PC Shipments Are In Decline...AGAIN!

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Oh no! The end of the PC is almost upon us...again! Seriously guys, I mean it. If we don't do something fast, shipments will soon reach zero and no one will ever buy a computer again. Ever.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million units in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), a year-on-year decline of 11.5%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Shipments were in line with conservative expectations for a decline of 11.3%, and anticipated a relatively weak environment during the first half of 2016 as Windows 10 enterprise upgrades largely remained in pilot phase while consumer demand remains weak. The volatility in stocks, commodities and currencies also helped depress shipments.
 
A: I blame the PC makers because only just now have they started marking down Haswell/Broadwell units and now Skylake computers are the new norm
B: AMD and Nvidia are insanely late with their new video cards, as such sales of both companies for cards have dropped 10% and climbing in the last quarter and there is still no price cut in sight
C: See A and B

Companies refusing to liquidate stock in preparation for new hardware see lack of interest and sales for current hardware. Also ppl in 2016 don't want to buy a 2015 car at full price. In other news, water is indeed wet. This and more news at 11!
 
There is a balance point that will be reached eventually. The personal computer, built of individual components and being wide in scope and capability will have to stay with us pretty much forever.

Just because they will become less mainstream and a little more need based/niche doesn't mean that we won't find a balance at around 50mil units a year or something and just stay there forever.

A general slowdown in the arms race of speed and features? I've been expecting that forever. The battle right now is how much computing power can you put in a cellphone. But that doesn't change the NEED for a PC when you want to do high end gaming, multimedia video/audio development, CAD, Photoshop or anything where specific peripherals and high speeds are desired.

What's going to replace the PC in those markets? Nothing. The PC is a concept not an iPhone.
 
For that matter we could easily reach a point where even gamers and high end video editors don't need anything bigger than an ITX case... but it's still a PC built from the discreet components available at the time.
 
As technology starts to last longer and longer theres no need to upgrade as often, im not suprised by the decline. Most companies still use computers that run on XP cause theres no need to upgrade
 
It's not rocket science.

PC's are not improving like they once did. Improvements come at a trickle now, not in leaps and bounds. I used to build a new machine every 6-8 months to keep up with the fastest hardware.

I haven't built a new machine in 2 years now.

A little more ram here, a new video card there, an SSD for a big boost. That's where it's at.

The whole processor game seems to have come to a close. Improvements in performance are so small that it's not worth upgrading.

Basically, people are running their PC's into the ground now.
 
If the PC market vanishes, how much longer will people like us be able to buy low-end servers and workstations to use for "makeshift" home computers? If we decide that we're not happy with the performance provided by tablets and smartphones, for instance.

I've already planned on having to pay several thousand dollars for a server-class machine after the PC market disappears, simply because I know I won't be happy just using a tablet and relying on the cloud with no real computing power in my house.
 
I was going to build but I am waiting for the next gen of i7 x99 chips with 6 or 8 cores and for nvidia to roll out the 10980 gpu.

I have been getting by with my 5 year old laptop that still plays fallout 4 at ~30 fps on middle settings at 1080.

The upgrade cycles have been getting slower and with less upgrade in power so people have been holding on longer and longer. Eventually computers will just be appliances where anyone can do everything anyone would need.
 
The manufacturers need to stop the entitlement attitude, as no industry is guaranteed end over end sales increases every year. Computers will still be bought, and continue to be bought. The doom and gloom articles are beyond old. In fact, if you cut them in half, you can see the age lines.
 
A: I blame the PC makers because only just now have they started marking down Haswell/Broadwell units and now Skylake computers are the new norm
B: AMD and Nvidia are insanely late with their new video cards, as such sales of both companies for cards have dropped 10% and climbing in the last quarter and there is still no price cut in sight
C: See A and B

Companies refusing to liquidate stock in preparation for new hardware see lack of interest and sales for current hardware. Also ppl in 2016 don't want to buy a 2015 car at full price. In other news, water is indeed wet. This and more news at 11!
Although that might have a limited impact on the PC market I doubt it would be earth shattering. Ultimately the PC market these days is driven by two things, the volume side is driven by Enterprise (and businesses are a lot more frugal on their IT budgets now), the boutique side by the Enthusiast (but that is a relatively small market). Unless there is some paradigm shift of epic proportions, the consumer PC market will never return to it's boom cycle of the 90's (there are just too many alternatives competing for the consumer dollar - tablets, smartphones, consoles, HD/4K TVs, etc). That said, the PC market will not die but it will likely remain at these lower (but still highly profitable) levels.
 
