2012 - A bad year for the PC

PC sales are expected to actually decrease year-over-year in the US while globally they should increase, albeit a by a very tiny amount.

To give you some perspective on how mobile is faring compared to traditional PC sales, take a look at Qualcomm's earnings:

Although Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) remains the No. 1 chip maker as measured by sales volume, its standing relies on its dominant position in PCs, a market that is now perceived to be flat at best as consumers embrace smartphones and tablet computers.

Those mobile devices are often powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors.

In the eyes of investors who have driven up its market capitalization, the fact that Qualcomm is a fabless company relieves it of the burden of having to invest billions of dollars each year in process development and wafer fabs.

As a result, Qualcomm's share price stands at $61.83, giving it a current market capitalization of $105 billion. Intel's market capitalization stands at $104 billion based on a share price of $20.96.
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http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4400932/Qualcomm-overtakes-Intel-as-most-valued-chip-company

Intel was quite serious when they claimed Qualcomm was their next big competitor. And, if you're looking at current trends and what the future holds as well as total market cap, Intel is the underdog :eek:
 
It's a great year for personal computing. Bad for desktops but it's been great. Apple is up, Samsung is up, Google is up.

People are just realizing that 90% of the things they need can be delivered by a $200 tablet instead of a $500 computer. It's driving innovation in the mobile computing sector and in simple, fast interfaces. For the first time my parents have been able to get connected because now they do not need to get over the desktop barrier and can just go straight to point and clicks. It's a shift in the market in that corporations are realizing what people need and actually delivering it.
 
its bad for those of us who want the best hardware for their gaming rigs since we do not fall under the mainstream but rather fall under a niche market that pushes innovation in performance and efficiency
 
I dislike the Tablet "revolution". Tablets are "OK" for what people want these days... Facebook and other mindless social media. I dislike Tablets in the same way I disliked the Nintendo NES. The NES pulled kids away from real computers like the Commodore 64, and the Apple II. Even really great computers like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST failed. I worked in a software/game store in the late 80's, and I saw first hand the computer shelves getting smaller and the Nintendo shelves getting bigger. Eventually, Commodore and Atari computers were no more. Kids no longer had to learn computer skills to play a game, or had the resources available to type reports or actually learn something useful. The home PC went through a very dark period between the death of Commodore and birth of Internet. The thing about this dark time on our horizon is what if anything will bring a PC back to being a necessity? If a majority of people only care about social media, will the ones that are left be enough to support the market? When I owned my Atari ST, toward the end of its life, I had to drive for an hour just to get to a store that carried software for it, and most of that was imported from Europe. I see this latest trend as more dangerous to society as Facebook and such grows, collective intelligence seems to decline. The movie Idiocracy really should be viewed by anyone who cares where we are going as a species.
 
Don't want to knock you off your high horse, but that's how society is, how it has been, and how it's going to be. Collective intelligence is not going to decline because of tablets. In reality, tablets are fulfilling the need that's always been there. People don't need to have the best and the most complex tools; you don't buy a drill press simply because you want to punch a hole. Likewise, tablets are fast, simple devices when you need to connect to people and check up on things. I don't want to lug around my 6 pound laptop on vacation, and hell if I'm moving my 30 pound desktop.

Innovation has always been driven by a few to serve the masses. Don't fool yourself into thinking it's somehow better to have more complicated items. Collectively, social media and simple computing has benefited the world in that it brings knowledge and experience to the masses. When in any other point in history could someone type in a single topic into youtube and get a thousand relevant videos? Even if it is something as trivial as makeup or fashion, it's the first time that ideas could get spread so quickly.

