During the recent review of the Aorus Z790 Elite X WiFi 7 Dennis started to notice a dangerous trend. The trend has always been there and yet nobody has called attention to it.
“You are all building your desktop and gaming PCs WRONG!”
Don’t feel bad, we are all to blame.
- Everyone who ACTUALLY wanted cases with 10 external drive bays and couldn’t figure out how to migrate data is to blame for the “Stacker case design”.
- Everyone who ACTUALLY wanted gold colored PC components is to blame for “gold on everything”.
- Everyone who ACTUALLY felt that PCs were too noisy is to blame for “Silent case designs” AND “High airflow case designs”
- Everyone who ACTUALLY wanted better onboard audio quality instead of buying a discrete sound card is to blame for overtly elaborate sound solutions and PCB separation layers. They looked cool but were not much better.
The point is, hardware makers have been looking at their consumers for what to build. Aside from a very remote few instances, every PC hardware decision has roots in the community.
- When PC Modders started building watercooling loops using heater cores and brazed copper blocks was what started companies like Danger Den and EK.
- PC Modders who custom painted their PCs, installed side panel windows and cut holes in the side for better airflow are responsible for some of the best and worst case designs to ever be stamped out of an automated factory.
- Overclocking pc hardware for better performance kickstarted an entire PC hardware supported subculture that dictated how a high-end motherboard was to be designed, it started poorly executed overclocking competitions and promptly died when inexperienced idiots started gaming the RMA system instead of owning up to their mistakes.
So, what happened?
When external drive bays went away there was not a massive redesign of the computer chassis but rather case makers simply removed the internal structure, blocked off the external slots and carried on like nothing had happened.
When NVIDIA killed off SLI and AMD stopped offering Crossfire the extra expansion slots were no longer needed, instead of massively redesigning the motherboard or even shrinking the form factor we are given more M.2 drive locations and NOBODY needs.
Change is here and the once powerful and immensely influential vocal minority has gone silent. Instead of greatness we are given motherboards with no expansion options. Video cards with oversized heatsinks and a requirement to install a support bracket just to hold this oversized monstrosity. We have underpowered processing units generating too much heat and oversized coolers unable to keep up.
We know that hardware makers cannot think for themselves and if we let them run wild, we are given stupid things like this. The system has failed and it is time we do something about it.
Related Links
Aorus Z790 Elite X WiFi 7 Motherboard Review
Episode 153 featured music:
Little People - Start Shootin' (http://www.littlepeoplemusic.com/)