My old Q9550 from whenever it came out is still around 4 times faster than the budget PC's that they are selling today.
I looked at passmark score of a processor in a friends new HP slimline PC and it has a score of 1100, the Q9550 is 4000+

To me it seems that PC's last a lot longer before requiring the user to replace them due to performance.
 
My old Q9550 from whenever it came out is still around 4 times faster than the budget PC's that they are selling today.
I looked at passmark score of a processor in a friends new HP slimline PC and it has a score of 1100, the Q9550 is 4000+

To me it seems that PC's last a lot longer before requiring the user to replace them due to performance.
I was still running my E8400 until January when I finally upgraded to a 6700K (which I hope to last at least 6-8 years as well).
 
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Don't you guys think the PC's now a days are far beyond the speed for even this bloated software?
 
Yea, I see those new 200-300 machines come into my shop to repair or upgrade and they are just horribly slow. AND people think they are getting a "good deal" on a fast machine with them when an ancient c2d could run circles around them.

A lot of them are just cheap laptop boards and not even a proper power supply but a laptop power cord for them. Really weird.
 
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But that doesn't change the NEED for a PC when you want to do high end gaming, multimedia video/audio development, CAD, Photoshop or anything where specific peripherals and high speeds are desired.

Thats just it. Not everyone is [H]ard enough to need a computer to perform those tasks. Their three-to-five year old computer is "good enough". And, isn't it refected in the latest CPU release by Intel where the emphasis is on lower power consumption, not faster speed.

I picked up a Lenovo THINKCENTRE M53 Tiny Desktop, Intel J2900 Quad-Core 2.41GHz off Woot! in mid-January. It cost me $245, and it won't run Crysis. But, it is good enough to bring up web pages (including a full-page radar of Weather Underground), play videos via VLC, and run StreamWriter. It's more than enough for most home people to do their banking, read e-mail, and such. I will admit that I spend $60 to replace the Seagate laptop hard drive with a 250GB SSD, another $30 to replace the 4GB stick with 8GB stick, and $20 for a wireless keyboard with touchpad. For what I'm using it for, I expect it to last at least.... TEN YEARS.

The biggest performance bottleneck nowadays isn't in the CPU, it's in the hard drive. Checking NewEgg, a halfway decent 120GB SSD is $40-$45, while a halfway decent 250GB SSD is around $60. Note I said "halfway decent", not performance which [H]ard users love. But, the performance will still be better than a hard drive.

People are confusing the PC world with Apple iToyz world, where they regularly obsolete products older than two years old, and make it extremely hard to upgrade and repair to boot.
 
Consumer grade compute performance has been at a plateau for 5 years as all the work has gone into efficiency. There's no reason for any normal off the rack purchaser to buy anything new until it blows up.
 
It's not rocket science.
The whole processor game seems to have come to a close. Improvements in performance are so small that it's not worth upgrading.

This.

I built my system 6 years ago, and it still does everything I need 98% of the time. For the other 2%, I just have to wait a little longer than I'd like.
I've added an SSD, memory and a new video card over the past few years, but I'm still using the old CPU (overclocked of course).
It's not worth the cost to upgrade to the latest & greatest CPU, since I'd also have to replace a lot of other parts, even though the latest i7 would be almost 2x the speed.

At the office, I've only seen small increases in laptop CPU speeds for years. The high end laptops I was buying last year where are only 10% faster than the ones I bought 6 years ago.
Intel finally has some decent quad core laptop CPU 's this year that don't slow down when all the cores are in use, resulting in about a 25% improvement over last years models. First decent speed increase I've seen in 6 years.
 
Yea, I see those new 200-300 machines come into my shop to repair or upgrade and they are just horribly slow. AND people think they are getting a "good deal" on a fast machine with them when an ancient c2d could run circles around them.

A lot of them are just cheap laptop boards and not even a proper power supply but a laptop power cord for them. Really weird.

that is what I was working on for a friend, used a laptop style power supply, tiny itx sized board 2 SO Dimm slots.
hp-slimline-pc.jpg
 
I remember back in the late 90's/early 2000's, you'd upgrade computers/get a new one every few years.

Now it seems like things have really slowed down. A 2600k/780 lasting years, and one-generation up video card is still 500+ bucks, just insane.

