Did Our 6-Year-Old Dream Machine Predictions Come True?
Did Our 6-Year-Old Dream Machine Predictions Come True?
Posted 07/30/2010 at 4:39pm
| by Gordon Mah Ung
17
Comments
Print
Back in September of 2004, we ran a sidebar in the Dream Machine issue where a couple of editors made their predictions about what the Dream Machine of 2010 would look like. Well, it just so happens that the 2010 Dream Machine issue is on newsstands now, so we thought we'd take a look at how those predictions held up. First, the predictions in question:
So how'd we do? Well, Logan (now the Editor in Chief of PC Gamer) pretty accurately described the modern smartphone. Still, don't expect to see an iPhone on the cover of the September issue of Maximum PC any time soon. Josh Norem.... Well, the less said about his predictions, the better. We will, unfortunately, have to wait for another 90 years before we can test Will's predictions.
But Gordon's predictions... Not half bad! Being as he's right here in the office, we asked him to tell us about his predictions, and about the reality of this year's Dream Machine. Here's what he had to say:
"As some of you may know, I successfully predicted many months before the iPad launched that it would have an Apple OS, CPU, and no keyboard.
But how did I do in my 2004 prediction of what Dream Machine 2010 would have? Let’s take a look:
Cooling: I predicted that liquid or phase-change would be standard in power rigs and I was right. I haven’t seen a high-end gaming rig without liquid-cooling. Of course, most of that is due to the hotter than hell GPUs, but the CPU also gets a lift from it.
CPU: I predicted a CPU with four cores on a single-die. Sure, I was off a couple of cores but my single-die prediction was right. That may not seem like much of a prediction now, but in 2004, a single-core 90nm Prescott was state of the art. From there Intel went to two chips on a die, but still connected to a front side bus, to dual-cores on a die and then two dual-cores in a chip. We didn’t really see the first “real” quad-cores from Intel until the Core i7 was introduced. AMD, of course, got there first.
RAM: I predicted 16GB would be the high-end with 8GB as standard. I’m off a bit. Today, I really believe that the standard enthusiast machine packs 4GB/6GB with power users running 8GB and 12GB.
HDD: OK, right on the money here. I predicted 4TB of “storage” running on “SATA III.”
Motherboards: I predicted that the BIOS would be gone by 2010 and I’m wrong – by a bit. Obviously, we’ll soon be moving to UEFI in the next 12 months so I was a little ahead of the curve.
Interface: Right on the money. The mouse and keyboard is still the premier way to game then and it is now.
Formfactor: You know, it didn’t even take more than a couple of years for my prediction of BTX being standard to proved wrong. I was wrong technically but I am right morally. I still see our clinging to ATX as irrational considering the needs of today’s computers. BTX may not be the answer but there needs to be some evolution.
But enough about today. I’ve been experimenting with overclocking to FTL speeds using trilithium thermal grease and having returned from 2015 I can pronounce that Dream Machine 2015 will have:
CPU: a single 24-core CPU with graphics functionality.
GPU: a single multi-GPU card with a 6GB frame buffer.
HDD: Three 10TB hard drives on SATA9 and a 2TB SSD
Formfactor: ATX.
RAM: 72GB of RAM.
Don’t believe me? I’ll meet you here in 2015."
Still need more Dream Machine? Check out the very first Dream Machine, and the Evolution of the Dream Machine!
More like this
zero_ken13
July 12, 2011 at 6:44pm
Gordon, your predictions are kick-ass and it is truly possible ^_^
nysguide
August 17, 2010 at 12:40pm
With all of the articles on PC's being replaced by game rigs, and TV rigs, and Home Controls being on electrical wiring, and Toasters talking to Refrigerators behind my back....
What about this my esteemed MAX-PC team?
A "Module" attached to the TV / Video wall and 3D flip top glasses for those “surreal” moments.
