Low end GeForce 600 thought

I wonder if the low-end cards on the impending GF600 series are going to have improved performance over their equivalent 500 series parts or if it is just going to be a die shrink. There's been small refinements over the last couple of card generations, but the TDP for the lowest end part has stayed around 30W.

Honestly I'd like to see something along the lines of the 520, but configured more for lower TDP, say around 15W or less. I like my high end parts as much as the next person but I have been building or rebuilding a lot of boxes lately for the office. Having some hyper-efficient video cards in there would make "Windows 7-izing" the older devices we have in there a lot easier.

Of course some of the motherboards have AGP slots so looking to AMD for DX9c or better stuff would be best in those instances as the cards would be newer from them, but some of the boxes will need to be gutted and having a superefficient PCI-E card for the office would be nice. Hell, if someone could lower the draw to the point where old school passive sinks were used, that would be great too.

Well, another tech post

I was reading Techrepublic today and in one of the threads there were a whole bunch of (ignorant) people going on about how the desktop is obsolete, noone will be making them anymore soon, expansion card makers will go out of business, etc.

Seriously. How can you people know so much about computers and still stay stupid shtuff like that.

Ten years ago people were saying the same thing. "Well with these Pentium 4's and Athlon's that are coming out now, laptops now have enough power to rival desktops for most uses, and they are more portable. The desktop is gonna die by 2011!"

Why do some people continue to fail to understand that desktops fill an important role in the digital ecosystem? Both consumers and businesses appreciate a platform that is easily maintainable AND upgradeable AND cost-effective. The kids still readily use desktops when they are at home.

Yeah, a laptop works fine too 8 times out of 10, but to get one that isn't loaded with cr*pware or to have the horsepower needed to mitigate the effects of said program-garbage, you do tend to spend noticeably more than you would for a similarly-speced desktop.

Look, the same things can be said for firearms. Rifles are fine for some things, side arms are of more use in other situations. You can get a perfectly acceptable bolt action rifle for $200-300 (at least you could up until recently). For a "I can sleep at night knowing"-grade reliability semi-auto pistol, you are looking at $500-1000. And even then you do not have a weapon with the range of a rifle. They fill two important, yet different, roles.

So in other words, the desktop, laptop, smartphone, and tablet are all tools that have particular uses in the given ecosystem, and any one of these devices cannot totally replace the functionality of any of the others. How in earth can the other three possibly displace the desktop's unique set of skills and abilities anytime in the foreseeable future? It's just going to magically disappear, because there are mobile devices out there with Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari? Bull!

You might see desktop (and laptop) computers coming out with operating systems that have smartphone influences (Windows 8 can use the Windows Phone 7 inspired Metro UI in addition to the classic Windows landscape, Android OS is coming to PCs, and so on). But the tool that these accessories attach to is not going anywhere, anytime soon.

/metoo

Steve Jobs is dead. Rest in peace old bean. Pancreatic cancer is not a nice way to go, kids.

I am a little annoyed though. Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds are as important, if not more so, than Jobs. And that's not counting the people involved in hardware development, strictly software. But either way, I know full well that when they die they will not be deified, because they don't have slick marketing departments behind them.

Oh well.

Resuming

Was busy for the last couple of days, but now am in a better position to post.

I was thinking about the direction of this blog. I was thinking of doing a political blog, but those are a dime a dozen theses days. Honestly linking to WaPo or Drudge or whatever is what everyone else does too. I need something unique, to stand out from the pack.

Of course, I also want to maintain my privacy; sort of a contradictory position considering I am also blogging on Google servers, but there you go.

Perhaps providing useful information to people would be a good starting point. And also information analysis. I'll have to think of something as a near-future post. Until then...

Ugh

Take a mint after a thick BBQ. Just saying.

Apple/Intel Takes Gun, Shoots Foot

Can anyone explain to me how the new Thunderbolt interface is a good idea? Seriously, the initial offerings are no less than $1000 U.S., and you have to buy a $50 cable on top of that just to use the stuff. Yeah, it's faster than USB 3.0, but it is backwards compatible with NOTHING starting out. On top of that Intel is not adding native support to Ivy Bridge processors, even though they developed Thunderbolt.

This thing is well positioned to conk out in the PC market, it's just another hole to put things into, and there are only a few pegs for the hole and they are all made out of solid gold. I could see adoption, maybe, if some external graphics card devices (say, a box that you can put normal NVIDIA and AMD cards into and make them portable) appeared in the "$300 or less" range but I don't see that happening for at least two years, if at all.

This is perfect for Apple on the other hand, it's just like early Firewire: approximately three smug urban hipsters who call themselves "graphic artists" while conversing with females in attempts to get laid will use it...

> Play

I started this blog because I wanted a simple way to discuss or share information with people. Either light information to entertain, or information has some value and can help people prepare for future contingencies. I've been trying to get the mechanical kinks with the site worked out, but feel that I really should start taking care of business and start posting regularly.

Things are getting difficult out there, and risk and danger are the unspoken bywords of the day. The obvious problem is the economic situation, with might very well bring down the European Union, and could cause some damage to the United States and China. It is very concerning that no-one involved in the recovery process seems to have any clue on how to do it. And we cannot discount the people who have/had actively "gamed" the system at one point or another, sometimes under the employment of the former group.

But there is also the political problem as well. I subscribe to the notion that generally it is a good thing when people mind their own business unless they suspect bad stuff is going down. And I include government and some private enterprise concerns in the "people" category, at least for the purposes of the preceding statement.

However, those two concerns disagree with me. In the last few years alone the social pendulum of the world has swung very far to the side of "Order", and it has not noticeably stopped swinging that way yet. Politicians in the West, at a accelerated pace, are actively ignoring or in some cases even going against the wishes of their constituents. I will concede that that is the classical mode of operations for most member of that particular profession, and yet the current crop in that field are either so inept at manipulating the masses that they come of as crass and sloppy, or they over-reach so far that they become offensive and naturally to be viewed with suspicion. So at best we have choice between incompetent politicians, dictatorial politicians, or politicians who are both incompetent and dictatorial. And of course in the East, frequently the single choice flavor of politico is that of the dictator, who may or may not be incompetent.

Considering the state of society on planet Earth these days, its little wonder you have so many dissatisfied people intent on taking to the streets. And while Communism, Nazism, Jihadism, et cetera, are naturally very much a part of that process, we now are starting to see even the laissez faire elements of the populace, bog standard conservatives and liberals (and so on), take up placards and march at the same time (but perhaps for different reasons). This is most notable, as usually its one or the other group who is up in arms about something...usually when the politicians from the dissenting group are in the minority; that both have been riled up simultaneously indicates that something is seriously amiss.

And then there are other issues that could be touched upon as well, not the least of which are the increasing incidences of unusually cruel behavior among people from all walks of life.

But in the meantime, here's a fuzzy kitty.

[EDIT: Slight grammar correction in first & second paragraphs; baseline content unaltered, 11-Jul-2011.]