Expensive, complex items will always be a niche product. Just because people don't use them doesn't mean they are any less capable.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
I dislike the Tablet "revolution". Tablets are "OK" for what people want these days... Facebook and other mindless social media. I dislike Tablets in the same way I disliked the Nintendo NES. The NES pulled kids away from real computers like the Commodore 64, and the Apple II. Even really great computers like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST failed. I worked in a software/game store in the late 80's, and I saw first hand the computer shelves getting smaller and the Nintendo shelves getting bigger. Eventually, Commodore and Atari computers were no more. Kids no longer had to learn computer skills to play a game, or had the resources available to type reports or actually learn something useful. The home PC went through a very dark period between the death of Commodore and birth of Internet. The thing about this dark time on our horizon is what if anything will bring a PC back to being a necessity? If a majority of people only care about social media, will the ones that are left be enough to support the market? When I owned my Atari ST, toward the end of its life, I had to drive for an hour just to get to a store that carried software for it, and most of that was imported from Europe. I see this latest trend as more dangerous to society as Facebook and such grows, collective intelligence seems to decline. The movie Idiocracy really should be viewed by anyone who cares where we are going as a species.
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Good Point this is something I didn't notice while going up in 80's and didn't understand that this was happening at that time.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
I dislike the Tablet "revolution". Tablets are "OK" for what people want these days... Facebook and other mindless social media. I dislike Tablets in the same way I disliked the Nintendo NES. The NES pulled kids away from real computers like the Commodore 64, and the Apple II. Even really great computers like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST failed. I worked in a software/game store in the late 80's, and I saw first hand the computer shelves getting smaller and the Nintendo shelves getting bigger. Eventually, Commodore and Atari computers were no more. Kids no longer had to learn computer skills to play a game, or had the resources available to type reports or actually learn something useful. The home PC went through a very dark period between the death of Commodore and birth of Internet. The thing about this dark time on our horizon is what if anything will bring a PC back to being a necessity? If a majority of people only care about social media, will the ones that are left be enough to support the market? When I owned my Atari ST, toward the end of its life, I had to drive for an hour just to get to a store that carried software for it, and most of that was imported from Europe. I see this latest trend as more dangerous to society as Facebook and such grows, collective intelligence seems to decline. The movie Idiocracy really should be viewed by anyone who cares where we are going as a species.
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The future of computers is Artificial Intelligence. And porn, of course. Probably a combo of the two.
 
Eureka! said:
It's a great year for personal computing. Bad for desktops but it's been great. Apple is up, Samsung is up, Google is up.

People are just realizing that 90% of the things they need can be delivered by a $200 tablet instead of a $500 computer. It's driving innovation in the mobile computing sector and in simple, fast interfaces. For the first time my parents have been able to get connected because now they do not need to get over the desktop barrier and can just go straight to point and clicks. It's a shift in the market in that corporations are realizing what people need and actually delivering it.
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Id rather have a laptop then a tablet. Screen is too small on a tablet and not powerful enough for gaming. The option to do more or less is what i like about the laptop.
If people only browse, take notes, and facebook which dont require much, then a tablet is pretty good.
 
