Razor's Project Christine

[SurfD]

So, appearently Razor, those wonderful peripheral nuts, have come to the conclusion that the current PC just is not modular enough.  Yeah, I know, having to take the cover off your scary electrical box and swap out a video card or add more ram is just such a terrifying experience.

Enter Project Christine.

Now, I have to ask myself.  Did these people pull a page from the MMO dev's guide to building a failed WoW clone?  You know, the one that says "Remember all that shit you learned building game A? Well ignore it when you start on game B!"
Cause seriously.  Don't they realise that a modular PC of that nature will pretty much never work since all it will take is one core archetecture change (new Ram type, new Processor archetecture, new socket type for Videocards) and your entire system will suddenly framgent into so many variants you could never keep the entire thing modularly compatable with all the other pieces any more?

And you can pretty much guarantee that one of those Core Archetecture changes WILL happen somewhere right in the middle of the lifecycle of this thing.

I mean, in order to make this thing actually work well enough to be profitable, they would have to be so deeply in bed with every single component manufacturer that they might as wll be joined at the genitals.......

[Quinton]

Sounds like it's a PCI-E and power backplane with everything else potted in plug-in modules.  In theory that gives you a fair amount of flexibility, but you could get most of what they offer by splitting the mainboard into the CPU+memory complex and a backplane (which some workstation/server PCs already do).  Gonna be paying a premium for those sealed plug-in modules, I expect.  Current PCI-E / thunderbolt could have a few years runway, but yeah no guarantee we don't get a big interconnect shift that obsoletes the entire backplane.

[SurfD]

I noticed that they state their intention is to have all the plugin modules be Oil Cooled as well.  Which brings up the question: Where does the heat go?

The individual modules could not possibly be entirely self contained for cooling and still be even remotely cost / energy efficient, which means that every module will probably tap into a cooling circulation system built into the core tower.  I can just imagine the fun of that if a coolant seal does not function properly and mis-pluging a module ends up frying your entire system because of an oil leak.....

[ajax34i]

Don't they realise that a modular PC of that nature will pretty much never work since all it will take is one core archetecture change (new Ram type, new Processor archetecture, new socket type for Videocards) and your entire system will suddenly framgent into so many variants you could never keep the entire thing modularly compatable with all the other pieces any more?

Oh, they realize it, and plan on getting sweet sweet profits by selling modules that conform to the new architecture as soon as it appears.  In effect, any architectural change is a reason for people to re-purchase modules.   The backplane is just a Universal Bus, and the modules convert whatever architecture into the backplane bus architecture.

Personally, I'd aim that idea at Dell rather than consumers, as it would simplify, accelerate, and automate their process of constructing the customized spec computers that Dell customers order, so they can ship it faster.  Of course, the flashy plastic exteriors would have to go as they'd cost too much for Dell.

[Merusk]

For your enjoyment, here's all the content of the video:

http://www.myinstants.com/instant/inception-button/


Goddamn Inception horn. Clicked the vid to see if it explains anything. Nope, just INCEPTIONHORN.

[Fabricated]

Basically a single change in bus-type will render their weird backplane thing useless.

[Merusk]

It's Razr, it's about selling good stuff to idiots in an expensive way.  You guys know that a simple change in power or Bus processing could kill the machine. Want to guess what percentage of the target market you are?

When things change there will be a new "Christine" model. Your old modules won't work with the new Christine. People understand obsolescence in tech now, with i-devices and phones. Telling them the tower is obsolete and only affects xyz works.  They'll know they have to buy a new Christine and swap peripherals on that platform, but not have to do the research themselves.

It's that step between Dell/ HP "this is what you get" systems and building a custom PC. It's aimed at turning them into a device or an appliance for the uninformed who still know they need to upgrade things.

[Venkman]

Seems like they want to make a Mac of PC gaming. It's for people who want to roleplay being a PC gaming enthusiast without making the intellectual investment. Target market is probably upper middle classers with kids outgrowing Minecraft on a computer that can't handle anything else. There's probably enough of them to justify this for a few years.

Reminds me of when the Mac desktop aluminum tower came out, what, a decade ago? Beautifully, so easy to swap components, totally over engineered (and over  priced) for the amount of times an actual Mac user is going to swap components out. The technology does that change THAT fast for most. And for those where it does change that much, they're way past worrying about whether they can easily fold something outta the way or need to break out a screwdriver 

[Merusk]

Heh.. we have a few of those towers at the office. I didn't realize that was the goal. How amusing.  They've reverted with the trash can design but now I'll just chuckle when I see the towers.

Swapping parts on a mac. Ha.

[schild]

Isn't this from CES 2013?

[Goreschach]

Goddamnit, the comments on that video are like a study in PT Barnum. Literally all you have to do to sell shit to stupid people is stick on neon lights and wubwub sounds.

