One of the most important points that manufacturers of computers, both laptops and desktops, will have to face is the ecological impact. This will force them to create computers with lower energy consumption and use less materials. Little by little, manufacturers are preparing for this and preparing microATX boards, but based on laptop components, which allows them to reduce not only costs, but also manufacturing and manufacturing time. Which will reduce over time, the sale of components to the DIY or do-it-yourself market.
Pre-built PCs with portable processors will grow like mushrooms
A few days ago, photographs of a motherboard for a desktop computer with a peculiarity appeared on the net, it lacked the processor socket due to the fact that Intel had decided to solder an Intel Core i7-12700H for laptops. However, tactfully enough to raise the CPU to allow the placement of the heatsinks designed for LGA1700 socket processors.
On reflection, this does not appeal to ordinary users who want to build a PC, although laptop processors achieve excellent performance, they do not reach the level of desktop systems thanks to the fact that they can reach much faster clock speeds. bigger. Potential customers for this type of plates? Obviously, companies that build and sell complete computers. That is, the so-called pre-built PCs. Including this type of CPU in their models allows them to have a much simpler power supply and cooling system and save costs on a large scale.
The obsession with aesthetics
The main reason behind this is the fact that using laptop components and a much more compact motherboard allows us to make systems much smaller and aesthetically more attractive for the user with less knowledge. That is, create systems that enter through the eyes. Unfortunately, many times aesthetics and functionality do not go hand in hand and we do not usually find pre-built computers with bad decisions in terms of cooling and power supplies in order to get a beautiful computer.
However, its connectivity is limited
The problem with laptop processors is that they are not designed to support an external chipset, so the connectivity capabilities with external peripherals and internal components are very limited. For example, the motherboard in question is limited to the following connectivity, which is not higher than that of a laptop:
- Two RAM memory sockets, each representing a memory channel. So it cannot go beyond 64 GB.
- One PCI Express 4.0 slot for the graphics card, but limited to 8 lanes.
- One PCI Express 3.0 slot for the NVMe SSD
- Two SATA ports, which in a laptop would correspond to the hard drive, now in disuse, and the reader, also outdated.
- A Wi-Fi card slot.
Said expansion capacity limited by the use of these processors is at least counterproductive, however, building a pre-built PC with a laptop CPU would also allow the use of gaming graphics cards for laptops. The difference is that these would not be soldered on the same board, but would be sold as a graphics card. We have already seen how several Chinese assemblers are creating models based on laptop models, so we should not rule out the appearance of pre-built PC models with a portable processor and the rest of the elements from that world.
