Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

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For desktop PCs, the ATX standard means that the entirety of a high-end gaming PC upgrade often consists of just a new motherboard, CPU, RAM and GPU.

And that's great, if you're into generic beige boxes.

It's been years since I put together my own IBM compatible computers. But in the time since then, I haven't really seen any innovation in desktops.

Yes, for a while the processor numbers ticked up, but then plateaued. Graphics cards push the limits, but that has zero to do with the ATX standard, and more to do with using GPUs for non-graphics computation.

The laptop and mobile sectors seem to be what is driving SSD adoption, high DPI displays, power-conscious design, advanced cooling, smaller components, improved imaging input, reliable fingerprint reading, face recognition for security, smaller interchangeable ports, the move from spinning media to solid state or streaming, and probably other things that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Even if you think Apple's touchbar was a disaster, it's the kind of risk that wouldn't be taken in the Wintel desktop industry.

All we've gotten from the desktop side in the last 20 years is more elaborate giant plastic enclosures, LED lights inside the computer, and...? I'm not sure. Even liquid cooling was in laptops in the early part of this century.

Again, I haven't built a desktop in a long time, so if I'm off base I'd like to hear a list of desktop innovations enabled by the ATX standard. But my observation is that ATX is a pickup truck, and laptops are a Tesla.

Nearly all of the tech you have in your laptop was developed, tested, and refined on desktops. PCI based SSD were in desktops before NVMe was a thing. Vapor cooled processors were on budget gaming PCs 10 years ago. Even the MacBook trackpad was based on a desktop keyboard produced by a company called fingerworks. High DPI monitors came first to desktop. High refresh rate came first to desktop. Fingerprint reader? Had one on my secure computer 15 years ago. Face unlock a couple years after that.

Desktop is still the primary place for innovation. Laptops use technology that was introduced and pioneered on desktop, then refined until it could fit in Mobile/Laptop. Don't get me wrong, there's probably more work in getting the tech into Mobile than developing it in the first place... But the genesis of the ideas happen on desktop.

Desktop has the opposite mix of freedom and constraints as mobile. Standard internals, but freedom of space. There are dozens of heat-sink manufacturers for PC... Dozens of small teams focused on one problem. There's some variation between chipsets, but nothing that requires major design changes. These teams can afford to innovate... And customers can afford to try new solutions. If the heat-sink doesn't perform, you're out 5% of the total cost. But there's no similar way to try things out for laptops.

For example... Should a laptop combine all of its thermal dissipation into one single connected system or have isolated heat management? It completely depends on usage and thermal sensitivities of the components... It was desktop water-cooling that gave engineers the ability to test cooling GPU and CPU with the same thermal system to determine where to draw the line.

Huh? Most of todays innovation is about power efficiency. This is driven from mobile and laptops, but benefits desktops and servers as well.

>And that's great, if you're into generic beige boxes.

>All we've gotten from the desktop side in the last 20 years is more elaborate giant plastic enclosures, LED lights inside the computer, and...?

Have you ever built an ATX computer? I assure you, there are plenty of different standard form factor cases out there. The beige box thing was in vogue in the 90s, but today the big trends are sleek black with tempered glass.

And standard form factor desktop does not equal giant tower. You could also do a mini ITX build, a standard that's been around since 2001 for what it's worth.

High DPI displays? This implies high end displays weren't available to desktops first (they were.) A decent CRT could produce much higher DPI than LCDs could (in that era.) Part of the reason why Windows DPI independence sucks is because Microsoft implemented it super early in, without all of the insights Apple had to do it right, and now there's like 4 different DPI mechanisms in Windows.

All in all I'm not sure what really needs "innovating" so badly with desktop form factor. Do we need to solder our RAM to the main board, is that "innovation?"

You kind of say it yourself:

>that has zero to do with the ATX standard,

So would be the case for any form factor standard. It only dictates how things interoperate.

>All we've gotten from the desktop side in the last 20 years is more elaborate giant plastic enclosures, LED lights inside the computer, and...?

Improved efficiency and the demise of bulky storage devices has created a proliferation of small-form-factor designs. We have two proper standards in widespread use (mini-ITX and mini-STX) and an array of proprietary designs from Intel, Zotac and others. It's now possible to get a fast gaming machine the size of a Mac Mini, or a monstrously powerful workstation that'll fit in a shoulder bag.

https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/magnus-en1070k

https://www.sfflab.com/products/dan_a4-sfx

Strawman. Nobody claimed the ATX standard enabled innovation. It enabled the reduction of e-waste as OP indicated. Think of this the next time you trash your innovative phone or laptop because the non-user replaceable battery/ram/ssd/display/whatever failed.

It's worth mentioning that the utility of a pickup truck dramatically exceeds the utility of a Tesla.

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