 pnjunctionTeksavvy Extreme
Premium Member
join:2008-01-24
Toronto, ON |
to urbanriot
Re: Intel getting out of the motherboard biz....I have bought MSI, Asus and Asrock boards. I have never needed to RMA a board for a hardware fault, but I have needed to flash firmware updates to fix serious issues. If there is anything they need to do a better job on it is probably firmware.
If they pared down their SKU list they could probably do a better job of testing and firmware. 20+ options for one chipset is ridiculous, it should be maybe half a dozen. 3 variants, budget/value/premium, for each of uATX and ATX is enough to reach most consumers. Then maybe an extreme ATX (ie the ones with tons of PCIe x16 slots and fancy audio chips on board) and an ITX option. |
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Edit: (somehow site double posted) |
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| urbanriot |
to pnjunction
Ideal for me would be 3 variants x 2 (business and residential) x 3 form factors (mitx, matx, atx) = 18, which I feel is just right, so I agree that over 20 is probably silly.
... well, I'd personally like to knock out 'budget' and 'value' from the business line but really, most businesses want the cheapest disposable garbage they can get, despite the necessity to pay IT even more than the money they're saving on low cost systems. |
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pnjunctionTeksavvy Extreme
Premium Member
join:2008-01-24
Toronto, ON |
Value is a useful segment.
I opened my mom's Dell computer that I good a really good deal on (i5-2320, 8gb ram, radeon 6450 for $600 a year ago, tried and couldn't beat that build on newegg) and the mobo is stripped right down with only 2 sata ports and 2 ram slots.
No way would I put that in a computer for myself but for my mom, who cares? She's never going to need more than 16gb ram or extra drives. That's the case for many users. |
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 Boricua
Premium Member
join:2002-01-26
Sacramuerto |
Boricua
Premium Member
2013-Jan-25 1:53 pm
said by pnjunction:Value is a useful segment.
I opened my mom's Dell computer that I good a really good deal on (i5-2320, 8gb ram, radeon 6450 for $600 a year ago, tried and couldn't beat that build on newegg) and the mobo is stripped right down with only 2 sata ports and 2 ram slots.
No way would I put that in a computer for myself but for my mom, who cares? She's never going to need more than 16gb ram or extra drives. That's the case for many users.
And that's why Intel thinks "the end is near" for desktops. They are seeing that mobos will become more of a niche as people (in general) will buy a desktop outright because of the cost factor instead of building. |
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pnjunctionTeksavvy Extreme
Premium Member
join:2008-01-24
Toronto, ON |
said by Boricua:And that's why Intel thinks "the end is near" for desktops. They are seeing that mobos will become more of a niche as people (in general) will buy a desktop outright because of the cost factor instead of building. While the value segment can satisfy most users, I wouldn't underestimate the money that can still be made from custom PCs and gamers. It surprises even me that it is worth the R&D cost for AMD and Nvidia to crank out these high-end GPUs that are mostly only used by gamers. I'm sure the rise of 3D rendering for media and GPU computing (and consoles to some extent) has helped them spread the costs but still. If it is worth it for them to make those huge custom ASICs, it will be worth it for Intel to provide the CPU options (that share R&D with server/workstation CPUs) and companies like Asus to put together the motherboards. Most everybody has a hard on for the exploding volume in phones and tablets, but you're looking at $20-40 for an SoC that does pretty much all the computing in those things. Meanwhile a gaming CPU and GPU will both sell for $150-$500+. |
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 n1zukmaking really tiny tech things
Premium Member
join:2001-10-24
Malta |
n1zuk
Premium Member
2013-Jan-25 2:08 pm
said by pnjunction:It surprises even me that it is worth the R&D cost for AMD and Nvidia to crank out these high-end GPUs that are mostly only used by gamers. Today's bleeding edge is next year's discount bin. And in 2 or so years, the base for the budget line offering. Stop innovating, and you'll be out of business in no time. |
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to pnjunction
said by pnjunction:It surprises even me that it is worth the R&D cost for AMD and Nvidia to crank out these high-end GPUs that are mostly only used by gamers. The workstation segment uses many workstation versions of some of the same GPU's as the desktop segment. The GF108 GPU was used right across the board in ever segment, from gamer cards, value cards, enthusiest mobility, workstation mobility and workstation Quadro's. |
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