Sign in / up

back to article Making connections: The world according to Intel

With the year winding down, I'd like to pull out a crystal ball and peer in. It is not my crystal ball I want to examine here but rather Intel's. Let's start with the networking. We all know that Intel makes networking gear. Specifically, it makes some of the best PC network interface cards (NICs) available. It should be a …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Bill Neal
    Unhappy

    Monitor with GPU?

    Is Thunderbolt really faster than PCI-e? Why have we been using bus connections instead of cables all this time? someone please explain the insanity. I DO NOT WANT my computer to look/feel/act like a tablet/smartphone! I'd rather buy a server and add a nice GPU for gaming if there were no more desktops. At least it lasts longer, and their weight is a deterrent for thieves.

    1 0
    1. Nexox Enigma
      Reply Icon

      Yup...

      """Is Thunderbolt really faster than PCI-e?"""

      Technically, I think Thunderbolt runs PCI-e (4x?) over the cable, along with some other things. I imagine latency is higher, but it should be enough to drive the sort of GPU you'd expect in a reasonable laptop (these Ultrabook toys would clearly have a much less capable GPU.)

      That said, I wouldn't give up my desktop - I've had laptops, netbooks, PDAs (remember those?), and smart phones, and they all just make different amounts of compromise to give me a computer that I can move around a bit. My desktop, by comparison, doesn't compromise much (only in price, and maybe energy consumption,) and yields a much more enjoyable operating experience.

      Of course, I tend to use computers a bit differently than many people ("You can't possibly need that many open tabs / windows / workspaces / monitors / etc!") and since computers are now used for 2 purposes (streaming video and facebook,) most people probably don't need more than a laptop. In fact, many of them probably don't even need all the buttons on the tablet screen keyboard - a simplified version with a handful of buttons for 'phrases' like 'lol' and 'omfg' would satisfy most of their text input requirements. For all the rest they can just click and drag the pretty pictures.

      0 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like