Is the Death of the DIY Computer on the Horizon? [Opinion]

As part of an engineering forum, I can confidently say that at least a handful of you out there dabble in building/repairing desktops or laptops. Part of the fun in starting a new build or upgrading an old rig is looking at all the different parts by various manufacturers to optimize the performance per dollar spent. Any veteran of the hobby can tell you that one of the harder decisions comes down to what processor you're going to use and what motherboard you're going to socket it into.

For a while, there was a rumor that Intel wanted to streamline the manufacturing process and produce CPU's that are soldered directly onto the motherboard (here-by referred to as 'mobo'). The rumor grew so critically, that a spokesman from Intel made a rare appearance and gave the statement:

"Intel remains committed to the growing desktop enthusiast and channel markets, and will continue to offer socketed parts in the LGA package for the foreseeable future for our customers and the Enthusiast DIY market; however, Intel cannot comment on specific long-term product roadmap plans at this time, but will disclose more details later per our normal communication process."

Rumors of the death of the socketable CPU came when inside reports showed Ball Grid Array (BGA) CPU's that have to be soldered in place in order to be used. Intel is still continuing on this project, but assured the DIY community that they will continue to make products for the enthusiasts.

This isn't the first scare for the DIY hobbyists. MacBooks have already taken a step in this direction by soldering the memory directly onto the motherboard, preventing any kind of personal repair of the laptop and forcing a full replacement of both the mobo and the RAM should either become faulty. The battery is glued directly to the case of the laptop, making it nigh impossible for third-party techs to repair it should everything goes wrong. Instead, the whole laptop will have to be mailed in to Apple's battery replacement program for the low price of $199.

Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 8, doesn't hurt the DIY market. Rather, it attacks desktops as a whole. I had the opportunity to play with it when it was a "Developer Preview". At that time, here was a registry tweak that could be performed to disable "Metro", the touchscreen over world of your computing device, and get the start menu back. Once I had the desktop mode that I was familiar with, the system commands actually ran particularly efficiently. With the actual software however, the Metro was been built directly into Explorer.exe itself. What that means is that Metro will always be the first thing you see on your desktop-- always. Rumor has it that there might be a way to use a Windows Explorer shell replacement to bypass it, but the typical user won't be able to figure it out. Businesses don't even have the option to disable it via group policies, leaving a clunky initial interface to deal with. Even with a mastery of Metro, it would seem that the whole user interface is built heavily around the ability to touch the screen, insinuating that the operating system was developed largely for mobile devices such as laptops, phones, and tablets. Large, brightly coloured buttons to attract the attention of consumers that want the "latest and greatest" litter the screen to show all of 10-15 restricted applications. I say restricted because most of the apps you'll find on a Metro screen come right from with Windows App Store. If you want something else, you have to jump through a set of restriction called API partitioning. I won't get into the details of that now, but suffice it to say, it's extremely limiting.

There is some hope on the horizon. Over the years, more people have turned to Linux-based OSs and modular designs for a variety of reasons, and a plethora of companies have created a more user-friendly world for desktop enthusiasts. Screwless cases that have you simply pop in a hard drive replace the cases of old that were machine cut to have razor-edged corners that could easily slice a cucumber in two. Modular power supplies make cable management easier than ever by allowing users to plug in only what is necessary instead of fumbling around with the extra cables throughout the case. Even if Intel were to jump ship and focus entirely on mobile platforms, we can rest assure that the demand is out there to allow some other business such as AMD to come in and save us from buying the un-optimized, ill-efficient, cookie cutter desktops for three times the price.

These thoughts are biased and open for discussion in the comments below!

^Sources:

^{MaximumPC - Intel Company Committed to Sockets}

^{Recyclers disagree on impact of glued-in Retina MacBook Pro batteries}

^{MacBook Pro battery replacement}

^{Metro app restrictions}