A "Module" attached to the Stereo and speakers as satellites
A “Module” or Stand-Alone unit in the home office.
A “Module” in each room to control whatever is there…
A “Module” connecting to the wall electric outlets for either wired or partially / fully wireless.
With a “Server” like core with storage and cooling, processing and computing power distributed to the “Modules” via the wall outlets or wireless /and / or in combination…
Each of the “Modules” will include GPU’s and Cores as needed by function, with 8 gig minimum memory up to 64 gig RAM for those game / video intensive Blu-Ray3D’s from the chip and contain 500GB-based SSD hard drive storage for buffering movies and Cable/Net/TV programs passed to it from the server.
In this scenario the only external network connection needs to be to the Server, where a single appliance runs firewall security and external up/downloads as needed or requested.
Streaming video is not needed from the net, as you request a string of programs then as they load to the server for storage until played, you can then select around the clock entertainment from games to movies from one remote control in the Video room.
Plug a stand-alone screen/combo PC in any room you want to compute in (such as those pesky PowerPoint business presentations we will all be making to earn the Ducats needed to buy bandwidth bursts from our major suppliers (buy by the terabyte no doubt))
And we can have our kitchen cook our dinner and the robot deliver the meal to our dinner trays in the Entertainment Center.
Something like that is my prediction for 2015 if we can come out of this financial crises thingy…
Bob
jsnod25
August 12, 2010 at 8:17am
Ok, here we go, and i want you all to remember this, and you will be in AWE of my grandeur.
First of all the system in general will not be conventional as we have known it, they will be systems on a chip, or system integrated chips SIC's which will have GPU and RAM an many other things including multiple cores integrated into one chip, with switches pretty much being at a micro-nanoscopic or even atomic scale (very tiny). Nano Meter wont be how we discuss the architecture of chips on the leading edge, it will be Atomic Widtch or Atoms in reference to the smallness of the switch's. It will also be 3D, current chips are 2D, but multi layers silicon will allow for better power management and therefore heat will be less of an issue. Ill illustrate with the rest of my predictions in the following
CPU's will be integrated with the rest as i said, WiFi and BT controllers, SST-RAM (read on) GPU, sound card and more, will be on a single chip, but the amount of cores is difficult to predict. We already know that there are 6 core proccessors out there, but the i7 quads out preform the 6 core's both Intel's and AMD's when it come to gaming and the like. Only software that needs things such as Network Processing / Rendering, like animation studios (pixar) or goverment agencies that like to simulate the end of the world in real time rather than wait a few days to see what happens or even google spiders that catalog the web all day every day. Those types of applications would only ever see a need for more than 4 cores in the home front. 6+ would be for server and if we ever enter the 12 core option, it wont really be an option because it would cost so much, and few would even be made because they are for a specific need.
Motherboard will will still be able carry 2 chips for servers and such, but even the standard single chip MB's will have fiber-optic bus's which will remove much of the bottlenecks of todays CPU's, which is one of limiting factors of increased CPU speeds in the first place. Why have a 10 gigahertz processor when the bus speed is stuck at 1600htz??? with the bus bottleneck removed, current CPU speeds will seem 2x as fast if not more. well also be looking at terahertz speeds in the near future.
RAM will be at actually be past DDR3, 4 or 5, it will not go past GPU's current GDDR5 or 6. SRAM SDRAM, DDRAM and FLASH/NAND will be a thing of the past, we will have Spin Torque Transfer RAM STT-RAM for short, and it will be many times faster than todays RAM and more compatible with the CMOS architecture and much less volatile than current forms of RAM. also requiring less energy, creating less heat. also integrated on the chip
Cooling will not be done by water or air, it will be done with MCC (Micro Cryogenic Cooling) devices, capable of maintaining cool temperatures and exploiting the maximum power input and performance output of the 3D SIC's of the future. BTW if your not onboard with System Integrated Chips then your not onboard with current ARM8 or the next gen ARM9 chips that Texas Instruments is supposed to be making by 2012, or the SNAPDRAGON chips, even the ATOM is an early version of the SIC's, which between the three of them is powering every other high tech smartphone, slab/slate and even Netbooks and net-tops.
