Does GamersNexus Think The Desktop Is Dying? 

"Will the Smartphone Replace the PC?" -article from PCWorld Feb 10, 2011

Personal desktop computers will never die.

I don't get it... Is the question "will desktop die?" or "will x86 die?" Because I see no reason why there wouldn't be ARM desktops.

If you say "Steve from Gamers Nexus" three times in a mirror, Gordon will show up and shave Steve's head.

If desktop is dying then I will go with it. Will always use a desktop.

If the headline has a question in it, the answer is always no.

Well, I'm 60, and still have a ways to go (Theoretically) and have been using a desktop since my first 386 in the 80's, and you are going to have to pry my Arch Linux/KDE Plasma desktop PC out of my cold dead hands! My choice of OS and hardware are part of my "Dying with dignity" plan: You just can't get that using Microsoft/Windows or Apple products!

I wish the ad break was louder..

If desktop dies I'll switch to racks

Steve trying to fill the Gordon shaped hole in his heart by doing interviews with any Techtuber he can find. Hopefully he'll get his Gordon fix sooner rather than later.

Desktop Is Dying? i hear that 30 years now :P

there are rumors off X86 being dead since 2000. ARM is not new, is as old as x86 the only thing arm does better than x86 is energy efficiency an easier to develop compilers / "some OS's things". "X86" will only die if stop being updated. I have more faith in RISCV than ARM.

2 words.... Thermal Constraints! Desktop will always have superior performance! Until they break physics.

The size may change, but the key is that we always have modular computers where we can swap out components.

Desktop is life, desktop is love.

Curious to see how desktop sales change over the next decade. Laptops already dominate the market in terms of unit sales, I wonder if that trend will continue or if this will stay more or less the same.

Year of the Linux desktop 2024

I think its correct that some are scared about ARM, but i think soon the desktop as we know it is going to be quite different.

As someone who turned their Raspberry Pi into a RISC OS PC, for me the desktop is the pinnacle of computing. Laptops cannot be opened, repaired and tinkered with. Ok, I'm old school, but why would I want a closed sourced box with a lid that acts like an expensive appliance with built in durability issues!

desktop not dying, the market is expanding. More ppl have more computing devices than ever as well as the number of ppl who have them and that number will only continue to grow

I want power and I want to be able to modify and extend...and as long as the Desktop is the one that can serve all of that up...I will remain a desktop user. I don't even have a laptop...and I have not jumped on the mobile bandwagon, not for gaming or much of anything else. Now for norms and the masses, sure...Desktops are dead or dying...but who cares? It doesn't stop me from building and enjoying my own desktop PCs...and when it comes to gaming...you will have to pry the mouse and keyboard from my dead body.

There is just so much you can do and so much flexibility with desktops. The problem with ARM is that a vast majority of software and some hardware would have to be completely redone to be optimized for ARM.

Inflation is destroying the cost/value ratio between PC and console.

Because hunching over a 7" screen you have to hold, while trying to play a game with your thumb, is so much more comfortable then leaning back in an ergo chair, looking at a 32" screen you don't have to lift, while using a device (a mouse) that can actually click where you want it to.

It depends on the lifestyle or how people live. My brother gave me his desktop and bought a gaming laptop due to the nature of his work and home he moves a lot and a laptop is the most useful thing meanwhile I am doing work at home so a desktop is a better use for me. Also I want to build a dedicated desktop running gaming only in steamOS

I have always built my own desktop PC. However, the price of motherboards have escalated in recent times - AM5 and Intel 5, 6 and 7 chipset series boards cost an arm and a leg. So I guess I will hang on to my old PC a little bit longer...

So long as people spend their majority of time behind a Desktop at work it won't die as an appliance in the home because its use is familiar and you don't have to think about it. Any serious work can't be done on a small screen.

the point of the desktop was to have room for powerful components... but with the prices of GPUs for example so absurdly out of proportion... it's obvious why so many give up on desktops...

I think ARM will just find its way into DIY desktops sooner or later. And later later even RISC-V.

Desktop dying? All your niche portable PCs like the Steam Deck and others are "portable gaming consoles" and have high import taxes in most of the planet. Those are too expensive for the perfomance...

I think all the cpu architecture will fill key areas with limited overlap for a long while. Handheld and portable being battery efficiency while desktop is going to stay performance based. While mobile solutions are looking for a balance of both.

For desktops to “die,” computer users per se will have to have given up on the best performance available at a “reasonable” price. The chip architecture doesn’t matter. The issue is power draw and keeping the machine from overheating as well as having expansion/upgrade options. Desktops are built to handle heat better than consoles, laptops, handhelds, phones, tablets. They also provide more flexibility.

