Comment by random3
4 hours ago
Apple just launched a $600 amazing laptop and the top models have massive performance. What are we talking about here?
4 hours ago
Apple just launched a $600 amazing laptop and the top models have massive performance. What are we talking about here?
I don't think personal computers will go away, but I think the era of "put it together yourself" commodity PC parts is likely coming to an end. I think we're going to see manufacturers back out of that space as demand decreases. Part selection will become more sparse. That will drive further contraction as the market dries up. Buying boxed motherboards, CPUs, video cards, etc, will still exist, but the prices will never recover back to the "golden age".
The large PC builders (Dell, HP, Lenovo) will continue down the road of cost reduction and proprietary parts. For the vast majority of people pre-packaged machines from the "big 3" are good enough. (Obviously, Apple will continue to Apple, too.)
I think bespoke commodity PCs will go the route, pricing wise, of machines like the Raptor Talos machines.
Edit: For a lot of people the fully customized bespoke PC experience is preferred. I used to be that person.
I also get why that doesn't seem like a big deal. I've been a "Dell laptop as a daily driver" user for >20 years now. My two home servers are just Dell server machines, too. I got tired of screwing around with hardware and the specs Dell provided were close enough to what I wanted.
but I don't want a $600 amazing laptop, i want a powerful desktop x86 machine with loads of ram and disk space. As cheap as it was a couple of years ago.
x86 going away wouldn't be surprising. Ignoring David Patterson was a mistake to begin with.
Not sure about the memory, but Xeon Scalable/Max ES/QS chips and their boards are still not horribly expensive.
Prior to the crunch, you could have anything from 48-64 cores and a good chunk of RAM (128GB+). If you were inordinately lucky, 56 cores and 64GB of onboard HBM2e was doable for 900-1500 USD.
They’re not Threadrippers or EPYCs,but sort of a in between - server chip that can also make a stout workstation too.
> As cheap as it was a couple of years ago.
I also want housing as cheap as it was a couple of years ago.
8GB isn't an "amazing" laptop, it's a budget laptop. It's also thermally constrained quite a bit, so not even as "amazing" as it could be.
The point about Apple is that everyone from zoom, slack etc will be forced to optimize for that 8GB. (Same like getting rid of awful flash player).
Many a people need only a basic device for Netflix, YouTube, google docs or email or search/but flights tickets. That will be amazing.
Many have job supplied laptop/desktop for great performance (made rubbish by AV scanners but that's different issue)
Reading some of the doomer comments in this thread feels like taking a glimpse into a different world.
We're out here with amazing performance in $600 laptops that last all day on battery and half of this comment section is acting like personal computing is over.
Personal computing and IBM PC clones are not the same thing. The fall of PC clones can happen while other personal computing devices continue to be produced. The $600 laptop is not a PC.
Apple laptops are PCs (Personal Computers). They are not IBM PCs. But IBM hasn't made PCs in years, and there hasn't been any IBM PC hardware to clone in years.