Data storage needs will be decreased with Cloud Computing, which will be possible with increased access to massive downstream Internet access (50mbps+ in your hand held device), also we will be streaming most anything you can think of. think of netflix with movies (which will expand their capacity to stream data, in not only speed but quality), but imagine your whole music collection being streamed to you wherever your at. Or viewing all your photos where ever your at, this is kind of the idea of cloud computing and its the next step past Pandora Radio and Social Networking, which will be integrated into everything computer based(even your car). All data will be stored in Solid State devices that will use less energy and create less heat as well. We might even see silicon/crystal 3D storage too. RPMs wont be in HD vocabulary anymore.
Graphics displays will be projected 3D weather it be holographic or 3D assisted through a headset, both options will be available, one more expensive than the other.
Mouse and keyboard will be optional, you will think or speak commands and look at what you want to click on and browse the web with your mind or hand motions.
Hard to say ATX will not exist, but mostly exist in the home or small business server world, but for consumers at home, it will be an All in One little box that has very few separate elements inside. Power supplies will probably require less output in the future, and will utilize the dissipation of heat to generate energy in capacitors that will assist in sporadic energy demands of the SIC.
Its hard to say when but Microsoft is already toying around with Intel on a 128bit OS/chipset configuration for the next logical step... so just as the whoe world is catching up to 64bit both in consumers owning said system, and software devs making solely 64bit software, along comes the 128bit. how else do you expect to handle 4 - 12 cores more efficiently? thats still only halfway to the end result of 256bit but that wont be out by 2015.
I know that most of you probably think im off my rocker, but i can promise you that most of this technology is currently in existence to some scale or is currently in late stage development with a lot of money begin put into it being a reality sooner rather than later.... just remember that lately Moores law is actually slowly becoming wrong due to the fact that we are actually accelerating our technological advancements faster than the standard historical rates... we might even see 100% rates of advancement year over year within our life-time if current trends continue.
Sadly my comment is longer than the article.
tugboat_2
August 01, 2010 at 9:04pm
I don't know but, but I think that Intel's 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link and Intel's Light Link Technology are going to set the USB, SATA, and PCIe standards on their ear. Past 2015 I see ATX or any other current nominee standard is in jeaprody.
Go over to Anand's site and take a gander at the "Intel 50Gbps Silicon Photonics Link" article.
PhelanPKell
August 01, 2010 at 7:53pm
With the way form factors have been jumping ship every couple years, I wouldn't be surprised if SATA is being phased out for a new standard by 2015.
Who knows, maybe we'll have ODTM (Optical Data Transfer Medium...hey, it could work) by then. :P Other than that, I concur with Gordon's assessment.
NewGadgeteer
July 31, 2010 at 3:44pm
I think he means Sata revision 4 at 9 gigabits per second. There is no way we will get to revision 9 in 5 years. Also the memory will most likely be a power of 2, so 64 GBs of memory will be more likely in 2015. As for cores, I'm going with 16 cores, 24 seems a bit high. Also, I think 27" autostereographic monitors will be the hot thing in 2015. Personally I'd like an ultra wide curved 48:10 model myself. Bezel be gone!
Talcum X
July 31, 2010 at 10:28am
Next gen PCs of 2015 will include:
Platter based HDs will start to faze out as they cant compete with the SSDs and the faster transfers capable on the current buses. SSDs will be mainstream with larger, faster capacities (and cheaper as production increases)
Optical connectivity will start to have a foothold in the market, if not mainstream. It will not replace USB 3.1 (4 in the works), but it may replace anything that uses a ribbon or round cable to transfer data to parts that have separate power connection. Optics may start being part of MoBo tech as well.
