The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => Technology & Information => Topic started by: Snupes on March 19, 2014, 02:46:42 AM
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/18/5518032/project-christine-razer-nabu-steambox
Basically as the title says. Razer is working on (or wants to start work on) this type of computer that I think would be pretty sweet. A few brief snippets to kind of showcase and summarize:
"Each component of the concept computer is enclosed in a mineral oil-cooled chamber and can be easily installed into the system's PCI Express-powered backbone. Everything from the CPU to GPU and memory can be popped into the system."
"Perhaps more intriguing is that Tan's broader plans for the system is to tie it to a subscription service that would allow users to pay a monthly fee to essentially always have a top-of-the-line computer."
This seems like a pretty awesome idea to me, especially as someone with a crappy to mediocre computer. I would be totally on board with something like this. Not to mention it would also simplify the process of having and maintaining a gaming computer for those who are not as experienced with computers and are more intimidated by swapping out parts and figuring out what to buy and just, as a whole, the annoying process of upgrading a PC.
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That case looks more like it was an attempt to build a computer that emphasized vanity over utility while managing to have neither characteristic. Some major problems:
1. It requires manufacturers tailor their equipment directly to Razer. If I wanted to be shafted and forced to buy proprietary gadgets from one company, I'd buy a Mac. At least Apple can make the process of bending you over and fucking you a cultural phenomenon.
2. The Razer CEO claims that this will reduce wastage by allowing the easy trading of old hardware to lower end consumers. I don't think he has ever been to E-bay before, someone should probably tell him about that.
3. Computer parts are already easily interchangeable and standardized enough to allow various manufacturers and consumers to choose their flavor. No one that builds their computer for gaming would also be willing to buy a Razer Walled-Garden Brand computer.
4. "Christine's a bit different because if we went out and built our own modules and platform, we would literally be creating a walled garden, which is something that we don't want to do," he said. "We want to be able to go out there with a couple of big OEMs and be able to say, look, maybe Razer does all the super high-end stuff. You guys can do all the mass-market stuff and stuff like that. --- Uhh, this is exactly what Apple does, and we call it a walled garden because that is exactly what it is.
Basically Razer wants to corner the gaming market, but forgets PC gamers aren't lemmings. While I do own some Razer products (and they are fairly good at what they do), I would never pay a premium to have this new gaming PC that only Steve Jobs would approve of.
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Do you really need a gaming laptop to play League of Legends.. I mean, really?
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Do you have to change the oil every 6 months...
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Do you really need a gaming laptop to play League of Legends.. I mean, really?
How else are you going to run 20 instances of IE7 and iTunes at the same time?
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When I build a computer I build it with the intention of never upgrading it. I tend to build one every 3-4 years.
After that time, I want to upgrade the whole thing. Otherwise you end up bottlenecking bits and I usually want different things. New form factor, gaming, media, programing.
When I was younger I wanted tower PCs full of high end parts for gaming. Then I wanted media as I stopped playing games. Then I wanted sff as I didn't want a ruddy great thing under my desk. then I wanted something silent so I could concentrate whilst I code on it.
That modular thing will look very dated in 3 years and I likely won't want the whole thing. Besides Thermaltake have been selling PCs that look like this for donkey's years.
(http://assets.hardwaresphere.com/uploads/2009/12/ThermalTake-Level-10-BMW-designed-PC-case.jpg)
I'm not interested in that lump.
If I was to build a PC tomorrow it would be an intel NUC. This time next year, it'll likely be something else.
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When I build a computer I build it with the intention of never upgrading it. I tend to build one every 3-4 years.
After that time, I want to upgrade the whole thing. Otherwise you end up bottlenecking bits and I usually want different things. New form factor, gaming, media, programing.
When I was younger I wanted tower PCs full of high end parts for gaming. Then I wanted media as I stopped playing games. Then I wanted sff as I didn't want a ruddy great thing under my desk. then I wanted something silent so I could concentrate whilst I code on it.
That modular thing will look very dated in 3 years and I likely won't want the whole thing. Besides Thermaltake have been selling PCs that look like this for donkey's years.
(http://assets.hardwaresphere.com/uploads/2009/12/ThermalTake-Level-10-BMW-designed-PC-case.jpg)
I'm not interested in that lump.
If I was to build a PC tomorrow it would be an intel NUC. This time next year, it'll likely be something else.
Eh, some of the parts in my desktop at home have been running for at least 5-6 years now. I think it's just the 2 HDDs and CD drive left now, everything else has been upgraded at least once in that period.
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I find that too hard to do.