psy81 said:
its bad for those of us who want the best hardware for their gaming rigs since we do not fall under the mainstream but rather fall under a niche market that pushes innovation in performance and efficiency
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Yeah, but when was it ever otherwise?
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
I dislike the Tablet "revolution". Tablets are "OK" for what people want these days... Facebook and other mindless social media. I dislike Tablets in the same way I disliked the Nintendo NES. The NES pulled kids away from real computers like the Commodore 64, and the Apple II. Even really great computers like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST failed. I worked in a software/game store in the late 80's, and I saw first hand the computer shelves getting smaller and the Nintendo shelves getting bigger. Eventually, Commodore and Atari computers were no more. Kids no longer had to learn computer skills to play a game, or had the resources available to type reports or actually learn something useful. The home PC went through a very dark period between the death of Commodore and birth of Internet. The thing about this dark time on our horizon is what if anything will bring a PC back to being a necessity? If a majority of people only care about social media, will the ones that are left be enough to support the market? When I owned my Atari ST, toward the end of its life, I had to drive for an hour just to get to a store that carried software for it, and most of that was imported from Europe. I see this latest trend as more dangerous to society as Facebook and such grows, collective intelligence seems to decline. The movie Idiocracy really should be viewed by anyone who cares where we are going as a species.
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I got started on Nintendo and Apple Macintosh computers in my early youth in the mid to late 80's. The ease of use actually helped me get further interested in computing. I no longer own consoles, and I build my own computers now. Without the lower cost of entry due to lower monetary cost (Nintendo) and lower time cost/ease of use (Apple computer), many people like myself would never get into these technologies and expand their horizons. Some people never get beyond these entry stages, others do. My point is, sometimes a complicated new technology has to be simplified to get mass acceptance. Once the masses have accepted it and it becomes part of the culture, complexity will come back and even be demanded from the customer base as they want more from the product.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
I dislike the Tablet "revolution". Tablets are "OK" for what people want these days... Facebook and other mindless social media. I dislike Tablets in the same way I disliked the Nintendo NES. The NES pulled kids away from real computers like the Commodore 64, and the Apple II. Even really great computers like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST failed. I worked in a software/game store in the late 80's, and I saw first hand the computer shelves getting smaller and the Nintendo shelves getting bigger. Eventually, Commodore and Atari computers were no more. Kids no longer had to learn computer skills to play a game, or had the resources available to type reports or actually learn something useful. The home PC went through a very dark period between the death of Commodore and birth of Internet. The thing about this dark time on our horizon is what if anything will bring a PC back to being a necessity? If a majority of people only care about social media, will the ones that are left be enough to support the market? When I owned my Atari ST, toward the end of its life, I had to drive for an hour just to get to a store that carried software for it, and most of that was imported from Europe. I see this latest trend as more dangerous to society as Facebook and such grows, collective intelligence seems to decline. The movie Idiocracy really should be viewed by anyone who cares where we are going as a species.
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This is ridiculous. Just because you had to put in a lot of effort and did doesn't mean because people don't have to now they won't.

Almost everyone pushing boundaries with the web now is relatively young.

There will always be people who want to know how things work and make them better. People still make and improve cars despite the fact that you don't have to know how to tune a carburetor now.

Early computing was not the good old days - it sucked badly. Acoustic couplers, screen burn in, accidentally erasing your boot disks, never having enough hard drive space, virtually no information about anything. It was a treasure hunt to figure out how to do anything half the time when you ran into a problem and not the good kind of treasure hunt. Maybe if you were lucky you could spend $10 in local phone calls and get a response in a few days on a local BBS if your modem was still working.

You're completely wrong about collective intelligence too. Now information is just so much easier to get that collective intelligence and our toolsets are so rapidly expanding it has likely passed you by completely if you're not totally on top of it... at least if you're talking about the very cutting edge of software or hardware development.
 
Cheetoz said:
Yeah, but when was it ever otherwise?
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You're right, the performance end has and always will be a niche market. Its just that performance is now being demanded more in the growing mobile market as opposed to your traditional PC market. I'm not saying this is the end of the high end PC market, I'm just saying we are seeing a real shift in the market and the numbers prove this. Intel, AMD, IBM, etc... will have to rethink their strategy so that they aren't left behind. The PC market is stagnating while other mobile markets are growing exponentially.

Think of 5,10,15 years ago going to Best Buy (where most people, general consumers). They used to have a wide range and large section of desktops including PCs with the high end CPUs. Nowadays, the desktop section is much smaller offering cheaper products competing right next to your affordable tablets, smartphones, hybrid notebook/tablets. With the exception of latter, Intel and AMD have little to offer in these growing markets.

If Intel and AMD do not enter these emerging markets, they will find themselves competing for a shrinking piece of the pie...Innovation will continue and drive better products in the PC market it just won't be as profitable if this is the only market that they serve. My two cents...
 
