PCs these days?

[Regs]

Gaming and production studio's still seem to have legitimate uses. Hard to render 3d graphics without a discrete graphics card, a fast CPU, and a lot of hard drive space.

 

[Rumpltzer]

Much as I prefer to read technical papers on printed PAPER, I also prefer to type documents, pay bills, edit pics, etc. at a desk with a proper keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Mosaic was the first Web browser that I ever used. Dialing up (on a phone line!) was how I got onto the university network in undergrad. I owned a Zip Drive.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I owned a Zip Drive.

Jeezus. Do you tell your grandkids that story?

 

[Red Squirrel]

I remember zip drives and thought it was cool to have something that is basically almost 100x a floppy on a single disk. Then I heard about the click of death so avoided them and waited for something else to come out. Jazz drives came out but were very short lived, think they were quite pricy too. Issue with those devices that kept coming out is that they were not standard on every PC so it's not like you can put stuff on a disk and bring it to another PC as it probably would not have a drive. Then these just died off. Not all that long after USB flash started coming out, or maybe it was before, I don't remember. I oddly kinda miss floppies. That satisfying clunk when you insert one. There was something cool about being able to take a file from one computer to the other. Now days we just take that for granted via fast internet and mass storage devices that have a crazy amount of space in comparison and fit in a pocket.

 

[Carson Dyle]

There was something cool about being able to take a file from one computer to the other.

Yep. I'm old enough (way old enough) to remember how satisfying that feeling was. 5 1/4" real floppy disks. I don't think I ever used 8" floppy disks.

 

[IBMJunkman]

I have an iPad, smartphone and 2 desktop PCs. 1 PC is an Intel NUC serving as music server and security camera recorder. The other PC is main machine. Financial records, email storage, website support, etc.

Cell phone for calls and email. IPad for 95% of email and internet browsing. All email accounts are POP3 so all email gets downloaded to main PC when Outlook is run.

Nothing stored in cloud.

 

[paperfist]

Why? There's little market for it. It's not a matter of competition, unless you're examining the effect of having no competition on pricing. I'm amazed Intel still does as much as it does in the desktop arena any more, to be honest. There can't be that many PC gamers in the world these days. Luckily for them, there's still a business market, and there's still some market for higher end systems for video processing and things like engineering work.

Isn't the Steam user base on the rise?

 

[Imp]

My 2009 CPU still works. I'd appreciate the extra speed of a new one but it's really the lower power consumption I want.

 

[Sonikku]

God I wish I had spent $100 more half a decade ago and got an i5 2500k and OC board instead of an i5 2500 and cheapo board. I had no idea the kind of legs that thing would have... and I HAVE it even! Except, not quite.

 

[Imp]

^I'm so glad I missed that Intel generation where they had a shit ton of suffixes... the K, S, N, whatever.

They still appear to have K and T(?) but the store I usually go to only stocks some K models and the no letter versions.

 

[StrangerGuy]

It's boring these days because Intel has pretty much killed all the fun and value in OCing while AMD gave us 6 years of garbage. Plus, going above affordable mainstream tech or existing old parts costs a lot more but yields very questionable real world benefits.

 

[Svnla]

A few months ago, I purchased a refurbish desktop PC from Dell (i3 6th Gen with 8 GB of RAM and Win 10 Pro) and a new 27" LCD monitor from HP. Total price for both was about $500 (tax/fee included). So far so good. My old Dell Studio laptop is still around but the big screen desktop is nice for the eyes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yes! That's the best thing about a desktop PC, the Biiiiigly screens. I just upgraded my two main desktop machines with 40" 4K UHD HDR TVs. (Newegg BF sale for ~$220.) While simultaneously downgrading the PCs connected to their, to diminutive ASRock DeskMini mini-STX PCs. Thinking of selling off my gaming rigs. The DeskMinis are good enough for now.

