The End of the Box

For all but a minority of computer users, the expansion card is dead. It makes almost no sense to even have PCI or PCI Express slots on motherboards aimed at entry-level and mainstream computer users, since they will never add an expansion card in their lives. Pretty much everything a regular user could possibly want their computer to have is built in already, and anything you want to connect can just be plugged in to one of the ports on the back. In fact, most people today will use their current desktop PCs for as long as they live without ever lifting off the lid to perform an upgrade.

Ten years ago, sound and video were just starting to be integrated onto motherboards. Today, they’re just there by default, along with networking, FireWire, and in some cases TV tuners and Wi-Fi adapters too. And these aren’t cut-down, low-performance parts either. Video is now HD, sound is 7.1, and networking is Gigabit (often dual Gigabit). For all but a small niche of computer users, this is more than they’re ever going to need. Old arguments about the CPU getting taxed are largely irrelevant too.

What’s more, motherboards today come with up to 12 USB ports, FireWire and eSATA. Anything you might need to add to a computer, such as a larger hard drive or dial-up modem can just be plugged in externally. Sure, RAM is an exception, gamers require their high-end graphics cards (or two or three of them), purists will swear by discrete sound cards, and plenty of people with specialized requirements will need all sorts of custom additions. But most users don’t want to deal with opening their PC cabinets or worrying that they’ll accidentally damage something. Even calling an engineer over to install or upgrade something can now be avoided more and more.
Unfortunately, while the insides of ordinary desktop PCs have changed so much, they look and feel the same from the outside as they did ten or fifteen years ago. They sit on or under our tables, occupying space and trailing wires all over. Quite frankly, most of them are ugly and obnoxious. Given the way that expansion cards are largely unnecessary today, we really don’t need today’s desktop PCs to be anything like they are. The large, rectangular enclosures designed to hold a motherboard, power supply, drives and expansion cards really only hold a lot of air. And with computers as much a part of our lives as they are, homes will increasingly require multiple PCs, so the problem is compounded.

With a little rearrangement and creative design, it’s possible to reduce the size of a PC cabinet by at least half or two thirds. It’s already being done by some of the largest manufacturers in the world, including Dell, HP and Lenovo. Most of these small form factor designs, as they’re called, are designed for corporate offices, where they’ll spend their days crunching numbers and will probably never have any kind of 3D game played on them. In fact the SFF concept shot to popularity years ago when Shuttle, till then known only for motherboards, launched its XPC line that shrunk the desktop cabinet to a quarter of its size and volume while still allowing gamers to add a graphics card. And who can forget Apple with its iconic iMac, which stuffed the PC’s guts right into the monitor? It might not have been the first to do so and it was heavily criticized for lacking expandability, but suddenly homes around the world were filled with bright, semi-transparent plastic because that’s what customers wanted.

And what about the fact that laptops are displacing desktops in almost every sphere of work and entertainment? They certainly don’t have room for huge graphics cards or multiple hard drives. But with external peripherals and powerful configurations out of the box, they’re more than capable of handling our needs—that too without any trailing wires and noisy fans.

Smaller desktop PCs could be the next big thing. Your desk won’t have to be occupied by a huge box anymore, and you won’t have to try and hide it to match your new bedroom interiors. Imagine a small box that’s as unobtrusive as a small stereo, which you can tuck into a corner or hook onto the back of a sleek LCD monitor. The ugly desktop PC could even become a lifestyle accessory that people would show off, much like a high-end home appliance. Maybe small designs will make PCs more approachable. All the ingredients are ready, only a shift in perception is now required.