It just seems like to me the pace of new technology for some things and the cost have been slowing down. Which in turn will limit people from buying new computers (Since thier own ones will work ok for longer) or because the next "jump" is so expensive for some things (IE video cards).
 
Theres no need to upgrade. Before there were many revolutions in everyday computing that necessitated more computing.

Software has stagnated, C2D's can be fine for most peoples general needs these days. Especially with newer OS' being much more efficient instead of being more bloated theres no "need" to upgrade.

Plus there isn't any compelling products from OEM's these days, their offerings are too over ran with cheap options that are super bloated down *cough* Lenovo *cough*
 
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million units in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16)

A recent report indicated that 30M GPUs were sold so this is actually good news for the gaming PC market. IME most people upgrade the whole thing and get the GPU at the same time. So almost half of all new PCs are being shipped with a 3rd party GPU. And there are two main reasons for that: business - CAD, art, et al - and pleasure - games. (HTPC and compute engines are going to be well behind.) And games has got to be the biggest segment. Guesstimate 20M a year? That's Xbox 1 and PS4 sales combined, if not more.
 
It's not rocket science....
The whole processor game seems to have come to a close. Improvements in performance are so small that it's not worth upgrading.

I've got to agree: I'm still on my 3770S. But Ashes of the Singularity, with its extensive use of multiple cores, may be (ahem) a game-changer. (I'll get my coat... ) If new games follow that path - and Intel would be foolish not to encourage it - then we may yet see a renaissance in CPU development.
 
Don't you guys think the PC's now a days are far beyond the speed for even this bloated software?

For me no way. I could actually use the $4000+ 22 core xeon x4 (and wish it was clocked higher). For 90%+ of the people you are probably correct.
 
People seem to want to blame the hardware for the decline, I blame the software. If we had business software or entertainment software that needed 16 cores running at 5 GHz and dual GPUs with 6-8 GB each then someone would make hardware to support it (especially if it were mass market). However, software companies don't really seem to want to push the bleeding cutting edge anymore. They are happy to make mass market products that run perfect right now with existing hardware or older and just take the money and run. I can't blame the hardware companies for not wanting to expend costs where the market isn't demanding it. People won't upgrade hardware unless their software requires them to.
 
I just ran out and bought 2 PC just in case they stop making them, I also got myself an abacus for a back up plan. But really I am still on my 3770K 16g ram and 660Ti and it run every thing I play very well most games on high at 60 fps. I would upgrade to a 970 but they are still $299 - $350. If those EVGA cards drop to $250 I just might buy.

The older I get the less important it is for me to have bleeding edge hardware for turd edge software.
 
They can prey a real PC out of my cold, dead hands. All the Mini-Things are fine. But I will always prefer real, boobs and sweat, and sweat under boobs, hardware.

I know, I might have overused the boobs. It happens.
 
It's not rocket science.

PC's are not improving like they once did. Improvements come at a trickle now, not in leaps and bounds. I used to build a new machine every 6-8 months to keep up with the fastest hardware.

I haven't built a new machine in 2 years now.

A little more ram here, a new video card there, an SSD for a big boost. That's where it's at.

The whole processor game seems to have come to a close. Improvements in performance are so small that it's not worth upgrading.

Basically, people are running their PC's into the ground now.

I would definitely not say not improving, just not a big focus on performance, and really there is not much of a point to, day to day, there are not many programs or uses that even make use of the power we have today. What has become the focus is performance per watt, not only does this matter for mobile platforms, but it also matters for workstation/server use. The improvements for every new generation have been moving well still, its just that things like the CPU is no longer a limiting factor, back in the day getting a GPU that was 10% faster I could SEE actual improvements in FPS or ability to up the eye candy, today not so much, I would need to get more monitors or much higher resolution setup to even care about it because games just don't really push what I am running now.

Can't really complain, I like eye candy and all, but not building every 6 months, or at least a major upgrade every 6 months has allowed me to put SSDs in everything I own, get a nice gaming laptop and a dedicated home server stuffed full of 5TB drives etc etc.
 
I very rarely BUY desktops... I build them, and I imagine most enthusiasts and power users these days do the same. Casual users are fine with iPads and laptops.
 