It's about a year since intel released documents proposing x86-S that drops legacy x86 compatibility. The "last x86" that intel mentioned could be true, but finally dropping inefficient legacy compatibility rather than a full switch to ARM.

Gotta love GN

Desktops will not die. Desktops will evolve.

Personal desktop computers life = 15 Yrs Personal Laptop computers life = 5 Yrs Cellphone Life = 3 yrs

Everybody gangsta untill arm infiltrates the desktop space

How I envision the future is a super powerful phone you can dock at any terminal and use it as a gaming system, work machine etc. I'm not really sure I would be down for that since I loath my phone but I would be down to give ARM a chance to take some of Intel and AMD's thunder, if I can run my games on it and replace my workstation and it performs better more power efficient I would switch.

For desktops to die, desks need to die. That isn't going to happen

it's also so weird and confusing whenever in marketing there is 'desktops are dead', like, you know the same technologies in mobile applications can be scaled up for desktops

5:00 Is that Asus peeking around the corner, talking smack about Steve? LOL

I like desktop for performance and repairability .

30 years ago someone told me thst RISC based processors would be the future

i see arm dominating the server segment if you can bring down the heat and power cost to server farms that is big money,all amd and intel needs to do to win on dekstop market is bring down cost and power usage to good enough

Man, I heard that since the late 90's and it never materialized. I think PC as a platform was most "endangered" during the early 2000's when console gaming was at its peak with the Playstation 2 and PC gaming was at its lowest. There was a serious argument then for less powerful laptops or Macs/Macbooks for average tasks and consoles for gaming in the mainstream. PC gaming has come a long way since then and with most games coming to PC eventually it's easily the best jack of all trades if you can afford it. Also it still has the best backwards compatibility and overall software support, period. I don't think that ARM can beat that, especially the software support.

Its not about whether desktop dies, but what does an ARM desktop world look like? ARM comes from mobile and doesn't play in the modular space that we're used to with desktops. What socket does a Qualcomm chip come in? Will we get ARM chip motherboards? Will all the old standards still apply like PCIe, DIMM/CAMM memory, power supplies, etc. Or will everything just be an SOC that's soldered on? How will any of this work?

The pc desktop market is bigger than ever, and is growing year over year. If x86 is dying, it is definitely weird that it's, well, raking in billions for multiple companies lol.

im considering buying a rog ally and use it as a desktop on dock, because conventional desktops take way too much space, its not only the gabinet, its the whole setup, the table, the screen, the chair and i dont need a notebook, i already have a phone to use social media

seems like everyone forgot x86s. Desktop PC sales are still slow, but that's to be expected since everyone and their dog was trying to buy a new Desktop between 2020 and early 2022. Intel and AMD are still sitting on unsold inventory from 2022. It will take another year or two for sales to normalize because there will be more people that want to upgrade.

People are excited for ARM because they expect it to be cheap and low power. But the announced prices prove Qualcomm has zero interest in offering cheap laptops, and once people realize you're going to be paying a premium for your apps to run slower, and early testing has shown they're just as power hungry when you ask it to do real work, I'm concerned ARM is going to flop, or at the very least fizzle once the novelty wears off and it's asked to really compete with X86 chips from Intel and AMD. AI TOPs don't matter to the real consumer in the real world. Especially in thin and lights. We've still yet to see _ONE APP_ that's a must have and only get ones that perform parlor tricks. And they don't even do _that_ well. Anyone that's doing constant AI workloads isn't realistically doing it in the middle of the forest where they can't find a freaking plug for 8 hours straight. If they care about _real_ AI performance they're just going to get a laptop with a GPU and plug it in, or keep a real computer in the office. I just get the feeling these laptops are for people that don't exist but damn if they aren't selling them _hard_ trying to convince you that you need AI but for some reason only in a thin and light form factor. Someone better inform Nvidia no one needs their Blackwell GPUs anymore. We have ARM processors!

My son's Lenovo Core i5 laptop is 18 months old (thus out of warranty) and the keyboard developed a fault where the bottom row of keys stopped working. Went to get a quote to replace the keyboard "module" but found out the keyboard forms part of the laptop's entire outer casing and replacing it would take 4-6 weeks (as parts had to come from overseas) and would cost in excess of AUD$500. I was advised by the repair shop that it's not really worth doing... better to just buy a new laptop. I spilt a coffee on my desktop’s USB keyboard once and it completely failed so I went to the local shop and purchased a $20 replacement USB keyboard and was up and running again in 20 minutes. Hmmmmm is there a lesson to be learnt here?

