I'm sure a lot of the reason PC sales have slowed is simply because there is no "killer app" for mainstream consumers that requires beefier hardware. For example, my parents are using an 8-year-old CPU (Athlon X2 4200+), and it would be very hard to justify upgrading for what they do. Unless you have a specific use in mind (like gaming or video editing/encoding), PCs have been "fast enough" for awhile.
In my experience most new PC purchases now are because of hardware failures or people borking their OS with malware/McAfee, and rather than risking $200 in the Geeksquad lottery of incompetence they just get a new PC.
They may set their price to maximize profits, but in some cases I'm not sure that is actually what they are achieving. By making a product cheaper you will also generally sell more of that product (whether it makes up for the lower prices depends on a lot of factors). Just look at PC game download services like Steam (or ironically Amazon). They have regular prices most of the time, but have occasional sales to attract buyers who wouldn't have otherwise bought the games. For example I recently picked up Dark Souls for $7.50, a game I would have never tried at it's full price. $7.50 is a lot more than $0.00
and don't use email. A letter with an address on it proves that you are in their district and may be voting for someone else if they don't do the right thing. An email could be from anyone.
That is a decent price, but even $5 is really on the high end when you are talking about sitting in a $5 chair in a big concrete box for 2 hours watching a screen only like 10 times bigger than what many people have a home nowadays. Even without factoring in the profits from snacks and candy a business model should be maintainable on like $1 a viewing.
The #1 thing making that business model not "maintainable on like $1 a viewing" is the licensing fees the theaters have to pay to show the films. It depends on the particular business deals but usually 90%+ of the ticket value goes straight to the movie studio. Theaters make almost all of their money on popcorn/soda/candy. Yes it sucks, but that's the reality.
I think $1 for a movie ticket to a new film is pretty unrealistic though, when you consider how expensive a film is to make, plus the operational costs of the theater.
and it certainly hasn't ended with Obama. He has extended most of the policies of Bush, but seems to get a free pass from most of the people who were up in arms about Bush.
Ivy Bridge on 22nm consumes less power than Sandy Bridge on 32nm when idle, according to Anandtech. Only very slightly less, but still less. Those differences will obviously pale in comparison to the claimed 20x reductions from architecture changes in Haswell though.
If you look back through all of Intels die shrinks they pretty much always have lower idle power consumption than their predecessor, although you are right to point out the load power consumption is where the biggest difference is seen.
Intel is working on major improvements in idle power consumption though, because they know that is their weakest area at the moment.
For their next big architecture (Haswell), they are claiming a 20x reduction in idle power consumption compared to Sandy Bridge. Then another year after that Intel will have a die-shrink of Haswell (called Broadwell) using 14nm, which you would expect to reduce power consumption even further.
Those kind of improvements will bring them a lot closer to ARM in power consumption, while still having far superior performance.
Most of my favorite movies are from the 60s and 70s, and I was born in 1985. It must be that nostalgia from when I was -20 years old. I wouldn't go as far as saying "movies suck now" though. Most movies do suck, but you could say that of any time period.
In my view you'd be a fool to throw away a vote on a candidate who you don't agree with. If you really think there would be a big difference between a Romney or Obama presidency you are kidding yourself. They say anything they can to try to make themselves seem different, but if you actually look at their records rather than their words they are extremely similar.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012
I could see it working on earth, but surely the latency would make it impossible for a physician on earth to tactility interact with a patient on Mars. At best Mars is about 3 light minutes away from earth, and it can be as far as 20+ light minutes away. 100-200ms is enough to throw off online gamers, so I imagine 600,000ms would be a bit too much for a doctor to work with.
They were complaining about Mario wearing a raccoon suit a few months ago. At least they have moved on to whining about things that happened in the 90s now.
The problem with that logic is you are more likely to die of a horrible agonizing illness if you eat unhealthily/too much. Eating too much doesn't just magically reduce your lifespan by a few years. It reduces your lifespan because it's hard on your body and makes you more prone to life-threatening diseases that you may have to suffer through.
You can still be healthy and eat a triple bacon burger with cheese too, you just can't do it every single day.
Why? Because 99.9% of the time six cores at 2.8ghz is more than enough. Even games run perfectly
There are virtually no games that actually use 6 cores though, so 2 of those cores just sit idle doing nothing. There are a lot of games that still only use 2 cores too, for example Skyrim (one of the most popular games in recent years):
That's one of the big problems with Bulldozer. In programs than can use all 8 cores it is somewhat competitive with 4 Intel cores, but in the programs that can't use 8 cores (quite a few) they get absolutely crushed by Intel.
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The strange thing is, if you use a phone, things are much simpler (generally there is an app).
It works better on phones in a country that has one of the largest phone producers in the world? Hmm imagine that.
I'm sure a lot of the reason PC sales have slowed is simply because there is no "killer app" for mainstream consumers that requires beefier hardware. For example, my parents are using an 8-year-old CPU (Athlon X2 4200+), and it would be very hard to justify upgrading for what they do. Unless you have a specific use in mind (like gaming or video editing/encoding), PCs have been "fast enough" for awhile.