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psy81 said:
Year to date stock value:

AMD: -64.26%
Intel: -16.95%
HP: -48.45%
Dell: -38.48%
Microsoft: +2.59%

http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-11/2012-the-year-the-pc-died.aspx?storyid=191244

Are we seeing a shift in the PC Market? I blame tablets and smartphones...
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I blame neither tablets OR smartphones - if anything, I blame developers.

Look at gaming - the one category of PC software that stresses a computer more than anything else outside of niche applications - it's been on a downward slide since the advent of multiplatform gaming. Result - games are defined by the least powerful platform (which isn't the PC).

If anything, application software, by and large, is worse than even gaming; again, outside of niche applications, how many everyday applications will seriously stress even a dual-core Athlon II?

Lastly, there is the PC operating system du jour - Windows. The real requirements in terms of hardware for a desktop PC haven't changed since Windows Vista, which is two Windows versions (excluding service packs) and five years ago. Outside of my GPU, the entire rest of the contents of my ATX case are of the same era, if not older. Yet I can, and do, run Windows 8 Pro with Media Center on it comfortably, along with a surprisingly large number of mainstream applications and other software. I have no use (or need) for most niche software, and I've worked around the one niche feature (Hyper-V) in Windows 8 that I could take better advantage of with a hardware upgrade. (Most PC users - and probably a not-insignificant number of the [H]orde - are doing the same.) We can run the latest and greatest (supposedly) software on older hardware - therefore, why the rush to upgrade? Horror of horrors, this is the consumer/prosumer space!

The corporate/enterprise space is, if anything, under far greater pressure to not spend money on upgrading the hardware. Let's face facts - the economy is still largely in the commode, and as long as it is, spending on perceived *luxuries* - and, like it or not, new PC hardware is still seen as a luxury, especially in the corporate/enterprise space - is under far greater scrutiny than ever. Therefore, it's far easier to justify not upgrading than upgrading.

This is, in fact, why sales of Windows 8 are below the usual pace - not because of anything directly about Windows 8, but because it's far too easy to justify not upgrading - either hardware or operating system. It's far from a fun thing to realize - in fact, i personally find it galling - however, that is the reality of today.
 
be curious to see the numbers for

Asus
AMD video card department
NVIDIA
Foxconn motherboard division
Gigabyte
MSI
CoolerMaster
Thermalright

and other makers..
 
I may be completely wrong, and I freely admit that, in fact, I hope I am.. We'll see in 25 years, but if you do not think our society is in a state of decline, I have three words for you: Honey-Boo-Boo.
 
BMO Capital’s Ambrish Srivastava, who has a Market Perform rating on both AMD and Nvidia, AMD’s market share in desktop computers in the quarter decline from 40.7% in Q2 to 35.7%, while Nvidia’s rose from 59.3% to 64.3%. In notebook computers, AMD’s share fell more dramatically, from 44.8% to 34.2%, while Nvidia’s share rose from 55.2% to 65.8%.

Total “discrete graphics” chip shipments for AMD were down 14%, quarter over quarter.

As Srivastava writes, AMD and Nvidia are fighting for share in a market that is struggling:

Per the 3Q12 Mercury data, graphics shipments (discrete and integrated GPUs) were 123.9 million, roughly flat q-q. This is slightly above the 2% q-q decline in microprocessor shipments and well below the normal seasonal trend for total graphics shipments of up 13% q-q (five-year average).
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http://blogs.barrons.com/techtrader...losses-wells-sees-hope-in-cost-cuts-consoles/

Not having an answer to nVidia's Optimus is just about the stupidest move AMD has made, even bigger than Bulldozer, imo.

nVidia's doing well on account of mobile Keplers and Tegra 3.

Other OEMs are doing okay, but they're mostly cannibalizing from each other rather than spurring on more sales. Lenovo is now the #1 PC OEM and #2 in the US while Dell and HP have declined sharply.

(Reuters) - China's Lenovo Group Ltd edged out Silicon Valley icon Hewlett-Packard Co to become the world's No. 1 PC maker in the third quarter, according to data released by research house Gartner on Wednesday.

