I am surprised I don’t see anything online that mention these.
It looks like late 2015 and 2016 gonna see a lot of exciting new hardware and software coming out which will greatly improve the experience of computer users.
Skylake CPU
It is expected it will have significant IPC improvement, meaning more performance per clock. It is also more energy efficient. Finally a good CPU to look forward to. Good news for gamers and photo/video editors.
mainstream DDR4
not much for desktop user but for laptops it is a battery-saver. The transition to DDR4will be just like DDR2 to DDR3. DDR3 will eventually die out just like its predecessor. It is inevitable.
motherboard
With that said, ddr4 and the new cpu will certianly mean a new series of motherboard. The mobo will also have support for features like eSATA and m2
faster SSDs
These eSATA and m2 ports i mentioned above are not going to be wasted. Samsung is said to plan to mass produce a new SSD later this year which is 4 times faster than the current SATA SSDs. I suppose OS loading time and game loading time/fast travel time will be a thing in the past with crazy speed like this. Meanwhile ssd price keep declining which is good.
Windows 10
win 8 is a total fail. Win 10 is aimed to correct this. It has a lot of new useful features and more importantly it is optimized for pc. OS will be launched faster, data recovery will be so much easier, native wireless/usb3/ISO image etc. support. And brand new spartan browser. It is also for free for win 7 and 8 users which is great.
DirectX 12
Nvidia, AMD, Intel all express great excitement over this new API. Nvidia even says it is like 4 years of hardware improvement which is huge compliment. It is said to make graphics rendering easier more efficient and faster. It will make video games look like top-end CGI movies. And it will be shipped with win 10. Can’t wait.
Nvidia Pascal GPU
Nvidia is releasing a brand new GPU architecture in 2016, called Pascal. It is, according to the CEO, only 1/3 the size of current nvidia GPU, more energy efficient, and of course, much more powerful (some sources even claim 10x).
IPS + higher res + Hz
Acer and Asus are going to release new IPS monitors capable of low response time, high (144 hz) refresh rate and even higher resolutions. These will be expensive as hell, but at least we see a good direction there.
It seems that late 2015 and 2016 will see a lot of improvements/new development in the computer world. Can’t wait to see how these turn out. New games look increasingly realistic it would be exciting to see how these upcoming hardware/software will make them look even better!
I think the OP is most likely to elicit opinions about what is likely to be released in the next couple of years and how these things will impact the PC market and PC users. So, let’s try IMHO.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
I personally think that the PC market has stagnated for the past couple of years. Most folks have been focusing their attention on the tablet market. Now people are starting to realize that tablets aren’t going to completely replace PCs and they are finally starting to turn at least some of the development focus back towards the PC market. I’m happy about that.
That said, I don’t see anything really revolutionary on the horizon. I’m with kk fusion on this one. It’s progress, but there aren’t any huge leaps here.
Last time I was really excited by new developments in the PC world was with the introduction of CDROM drives and sound cards. These were revolutionary products and since then everything I can think of has just been an improvement on existing technology. I suppose tablets may count as well and the internet just sort of happened from a small base and grew massively from there.
What I find exciting at the moment is 3D-printers and Virtual reality headsets which at the moment are still mostly niche products and expensive.
The largest revolution in the PC realm is the internet which in a ironic way has slowed the need for such upgrades as all you need to do lots of the time is display a web page.
On the contrary, just yesterday I bought a new pc, and the main motivation was that surfing has gotten so slow and painful. Just one example, when I check my email, Java crashes every 10 minutes or so. I know that the proper solution is to get the latest version of Java, but I’m already on the most recent version that Win XP can take. So I got a Win 8.1, which I hope to be able to downgrade from Tile Hell to Win 7.
I think this supports my contention more then contradicts it. I didn’t say that the internet eliminated the need for upgrading, just it slowed it down. Win XP to Win 8.1 is a very long time between replacing computers.