Meh, the reason for the continued slowdown is that unless you play games, computing power hasn't changed appreciably in a decade. As long as they have enough RAM and maybe a snappy SSD upgrade, most people would be perfectly happy with their Core 2 Duo era computers, for the things they do (Web, Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter Email, MS Office)

If you DO play games, even many of us enthusiasts on here are happy running 5+ year old CPU's.

As Intel has faced less competition from AMD on the CPU side of things, and their focus has shifted more to performance per watt from overall raw performance on a desktop side, average users have had no reason what so ever to upgrade, and on the laptop side, the only reason to upgrade is to get a thinner device allowed by lower power processors. If you are OK with a slightly thicker laptop, you have no reason to upgrade at all. it just doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference.

My Fiance recently needed a cheapish laptop. I looked around atht e current offerings, and recommended that if she could put up with the thickness and weight (which she could) we just get a factory refurbished Dell Latitude E6430s, and let me do some small upgrades to it (new SSD, more RAM, 802.11ac mini WLAN card).

  • Factory refurbished 14" Latitude e6430s w. i5-3320m (Ivy Bridge dual core, HT, base 2.6Ghz. turbo 3.3ghz): $260
  • Samsung 840 Pro SSD from my leftover parts bin in the basement: $0
  • Extra 4GB DDR3 Sodimm for a total of 8GB: $20
  • Intel 7260 802.11AC WLAN Card: $25
  • Total Cost: $305
That is cheaper than most Chromebooks...

Unless you are totally hung up on the thing being thin, this is a great laptop for the price. No need to buy something new.

I certainly wouldn't. At least not until we can get Ultrabook thin models, while still having M.2 or 2.5" SSD upgradeable storage, upgradeable RAM slots and replaceable WLAN cards. I will absolutely not buy a laptop with any of this "soldered to the motherboard" crap.
 
making fun of the articles doesn't change the fact those are huge declines. desktops are becoming less relvant to most.. computing power is wasted and duplicated too... i mean you have the desktop, and then do most use in the tablet... why not make the tablet a shell that connects to the desktop... i know the tech is there not sure if it has been developed, priced and packaged right.
 
In the 1990's, people needed computers to get onto the Internet. Now that there are smartphones and tablets, people use those devices to get onto the Internet ... and if the Internet is all they use, there's no need for a desktop or laptop computer.
 
C2D? Is that Core 2 Duo?

I went from a Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 machine (state of the art at the time) that I built in Spring, 2007 to a Intel i7-4790K that I built in Fall, 2014 (aka The UberBoxen). And, yes, I did notice the improve in the speed. :) But, if I wasn't playing games, I will probably still have that Core 2 Duo running. The fact that I was able to get 2.5 years more life than initially expected on my Core 2 Duo, even with upgrades along the way (larger HD, switch from HD to SSD, from a 8800GTS 320MB to a 460), surprises me.

But, I'm not seeing the big incremental increases that we have been seeing previously, nor is there the need for big increases.
 
The enthusiast market is still doing well, this is mostly about commodity systems. I think at this point we'll still be ok even if the commodity market falls apart because of the high margins on high end parts. PC producers aren't making anything on the commodity systems anyway.
 
But, I'm not seeing the big incremental increases that we have been seeing previously, nor is there the need for big increases.

Well, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

We aren't seeing the new killer programs/games that could take advantage of more powerful CPU's, because there is nothing newer and faster to run them on, and we aren't seeing new killer high end CPU's because there is no software that requires them, allowing Intel to focus on performance/watt improvements instead.

I'm pretty certain there are developers out there who could create some new and interesting stuff that would really take advantage of faster CPU technology, but they are not about to sink development costs into something that only very few people who overclock or have high end systems can run. Development needs to pay if in returns, and you get more returns when there are more potential customers.

Likewise, Intel isn't about to sink billions into having separate mobile and desktop lines if there isn't a large customer base out there clamoring for high end stationary performance they can sell it to, which is why our current generation of high end chips are really chips originally designed for and optimized for mobile applications, but just "factory overclocked" with higher voltages and clocks. This is why my 5 year old Sandy Bridge-E i7-3930k clocks much higher than most brand new Haswell-E chips when overclocked. Their designs are tweaked and optimized for mobile applications where long battery life and low heat output are MUCH MUCH MUCH more important than all out performance.


This "chicken and egg" scenario has always existed, but in the past advances were driven more by competition. Maybe the consumer or shopper didn't necessarily have any needs for the latest high end chips, but hey, why would I buy the slower of the two if they cost the same anyway? Besides, there was also a market conditioning that there would be continuous improvements, and their hardware would be come obsolete quickly, so future proofing was important.

