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PC 2010 and beyond

Posted on 13 Oct 2009 at 14:48

What will PCs, laptops and servers look like over the next three years? Ben Hardwidge plots the near future of computing

Prophecy is a hazardous art when it comes to computers. As Bill Gates said in his 1995 book The Road Ahead, "we've all smiled at predictions from the past that look silly today". Not least his own prediction that we may one day decide to "watch Gone With The Wind with your own face and voice replacing that of Vivien Leigh or Clark Gable".

We do, however, have a pretty good idea of what’s coming over the next three years. In this feature, we’ll reveal all you need to know about the future of processors, memory, graphics and more.

Whether you’re an enthusiast or an IT manager, this is invaluable information if you want to know what’s on the horizon, and when you should start planning your next upgrade.

Over the next three years, for example, we’ll see Intel’s first discrete graphics product since the i740, and we’re also likely to see GPGPU computing start to enter the mainstream. It’s also probable that solid state disks will finally start to overtake hard disks, while a move to 64-bit operating systems brings support for much larger quantities of memory. Read on to find out what the future holds for your next PC.

What your PC will look like in 2010

What your PC will look like in 2011

What your PC will look like in 2012