But at the same time you have a point that a mature OS that does not need to be upgraded to the next one is a additional reason for being able to hold onto computers longer. Then again the reason one does not have to upgrade the OS much is because it is basically displaying web pages.
How old was your WinXP machine, for crying out loud? Ten years? Yeah, a creaky old WinXP machine is going to have problems. If you had a five year old Win7 machine then you’d have been fine. Notice that with your new purchase you skipped over two generations of Windows.
Don’t worry about downgrading 8.1 to 7, you should be able to get a free upgrade to 10 instead.
I’m considering buying a new PC in the next few days, I last bought one seven years ago. My question is, if I buy a PC now should it be upgradeable with the new technologies mentioned above?
I’m thinking about the new Nvidia graphics card in particular.
I ask because, all things being well, it’ll be another seven years before I buy another one and I don’t want to be caught out when I could have got something a lot better and upgradable if I was patient.
If you want a new computer, get a new computer. You can get really cheap ones nowadays. Don’t expect noticeable improvements in performance from your old machine, except nowadays hard drives are much larger.
That’s such BS. Even if you only do web surfing, a modern day SSD will greatly improve your experience as you open and shut down machine much faster, and open applications much faster, and no lags no freeze screen due to slow CPU/ ram. Your system also will consume hell a lot less power and produce a lot less heat and noise. Battery life on laptops are also greatly extended.
If you are into gaming or any productive use like graphic design the benefit of modern PC is enormous. Good luck running the latest AAA games with high settings on any machine older than 3 years.
You can always get a good machine now and upgrade later (assuming you are buying a desktop). A common practice is to sell, let’s say a graphics card, then buy a new one. It reduces the cost of upgrading a lot. GPU, CPU and RAM are all good “upgradable” components as they don’t depreciate much.
I don’t know about that. I haven’t experienced any of those things on any of the computers I’ve owned in the last 10 years. No screen lag, everything turns on and off fast, applications open immediately.
Except battery life. I agree battery life has significantly improved.
I’ve been thinking about replacing my 2011 MacBook Pro with a new model.
Although the newer machines are all much lighter and have double (or triple) the battery life, they are all slower than my current machine, at least until you get to the very high-end models.
Processor speeds have only modestly increased over the last 5 years, and I don’t see any big leaps in 2016.
That surprises me. Are they measurably slower these days (as in app performance or benchmarks), or are they just clocked lower in GHz but made up for with extra/more efficient cores and whatnot?
My 2011 is a Core i7 2.7GHz machine - the top of the line at the time.
The current machines have Geekbench scores lower than this machine, at least until you get the the very high-end, build-to-order computers.
For example, my machine has a Geekbench score of around 11,000 for the 64-bit, multicore benchmark. The MacBook Pro (13-inch Retina Early 2015) - Intel Core i7-5557U 3100 MHz (2 cores) has a score of 7433.
I’m sure that the new machines “feel” very fast, due to their SSDs, but for video editing, my machine will beat all but the top-end configurations.
Surprisingly, SSDs are still a premium option on most machines. Looking at the front pages of several websites, I only see one or two models that ship with an SSD, compared to dozens and dozens without. If you want a tricked out machine, then sure, get an SSD. If you’re the kind of guy who only buys a computer every 7 years, you’re getting a budget model, and that won’t come with an SSD.
I agree that battery life and heat control are much better on newer laptops, that really is an area where things have improved. Assuming you’re getting a laptop.
The days when computers were obsolete within a year of purchase are long over. Long, long over.
Yes, I’m going for a desktop to replace my old one. I’m not a huge gamer but I do like to play on occasion. I was just wondering if its safe to buy a PC now with upgradeability in mind, in other words that there isn’t going to be something silly like a superfast new graphics card but which also needs a specific type of slot on the motherboard which isn’t present in current models coming along in the near future.
I’m not sure how that follows? My old PC was pretty powerful at the time, and I’ve upgraded it over the interim, but its just got to the point that its starting to have increasing problems and I’m not throwing any more money at it to keep it running.
