14 DAY TRIAL // From the first 8086 processor and up to the Core 2 Duo, there has been a significant increase in computer raw power and computing capabilities, but just how much does a regular person use the computer and for what purposes?
Software has evolved along side with hardware into a symbiotic alliance; one cannot exist without the other, or if it did, then it would serve no purpose. Now you might say that if you have a vacuum cleaner, it doesn't require any software to operate. Yes, it's true, for the vacuum cleaner that you push around the house, but for those who are a little bit more "intelligent" and some who actually clean the house for you, this doesn't apply.
Even the most basic home appliances now use an integrated chip programmed to do a certain task. And computers, well, in this domain we have evolved quite a bit, all the software programs that have been developed can ease your work, and of course they have hardware requirements. So, assuming you work in an office environment, you handle e-mails, spreadsheets, documents, the Internet, probably even a messaging system? Does your computer need to be an Intel Core 2 Quad QX6700, with 4GB of RAM and two 750GB hard drives in RAID 0, with an NVIDIA 8800GTX video card and so on?
I guess not, something less powerful is needed for your line of work, and a lot cheaper for that matter; being efficient at what you do also depends on the resources you use. Very well, then for whom is that hardware designed? Gamers and enthusiasts, although I don't see a very big difference between the two categories. Ok, so we have gamers and enthusiasts, just how much of the computer using population fits in these categories? 10, 15, 20, 25, more than 25%, I don't know, could be more, could be less, the point is that most normal computer users need a normal computer, because it does more than just handle who knows what program which eats x Gigs of RAM and need who knows how many processor cores.
Normal users are actually office typed users with the occasional need of watching a movie, or playing a game, or something else that requires their attention. And thinking of multiple cores, I have an idea about this feature? if on the market there are only a small number of programs that would actually know how to work with multiple cores, and a limited number of games for that matter that have the same ability, why are we buying these products?
The first answer for this would be that software and game designers are developing products for multiple cored processors; it's the way of the future. Frankly, there is much promise and little action on this, and I'm not talking about a couple of stray examples, but I'd like to see a massive move towards this new concept, and it just isn't happening, not on such a high scale as it was expected.