The Arrival of the Modular PC

[Scott Tortorice]

I remember, back in the late '90s, telling my friend how I really wished it was easier to upgrade the then non-standardized world of PCs. I even went further and said I wished that PCs were more similar to the era of the 8-bits and 16-bit machines, that is, you would never need to crack the case but rather just plug in a new external bit of hardware to upgrade your machine. No mess, no fuss.

Well, now it looks like it might start to be coming true:

Thunderbolt motherboards on their way

Just 15 months after the technology first appeared in a commercial form, ASUS and MSI have finally announced the first PC motherboards that will ship with built in Thunderbolt ports.

Thunderbolt, if you’re aware of it all, may sound like a tedious hard drive technology, but it’s got an enormous amount of potential for PC gaming. With these two boards, we may finally be in the era of the modular PC – which doesn’t have to be opened up for upgrades.


It means, potentially, external hard drives that are as quick as internal SSDs and plug in graphics cards that really work. Much as I like to tinker inside my PC’s case, this is big.

Between this and cloud computing, I think the world of PCs is on the verge of some very big changes.

[prymus]

As long as there's dust and fans there will never be an end to tinkering inside a PC. And, I have never had a graphics card install not work. Simple stuff. Last thought, wait for cloud to become secure and safe before loading up anything important,imo.