A rival to Gartner, IDC, still ranks HP in the lead - but by less than half a percentage point - in terms of PC shipments worldwide. Both studies reinforce HP's struggles against rivals as new chief executive Meg Whitman tries to overhaul the stalled 73-year-old company.

Worldwide shipments of personal computers fell over 8 percent in the third quarter to 87.5 million, the steepest decline since 2001, Gartner analysts said.

PC demand growth has crumbled over the past year as more consumers flock to ultra-portable and increasingly powerful tablets and smartphones for basic computing.

"It's quite a tough year for PC makers because (Microsoft's) Windows 8 is not launched yet and some consumers are waiting for that. Cannibalisation of tablet PCs is also another factor," said Eve Jung, an analyst with Nomura Securities in Taipei.

Both sets of data show that Lenovo, Taiwan's Acer and other Asian PC makers are taking share away from U.S. competitors HP and Dell, which held on to the No. 3 spot in the quarter.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/11/us-lenovo-hp-gartner-idUSBRE8991RF20121011

There's some growth in international markets, mainly China+India, but the US sales have actually dipped.
 
The power demand curve for computers is almost flat now - even gaming has hardly pushed the envelope for reasons stated.

Most of the big tech companies (and I work at one) recognize this and are shifting their focus away from pc clients and into back end infrastructure.

In a strange way, we're moving away from client/server computing back to more of a (semi) dumb terminal / mainframe model - this allows for scalability, flexible provisioning and avoids the big expense of managing local clients.

This is just the beginning.
 
PGHammer said:
I blame neither tablets OR smartphones - if anything, I blame developers.

If anything, application software, by and large, is worse than even gaming; again, outside of niche applications, how many everyday applications will seriously stress even a dual-core Athlon II?
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I see this criticism a lot and, as a developer, I admit I'm completely puzzled by it. I mean we can certainly develop applications that pound your 4 cores at 100%, but what would be the point? It's like we're being asked to write inefficient software so that the user gets frustrated enough to buy faster hardware to speed up his workflow.

Like you said, there are only a few niche applications that even require modern hardware power, and at this point I think that includes games (until we get cheaper high-res displays, where even the tablets and phones are beginning to embarrass the desktop market -- but even there you're looking at discrete GPUs and a just-as-niche consumer market).

I think for *average users*, once they get a SB or IVB (even a Core i3 is enough), they'll probably be done for their computing careers. By the time they move on to something else, there will be an entirely different context, e.g., phone as computer or whatever.

So I think the primary growth problems here are saturation (who doesn't have a computer by now?) and practically no need to upgrade.
 
jwcalla said:
So I think the primary growth problems here are saturation (who doesn't have a computer by now?) and practically no need to upgrade.
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That's a really interesting point as it gels with the sales figures. In developing nations, PCs are still selling moderately well, whereas in saturated markets (the US) they're expected to dip year-over-year. But those markets where there's growth will also face saturation issues in the future as well.

It's a never-ending cycle, where people move from product to product in search of new and more convenient form factors once that "good enough" level has been reached.
 
I think what happens if that some people feel the need to complain about something and others join in on their rant to look smart or knowledgeable. (By this I do not mean the users in here, I have heard 'experts' do it one day, and listeners parroting the next day)

But I do agree with jwcalla, my dad is a prime example, he only uses what he needs so he doesnt upgrade his laptops and pc's all that often.
 
DoubleTap said:
In a strange way, we're moving away from client/server computing back to more of a (semi) dumb terminal / mainframe model - this allows for scalability, flexible provisioning and avoids the big expense of managing local clients.
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I can see this. For future "wired homes," one central server for home automation, connected to thin clients around the house, tablets can offload work to the server, etc...
 