[Merusk]

To keep people from scarring themselves, here's a choice selection:

Trying to get into pc-gaming, currently using a GT630M GPU, so I am of course looking for an upgrade. A desktop upgrade that is. Don't know anything about how computers work. Then I saw this. PLEASE MAKE THIS REAL AND I CAN FINALLY GAME ON PC :DDD

 

people are saying they want this for the look? seriously? wow
I want it because it has easy upgrade capabilities, which is the whole dam concept of it, so good job razor.
Lets just see how long it takes till alienware jump on this train

@jimb jones Not everyone thinks building a PC is "fun" that's why most people game on consoles. Christine will help turn that tide a little. But it will be expensive as fuck.

I've said this before and I'll say it again:

1 - PCs today are already modular, the only difference is that they don't all come in perfect little uniform pods. Everything in your PC can be removed and replaced, piece by piece.

2 - This modular thing is inefficient because not everything in a computer is the same size. Manufacturers will not be able to make the best products they can make anymore, they'll have to make the best product they can make that can fit in a module.

3 - It's impossible to make this thing universal because a power user and a light user are gonna need totally different systems. The central core on the power user would be overkill and over-expensive for the light user.

 You don't know much about computers do you...? Not everything has to be the same size. It's a concept things can be changed there can be different slots for different items. CPU, graphics card, etc. It's a concept for a reason. The wouldn't have released this concept if they didn't think this through.

[Hawkbit]

Isn't this from CES 2013?

Likely.  <meta http-equiv="last-modified" content="2014-01-07T12:53:51+00:00" />

It looks like it would collect dust better than a hepa filter.

[Lightstalker]

For your enjoyment, here's all the content of the video:

http://www.myinstants.com/instant/inception-button/


Goddamn Inception horn. Clicked the vid to see if it explains anything. Nope, just INCEPTIONHORN.

No kidding, inception horn to the rescue to cover the total lack of content/detail in the video.  I had Razor mice and keyboards (yay woot) until their keyboards started wearing out in a few months and they moved their mouse drivers to THE CLOUD.  I don't want to access the cloud to use my mouse, thanks.  Actually, that wasn't the worst bit, the worst bit was when their (frequent) updates set the version flag in the wrong registry hive on 64bit Windows and it continuously prompted to install the latest update - patch after patch.  So, cloud mouse drivers were annoying but poor patching implementation put it in your face day after day after day.

I'm on a Das Keyboard with Corsair mouse now.  If Razor were interested in making solid and reliable components without jumping on buzzword the hype train I'd probably still be using their components instead.  Project Christine looks to be par for the course for them these days, unfortunately, and won't even work properly even if the whole modularity premise wasn't busted.  Razor (FGBG) isn't for me anymore; either I'm not a gamer anymore or they think gamers have become idiots who keep paying for the newest shinny crap every year...
 

[Goreschach]

None of us are gamers anymore.

Grunk is nowhere to be seen.

[HaemishM]

I have used one Razor product in my life, a "gaming mouse" that my boss buddy got for my computer at work. I never saw the spectacular difference in performance of whatever it was that was supposed to make the damn thing worth twice as much as a normal mouse. Then one day it just stopped fucking working. No reason, no warning just SPLURT. I'm using a Microsoft Wireless Mouse 5000 now and I would swear by the thing. It made me get a similar version (the 3000) at home it was so good.

In short, FUCK RAZOR.

[Engels]

Attempts to console-ify the PC. It'll probably work for a target audience that routinely screams at the PC because of  popups.

[01101010]

I just don't see how this will work. Upgrading any piece will have to go through Razor who will have to maintain the various video card variations? I really don't get it at all - guess I am out of the loop.

[apocrypha]

This is the first bit of blurb you see on that website:

For more than 30 years, only the most hardcore enthusiasts were able to take advantage of PC customizability. Convoluted hardware made it insane for the average person: knowing what does what, what works with what, and how to connect the pieces.

All of that is demonstrably false, and this modular PC idea wouldn't fix it even if it was true. I've explained to many people over the years just how easy it is to swap PC components and even build PC's. It's really hard to put things in the wrong place. They fit where they're supposed to fit. And having a modular PC where all the pieces shared the same connectors would just mean that you COULD put things in the wrong place!

This is not an idea that will see the light of day.

[ajax34i]

Also, "building a PC" is more about buying the correct pieces than it is about inserting them into their respective slots.   The information released thus far doesn't indicate if their website will put up any flags when you buy, for example, a processor box and a memory box with the incorrect timings, or whatever.

I just don't see how this will work. Upgrading any piece will have to go through Razor who will have to maintain the various video card variations? I really don't get it at all - guess I am out of the loop.

Yes.  You have to go through Razor.

[Fabricated]

With about 20 minutes of research you can figure out what you want to put in a home-built PC, and it takes like an hour or so of work to get to POST. You at most will need a phillips screwdriver.

