Ram & Reason: The Desktop PC of the (Near) Future Part 2

by Rob Rice    September 2004

In part one of this two-part article, we saw how the computers that will begin to

roll out of the factories in the next several months will have monitors that can

display real 3D without the funky red and blue glasses. The ATX motherboard will

be a thing of the past (at least for the most part) and CPUs will continue their leap

from 32 to 64 bits.  The standard computer case will continue to shrink in size and

loose its boring beige and take on almost any color along with black lights, neon

lights, LED lights, strobe lights and lots of Plexiglas and stuff that you would never

associate with a computer. The good old BIOS will undergo some major changes

with companies struggling for position to dictate those changes.

 

The Video

We can also expect to see significant changes in top-of-the-line graphics cards that

are going to continue to match the speed and exceed the ram capacity of yesterday’s PC. It is no secret that Nvidia and ATI are locked in a performance battle that, fortunately for consumers, seems to have no end in sight. But what is even better is that competition is not just rolling over and playing dead. Expect serious new offerings from S3 and XGI and who knows, maybe even a surprise from one of the granddaddies of video card manufacturing (stay tuned!). However, the big news will be PCI-X and PCI Express video cards. These promise to be even faster than the current models that use an AGP slot and should drive prices down . . .  maybe. I say maybe because, if there is one thing that we have seen in the recent past, it is that the big video-card makers know how to keep prices inflated. Let’s hope that the competition will make that practice obsolete.

 

The Disk

Two words: “Solid State”. As 400 gigabyte hard drives are now available to the

average John and Jane Doe, I predict that those companies that have been

faithfully producing solid state hard drives will get costs down to where you

will begin to see them on enthusiast’s machines; along with the wild colors,

dual processors, neon lights, insane amounts of RAM, water cooling and who

knows what else, perhaps theatrical smoke machines. But don’t expect the

capacity of our beloved disk drives. These will be purely for performance.

 

The Ram

Faster and bigger, what else can I say?

 

 

The Cooling

The trend until recently has been toward more exotic cooling for PCs. Water

cooling, peltier coolers, heat pipes, and huge copper heat sinks with fans that

have the decibel levels of a blender set on high. Heck, one guy even submerged his motherboard in a bath of mineral oil to cool it. It worked - for a while. Now the trend is toward quieter machines. Soundproofing, quieter – low RPM fans and heat pipes are the way the cool winds are blowing.

 

And the Desktop

As Microsoft’s next big deal continues to be pushed back in its release date

(i.e., Longhorn) don’t be surprised if the company coughs up another special edition this millennium to fill the financial gap.

 

But don’t count out the competition. Yes, I predict that Microsoft will have some real competition as the forces of Linux are beginning to realize that being different does not always mean being successful. User friendliness seems to be a battle cry that is catching on with some major money being dumped into the operating system. Moreover, with the new demo disks that allow a user to pop in a CD and try out Linux without having to install it, I expect more people to be intrigued with the idea and have a look at something that is different.

 

 

Rob Rice is a member of the Computer Club of Oklahoma City and a computer specialist working in Anchorage Alaska. You can email Rob at, articles@isp.com