In my experience most new PC purchases now are because of hardware failures or people borking their OS with malware/McAfee, and rather than risking $200 in the Geeksquad lottery of incompetence they just get a new PC.
I wouldn't say ANY other country, but we are certainly nowhere near the top.
They may set their price to maximize profits, but in some cases I'm not sure that is actually what they are achieving. By making a product cheaper you will also generally sell more of that product (whether it makes up for the lower prices depends on a lot of factors). Just look at PC game download services like Steam (or ironically Amazon). They have regular prices most of the time, but have occasional sales to attract buyers who wouldn't have otherwise bought the games. For example I recently picked up Dark Souls for $7.50, a game I would have never tried at it's full price. $7.50 is a lot more than $0.00
and don't use email. A letter with an address on it proves that you are in their district and may be voting for someone else if they don't do the right thing. An email could be from anyone.
..but wait, I thought the "death of the PC" had already come? How are people gaming on something that doesn't exist?
That is a decent price, but even $5 is really on the high end when you are talking about sitting in a $5 chair in a big concrete box for 2 hours watching a screen only like 10 times bigger than what many people have a home nowadays. Even without factoring in the profits from snacks and candy a business model should be maintainable on like $1 a viewing.
The #1 thing making that business model not "maintainable on like $1 a viewing" is the licensing fees the theaters have to pay to show the films. It depends on the particular business deals but usually 90%+ of the ticket value goes straight to the movie studio. Theaters make almost all of their money on popcorn/soda/candy. Yes it sucks, but that's the reality.
I think $1 for a movie ticket to a new film is pretty unrealistic though, when you consider how expensive a film is to make, plus the operational costs of the theater.
For most people Facebook is more like this though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W8K9SMI9Fk
So the same as all of their "news" then?
To be fair fan death IS real. It just takes about 70-80 years to take effect. ;)
and it certainly hasn't ended with Obama. He has extended most of the policies of Bush, but seems to get a free pass from most of the people who were up in arms about Bush.
A shocking revelation
Ivy Bridge on 22nm consumes less power than Sandy Bridge on 32nm when idle, according to Anandtech. Only very slightly less, but still less. Those differences will obviously pale in comparison to the claimed 20x reductions from architecture changes in Haswell though.
If you look back through all of Intels die shrinks they pretty much always have lower idle power consumption than their predecessor, although you are right to point out the load power consumption is where the biggest difference is seen.
Intel is working on major improvements in idle power consumption though, because they know that is their weakest area at the moment.
For their next big architecture (Haswell), they are claiming a 20x reduction in idle power consumption compared to Sandy Bridge. Then another year after that Intel will have a die-shrink of Haswell (called Broadwell) using 14nm, which you would expect to reduce power consumption even further.
Those kind of improvements will bring them a lot closer to ARM in power consumption, while still having far superior performance.
It plays games a lot better than the P4 he was comparing it to though (since that had no integrated graphics)
Only if it's them doing it. Anything Obama does is automatically wrong.
Most of my favorite movies are from the 60s and 70s, and I was born in 1985. It must be that nostalgia from when I was -20 years old. I wouldn't go as far as saying "movies suck now" though. Most movies do suck, but you could say that of any time period.
Welcome to web journalism 101. Putting Apple in headline = page views.
In my view you'd be a fool to throw away a vote on a candidate who you don't agree with. If you really think there would be a big difference between a Romney or Obama presidency you are kidding yourself. They say anything they can to try to make themselves seem different, but if you actually look at their records rather than their words they are extremely similar. http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012
I could see it working on earth, but surely the latency would make it impossible for a physician on earth to tactility interact with a patient on Mars. At best Mars is about 3 light minutes away from earth, and it can be as far as 20+ light minutes away. 100-200ms is enough to throw off online gamers, so I imagine 600,000ms would be a bit too much for a doctor to work with.
You have to buy the Apple branded TP for $5 per roll
They were complaining about Mario wearing a raccoon suit a few months ago. At least they have moved on to whining about things that happened in the 90s now.
The problem with that logic is you are more likely to die of a horrible agonizing illness if you eat unhealthily/too much. Eating too much doesn't just magically reduce your lifespan by a few years. It reduces your lifespan because it's hard on your body and makes you more prone to life-threatening diseases that you may have to suffer through.
You can still be healthy and eat a triple bacon burger with cheese too, you just can't do it every single day.
Why? Because 99.9% of the time six cores at 2.8ghz is more than enough. Even games run perfectly
There are virtually no games that actually use 6 cores though, so 2 of those cores just sit idle doing nothing. There are a lot of games that still only use 2 cores too, for example Skyrim (one of the most popular games in recent years):
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html
That's one of the big problems with Bulldozer. In programs than can use all 8 cores it is somewhat competitive with 4 Intel cores, but in the programs that can't use 8 cores (quite a few) they get absolutely crushed by Intel.
Someone named Pirateat40 couldn't possibly be defrauding people surely?