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I figured the USB-C connector would be the most controversial of the idea list. Certainly there might be better options, but I was interested in trying to harmo

I figured the USB-C connector would be the most controversial of the idea list. Certainly there might be better options, but I was interested in trying to harmonize on something that could radically cut connector diversity and drive up fungibility and flexibility. I was imagining that the power half of it would be USB-PD PPS+EPR from the motherboard to the peripheral. The idea is that USB-C would be the "small widget" connector for things like large form factor disks (not m.2), optical drives (as much as those still exist), etc. Heavy iron things would use the bladed connector for power and the twinax ribbon for data. PCIe is great. It would also not sadden me tremendously to have CPU+RAM be a single device, be it on the CPU substrate or as a system-on-module. That flavor of upgradeability isn't worth losing a ton of performance. I'm sure tons of folks would hate it.

arghwhat 2y ago
Honestly, the idea of upgradeable RAM was purely tied to it being low-speed, high-cost devices. This in turn drives the ridiculous markup some companies charge now, drives up system costs due to complexity, and harms performance. Having a desktop CPU with integrated 64-128GB of RAM would probably justify the lack of "upgradability" with sheer performance and power improvements. There was never much upgradability there anyway - you could start by underspec'ing and then later fill it up to the (surprisingly not that high) limit, but what you saved by not buying all the RAM up front is probably less than the extra cost for supporting it at all. Paying more than the cost of RAM to have the flexibility of not buying RAM. (Phones have 24GB of RAM nowadays, a PC should not have any less than 64GB of RAM as base tier.)
simoncion 2y ago
> I was interested in trying to harmonize on something that could radically cut connector diversity and drive up fungibility and flexibility. Have you run the numbers on cost for USB-C plugs, ports, and cabling vs. what you're wanting to replace? My strong expectation is that you're proposing something that's substantially more expensive than what it's replacing. It's also a plan that places one or more cables with electrically-conductive ends into a chassis with components that react... poorly to unplanned contact with electrically-conductive materials. Do remember that PC internals have been designed to work with cables that have been carefully designed to have electrically non-conductive ends when not plugged in to their intended socket. I asked you a bunch of other questions that I'd legit like the answers to. I wouldn't have bothered asking the questions if I wasn't interested in the answers.

arghwhat 2y ago

Honestly, the idea of upgradeable RAM was purely tied to it being low-speed, high-cost devices. This in turn drives the ridiculous markup some companies charge now, drives up system costs due to complexity, and harms performance. Having a desktop CPU with integrated 64-128GB of RAM would probably justify the lack of "upgradability" with sheer performance and power improvements. There was never much upgradability there anyway - you could start by underspec'ing and then later fill it up to the (surprisingly not that high) limit, but what you saved by not buying all the RAM up front is probably less than the extra cost for supporting it at all. Paying more than the cost of RAM to have the flexibility of not buying RAM. (Phones have 24GB of RAM nowadays, a PC should not have any less than 64GB of RAM as base tier.)

simoncion 2y ago

> I was interested in trying to harmonize on something that could radically cut connector diversity and drive up fungibility and flexibility. Have you run the numbers on cost for USB-C plugs, ports, and cabling vs. what you're wanting to replace? My strong expectation is that you're proposing something that's substantially more expensive than what it's replacing. It's also a plan that places one or more cables with electrically-conductive ends into a chassis with components that react... poorly to unplanned contact with electrically-conductive materials. Do remember that PC internals have been designed to work with cables that have been carefully designed to have electrically non-conductive ends when not plugged in to their intended socket. I asked you a bunch of other questions that I'd legit like the answers to. I wouldn't have bothered asking the questions if I wasn't interested in the answers.