If I want a new motherboard its likely the socket won't fit my old processor. And I can't fit faster RAM if the mother board doesn't support the higher speeds. And if I want SSD and it doesn't support SATA or I want USB 3.0 or whatever or AGP gives way to PCI etc etc.
When you build a PC its locked in time. Its build for that moment. 3-4 years its just always been smarter for me to start over.
Manufacturers change the sockets, speeds and connectors. They always balls up your upgrade path. And Intel or Nvidia aren't going to care that you bought a modular PC.
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Buy a better motherboard then.
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Also, mineral oil is the absolute worst way to cool off a gaming computer. This isn't a combustion engine, computers have very high heat densities and oil submersion is not a good way to cool a small, very hot object. It seems their choice to do that would only be to make it semi-novel so they can patent the shit out of it.
It also guarantees eventual part failure due to heat. Maybe this is on purpose? They can't be accidentally this stupid, can they?
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Also, mineral oil is the absolute worst way to cool off a gaming computer.
I think that some people might disagree with you.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUBvWXH1hLs
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I think that some people might disagree with you.
Uhh, what? They're not advertising that mineral oil is the best way to cool a computer, they're just trying to make it look interesting. That aquarium computer would die out if they actually used it to play games for hours on end. Oil gets hot, and stays hots, and that radiator is only cooling the oil that is circulating. The oil directly around the processors is going to barely move, if at all, as oil is very resistant to convection currents due to its viscosity. Mineral oil computers are only good for low-end computers that are used in short bursts.
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It also guarantees eventual part failure due to heat. Maybe this is on purpose? They can't be accidentally this stupid, can they?
Razer doesn't turn a profit, so maybe they are.
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I may be wrong but doesn't mineral oil have a shitty thermal conductivity?
Reading up on it, it seems like water would actually move the heat away faster than oil.
Also, the specific best of mineroil is .4 btu/lb F.
Water is 1.
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I may be wrong but doesn't mineral oil have a shitty thermal conductivity?
Reading up on it, it seems like water would actually move the heat away faster than oil.
I haven't done the maths, but gut feeling tells me that oil would work out better, simply because of how much of it there is. With water cooling, you can usually only have a small amount of water flowing through heatsinks around critical components. With mineral oil, you just turn your computer into an aquarium. The heat can spread in all directions, and the area of the heat dissipating region is huge.
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The oil directly around the processors is going to barely move, if at all, as oil is very resistant to convection currents due to its viscosity.
How thick do you think that oil is? Remember that it's mineral oil, not motor oil.
Mineral oil computers are only good for low-end computers that are used in short bursts.
On what evidence are you basing this assertion? There does seem to be some evidence to the contrary:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Server-Cooling-Hardware-mineral-oil,17348.html
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I may be wrong but doesn't mineral oil have a shitty thermal conductivity?
Reading up on it, it seems like water would actually move the heat away faster than oil.
I haven't done the maths, but gut feeling tells me that oil would work out better, simply because of how much of it there is. With water cooling, you can usually only have a small amount of water flowing through heatsinks around critical components. With mineral oil, you just turn your computer into an aquarium. The heat can spread in all directions, and the area of the heat dissipating region is huge.
You can use water in your PC. Just gotta be distilled.
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Buy a better motherboard then.
At which point you end up buying a new computer because your processor doesn't fit, your RAM is now slow, your hard drive is bottled necking everything.
Why upgrade everything all the time? Why not just upgrade everything in one go? By building a new computer? Its not going to cost more and you can completely change your PC for your new requirements. What if the next computers all run ARM chips so as to be compatible with phone and tablet software? What if PCI is replaced? Or you want to swap from DIMM to RIMM or SO-DIMM?
I hate to say this, but I'm with Rushy on this one. This is a dumb idea.
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It's not just that it's typically better to upgrade everything in one go, but even if you upgrade parts individually there's still no way the "convenience" is going to be worth the Razer™ mark-up on module prices. To me it just seems to be entirely missing the point of building a PC.
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I may be wrong but doesn't mineral oil have a shitty thermal conductivity?
Reading up on it, it seems like water would actually move the heat away faster than oil.
I haven't done the maths, but gut feeling tells me that oil would work out better, simply because of how much of it there is. With water cooling, you can usually only have a small amount of water flowing through heatsinks around critical components. With mineral oil, you just turn your computer into an aquarium. The heat can spread in all directions, and the area of the heat dissipating region is huge.
You can use water in your PC. Just gotta be distilled.
That would work only if your case is vacuum sealed and completely free of any foreign particles.
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I would never pay a premium to have this new gaming PC that only Steve Jobs would approve of.
There isn't a thing about that computer that Steve Jobs would have approved of.
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Buy a better motherboard then.
