A new generation of PC hardware arrives, will it help your business?
When a PC IT rep next calls or their shiny brochure lands on your desk, beware! While they will likely be offering your business the latest in 10-core Intel i7 CPUs, the staggering video performance of the new NVIDIA 1080 graphics card, faster types of RAM and super fast solid state drives, these new features won’t make much difference to the way a typical office PC works.
These technologies will only benefit those who do huge amounts of intensive number crunching and data analysis, HD or 4K video editing, 3D rendering, high-end maths and physics, plus a few other niche applications. No matter how much your staff or IT team begs, most of the advances in these PCs are now of use to game players and video editors only. However, the technology may become of interest in the near future.
For a start, while the prices of these machines will be very high-end at the start of their lives, there are ranges of Intel’s new Broadwell and Kaby Lake processors on offer to keep users tempted across all budgets and in step with their usual upgrade cycle. So, lesser models will soon be available, and within a couple of years, those high-end super PCs will be commonplace.
At that point, you should take interest and be aware of several useful pieces of information. Intel’s new Kaby Lake family of processors will only run on Windows 10, Windows 7 and 8 won’t be supported, which might alter your upgrade plans. They will also support the faster USB 3.1 format, which is useful if you have any new USB storage devices. It will also support Intel’s Optane SSD drives, again boosting system storage and speed and 4K video if your company is investing in high-performance screens.
Many of the new processors are aimed at the notebook market and will be more efficient doing more work on less battery power, which will be of benefit for your mobile staff. However, for now, allow these new models to filter in to the market and for the prices to start coming down before leaping into a buying decision.
