Not quite there yet … from left on surface, 5G internet, WireGuard router, pihole on a Zero W and 4x4 N95 HTPC, plus 1080p projector. When a computer that size (actually smaller, since I don’t need a SATA bay) can outperform my tower, though …

This photo of Meteor Lake shows 16GB of LPDDR5X on the package. AMD’s looking to kill the low-midrange GPU in the next couple of generations of APUs, with Intel attempting to reach parity. And all of this in a fraction of the power envelope of a midrange gaming rig.

Maybe it’s next-quarter-itis dominating the tech press, but these developments feel like they deserve a bit more attention given that all signs point to gaming 4x4 PCs with a wall wart in the next two years. This actually makes Intel’s exit from the NUC space somewhat surprising, but they’ve been shedding products pretty consistently and this may just be a part of that.

I’m in the situation of having a 5-year-old gaming rig that’s still going strong (caveat: I’m a factory/city-builder gamer so an RX 6600 works fine for me at 4K60), and moving into a stepvan in the next couple of weeks and therefore suddenly very aware of power draw, so all of this may be more exciting to me than the average bear, as I could see finally upgrading on account of a dead component in the next couple of years.

Yet there’s still that part of me from college that wants to keep abreast of the latest developments, and as I’ve watched now six desktop Intel generations hit benchmarks since I was the lucky winner of an 8086K, there’s been nothing that really draws a line in the sand and says “this will be the clear new minimum target.”

Intel starting over at 1st gen for Meteor Lake shows they see this finally changing. It honestly could have happened anywhere from introduction of E-cores to the seeming destination of Rentable Units, which have finally popped up outside of MLID. I’ve seen nothing about what AMD’s disaggregated endpoint looks like, even though I’m definitely looking to Strix Halo as where I may be able to ditch the ITX sandwich tower completely. Couple this with swapping out my TV for a native 1080p mini projector (a “maybe” suggestion that turned into having to try one at $40, and wow!), and I could be gaming in a van in fucking style with essentially zero dedicated hardware space in just a couple years!

Anyway, in situations like this, I’ve found that I may have inadequate sources, so I thought I’d see if anyone had suggestions.

  • fox_the_apprenticeEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    There’s the disconnect. How are you getting from A to B? “Can outperform my tower” from five years ago is not “compact computers will start to outperform full-sized computers” and certainly not “GPUs will become useless due to the performance of APUs.” This is the extrapolation that’s confusing me.

    You literally made the statement “at no point did I say towers are going to die, just that for a system for gaming without the need for a high-end GPU” which says that you think GPUs (except those at the very high end) will be made obsolete by APUs.

    In context, I was referring to the sorts of things that transpire on Reddit when it comes to CPU recommendations if gaming is mentioned at all, where it’s often i9 or nothing, and if it came out two weeks ago, it’s already too slow by orders of magnitude. The middle ground is all but ignored, which is what I’m referring to.

    And yet you used it as an actual argument against people here - not on Reddit - who disagree with you. You don’t get to use that argument here and then try to say “no no, I only meant it in reference to people way over there who aren’t even on this social media.”

    Please provide examples of this since I’m doing it all over the place. I can’t find one where I talk about how towers are an endangered species.

    I provided several exact quotes in my previous comment. I’ll add one more, since it wasn’t enough. In the title of this thread you state “It feels like we’re on the cusp of […] and a real shot at relegating towers to the extreme high end.” Emphasis mine. That very clearly says that you think towers are going to become endangered. That they will preserved only by, and I quote, people at “the extreme high end.”

    I thank you for your time reading my comment and replying to me. I think this will be my final word on the subject - but I’ll be sure to read any replies in case you think there’s still a misunderstanding.