Where will PC tech go ?
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Discussion

J4CKO

Original Poster:

46,986 posts

230 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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With the Nvidia 3000 graphics cards coming out which is basically a supercomputer on its own, 32 GB of ram beceing common, SSD's being standard and multi core processors being the norm.

Where will things go in the next 20 years or so do you think ?


Mr Pointy

13,418 posts

189 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Nowhere. The average PC already has more computing capability than 99.99% of people need. From now on it's just a drive to make old stuff obsolete so they can sell new stuff.

thebraketester

15,822 posts

168 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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The same as always.... more speed... more smaller... more battery life.... more storage....

RDM

1,860 posts

237 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Maybe moving more to photonics with gamers boasting about how little power their rigs consume.

mikef

6,158 posts

281 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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I am writing this on a Raspberry Pi 4B - it has more compute power (and memory and storage) than early PCs I used that cost hundreds of pounds way back when. Research labs are building vast arrays of them for massively parallel applications. Maybe Apple moving to ARM cpus for laptops is indicative of where tech will go in the next few years

anxious_ant

2,626 posts

109 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Quantum computing - the next evolution for humanity.

FourWheelDrift

92,357 posts

314 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Ocular VR implants.

anxious_ant

2,626 posts

109 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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FourWheelDrift said:
Ocular VR implants.
Neural implants is already a thing

drmike37

626 posts

86 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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As long as windows gets more and more complex we’ll need faster and faster computers just so we can run Microsoft word.

ging84

9,548 posts

176 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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cloud

anonymous-user

84 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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anxious_ant said:
Quantum computing - the next evolution for humanity.
I’m sure I heard that was going to be the next big thing back in 1999. That and organic computers.

I don’t know what any of these things mean though.

Derek Smith

49,960 posts

278 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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DDg said:
Office filing systems will become more automated...
About a sixth of all electricity generated world wide goes towards servicing digital memory. I reckon there will need to be a different system for data recording, and fairly soon.

Someone suggested that PCs are faster than 99.9% of what most people need. Yet I've got a decent setup, with a Ryzen 3, 32gb RAM, decent enough video card, and ssd for the OS, yet it struggle to run a couple of the computer programmes I use. I'm going to upgrade to a Ryzen 9, 64gb RAM this year and will leave the opportunity for 128.

It will be great. Maybe for 18 mnths, but then the software will be changed and I'll have to consider what to do next.

I do a lot of video, images and 3D modelling and have just started on animation. I have 2 x 6TB HDDs in my computer and 12TB of additional storage, on HDD and cloud, soon to be networked on my soon to be 'old' computer.

Yet it is not 'future-proofed'. That's a computer sales myth.

jamoor

14,506 posts

245 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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ging84 said:
cloud
This, with 5 g it should mean that you just need a dumb terminal

Luke.

12,041 posts

280 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Tron.

Troubleatmill

10,210 posts

189 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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jamoor said:
ging84 said:
cloud
This, with 5 g it should mean that you just need a dumb terminal
Maybe - we could call it a Mainframe.

anxious_ant

2,626 posts

109 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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El stovey said:
I’m sure I heard that was going to be the next big thing back in 1999. That and organic computers.

I don’t know what any of these things mean though.
The theory behind quantum computing has been around for years, we just don't have the tech to create a physical quantum computer yet. However we are getting close.

Quantum computing will truly be the next step where it will do things current computers just can't achieve, no matter how many cores and clock speeds you through at them.

The prospect is scary, yet tantalising.

Light reading here if you are interested : https://www.wired.co.uk/article/quantum-computing-...

Gary C

15,311 posts

209 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Troubleatmill said:
jamoor said:
ging84 said:
cloud
This, with 5 g it should mean that you just need a dumb terminal
Maybe - we could call it a Mainframe.
Its always amused me. I started in the mainframe era with ICL office terminals. We even ran our simulator dynamic model remote from the simulator room itself so that it could run on the company mainframe over a leased line modem connection and the tutors having to book CPU time on it for training sessions.

Then remember the 'death' of that type of computing with the advent of a PC on my desk. Then to see the growth of client/server then server virtualisation giving bigger and bigger data centers and we are almost full circle with 'computer people' happy to be back in their own air conditioned locked rooms smile

Of course then there is ILO and they are all be kicked out again smile

frisbee

5,623 posts

140 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Skynet

ging84

9,548 posts

176 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
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Derek Smith said:
About a sixth of all electricity generated world wide goes towards servicing digital memory. I reckon there will need to be a different system for data recording, and fairly soon.
Where did you get such a crazy figure?
I've seen estimates of overall IT usage at 8-10%, but that is all usage, including manufacture.

hyphen

26,262 posts

120 months

Sunday 6th September 2020
quotequote all
Derek Smith said:
About a sixth of all electricity generated world wide goes towards servicing digital memory. I reckon there will need to be a different system for data recording, and fairly soon.

Someone suggested that PCs are faster than 99.9% of what most people need. Yet I've got a decent setup, with a Ryzen 3, 32gb RAM, decent enough video card, and ssd for the OS, yet it struggle to run a couple of the computer programmes I use. I'm going to upgrade to a Ryzen 9, 64gb RAM this year and will leave the opportunity for 128.

It will be great. Maybe for 18 mnths, but then the software will be changed and I'll have to consider what to do next.

I do a lot of video, images and 3D modelling and have just started on animation. I have 2 x 6TB HDDs in my computer and 12TB of additional storage, on HDD and cloud, soon to be networked on my soon to be 'old' computer.

Yet it is not 'future-proofed'. That's a computer sales myth.
What spec machines do professional video, images and 3D modellers use day to day?
What spec does the software maker recommend?

And do you mean struggles as in takes more time to complete some tasks than you would prefer?