Five ways the Desktop still rules

With the emergence of better specced laptops, tablets, and increasingly powerful smartphones, people have started to question if we really need it after all. But is the desktop really that dead and gone? Industry specialists, gamers and graphic design pros still swear by them. For the rest of you commoners, here are five reasons why.

Upgradability

As we all have experienced time to time, no sooner than you go out and buy that something for yourself you’ve  been saving towards for a gazillion years, than you find out the new latest will be out next month. Now if you’ve gone off and bought say, a thousand dollar MacBook Pro, Im sorry, theres no hope for you. Desktop junkies in that way, have it good. No sooner than the latest graphics card, RAM, or even the next Intel architecture is released, most of them will simply upgrade that component and jump up to the next level.

Customization

When building your rig, you get to pick and choose; mix and match from the entire range available in the market. If it’s not available in the region, you can easily have it imported. So it really is all up to you how powerful you want your rig to be, depending upon your usage and needs. Laptops on the other hand, are mostly’ take it or leave it’ affairs in our region. They come in some set factory specs, and you have to adapt your usage according to the specifications rather than the other way round.

Personalization

The personalization options desktops offer are unique. This Is not a ‘laser-etched name on the back’ affair. Within the community there is a huge overclocking community which attempts to maximize the capabilities of processors and the like. Then there are the modders, who morph their rigs into the most epic shapes, like this Tron enthusiast has done. To top it off you can combine it with the keyboard, mouse and speaker configuration you like best, and this is where specialists like Razer and Steelseries come in.

Power/ Specs

The sheer power for desktop enthusiasts to harness is way beyond that even on laptops. The puny tablets and smartphones power blocks don’t even register on the scale. The most powerful processors, like the Intel Extreme Edition series and top graphics cards like ASUS Mars II are often only available for desktops because of space and cooling constraints. Pair these with an Intel X79 chipset and a sound card of your choice and you will be flying along. Even the screens don’t stand a chance. You can pair your rig with any mammoth type and size of screen that takes your fancy. Plus the terabytes and terabytes of stuff you can store for eternity…

Gaming

Sure you love Angry Birds on your iPhone, and that’s all very well. But if you’re a hardcore gamer you need a console or a desktop. The faithful old desktop gives you space for the specifications you need to have, as well as a host of options of specialist peripherals to give you that edge. The most popular games like Battlefield or Call of Duty even get their own game branded gear, and you can add aftermarket water cooling and overclock to give your rig a performance boost.

Photo credits bods-mods.com