If I really wanted to, I could get an i7-7700, 32GB of DDR4-2400, and a 1TB M.2 PCI-E 600p and a 2TB spinner, and fit them all in the DeskMini. About the only thing that won't fit is a GPU, and recently ASRock announced a "micro-STX" form-factor, that can take MXM GPUs. It's a bit bigger, but it also takes three M.2 SSDs!

Tech is still looking bright to me.

Although, I really thought that Intel would cut down their product line to only one or two chips, sell them directly to mobo makers to solder onto boards, and then sell "soft CPU DLC upgrades", that would "unlock" the features of the CPU on your mobo, using micro-code. (Want HyperThreading? $50. Want two more cores? $100. Want AVX/AVX2? $25. etc.)

 

[pooptastic]

Thanks for the replies

 

[JEDIYoda]

Since the advent of Dylithium Crystal based processors I have not had to upgrade.......

 

[Anubis]

only reason to upgrade now is if you want/need the new features on a newer chipset

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I wouldn't say they are being abandoned, but, I will say that demand for them is slowing down.
The reason is simple, people can buy other devices that do what they want to do, no need to be tied down to a desktop.

For word processing and the like that's true. Serious photo editing not so much. Taught my son how to build a PC so he can "roll his own" if he needs to.

 

[shortylickens]

Well, I dont know about YOU chuckleheads, but I only need a fast computer for gaming. Because of the direction games have been headed and my own lack of enthusiasm, I havent needed to upgrade for quite some time. And buying a whole computer is just a collosal waste of money when you know how to build your own.

I suspect I wont be upgrading to a new version of Windows either, since I only need it for gaming and thats been slowing down for me. Might jump on Linux next.

 

[purbeast0]

Serious question, if desktops really go away, how will people do stuff like code or edit video or other similar tasks? I can't imagine trying to do that on a small touch interface or some crappy excuse of an add on keyboard. not to mention, probably on only one screen vs 3+.

I do all of my coding at home on a MacBook Pro. Using multiple desktops and the badass touchpad I'm just as efficient, if not more efficient, than I am on a desktop with multiple monitors, which is how I code at work. My laptop is also a lot more powerful than my work computer.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I can't imagine coding on a laptop keyboard and a touch pad. Yuck. I really hope this is not the way things are going.

 

[purbeast0]

I can't imagine coding on a laptop keyboard and a touch pad. Yuck. I really hope this is not the way things are going.

It was terrible on my Dell Inspiron and HP Probook, but it's fucking bliss on my MacBook Pro.

 

[rh71]

I can play a Frostbite3 engine game like PVZ Garden Warfare 2 on ultra settings with this 8-year old PC (Q6600)+ a recent GPU (GTX 1060). I don't need any more powah than this for everything else I do on it (browse/code/encode videos/plex media server). Sure encoding would be faster but I'm not spending $500+ for a new setup just for that.

 

[Captante]

I posted some threads a few years back in the CPU forum, talking about building a new rig for a relative, with a Celeron and an SSD and ample RAM, being a "10-year rig". I was ridiculed by most people. Well, it's not so ridiculous now, is it, folks.

One of my backup PC's is an X2-6400+/Nforce 500 w/8gb's, GTX-550ti, 256gb Samsung 830 ssd. Pretty sure I built it in 2007 and its fully tolerable for any day-to-day PC stuff like most people do. Also does fine with HD video and is borderline acceptable for gaming. (older/less demanding games and lowered settings)

 

[SKORPI0]

For a "regular" user a circa 2012 PC is fast enough. For some, a decent tablet would be okay for web browsing, email, lo-res streamed video, eBook.
High end/power users (coders, video/photo/graphics professionals, gamers) will never be satisfied with what they have, always pushing the limits of current technology.
Each of these techs will have their own user base.

 

[Atreus21]

Desktops do fine in enterprises.

I'll tell you, the fun stuff with Intel CPUs is in the enterprise. Harnessing the staggering remote management capabilities and slew of other technologies that vPro CPUs afford is a blast.