HAVE WE REACHED MAXIMUM PC?

Has the desktop reached the point where it can get no better? Ian Evenden looks ahead

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Bought a new PC recently? Did you wonder why it was so similar to the one you'd upgraded from? Perhaps you researched components, and realized they're just improved versions of the ones you bought 10 years ago. We've all been there.

PCs have improved in the last decade or so, with increases in clock speeds, transistor counts, and power consumption, but there's been no great leap; just hype about Al (and new architecture, thanks to Qualcomm). A PC you build today may look similar to one you've built previously, with no advances in compact cases; just more USB-C ports that do slightly different things.

There are some interesting technologies on the horizon, however, such as photonic computing, increased cloud streaming, and software updates that attempt to take advantage of improved hardware. So where is the PC going, is there a way off the plateau we find ourselves on, and will we need to keep upgrading our machines in the future?

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, if we’re going to argue that nothing significant has happened to PCs in the last few years, is Snapdragon. The arrival of ARM-based chips in the PC, following their successes in cellphones, tablets, Macs, and embedded systems, poses an obvious question: is x86 dead?