PC design needs a big change

[Brian Boru]

Chris Szewczyk did a recent interesting PCG article about the future of PCs—touches on case, mobo, PSU, CPU, GPU, cooling, RAM and storage.

Freakishly large graphics cards and super-hot SSDs mean the fundamentals of PC design needs a big change

The ATX standard needs to be revisited.

www.pcgamer.com

Basic premise is we can't maintain current trends. Even as a mere interested amateur onlooker, that thought has occurred to me looking at the dimensions of graphics cards, melting of connectors, and the seemingly ever-increasing power requirements.

What do you think?

 

[Rolfil]

One of the problems is the <1% of people that want the most powerful components.

Yes the 4090 is the most powerful GPU but most people don't need it and can't afford it.

Look at the issue with the intel 13900KF and 14900KF. The motherboard manufacturers put more power through them because intel said they could. Turned out the lower binned CPU's couldn't take it.

I think backside routing will take off because consumers will gradually want it in newer builds. I mean it just looks really cool and doesn't affect any standard or affect the price much.

 

[mjs warlord]

If i wanted to i could buy the most expensive pc you could put together and hopefully have no gaming issues that said , is it realistic for me to keep upgrading just because the latest must have games demands you use them. I am not giving " two fingers " to poor people i can remember a time when i did not know where tomorrow's dinner was coming from and in those days their were no such things as food banks.

I have been using satisfactory since october 2020 and a lot of players on this have posted that since unreal engine 5 was added the minimum spec was raised so they can use it anymore , i have seen similar comments for other games that have had unreal 5 upgrade . So what do you do now do you stop using a few of your favourite
games or upgrade.

On various steam discussions pages that i know the devs look at i have asked ..... what machine spec do you use when writing a game but none of them have ever answered me. I wonder if some of them use pc's built with parts that the general public cant purchase.

With regards to brians comments about melting connectors , well known on 4090's , i contacted the company who built my pc and asked if they had seen this . They said yes and they now throw the cables away and have better quality ones made by another company. They said they took that decision because if a 4090 cable caused a problem and took out other items under the terms of a guarantee they would be legally obliged to stand to the cost of the whole repair

My rig is 7 years old and only has a zotac gtx 1080 but i have seen players with better set ups than mine say they have problems i dont have.

 

[Brian Boru]

keep upgrading just because the latest must have games demands you use them

The experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall correctly it takes games 2 or more years to catch up with the hardware—ie to learn how to use the new power, features, whatever.

 

[Rolfil]

The experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall correctly it takes games 2 or more years to catch up with the hardware—ie to learn how to use the new power, features, whatever.

Possibly longer. Remember Alan Wake 2 is the first game to use Mesh Shaders. These were introduced in 2019 and then included properly in Direct X 12 Ultimate in 2020.

Also I would think that games companies look at the steam hardware survey. I think the majority a couple of years ago were still 10 series cards and the most common one now is the 3060.