**ALERT- CONSPIRACY THEORY BELOW**

Has anyone else noticed the big push towards cloud computing by developers and "industry analyst" at the same time of increasing prices for broadband services and cellular network as they all begin to introduce tiered data plans?!!!!! I think it's kind of suspicious; it's probably a huge sub-plot to start charging more for stuff we own locally + the addition to being able to control DRM content more closely.
 
Have you people been hiding under a rock?

Sales have dipped because our economy is on the brink of total collapse. People do NOT have liquid money anymore. They have to retain what they have for as long as they can.

Wow... some of these comments are completely amazing.

We have more debt!!! in the United States than the entire continent of Europe, Africa, and Australia produce in Gross National Product.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
I dislike the Tablet "revolution". Tablets are "OK" for what people want these days... Facebook and other mindless social media. I dislike Tablets in the same way I disliked the Nintendo NES. The NES pulled kids away from real computers like the Commodore 64, and the Apple II. Even really great computers like the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST failed. I worked in a software/game store in the late 80's, and I saw first hand the computer shelves getting smaller and the Nintendo shelves getting bigger. Eventually, Commodore and Atari computers were no more. Kids no longer had to learn computer skills to play a game, or had the resources available to type reports or actually learn something useful. The home PC went through a very dark period between the death of Commodore and birth of Internet. The thing about this dark time on our horizon is what if anything will bring a PC back to being a necessity? If a majority of people only care about social media, will the ones that are left be enough to support the market? When I owned my Atari ST, toward the end of its life, I had to drive for an hour just to get to a store that carried software for it, and most of that was imported from Europe. I see this latest trend as more dangerous to society as Facebook and such grows, collective intelligence seems to decline. The movie Idiocracy really should be viewed by anyone who cares where we are going as a species.
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Cold hard truth.
 
tangoseal said:
Have you people been hiding under a rock?

Sales have dipped because our economy is on the brink of total collapse. People do NOT have liquid money anymore. They have to retain what they have for as long as they can.

Wow... some of these comments are completely amazing.

We have more debt!!! in the United States than the entire continent of Europe, Africa, and Australia produce in Gross National Product.
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Total collapse huh...You've been watching too much CNN and Fox news. Yes the economy isn't doing great but your analysis on economics is weak and non existent at best. The federal debt is a result of mostly fiscal (government spending) and monetary (money supply (bonds/interest rates) policy.

How does this impact consumer spending? Unhealthy debt means credit downgrades and less countries willing to buy bonds (your debt) due to higher risk. As a result, interest rates on these bonds will rise to make them more attractive. However, US bonds are still very attractive and countries will continue to buy US bonds (despite low interest rates) as it is the world standard and considered safe. Higher interest rates usually means less spending due to higher cost of borrowing.

Interest rates have remained low and unchanged in the US and consumer spending is actually picking up (http://www.gallup.com/poll/157295/consumer-spending-climbs-close-four-year-high.aspx.)

In 2011, America had a GDP per capita of $48,000 which is higher than in 2007 (pre-downturn) of $46,000 (taken from world bank - http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD).

So you're saying that Americans have no money to spend and the economy is going to collapse?

Your comment is completely amazing...
 
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ibewok said:
**ALERT- CONSPIRACY THEORY BELOW**

Has anyone else noticed the big push towards cloud computing by developers and "industry analyst" at the same time of increasing prices for broadband services and cellular network as they all begin to introduce tiered data plans?!!!!! I think it's kind of suspicious; it's probably a huge sub-plot to start charging more for stuff we own locally + the addition to being able to control DRM content more closely.
Click to expand...

I don't think its a conspiracy at all.....thats exactly what has happened. Companies want you to buy all your stuff digially so they save the cost of manufacturing and distribution. They are just getting greedy and want more profit by reducing overhead. Thats why there are jobs being lost because the services that people worked for are no longer needed. As far as DRM of course they want full control over what and where things are distributed what better way than to digitally sign their software to only work on their systems. The only conspiracy that you could gain from your statement is that in "the cloud" the government can access all that data without you knowing because its stored in a semi public place. Its harder to get a warrant for an individual's HD than it is to just ask the company for "general access". That would be the conspiracy. ;-)
 
As personal computers become smaller, their flexibility is decreasing. According to a media report starting from code-named Broadwell generation of processors, Intel Corp. will only offer mainstream desktop chips in BGA packaging, which will eliminate upgrade options as well as increase risks for PC makers.