Or you can pay a 15+% premium and buy from a "gamer" OEM like IBuyPower or whatever and be done with it. And when that needs an upgrade, literally everything in PCs is now Insert Tab A into Slot B.

[Rendakor]

The only "difficult" part of building a PC is putting a CPU into a mobo, and that's only because the pins are really easy to fuck up.

[Merusk]

Every time this conversation comes up I struggle to find a metaphor for how different putting together a PC is to normal people from those of us here. I have yet to find a good one.  The best I've ever come up with was, "And tonsillectomies are routine surgery, but you guys would still kill most of your patients if we made you do it right now."

Basically, you're wizards who can command magic boxes.

[apocrypha]

Yeah that's a good point, I've been building & tinkering with PC's insides for about 20 years now.

I don't think Project Christine (where did that name come from?) is the solution though, and I reckon it'll incur a much larger markup than 15%.

[Sky]

I have used one Razor product in my life, a "gaming mouse" that my boss buddy got for my computer at work.

I got a razor gaming mouse on woot a couple years ago. Buttery smooth motion, amazing scroll wheel, but it was awful to hold, angular and the buttons were in weird spots. Thanks to woot, I was able to sell it on at a nice little profit.

[Fabricated]

Every razer thing I've ever tried has felt really cheap, and everything I've bought from them has been bad or broke not long after I bought it. I kinda stick to logitech now.

[schild]

I got a Corsair mouse to replace my RAT 7. I wish I'd gotten another RAT 7.

[HaemishM]

The only "difficult" part of building a PC is putting a CPU into a mobo, and that's only because the pins are really easy to fuck up.

This. This is literally the only reason I haven't tried building a new PC rather than buying a prebuilt. Everything else is pretty much a cakewalk once you can get the thing to POST.

[Goreschach]

I don't know about amd, but intel's modern cpu sockets haven't used actual 'pins' in years. They use little metal springy things and flat contacts on the base of the cpu package, so it'd be pretty hard to jack them up. It's pretty easy to install, but the metal levers that hold the cpu cover down do seem to take a worrying amount of force to push into place.

[ezrast]

As of my last motherboard, front panel connectors and some other things still use easily-bendable pins, and it's not terribly uncommon to run into space issues if you're not familiar with the form factors of each piece of equipment. I build my own PC's every time, but I still think it's a pain, and that's without even having to think about power draw, airflow requirements, and other stuff that I wouldn't have any intuitive feel for if I hadn't been doing this stuff since I was a kid.

I can't be arsed to figure out how to change the oil in my car; expecting a non-tech-inclined person to put together a PC from parts is preposterous. Replacing a part in a pre-built machine is more realistic, but even that's pretty daunting for a beginner because every OEM puts things together differently and the process is never documented.

[Torinak]

I don't think Project Christine (where did that name come from?) is the solution though, and I reckon it'll incur a much larger markup than 15%.

I wonder if they're trying to channel this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085333/

In any case, it sounds like an (expensive) solution in search of a problem.

[Strazos]

I've built my last two systems myself, but will probably get my new system from a nice assembler - I just don't have the time to fuss with a full assembly anymore, or with the stress of possibly muffing it up.

Also, they'll do a better job than I ever did at setting up the interior of the system, and configuring all sorts of things I've never messed with, like updating BIOS. 

[Setanta]

My PC is a grandfather's axe. Everything replaced over the years - it's not like building a PC is actually hard. Hell, it's harder to tweak Winblows 8 than it is to build a PC.

I don't need Razor to build me one. Hell, I bought a Deathadder mouse and after 2 months the wheel fell off it.

Seems apt for this new product.

[Venkman]

Every time this conversation comes up I struggle to find a metaphor for how different putting together a PC is to normal people from those of us here. I have yet to find a good one.  The best I've ever come up with was, "And tonsillectomies are routine surgery, but you guys would still kill most of your patients if we made you do it right now."

Basically, you're wizards who can command magic boxes.

This. Been going through this with friends whose son's computer needed constant tweaking. Nursing it along but the most recent BSOD turned out to be a blown mobo after all. $150 to replace. And yet because they come into money, they decide to blow $2k on a new gaming rig. $2-freakin-k, for hardware that was maybe $600. They just wanted "peace of mind" that it would "just work". I didn't have the heart to tell them that's why they have an Xbox One.

I don't think it's about knowledge though. It's a bit more about open-mindedness. Are you willing to take a chance to learn by doing with the risk of fucking up? If not, get on the phone with Geek Squad and pay the $100/hr or whatever. I enjoy dabbling though, and if I screw it up, fine, learn it and move on.

Of course, I'm screwing up and learning in a pretty narrow window. Between the whole of the internet and the already existing modularity of PCs, you kinda gotta try hard to screw up building a PC 

[lamaros]

The est comparison is car maintenance. Many people don't even do the basics, despite them being basic, because opening the hood is a whole intimidating world to them.

Computers are even more unfamiliar to them.