What do you read/watch to keep up with new computer tech?
Sorry in advance if this is kind of a ramble. Thanks for any thoughts you may have.
This post asking about specific hardware made me realize that I have lost touch with major architectural changes in PC hardware. Back in college (over 20 years ago), I was constantly upgrading and rebuilding computers, talking about them, reading about them. But that's probably par for the course in a EE program. I'm sure there must have been other online resources, but Slashdot is the thing that sticks out in my memory of that time.
Then in grad school, my last set of desktops from college carried me through the first few years, and I had a series of laptops provided by school.
Since then, I've always just bought laptops because they've gotten good enough to do everything I want, and with kids, it's much more flexible to be able to work anywhere in and out of the house. My latest (now several years old) has a high end I7 cpu, an NVIDIA GPU, two solid state drives (1.5TB total). It weighs just a few pounds and does everything I want, including things like Solidworks, zbrush, and older PC games.
Since I can remember a time when I was excited about 90mhz processors and feeling like I was getting a screaming deal to pay $500 for a 500mb hd, sometimes it just feels surreal for this to be so normal.
So, am I out of the loop? Or is this reflective of a more general shift? What do you read / where do you post to discuss hardware, hardware compatibility, etc. Are you still building desktops? Laptops? Cyberdecks? What are your thoughts on cost/value trade off of dell, etc. vs rolling your own?
It's only gotten easier to be build PCs but it isn't really cheaper anymore. There are some deals and some not so good deals with both.
But choosing the best value or best performance parts, not just compatible parts, has gotten a little bit more difficult because there are either too many options or too few options. Simple example: you probably don't need a 1000w PSU and it will almost certainly be less efficient than a 500w PSU for smaller workloads.
CPU Interconnect speed, FCLK, etc has always been a thing but I'd argue that it's even more important nowadays to pay attention. Single thread speed has kind of plateaued and any frequency mismatches add up quickly. Buy a pre-build computer and they should have already figured all this stuff out for you--but unfortunately capitalism has made that not as much of a guarantee:
That actually might not be the case. It has been a while since I looked into it and there are multiple variables but the higher to their max load the less efficient power supplies are. But the efficiency is also a curve so lower limits also come into play.
Power supply efficiency is an inverted U curve. Peak efficiency is usually between 40% and 80% load and smaller loads (0-40%) usually have steeper efficiency dropoffs vs. overloading (80-100%)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/2624/debunking-power-supply-myths/3
My own PC has a decent GPU and 8 HDDs but load (measured by my UPS) is usually between 200-350w. That might be lower than you might expect. I don't use all the W's that my PSU is capable of. Maybe PSU efficiency doesn't really matter very much while electricity is cheap but my main point is that higher numbers are not automatically better. You need to think about the system holistically when choosing parts
To answer some of your other prompts more directly:
Absolutely, I think there's always been a desire to be both productive and not limited to working in a single location. Since the arrive of the SSD, there's been fewer and fewer reasons to buy desktops. And more and more people are working exclusively from their phones--they don't need laptops. I think--if you can be productive on a phone you can be productive on a cyberdeck... but I would rate ergonomics and portability of various platforms like this:
Ergonomics: Desktops, Cyberdecks in "desktop" mode, Handheld game consoles (steamdeck, etc), Laptops, Phones, Highly-portable Cyberdecks, Tablets
Portability: Phones, Tablets, Laptops, Handheld consoles, Cyberdecks, Desktops
To explain myself a bit:
Desktops can be the most ergonomic because there is a wide variety of peripherals and they support the most input/output devices.
Laptops and Cyberdecks can be used like Slim PCs. They can support most of the ergonomic scenarios that desktops can. They can also be used in portable-mode but ergonomics without accessories might not be that great. I've never seen a laptop with a built-in ErgoDox EZ for example. But laptops and cyberdecks (if they are rigid enough) can be used in creative positions.
Game consoles, phones, and tablets are the least ergonomic because they support few, if any, peripherals which allow for using the devices in different positions.
Also, new types of devices are being created every day. I think XR glasses will continue to slowly grow in popularity. Maybe in the future laptop screens won't be all that common.
For me personally, I don't track news very much. Instead, I browse different category pages on Microcenter, Amazon, NewEgg, etc and when I see something that looks new or different (eg. Intel Optane) I research about it and try to understand if it is meaningful.
I was the creator of that thread. Last time I built my own rig was like 10 years ago, if not more.
What I realized trying to refresh my knowledge is that things didn't change much. Of course there are new technologies, architectures and whatever, but in the end everything is just a little more faster each new release. There are new names and terminology, but keeping up with that is basically majoring in the minors. Cool if you want to squeeze every bit of performance and be a perfectionist, but in the end there will always be something else to look for and you end up wasting your time for little to no return.
The only tech news I keep an eye on is Linux and that's just when something I want is around the corner (Cosmic DE). I open the Linux subreddit, check if there is something and that's it.
Used to read MacWorld religiously in the 80's, back when it bloomed to a very thick magazine and heavily laden with every advertiser under the sun. The Mac vs PC thing was a huge battle and both sides were spending big dollars to convince users of their superiority. PC's had high ground for their flexible architecture and options and Apple was promoting their stable OS and their superiority in the graphics and publishing and music production world. My how things have changed.