wifi gaming desktop

[Dolan]

Dolan has an unnecessary complex for small computers (I guess he doesn't need to compensate so good on him), I kind of disagree because money money money and small means premium.

I'm hyped about all these new form factors Intel is pushing. I think I'm gonna buy my folks a PC on a stick with an i5 and 4GB RAM. Look at this thing



You can play 4K videos/streams on it without stutter. You can also play games like LoL on average graphics. And it fits right into your palm. You can plug it in any HDMI port on a monitor or TV and you have a Windows 10 machine, fully featured, with built-in bidirectional WiFi antenna, 3 USB-C ports (1 on the stick, 2 on the powerbrick, I think), 64GB eMMC storage, integrated Bluetooth (no need for dongles), MicroSDXC reader.

You can even control it with your phone:

[video]https://youtu.be/8126Fk5_gvI?t=2m35s[/video]

Now this is the Excel machine Metis was talking about, not the gaming NUC I mentioned earlier. That thing is more than an Excel machine. It's far from being a tower replacement for gaming, as a standalone unit, but if you don't care about the dough, you can get an external GPU, (which has its own power source of 110 W, btw, separate from the NUC's power source) and connect it via Thunderbolt 3, which has a high bandwidth, enough to transfer high-throughput graphics. So, then you're sort of approaching tower performance, though, of course, for a hefty price.

Modular approach, compared to the old paradigm of static, monolithic computers. You can take the eGPU with you and connect it to any other device with Thunderbolt. It's not there yet as a desktop/tower replacement in terms of performance but it's still an impressive feat of technology you can pack so much computing power in a device which can fit in your palm or a device the size of a router (the NUC).

[Metis]

Small form factor and modular computers have their uses but playing top-end video games are not among them. The most graphically-demanding video games stress even the highest-end video cards. This actually works in a feedback mechanism that drives the multi-billion dollar video game and computer industry. If it weren't for video games, computer technology would have lagged by decades. Modern supercomputers use as many GPUs as CPUs for their massive processing power.

[Laurence Drake]

That thing looks cool as shit.

[iNcog]

-- deleted post --

[Metis]

I do admit a PC you can hold in your hand is somewhat exciting.

I've grown up with computers and the leaps and bounds of computer technology have never ceased to amaze me. My first introduction to computers was a 250 pound "portable" Army field model, which had about the same processing power as a dollar scientific calculator that you can now find in a bin at Wal-Mart. Today, my niece's iPhone is more powerful that the mainframe computer we had at my university in the early 80s. Small systems like that shown above do have a lot of utility for many applications; for example, remote monitoring stations and public kiosks where low power consumption and security are prime issues. However, with power comes heat and that tower computer with its many noisy fans still has the potential for much more processing power.

Speaking of small computers, these tiny devices are all the rage now among hobbyists.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886260/ ... arged.html

[iNcog]

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[Dolan]

Yeah, so I guess I'm lucky coz I don't game seriously anymore, so I can afford to use these suboptimal, non-overclocked compute boxes and focus on what I can do with them.

For me a discrete GPU is pretty much a waste of money, since I'm not gonna do any CAD engineering projects or professional video editing.

I'm more interested in how much automation I can bring to more devices, rather than how much computing power I have in the house. If I focused on that, I'd get a workstation.