Hardware Packaging

Had to pull the graphics card out of someone’s computer today and it got me thinking about the trend of hardware manufacturers going completely over the top when packaging or marketing these products. I say trend but I can’t remember a time when this wasn’t the case. It’s only fairly recently that graphics cards have evolved from a plain circuit board to being wrapped in a protective case which has given manufacturers the chance to splash about even more of their horrendous creations. Now I think I might have spotted a hole in the market, as there doesn’t seem to be any graphics card companies that don’t feature dragons, elf princesses or giant evil robot dogs on the packaging or device itself. Last time I bought a graphics card, I spent ages shopping around just to get a card with no external decoration at all. My computer is out of sight under my desk, there isn’t a window in the case or anything, so no one would see that I had a graphics card with laser dinosaurs on the front, but I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of knowing. Although it still came in a box with some kind of wizard man on the front.

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