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
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