Eh, there’s two ways to do budget computing – through buying older less efficient parts that hit a certain performance standard, or through innovation.
For example, a decade ago a Ryzen APU’s GPU performance would have been the realm of a discrete GPU of some sort, especially in the mobile space. Now it’s integrated onto the CPU die with a max package power consumption sub-35W mobile, or 65W desktop.
The moral is that if you wait long enough, performance in computing will always increase across different price points. Performance that took numerous add in cards or discrete ICs can now be accomplished in a single SoC. Look at the PS4/5 and the new Xbox for another example. They’re much more highly integrated than most desktop computers, but what they are – essentially – is an expansion of the x64 laptop SoC with significantly higher power draw and a custom OS.
That tighter integration lowers costs.
Posted in r/pcmasterrace by u/harvey_hutchison • 9,380 points and 197 comments
