I would take anything Quizz says with a grain of salt. He stated how Virtual Reality couldn't happen in a previous thread (he even had reasons that SEEMED reasonable and have all fallen through now), and also went on in another to say how a tablet will not offer PC gaming even within 5 years. All this is already happening right now. Hes kind of behind on the times.
While the death of the PC isn't happening anytime soon, you will see a ton more people treating their tablet PC's like they do their phones, that is to say, constantly upgrading and replacing them. Personally, as long I can hook the sucker up to everything I need I will probably even stop buying PC's and building them if it becomes price practical. Already did the same with notebooks for awhile before building a PC again. I love the portability. With the way OS's are going now a days, I think the guys who are actually at the top of their industry know this is going to happen and plan to make a KILLING off it. Look at the direction of Windows and OSX.
So to run it down, IMO the PC will still be around in 5 years, but will probably not be as prominent as Tablets. You'll just see more tablets with docking stations is all.
First off, I am old enough to disclose that my first PC was the Tandy 1000 I bought at Radio Shack back in the late 80's. I also studied the architecture of the 8088 / 8086 chip. Since then....I have owned and built more PC's then I can remember. On the weekends I listen to a guy on the radio who does a Tech Show. He is very knowledgeable and I respect his opinion the majority of the time.
However, this last weekend he made a bold statement I completely disagree with. He said the PC (as we know it) will go the way of the DoDo bird and not be around in 5 years. He theorizes that everything will be going to "PC Tablets". Sure, the PC market has taken a sizable hit since the IPAD and other tablets have become very popular. However, with the multi-billion dollar video game industry as well as the major players in the GPU / Video cards, there is no way (in my opinion) the PC will die. Thoughts?
-Rig
I work with AutoCad, Tekla, Inventor, StruCad, Solidworks.
Besides that I like to play 3d shooters and other 3d games.
There is no way at this moment that you can use those programs efficiently on a tablet.
People who use tablets fulltime are only playing flash games, watching Youtube, go to Facebook and other small stuff like that.
Working professionally with tablets and use 3d applications is a no go.
I don't see tablets replacing a lot of industry PC's anytime soon lol. I work in Graphics too and there is no way a tablet, even hooked up to a dock with a mouse/keyboard could handle what I do. I think lower end stuff like Photoshop and all that will be VERY practical on tablets soon (not in their current mobile versions, but full fledged experience), but huge programs that require a ton of resources like any 3d renderer will require a full fledged PC.
As for shooters and other 3d games, they've already got PC games on tablets. I can play Borderlands 2 on my tablet at a better FPS than the Vita version of the first Borderlands. I sometimes play Civ 5 on it too and turns surprisingly don't take that long at all even with 22 civs. Probably due to the flash drive and semi decent processor.
PCs are not going to die any time soon. It's really just a simple matter of power and heat. There will be a consumer desire, especially among gamers, for more processing power and better graphics. Why have PCs been getting more and more powerful for the last 10 years when the baseline requirements for PCs and most PC activities has not changed? It's all driven by gaming. Of course, there are the people who have an irrational desire to buy an i7 to surf the internet, but mostly it's gaming.
PCs will die when there are no more people who want something faster than what's commonly available.
My response to the guy the OP talks about making the claim that PCs will be dead in 5 years: AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA... No. Go away. You're embarrassing yourself.
The last bloody thing I want to do is do my gaming on anything even _close_ to resembling a tablet product. Tablets are great when I want to read a book in bed and other such activities. Other than that, screw 'em. I'll take my huge, cumbersome tower rig any day for _any_ sort of gaming.
Many peoples first games were played on a console; no, not a PlayStation or an Xbox but something like a Commodores, Atari or ZX Spectrum. Some of these went on to adds screens but the first ones didn't and you plugged them into your TV.
I'm wondering why you would label a ZX Spectrum a console? To me it's a personnel home computer or PC. I had one as a kid (+3) and I could do more than just game on it. I could program, word process, print. It was widely regarded as a PC at the time.
Unless I'm missing something?
Agreed. The ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 (the three main rival systems of that particular era, at least here in Europe) were PCs even if they didn't run DOS or Windows, not consoles. Heck, the CPC in Amstrad CPC stands for Colour Personal Computer. Calling them consoles is a major disservice to these machines.
Of course everyone knew the C64 was the superior machine, even envious Spectrum and Amstrad plebs.
However, this last weekend he made a bold statement I completely disagree with. He said the PC (as we know it) will go the way of the DoDo bird and not be around in 5 years. He theorizes that everything will be going to "PC Tablets". Sure, the PC market has taken a sizable hit since the IPAD and other tablets have become very popular. However, with the multi-billion dollar video game industry as well as the major players in the GPU / Video cards, there is no way (in my opinion) the PC will die. Thoughts?
Well,
Consider first we are rapidly approaching the physical limit of the speeds we can accomplish with current materials like silicon. Very real limitation due to physics, things like heat, cooling, standard operation parameters like room temperature, electricity supplied to a home/battery, etc. etc.
So if we can't get too much faster, the market moves to smaller, more energy efficient devices, or relying on the cloud to handle aspects of the computation that won't "fit" onto our commercial devices.