Both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices supply two different desktop platforms these days, making a very clear difference between mainstream and high-end desktop. Still, mainstream PCs with simplistic processors may easily be upgraded with very fast processors thanks to the fact that the chips are interchangeable and come in the same LGA1155 form-factor. Unfortunately, the ease of upgrade may come to an end in two years as starting from Broadwell generation of central processing units (CPUs) mainstream chips will cease to use land grid array (LGA) and micro pin grid array (µPGA) packages and will only be available in in ball grid array (BGA) form-factors, just like Intel Atom processors.
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http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...hangeable_Desktop_Microprocessors_Report.html
 
psy81 said:
Total collapse huh...You've been watching too much CNN and Fox news. Yes the economy isn't doing great but your analysis on economics is weak and non existent at best. The federal debt is a result of mostly fiscal (government spending) and monetary (money supply (bonds/interest rates) policy.

How does this impact consumer spending? Unhealthy debt means credit downgrades and less countries willing to buy bonds (your debt) due to higher risk. As a result, interest rates on these bonds will rise to make them more attractive. However, US bonds are still very attractive and countries will continue to buy US bonds (despite low interest rates) as it is the world standard and considered safe. Higher interest rates usually means less spending due to higher cost of borrowing.

Interest rates have remained low and unchanged in the US and consumer spending is actually picking up (http://www.gallup.com/poll/157295/consumer-spending-climbs-close-four-year-high.aspx.)

In 2011, America had a GDP per capita of $48,000 which is higher than in 2007 (pre-downturn) of $46,000 (taken from world bank - http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD).

So you're saying that Americans have no money to spend and the economy is going to collapse?

Your comment is completely amazing...
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Almost spot-on, except you failed to take inflation into account. Due to inflation, cost of living is higher than the rate at which the GDP/C has risen. We are definitely not collapsing, not by any means, however the point that we have more money to spend is only true if you compare A and B rather than comparing A(inf) and B(inf). We definitely have less money to spend freely since we have to spend more percentage-wise to maintain our status quo.
 
psy81 said:
its bad for those of us who want the best hardware for their gaming rigs since we do not fall under the mainstream but rather fall under a niche market that pushes innovation in performance and efficiency
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That's debatable.
 
When did the Q6600 come out? That processor is still more than enough for most people I think that's one of the main reasons why the PC world is in a small slump. People just don't need to upgrade plain and simple.
 
pelo said:
PC sales are expected to actually decrease year-over-year in the US while globally they should increase, albeit a by a very tiny amount.
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Yet everything is so cheap for you guys. :p

Also, I think stock value isn't entirely dependent on how much people are buying but on how much a company is worth.
I don't believe that is completely interchangeable though I admit that I am no market analyst.
 
Points of view:
People BUY, what they buy changes.
There are enough computers out there where people "under utilizing" desktops can and do sell or give them away.
If a Smart Phone, Tablet, or laptop is what you use, why upgrade?

Until this "supply" runs down (and realize for most people a couple generations old effects their use not at all) I do not see any great rise.

If SSD prices continue to drop budget computers with SSDs should be a minor surge (at least).

Sales are software dependent, both "in the head" and "in the machine." I find the demand is there for desktop computers, especiallly on the budget side. It is however "used" and "hand me down" satisfied.

There are still performance advantages to the desktop, and flexibility. Hopefully these will grow.

Unfortunately we are a very mobile oriented culture at the moment. Desktops occupy space and are a pain to move (house moving) and that will not change.

And I can carry a tablet around, or use it anywhere at home, or "share it," which is difficult to do with a desktop.