At which point you end up buying a new computer because your processor doesn't fit, your RAM is now slow, your hard drive is bottled necking everything.
Why upgrade everything all the time? Why not just upgrade everything in one go? By building a new computer? Its not going to cost more and you can completely change your PC for your new requirements. What if the next computers all run ARM chips so as to be compatible with phone and tablet software? What if PCI is replaced? Or you want to swap from DIMM to RIMM or SO-DIMM?
I hate to say this, but I'm with Rushy on this one. This is a dumb idea.
Hey, I'm not arguing for Razer here, just upgrading certain parts as they require. Of course, if I'm forced to upgrade multiple parts due to sockets or other circumstances then I do, but otherwise I'm going to be a cheap bastard and only upgrade what I need.
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I may be wrong but doesn't mineral oil have a shitty thermal conductivity?
Reading up on it, it seems like water would actually move the heat away faster than oil.
I haven't done the maths, but gut feeling tells me that oil would work out better, simply because of how much of it there is. With water cooling, you can usually only have a small amount of water flowing through heatsinks around critical components. With mineral oil, you just turn your computer into an aquarium. The heat can spread in all directions, and the area of the heat dissipating region is huge.
You can use water in your PC. Just gotta be distilled.
That would work only if your case is vacuum sealed and completely free of any foreign particles.
If you're gonna pour miner oil all over your components, you're gonna make the case pretty close to air tight anyway.
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But then you would not be using water.
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But then you would not be using water.
Irrelevant.
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There isn't a thing about that computer that Steve Jobs would have approved of.
He would approve of the idea, but I doubt Apple would release a computer looking like stacked turds. It'd be sleek, white, and have a big honking Apple logo on it somewhere. They would say it uses quantum tunnel cooling or some made-up shit.
Hey, I'm not arguing for Razer here, just upgrading certain parts as they require. Of course, if I'm forced to upgrade multiple parts due to sockets or other circumstances then I do, but otherwise I'm going to be a cheap bastard and only upgrade what I need.
Like Thork said, a computer is more or less stuck in time due to the parts you get. When I built my first computer a few years ago I thought I'd just be able to update parts one at a time, but then I needed more powerful mining cards, and then I needed PCI slots that could handle the bandwidth. This ultimately ended with getting a whole new computer, because just getting a new GPU would bottleneck at the slots, and getting a new motherboard and GPU without a new processor is impossible due to socket compatibility. In the end the only computer parts that stay the same for me are the hard drives and the case.
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I've used the same case the past 11 years, but the hard drives have been replaced when needed.
Going to buy a new case and a whole new computer soon. The only things I'm going to take from the old computer and put in the new one are my two SSD's and one of the HDD's.
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What if the next computers all run ARM chips so as to be compatible with phone and tablet software?
You really don't understand how software works, do you?
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What if the next computers all run ARM chips so as to be compatible with phone and tablet software?
You really don't understand how software works, do you?
I'm a professional software developer. :(
I write apps, make web sites, do computer things. Today I started building a website that uses javascript to make api calls to a json server, then does something magic which I haven't worked out how to do yet, to dynamically create the webpages. Then it has to work off-line by caching something in a way I haven't yet figured out and create .pdfs off the information generated at runtime and then an iPad app needs to do the same thing.
Does this sound like the kind of thing a person who doesn't understand software would be getting paid to do? Does it? >o<
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Yes.
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Shut your pie-hole. You don't even know what shape the earth is! >:(
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Does this sound like the kind of thing a person who doesn't understand software would be getting paid to do? Does it? >o<
Based on your description, that is exactly what it sounds like.
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I'm a professional software developer. :(
I do computer things. Today I started building a website that does something magic which I haven't worked out how to do yet. Then it has to work off-line by caching something in a way I haven't yet figured out and then an iPad app needs to do the same thing.
Does this sound like the kind of thing a person who doesn't understand software would be getting paid to do? Does it? >o<
I'm with everybody else on this. It really does.
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What if the next computers all run ARM chips so as to be compatible with phone and tablet software?
You really don't understand how software works, do you?
I'm a professional software developer. :(
I write apps, make web sites, do computer things. Today I started building a website that uses javascript to make api calls to a json server, then does something magic which I haven't worked out how to do yet, to dynamically create the webpages. Then it has to work off-line by caching something in a way I haven't yet figured out and create .pdfs off the information generated at runtime and then an iPad app needs to do the same thing.
Does this sound like the kind of thing a person who doesn't understand software would be getting paid to do? Does it? >o<
You just proved his point. Congrats.
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Fucking hell. Has anyone else missed the Sarcasm Express today?
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Fucking hell. Has anyone else missed the Sarcasm Express today?
Nice try ;)