You can currently integrate into a chip what used to be a stand-alone, full size PCI card. That trend will continue. Eventually you won't need a 16 inch PCI card with it's own fan and access to a 700+ watt power supply to provide the same graphics you get today from such a card.
Sometime in the near future we will hit a point where the graphics stop getting better and better because the cost and time to do so will reach a point prohibitive to game development. High-end movie CGI level rendering live in-engine. We're already almost there.
So, with all of that, unless entirely new technology platforms are developed, it is a very real scenario that the "tower PC" and perhaps even the laptop will "go the way of the DoDo." It will be less about hardware and more about input device and output (screen) size and resolution. It's already going that way.
Even keyboard/mouse is slowly being replaced by touch, gesture, and voice. How many younger people do you know that can text on a touch screen just as fast as you can type on a keyboard?
Even like quantum computing is so far out... it only works great for certain scenarios and generally only under near absolute zero conditions. Not commercially viable.
TL;DR- 5 years is probably a little aggressive, but within 10? I'd say it's guaranteed.
Comments
I would take anything Quizz says with a grain of salt. He stated how Virtual Reality couldn't happen in a previous thread (he even had reasons that SEEMED reasonable and have all fallen through now), and also went on in another to say how a tablet will not offer PC gaming even within 5 years. All this is already happening right now. Hes kind of behind on the times.
While the death of the PC isn't happening anytime soon, you will see a ton more people treating their tablet PC's like they do their phones, that is to say, constantly upgrading and replacing them. Personally, as long I can hook the sucker up to everything I need I will probably even stop buying PC's and building them if it becomes price practical. Already did the same with notebooks for awhile before building a PC again. I love the portability. With the way OS's are going now a days, I think the guys who are actually at the top of their industry know this is going to happen and plan to make a KILLING off it. Look at the direction of Windows and OSX.
So to run it down, IMO the PC will still be around in 5 years, but will probably not be as prominent as Tablets. You'll just see more tablets with docking stations is all.
I don't see tablets replacing a lot of industry PC's anytime soon lol. I work in Graphics too and there is no way a tablet, even hooked up to a dock with a mouse/keyboard could handle what I do. I think lower end stuff like Photoshop and all that will be VERY practical on tablets soon (not in their current mobile versions, but full fledged experience), but huge programs that require a ton of resources like any 3d renderer will require a full fledged PC.
As for shooters and other 3d games, they've already got PC games on tablets. I can play Borderlands 2 on my tablet at a better FPS than the Vita version of the first Borderlands. I sometimes play Civ 5 on it too and turns surprisingly don't take that long at all even with 22 civs. Probably due to the flash drive and semi decent processor.
Has Quizzical posted yet?
PCs are not going to die any time soon. It's really just a simple matter of power and heat. There will be a consumer desire, especially among gamers, for more processing power and better graphics. Why have PCs been getting more and more powerful for the last 10 years when the baseline requirements for PCs and most PC activities has not changed? It's all driven by gaming. Of course, there are the people who have an irrational desire to buy an i7 to surf the internet, but mostly it's gaming.
PCs will die when there are no more people who want something faster than what's commonly available.
My response to the guy the OP talks about making the claim that PCs will be dead in 5 years: AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA... No. Go away. You're embarrassing yourself.
The last bloody thing I want to do is do my gaming on anything even _close_ to resembling a tablet product. Tablets are great when I want to read a book in bed and other such activities. Other than that, screw 'em. I'll take my huge, cumbersome tower rig any day for _any_ sort of gaming.
Agreed. The ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 (the three main rival systems of that particular era, at least here in Europe) were PCs even if they didn't run DOS or Windows, not consoles. Heck, the CPC in Amstrad CPC stands for Colour Personal Computer. Calling them consoles is a major disservice to these machines.
Of course everyone knew the C64 was the superior machine, even envious Spectrum and Amstrad plebs.
Well,
Consider first we are rapidly approaching the physical limit of the speeds we can accomplish with current materials like silicon. Very real limitation due to physics, things like heat, cooling, standard operation parameters like room temperature, electricity supplied to a home/battery, etc. etc.
So if we can't get too much faster, the market moves to smaller, more energy efficient devices, or relying on the cloud to handle aspects of the computation that won't "fit" onto our commercial devices.
You can currently integrate into a chip what used to be a stand-alone, full size PCI card. That trend will continue. Eventually you won't need a 16 inch PCI card with it's own fan and access to a 700+ watt power supply to provide the same graphics you get today from such a card.
Sometime in the near future we will hit a point where the graphics stop getting better and better because the cost and time to do so will reach a point prohibitive to game development. High-end movie CGI level rendering live in-engine. We're already almost there.
So, with all of that, unless entirely new technology platforms are developed, it is a very real scenario that the "tower PC" and perhaps even the laptop will "go the way of the DoDo." It will be less about hardware and more about input device and output (screen) size and resolution. It's already going that way.
Even keyboard/mouse is slowly being replaced by touch, gesture, and voice. How many younger people do you know that can text on a touch screen just as fast as you can type on a keyboard?
Even like quantum computing is so far out... it only works great for certain scenarios and generally only under near absolute zero conditions. Not commercially viable.
TL;DR- 5 years is probably a little aggressive, but within 10? I'd say it's guaranteed.