So, if the choice is $400-500 (for a desktop that still needs a monitor, without SSD) and a laptop or tablet that accomplish everything you do at the same price, what do you choose?

Yes gaming is a big issue, but not for "most people." Also the "add software" for desktops is a "hidden cost" as is the "trial bloatware."
Low resources make the content and "ap" cost less for tablets.
 
Tsumi said:
That would be very disappointing if true, and would probably push a lot of users to AMD that like to upgrade often.

I don't think Intel would try a move like this. Maybe for low-end OEM desktops and low-end processors, but not for their mid-range and high-end mainstream.
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I've been saying this for a while, but their mid-range and mainstream markets are their 1155/iGPU lines. It's not the Xeon line. Therefore it makes a whole lot of sense to them to make them full SoCs and start offering them as embedded sockets. It allows for flexibility of design on account of the OEMs, and since most chips sold are to OEMs anyway, why not?

If you want to buy Intel's chips and build your own rig, you're going to have to start forking over a lot more money for their 2011 workstation sockets and Xeon CPUs.
 
Tsumi said:
That would be very disappointing if true, and would probably push a lot of users to AMD that like to upgrade often.

I don't think Intel would try a move like this. Maybe for low-end OEM desktops and low-end processors, but not for their mid-range and high-end mainstream.
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I disagree.

I bet in the end, the only thing that doesn't get converted to BGA will be the top end (and limited) offerings, and server platform related hardware. And once that happens, you can count on "them" to jack the prices of the top end shit up to a point that most people will not even bother with it. That in turn will drive the people like us even further into the "niche" category.

I think the days of the "mod" community as it currently stands, are just about over. Sure, you will still have a "mod" community, but 99.9999% will be some lame ass case mods, bright LED ricer lights, etc. And this..."people will go to AMD"...HA! AMD 's offerings SUCK SHIT, and if they have a chance to decrease pricing and gain some more profit, they too will convert to BGA style packaging, no matter what the "already becoming the niche crowd" thinks.

The world of computing is changing folks. Where it will end up...who knows? However, I can almost guarentee this...sites like this, that are devoted to "what we do / modding / customer built PC's" will drastically change, or disappear totally.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

EDIT: I spel gud.
 
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Could be that a lot of us who have been at this for a long time are just getting older. At one point in my life I wanted to have the best gear, and had the disposeable income to support it. Now I'm married, have kids, have a demanding job, yard work, house maintenance, bills, etc. I just don't have the time and energy to devote to a hobby like this anymore. I don't have the energy to do a water loop in my system because that requires maintenance. I run more or less the same base hardware since 2009 because for the hour or two I actually have to do some gaming per week 30-40 fps is good enough.

I'm sure there's always going to be a certain amount of newbies getting into it but with the way the tech market is going, you do have to wonder how long of a run they'll have at it. Some people will benefit from faster processors (encoding and what not), however for most of us it was gaming that drove us to upgrade.

I'm going to call out Skyrim for a second because it's the most recent thing I'm playing. Historically when I played Elder Scrolls games it took me about a year or two AFTER the game was released to get hardware that would play it comfortably. Morrowind and Oblivion both put a serious hurt on the systems I had at the time. Skyrim was designed to run on 6 year old hardware (I'm looking at you xbox), so it pretty much broke that trend for me. If programmers are going to code things so I don't have to upgrade for 6 years, naturally it's going to hurt the market.

One of the best business ideas I've heard was from the guy who invented the disposeable razor. He said the way to make money is to make something everyone needs, then make them have to throw it away. We haven't had a compelling reason to throw away our old hardware for quite some time, and when you couple that with the inevitable "I'm getting too old for this shit" then the market is going to stagnate. Sad fact (for manufacturers) is I probably won't upgrade anything until something breaks, and that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
 
When software catches back up with hardware, we'll probably see a trend of hardware sales. Until then; better invest in software.

It doesn't take much to browse the web these days and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon.
 
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