Where's My Beefy New Desktop, Dude?

Last August I talked about hardware trends in terms of what is changing in the landscape of consumer electronics. But I think an update is in order here, as several things have changed, and there were a few things that I didn’t really talk about in the first article.

I was recently in the market for some new hardware because my current computer had run out of hard drive space and I’d run across a game that my video card wasn’t good enough for. So I got to thinking about what has and hasn’t changed over the 10 years since I’ve been a computer consumer.

I tend to be willing to spend between 1,000 and 1,500 for a new system, so if we take price as a constant, all other things equal, if I were to buy a computer in 2006, it should be about the same ratio of goodness from a computer in 2001 as that computer would be to one from 1996. That is, ever 5 years, the various components should increase at the same multipliers. (You might have heard of Moore’s Law).

In 1996, I was running a 166 MHz Pentium I, on 96 MB of memory and 1.6 GB hard drive. Sadly, I was also using this machine in 2002.  But in 2002 I bought a new machine. 1.8 GHz P IV, 512 MB memory, and 40 GB of hard drive space. Furthermore, the memory that I did buy with this computer was RDRAM, which is very fast. If I were to buy a comparably priced computer in 2006, it would be about 2.8 GHz P IV, 1024 MB memory, and 160 GB of hard drive space. Plus, the 1024 MB memory is SLOWER than the 512 I bought in 2002.

Whew – that’s a lot of numbers. The point is this, from 1996 to 2002, the hard drive got 25 times bigger, the processor was 10 times faster and the memory was 5 times bigger. From 2002 to 2006, the hard drive got 4 times bigger, the processor got 1.5 times faster, and the memory was 2 times bigger. If Moore’s law were holding up, we’d expect to see much more even numbers there. (The extra year from 1996 to 2002 doesn’t explain the jump).

What we’re looking at from 1996 to 2002 was a new generation of machines. In 2006, consumers are still buying the same family of Pentium processors, and the same type of memory. It’s the same generation of hardware. Just a gradual evolution.

So what explains this difference?

The main thing is all of the research by hardware companies in notebook computers. Notebooks in 1996 were total crap. In 2002, they were decent, but not great. In 2006, most people I know who own a computer have a notebook, and overall notebook sales have surpassed desktop sales. They spent gobs of money racing to get market share, expending time and money on minituraization and power consuption in current technology. Plus the explosion of Wi-Fi. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing).

The other thing is the onset of flat-panel monitors. Almost all new desktops are packaged with flat-panel monitors, which are still on the expensive side. So, since my numbers kept price constant, the flat-panel ate away at other hardware I could have bought. A new desktop with a CRT would have the following specs in my price range. (Who wants a CRT these days though? I scowl at mine daily. There are days I go to work just so I can stare at my dual-19 inch flat panels in silent reverence. Its so choice.) Ah-em. Anyway - the CRT 2006 era system came out like this - 3.0 GHz, 2 GB memory, and 250 MB hard drive. That ups the ratios slightly, but only the memory ratio is comparable to 1996 levels at that point. And keep in mind, that memory is still slower than the memory from 2002.

As a side note – the fast memory from 2002 turned out to be dead end technology for various reasons. It basically turned out that doubling your RAM speed wasn’t as good as making your RAM twice as big. Especially when the big RAM cost less. Cause people bought big cheap memory over small fast (expensive) memory.

There are a few hidden benefits to current technology – current processors are now Dual-Core or hyper-threaded. That basically means that you can run more programs at once without your computer slowing down. Intel has invested a lot of money betting that you care more about running a lot of things rather than one thing quickly. It’s a smart bet, considering how most people use their computers.

There was also a lot of money spent on 64 bit processors. AMD has come out with some successful 64 bit processors, and has really surpassed Intel in that area. Most of the money Intel spent on the 64 bit processors seems to have been wasted. So that’s another reason why we may have slowed down.

Clock speeds haven’t increased but your computer hardware’s capability of multitasking has. Unfortunately, software and software developers haven’t caught up to Dual-Core technology yet, so buying a dual-core probably won’t be as big of an advantage as it seems for another few years until your favorite operating systems and compliers are re-written to take advantage of the new hardware. Tough luck.

The elephant in the room though is that consumers aren’t buying computers as often as they used to. Is it the chicken or the egg? Would I perceive that I needed a new computer if new hardware was on the scale of 10 times better, rather than 2 times better than what I currently have? Or is it more that I am satisfied with a computer that runs every program I can possibly pay attention to at once – without any problems?

Computers seem to be approaching the curve of diminishing returns when it comes to price in compared to what new stuff you can do with it. That’s why mobility is all the rage. People are realizing there’s a lot more value in a computer they can use where and when they want than a stationary power-desktop that doesn’t do anything stunningly better. The exception are power-gamers, but at this point they’re a small minority in the computer market.

The hardware industry looks to me as if it is going to become more of a commodity, if it already isn’t, where profits are very marginal. The good thing is that everyone will be able to afford multiple computers in the near future. The bad thing is, new and exciting developments in consumer electronics are going to keep slowing down, and will never get as fast again as they were in the 1990’s. (Unless we meet an alien race or figure out fusion power or something else totally whack like that).

*sigh* I said all that and I didn’t even get to tell all you guys about the cool new transparent computer technology. I guess that’ll have to wait for another time.