Now, CPU performance has stagnated, and there are no fancy new applications to challenge higher speed, so there is nothing that drives the cycle forwards.

It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's great to - in 2016 - be able to keep a high end system from 2011 and still have it perform like a high end system, but on the other hand it makes our hobby less interesting.

I miss the late 90's through ~2005 when to be cutting edge you had to be on an annual Motherboard/CPU upgrade cycle and a 6 month video card upgrade cycle. It wasn't wallet friendly, but damn was it fun!
 
making fun of the articles doesn't change the fact those are huge declines. desktops are becoming less relvant to most.. computing power is wasted and duplicated too... i mean you have the desktop, and then do most use in the tablet... why not make the tablet a shell that connects to the desktop... i know the tech is there not sure if it has been developed, priced and packaged right.

And I don't really understand why someone would want to peruse the web with a small screen device when you've got a large screen monitor on your computer. My 4.3 inch screen phone is not a particularly good size for perusing the web. I understand the mobile aspect, but when you're home it's so much nicer to have a real keyboard and a large screen monitor or two to make posts to HardOCP.
 
And I don't really understand why someone would want to peruse the web with a small screen device when you've got a large screen monitor on your computer. My 4.3 inch screen phone is not a particularly good size for perusing the web. I understand the mobile aspect, but when you're home it's so much nicer to have a real keyboard and a large screen monitor or two to make posts to HardOCP.
Except, even when home most people are not sitting at computers much anymore. Most people are playing video games (often on consoles), watching TV, watching Netflix (or equivalent), etc and they are multitasking on the web at the same time (using phones, tablets, or laptops). In the 90's (and maybe even early 2000s) people needed to be on their computers to be on the web and do webby things (email, surfing, games, etc). Now they can do all those things while they watch the game on TV, or play games with kids or friends, or Netflix (Chill not included).
 
My Fiance recently needed a cheapish laptop. I looked around atht e current offerings, and recommended that if she could put up with the thickness and weight (which she could) we just get a factory refurbished Dell Latitude E6430s, and let me do some small upgrades to it (new SSD, more RAM, 802.11ac mini WLAN card).

  • Factory refurbished 14" Latitude e6430s w. i5-3320m (Ivy Bridge dual core, HT, base 2.6Ghz. turbo 3.3ghz): $260
  • Samsung 840 Pro SSD from my leftover parts bin in the basement: $0
  • Extra 4GB DDR3 Sodimm for a total of 8GB: $20
  • Intel 7260 802.11AC WLAN Card: $25
  • Total Cost: $305
That is cheaper than most Chromebooks...

Unless you are totally hung up on the thing being thin, this is a great laptop for the price. No need to buy something new.

And unlike those "thin" laptops, this is a business level build and can withstand a lot more drops/abuse/etc.
Most the Latitudes I buy for the office easily withstand 3 years of heavy traveling and another 3-4 years handed down to someone in the office.
I have a stack of 8 year old dual core D830's that run fine with Windows 10. If I where to slap an SSD in them they would be very usable.
However they just look too old/clunky and are too heavy for anyone to accept using them :(
 
making fun of the articles doesn't change the fact those are huge declines. desktops are becoming less relvant to most.. computing power is wasted and duplicated too... i mean you have the desktop, and then do most use in the tablet... why not make the tablet a shell that connects to the desktop... i know the tech is there not sure if it has been developed, priced and packaged right.


That is true. As hard to believe as it is for some of us, the market has shifted significantly in the last 15 years.

You can't even give away a slightly used desktop on craigslist anymore. No one will take it. Everyone wants WiFi. Ethernet wires are considered unseemly. Thin, light and mobile are all that matters to most people.

If I had to choose between having only a desktop, only a laptop or only a smartphone/tablet, I'd personally have to go with the desktop 100 out of 100 times, but that's just not the way most people see things today. A good chunk of people don't even have computers at all, desktop OR laptop, relying entirely on their mobile devices.

I blame millenials :p
 
Believe it or not, but we have some Pentium 4 with 4GB memory that runs Windows 7 faster than a lot of the new cheap laptops that are being sold today. My 8 year old C2D T400 P8700 laptop runs circles around many of the cheap laptops being pushed today.
 
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