In Pictures: 16 Of The PC Industry's Most Epic Failures

[thornbreaker]

Vista is a bomb because it didn't sell. Kinda like RDRAM may have been better tech, but it didn't sell.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]thornbreaker[/nom]Vista is a bomb because it didn't sell. Kinda like RDRAM may have been better tech, but it didn't sell.[/citation]

Are you sure it wasn't a bomb because of the actual problems with both it and the circumstances (ie the OEMs stupid hardware choices) surrounding it? I think it's failure has to do with why it didn't sell too well, not that it didn't sell. RDRAM was not particularly better, it had more bandwidth and higher latency than SDRAM. Once DDR came out it didn't even beat the performance of the much cheaper alternative noticeably, after a while it even lost whilst being extremely expensive.

I like to think that there are reasons for stuff not selling. Sometimes they aren't because the product isn't better, the product may be better in every way (neither Vista nor RDRAM were better than alternatives in every way), but because another company marketed better or took actions against an opposing product. However, most failed products aren't because of other companies doing what they can to kill a product (such as buying out the competitor or taking legal action of some sort), but are because the product had flaws.

Vista was a huge resource hog, the largest such of all Windows editions, even up to now and the near future with Windows 8. Beyond that, Vista was being put on OEM machines that had far less than necessary performance (insufficient memory capacity, processor power, graphics power, etc.) to run Vista even tolerably.

 

[XM Keeper]

I actually have the exact RDRAM models in those pictures. Exactly the same. They were paired up with 2 Pentium 3 Xeon CPUs.

 

[Guest]

What about 3Dfx's decision to acquire STB? that was pretty much their deathstroke.

 

[SlitelyOff]

"runswindows95

I find it funny that two technologies (RDRAM and the first P4) that launched together are on this list. Overall, I agree with everything on the list."

RDRAM was launched prior to the P4, I supported a shop that had the Dell Precision 420 that had a Slot PIII and RDRAM.

Also don't forget that it was incorporated in several game consoles.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]SlitelyOff[/nom]"runswindows95I find it funny that two technologies (RDRAM and the first P4) that launched together are on this list. Overall, I agree with everything on the list."RDRAM was launched prior to the P4, I supported a shop that had the Dell Precision 420 that had a Slot PIII and RDRAM.Also don't forget that it was incorporated in several game consoles.[/citation]

What game consoles have RDRAM?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]SlitelyOff[/nom]"runswindows95I find it funny that two technologies (RDRAM and the first P4) that launched together are on this list. Overall, I agree with everything on the list."RDRAM was launched prior to the P4, I supported a shop that had the Dell Precision 420 that had a Slot PIII and RDRAM.Also don't forget that it was incorporated in several game consoles.[/citation]

Also, I thought that the RDRAM for the P3 platform(s) were launched after the P4 with RDRAM. I could be wrong, but I thought that the P3 didn't have RDRAM support until after the P4 came about with RDRAM support only.

 

[Shin-san]

HD-DVD didn't fail because of capacity, but because it lost the DRM war. Blu-ray won a lot due to a deal with Fox.

RDRAM also had to go against the DDR industry, which was doing some unfair business practices. RAMBUS is enjoying some usage in embedded devices, like the Playstations 2-3.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Shin-san[/nom]HD-DVD didn't fail because of capacity, but because it lost the DRM war. Blu-ray won a lot due to a deal with Fox.RDRAM also had to go against the DDR industry, which was doing some unfair business practices. RAMBUS is enjoying some usage in embedded devices, like the Playstations 2-3.[/citation]


Rambus failed because they had problems with the RDRAM tech and it was too expensive. DDR came out and it had similar bandwidth, but much lower latency and it was a lot cheaper. It's not unfair to give customers what they should be getting at decent prices. Besides that, it was Rambus that continually sued the DDR companies just because they had better products and were a little less greedy. Of course now Rambus has the better memory and now most companies are steering clear of them out of fear of litigation. Sony is the only recent customer that comes to mind, I don't know of any other use of Rambus's memory in devices still being made. Besides that, only Rambus's older memories are being used for that, I'm not aware of a common use of Rambus's more recent technologies, XDR2 and mobile XDR.

HD-DVD lost to Blu-Ray because of both the DRM war and it being more expensive. It also didn't have the storage capacity potential that Blu-Ray has, but it was high enough for HD movies so yes that really isn't to big of a deal breaker. However, Blu-Ray already scales all the way up to 100GB whereas HD-DVD doesn't even come close. Like I said, HD-DVD is enough for HD TV so this isn't a huge deal, but Blu-Ray can go higher in capacity. Not that that's important with current HD movies so long as they aren't exceptionally long, but it may prove more important with more storage-heavy formats in the future.

 

[trumpeter1994]

I've a logitech g15v1 keyboard for probably around 5 years now. It still works flawlessly and I love it, none of my keys have worn and It's been used quite heavily, as well as being moved with my rig numerous times. As for the Intel pushpins i have to agree, I actually didn't realise that might wasn't on all the way because it would click but they pin would pop back out sometimes are not go in. As a result of this I ran my q9300 at 100c for a while without know what was wrong. I've since retired the heatsink in favor of a Coolermaster V8, but after discovering what was wrong I always made sure and thoroughly inspect its placement before booting up my system.

 

[trumpeter1994]

As for Bulldozer, well I figured that would be on this list and wasn't at all surprised when i found it.

 

[sonofliberty08]

i hate intel heatsink, the socket 478 heatsink are much more better than the new 1

 

[nhat11]

[citation][nom]phamhlam[/nom]Where is Windows Vista?[/citation]

Eh Vista is solid, no crashes and ran great (as long as you have > 2 gigs of ram). The question is, where's ME? of course this list is for hardware, not software.

 

[nhat11]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]What game consoles have RDRAM?[/citation]
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Also, I thought that the RDRAM for the P3 platform(s) were launched after the P4 with RDRAM. I could be wrong, but I thought that the P3 didn't have RDRAM support until after the P4 came about with RDRAM support only.[/citation]

I believe the N64 uses RDRAM.

 

[starcore]

I am a horrible enthusiast, i owned 7 of those products mentioned 🙁