I will say, besides playing PC games and video editing. I actually really enjoy using my docked phone in DEX mode. Theres something really cool about having a "system" that i pickup and take with me whenever i want and everything just works. Once mobile games realize the potential of not doing freemium micro transactions and we get proper video editing on arm, things will get very interesting.

I think many of you all do not understand. It is not about us switching away from desktops.. that would be absurd lol.. but think of how much even we use our phones for things we use to only be able to do on desktops. Now think about all the "normal people" what they need to do.. they do not need a desktop.. heck a arm laptop would do a great all around job for most normy things.. Desktop x86 will go the way of other specialized hardware and become more niche. The companies are going to develope for the most profitable and that today is AI, enterprise and mobile. When fab space is limited then companies are going to put their r&d into the chips that will give them their best ROI.. it has always been that way and will continue to go that way.. I think that is why GPU cards have just continued to stay obnoxiously high. Also consider this..... x86 already has the name 86 in its name lol it will be 86'd before the decade is over lol.. All praise our AI and Arm overlords 🙏

I'm old enough to remember when the iPad was going to kill the desktop and the Laptop.

This was fun! I could see desktop pc's evolving beyond x86, but there's too much demanding software and use cases out there for desktop as a category to die.

Idk. I think I've been hearing this argument from 2005. Sure they might change with ARM and SOCs but not replaced

Desktop is immortal. Because in near future notebook, which is sitting on a desk will be called a "desktop". 😂

I hope desktop isn't dying. It's the only computing platform that doubles as an art form. Also, it gives the most FLOPS/$.

What is indicative is that the young man asking the questions is more of a flailing of his arms than he truly understood what he wanted to ask. Many things were touched, mixed up, but nothing was said. This has been talked about for 20 years, probably as a current popular association. The desktop can never die, not only when it comes to the huge number of enthusiasts, gamers, who would never switch to any idiocy from a mobile platform, etc. It is an essential issue of technological evolution, if one platform allows you the highest possible performance, you go in that direction, even when you have enough of them, you will want more. People think of a desktop system exclusively as a PC on a table, I would extend this question to the widest segment, so I would include workstations, servers, supercomputers, data centers... I give examples as antagonism to mobile. Therefore, many forget that 95% of the raw computer power lies in this and that as such it represents the basis of the widest range of human activity, which for good and bad purposes, in the last instance every mobile platform in the hands of anyone in the world depends on "desktop " system. Even one day when the future brings the possibility of synergy between mobile and desktop in the form of raw power in some kind of "etheric quantum librium", which would surround the planet and provide the possibility of computing at any point in space at any time, we return to what was mentioned above, that there will have to be a stronger, supervisory system for all that, and that people want more than what mobility provides, that is almost an essential question of the necessity of constant superiority over "assistive mobile".

Desktop will never dying for many many years until we die

I think that people do not really understand the thing with x86. There is nothing wrong with the instruction set. It just happens to be so that no one has produced a x86 SoC for PCs and laptops. Until now that Intel released their new laptop chips.

People have been saying the desktop is dying for literally 30 years, please cover a real topic.

It's not bookless just less books. Its not paperless; its less paper. Its not desktop less; its less desktops.

It's been 20 that they keep saying "the desktop is dying".

they've saying desktop is dying a decade I have 4 PCs all towers if they dying prices only get better for people the PC Master race.

The title should've been is x86 dying, not desktop. The discussion barely touched the topic lol. Steve questioned if ARM would be able to scale up in perf, and that's about it.

You swe, if you are industrious in using search engine you will find that there EXIST PCIE x8 external connectors and cables. Imagine. Yep, just imagine if the whole industry is beginning to cultivate it, or even extend it some more.

Desktop will survive if there is enough money to be made for businesses. While people buy more laptops, profit margins in DIY desktops is at another level.

they said rgb was dead but look now.

All the hype around ARM is warranted, but honestly it's not like RISC is even necessary in the space. If anything, look at the explosion recently in x86 SBCs. Why give up more complex instructions if there's not really a return in speed or efficiency, like we saw previously with ARM.

Many are still happy with a slot machine as a gaming console 😊

No, because soon you can "recall" every minute of it.

I have always used a Desktop PC. Since 2020 I have used a gaming Laptop. Just this week I have put together a new Desktop with old case, psu, gpu. If you travel a lot laptop is the only solution. If you need a workstation, there is no replacement for Desktop. On the other hand if we get an ultimate miniature box with 4090 gpu and some 64 core cpu that has no thermal constraints than i am all for it. Btw. With my asus tuf a15 I have always made a compromise at some point in the name of portability.