Current CPU speeds proably wont be faster than 4GHz or so, and probably won't have more than 8-10 cores. Die shrink to smaller than 20nm will be of some other material process currenlty being developed now or has been for the past few years.
DDR4 (or some replacement for DDR3) will be in place to accomedate the new CPU architecture and 8-10 Gig will be the norm.
64 Bit OS will be mainstream, the last XP machine will go offline. Windows 9 will be the latest (or they may go back to some other naming convention) and Server 2015 (of course)
Monitors will all be LED or some offspring of that technology. There will be a new technology emerging that will keep the interest and forward thinking going.
Water cooling will be the only way to cool your system as air cooling will no longer be adiquit, unless voltages drop so low that heat is minimal.
Blue Ray will be old hat, with a few revisions out that will increase capacity, multi layers more than likely. It will be too soon for another video media to take hold, regardless of any technology advancments that have been made. Those will be used for data storage only.
SoundBlaster Infinity line will be the current PC sound standard (as it always has been) all sporting 24 bit sound still.
PCIE will gain a new rev. and speed if not get replaced by a new achitecture.
PSUs wont be any smaller than 600W for mainstream PCs.
Your video card will have 2 GPUs on it. I don't think they big 2 will start making mulit-core CPUs yet. They still burn too hot to have 2 running in there, but 2 on a single card would be an easier and more likely solution for mainstream without going SLI/Crossfire.
I will be independently wealthy and will be able to afford all this new stuff. My MCSE cert will no longer be relevent or ever had a chance to be used as the job market took too long to recover so I went another direction which got me rich.
Of all the parts, I hope the last one is the most accurate :-)
aviaggio
July 31, 2010 at 5:10am
Oh, com'n, Josh isn't that far off either. 6-core machines, 2 TB hard drives, 2GBs VRAM video cards, 200GB optical drives (coming soon!)... other than the clock speed and Nvidia/ATI merger he's almost right on the money.
GMoney86
July 30, 2010 at 8:29pm
I remember reading this article back in 2004 (even where I was!). I thought it would be soooo awesome to have a desktop like the one Gordon described. It's funny how similar his description is to the desktop I put together last summer. It's too bad the BTX thing didn't catch on. Also, bring on the UEFI!
SongEmu
July 30, 2010 at 8:26pm
LOOOOOOOL, BTX. To be fair, i did like it. But it just never caught on..
thetechchild
July 30, 2010 at 7:46pm
There's gotta be some way to make money off these kinds of predictions... They're honestly scary close to the then-future.
Daybringer
July 30, 2010 at 5:25pm
Great Article!
I look forward to your predictions coming true, but do you still think we'll have the (physical) keyboard and mouse? With Apple making a move towards "button-less" computing, with their new trackpad, do you think this will actually catch on? (I know, it's Apple related...), but i just curious to some of your other future predictions for the PC. CO2 cooling? Cheap SSD? 3D gaming screens catching on? New Optical formats? OS?
Daybringer
Havok
July 30, 2010 at 5:19pm
"Form FActor: ATX"
Not feeling any changes coming soon? I'm just kidding. When you first talked about your predictions a while ago on the podcast, you had me floored with how dead on accurate you were, Gordon.
You sure you aren't a futurist?
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
Where have all the memorable videogame enemies gone?
This month's issue
Feature
How to Set Up A New PC
Feature
The State of GPU Computing
How-To
Benchmark an Android Phone
Build It
Sandy Bridge-E
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: We referred to "motherboad" prices in an earlier tweet. Not to be confused with motherboard prices, which are ALSO going up.6 hours 15 min ago
- maximumpc: Oh hooray. Motherboad price hikes inbound. http://t.co/nacDWfjJ8 hours 50 min ago
- maximumpc: AMD's New Direction For 2012: Heterogenous Computing, Trinity, and Hondo http://t.co/2KzhCT1N1 day 1 hour ago