Not. Even. Slightly. It is actually more likely that laptops will die. Mobile devices are becoming so capable, they can do everything a laptop can barring a large display and keyboard. Laptops become obsolete so fast and are very expensive for what you get, but their performance is relatively poor vs even quite affordable desktops. I see a future where you have really good ways to output to decent displays and using good peripherals that your mobile device makes laptops completely pointless. Then still having a desktop home pc for when you want more capability and dont care about mobility.

PC means freedom. Every article about the death of PCs will forever be speculation and not what the market sided with/preferred.

Well I don't know if it's dying or not but with hardware parts prices skyrocketing and with the shenanigans going on from hardware vendors when a problem arises I wouldn't be surprised if the desktop will die or at least will slow down.

Personal desktops will not die. Maybe towers will fade away and get replaced with Mini-PCs.

It it dies, it dies.

Well arm is leading for consumer and desktops will probably remain on server side

My desktop PC is over 7 years old, and has 8-year-old tech in it. It still does everything as well as it needs to, or better--except gaming (and 3D-intensive work like Blender, I'm sure, but I don't delve into that). Point being, if gaming (and other 3D stuff) doesn't matter to the buyer, sure! Skinny laptops (ARM or otherwise), tablets and phones can fit the bill. But, *gaming still matters* to many. Demanding 3D games aren't going away, so how can the hardware that makes them perform correctly go away anytime soon? Porting everything to ARM is no small feat either, even if ARM eventually manages to do the work of top-tier GPUs and X86 CPUs.

Relax, desktop will always be superior in performance and comfort of use while at desk.

Linux on Snapdragon Elite X is going to take from Apple more so than X86!. NPU needs within X86 core blocks will change IGpu graphics. With Arm ISA, we might see AI accelerator boards on multiple PCIe 4 slots top reach hundreds of AI TOPS for sophisticated LLM models. It is something lacking on X86 desktops due to their focus on GPU and Nvme slots. If needed more pcie X4, x8 slots and potentially PIIX switches /bridges to extend slot density....

Discrete cards would need to fall behind before people will abandon their desktops

Mainframe and Terminals... Cloud computing and mobile devices.. OMG same thing. 👀👀

So long as the tech Jesus hasn't descended from tech heaven, the desktop PC world is still seeing another day.

The future is arm86…… note how x86 is taking notes from soc integration and also arm is becoming more power hungry. Competitions is bringing new hybrids both sides.

Hearing about dying deskop since PS2 XD

👍 Sir Adam and the NVP

I would love ARM in a laptop, very much not in desktop

I don't think desktops are switching to ARM anytime soon. Imagine how many games they would have to port, or at least properly emulate on ARM to incentivize gamers to switch. Laptops is another story. The vast majority of laptops are used for office-related things or productivity in general. Give me a quieter, reasonably fast laptop, which uses less power and I'm all in.

servers are staying, we'll game on server hardware if theres no new consumer hardware around

2024: the death of ...

desktop will reform into gamer and workstation desktops, as well as all in one monitors, there is no reason for PC boxes in most homes

Microsoft cannot figure out how to put the 5G modem into the surface pro they've had how many tries. So hoping Microsoft figure out ARM on windows is a pipe dream.

I do not know if ARM will kill x86 or not, what i do know is that desktops while a comparatively small market is a profitable one. PC's are slowly cutting into console marketshare because of 9th gen just all around sucking. Steam is a massive driver of PC sales and will continue to be. If the next gaming PC's will have ARM sitting next to Nvidia GPU's or not remains to be seen. As it is looking right now x86 still has a place for performance. You can't socket in a SDX or a M3 and even if you could current gen X3D chips would trash their ARM counterparts. Intel needs Core 2 moment right about now. They are in the same boat that they were in around the time Allendale released. P4 was a failed architecture and they needed something to bring them back into the fight against AMD after almost 6 years since Willamette and the Netburst architecture as a whole launched.

when it comes to compute,bigger is alwys bettter

We'd probably never see OS support for it but, desktop PCs could have both ARM and x64 in a single machine, if there end up being advantages to both. Right now, though, battery life is the only place ARM actually has an advantage, and no one else seems able to match what Apple have done with their CPUs, making ARM a bit of a lame duck, repeatedly, on the Windows side.

Ah.....what are y'all talking about?

If AI processing takes off, desktops will be around for a while ... or at least eGPU containers will be around. They can pack a lot of matrix processing hardware in a discrete GPU... maybe talking 10x vs these laptop AI chips. Or maybe eNPUs becomes a thing. I saw ASUS showing a rather large NUC box ... not sure what they were calling it ... with a discrete NVDA GPU. Maybe that's where desktops are going...

Laptops will be better but the enthusiast will still run a desktop, look at cars we have clean running evs depending on your source but still have race cars and diesel trucks