Why PCs Are "Failing"

Megalith

Megalith

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What are your thoughts on the notion that the PC market is in trouble because modern software doesn’t push modern hardware?

…while PC makers have been worried about the death of the industry, no one is making killer apps which call for an upgrade – other than gaming. In fact Windows 8 made matters even worse by bringing low powered mobile apps into the PC environment. Browser based software did the same thing. Hardware makers are forced to sell a product which costs a fortune in R&D that no-one needs.
 
I think it's as simple as more people building custom built PCs that don't get counted as branded pre-built.
 
The industry is just settling down like many other industries have. Saying that PCs are failing is like saying that refrigerators or cars are failing... except that almost everyone has one and almost everyone uses one. The only thing that changed is that people no longer have to buy a new one every 18-36 months in order to be able to run new programs. Instead, people now buy PCs and essentially run them until they stop working one way or another - which is exactly what people do with products from just about every other industry. That in no way means anything is "failing".

Even with mobile making inroads into the PC market, that still doesn't mean PCs are dying anymore than the car market is dying because some choose to ride a bike.
 
For many people, the most intensive thing they'll do with a computer is write an email, play a casual game and browse Facebook. Those are things which are commonly delegated to smartphones and tablets.

For those who do not fall into that group, they'll tend to gravitate towards building their own PC using carefully selected components instead of opting for a mystery box o' parts, such as with an OEM PC or smartphone for that matter.

I use software myself which most definitely pushes the hardware, including applications such as Photoshop, 3DS Max, various FPGA simulation toolchains and similar, and so on. These applications eat CPU cycles and RAM for breakfast and benefit hugely from having a large display.

I think what we're seeing here is that what used to be one homogeneous group of 'computer users' now splits into a group of people for whom mobile computers are 'good enough' and those for whom more processing power and larger (and more) screens is a necessity or just very desirable.

Cannot really do a racing simulator on a 13" iPad, right? :D
 
AndreRio said:
imo today computers are fast "enough"
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This really is it. Smartphones are finally getting to that level too where more clocks just isn't serving a purpose. It's a good problem to have ultimately. Forces makers to innovate.
 
unless we move into some form of intensive home automation program, pc's are faster and last longer than ever before ... I am getting ready to buy a custom system for several thousand dollars but I expect it to last me for 6-8 years ... replacing PCs every 2-3 years is long gone ... most of my employers have had laptops on 5-6 year refresh cycles so PCs power and durability are their biggest enemies right now
 
As long as it's not possible to run the latest games at 1920x1080 @ 120FPS with all details maxed out and some AA thrown in, I don't see how it can be considered "fast enough". If it's about office PCs mainly, then yes, these have been fast enough for a while now.
 
I have been building PCs for 25 years, I can say that my current PC is my last high-end PC.
What is the point of spending money on high-end hardware when most games no longer benefit from such setup?
 
RadXge said:
I have been building PCs for 25 years, I can say that my current PC is my last high-end PC.
What is the point of spending money on high-end hardware when most games no longer benefit from such setup?
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I agree. I tried to hype myself up with Skylake, m.2, DDR4 and justify and upgrade, but then I look at the big picture and realize it's simply not logical. However, that might change with DirectX 12 which can take more advantage of CPU power and I hope it does.
 
RadXge said:
I have been building PCs for 25 years, I can say that my current PC is my last high-end PC.
What is the point of spending money on high-end hardware when most games no longer benefit from such setup?
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That is pretty presumptuous of you. There are many games out there that benefit greatly from faster hardware. 4K monitors are here and require significant GPU power in order to get high FPS at that resolution. Even at 1080P, if you have a monitor that can do 120/144hz, that also requires significantly more GPU (and CPU) power. If you are running at 1080P/60hz and are content, then that's great for you, but some of us want more.
 
I think it has to do with Steam letting joe blow programmer putting a bunch of crap on Steam and selling it to the masses. Most of these games are in Alpha and never gets fixed properly. Also this takes away from the average person to recognize which games are truly better.
Another reason is because of Xbox and PS4 game developers making console ports to the PC. Which we all know most of them have come out to be crap. Poor optimization, programming , etc... I am still trying to figure out why a game develop releases a game with no 2560x1440 res support or even joystick support. I.e Dragons Lair PC on Steam.

The legend Chris Roberts can save us hopefully with Star Citizen .
 
There really isn't much of a point in buying PCs on a short-ish 3 year cycle and like lots of other people in this thread, I think that the more practical 6+ year cycle is what's doing this to the market. PCs aren't going away as computing will always be around in some form or another like in a smartphone form factor for instance, but yeah, there's nothing really driving growth anymore. Games? Maybe, but who's that rabid about what they do just for fun to waste so much money constantly buying new computers or parts? There's just not that much senselessness out there.
 
GotNoRice said:
That is pretty presumptuous of you. There are many games out there that benefit greatly from faster hardware. 4K monitors are here and require significant GPU power in order to get high FPS at that resolution. Even at 1080P, if you have a monitor that can do 120/144hz, that also requires significantly more GPU (and CPU) power. If you are running at 1080P/60hz and are content, then that's great for you, but some of us want more.
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I agree

1080p is so 2007. People should be running 2560x1440 on a PC or higher with at least 120-144hz
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
There really isn't much of a point in buying PCs on a short-ish 3 year cycle and like lots of other people in this thread, I think that the more practical 6+ year cycle is what's doing this to the market. PCs aren't going away as computing will always be around in some form or another like in a smartphone form factor for instance, but yeah, there's nothing really driving growth anymore. Games? Maybe, but who's that rabid about what they do just for fun to waste so much money constantly buying new computers or parts? There's just not that much senselessness out there.
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I believe when the new Nvidia Pascal cards are released with HBM 2 it will help game developers push the PC even more. No console will be able to compete with this new generation of video cards. We will see new graphic technologies being pushed further and PC games will just be better.
I remember when unreal tournament 2004 was released on PC no console could even match it no matter if they slapped the name unreal tournament on a console disc.

Star Citizen will be out within the next 2 years and will never be released on the console . PC will always be the ultimate gaming machine
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
 
Top end performance isn't the only reason to buy a new PC. Particularly in the mobile space there have been a good amount of advancement. Smaller, lighter, thinner devices with better thermals and battery life. Lots of different form factors. Touch is becoming common and those screens look amazing with high color accuracy 4k becoming the norm at the upper end. Then there little conveniences like Windows Hello which is pretty cool. Nothing by itself that's shock and awe but when combined today's mobile PCs are much better than they were just two or three years ago.

I guess we'll see next month when all the numbers start coming out to see how well these new PCs did.
 
UnrealCpu said:
I agree

1080p is so 2007. People should be running 2560x1440 on a PC or higher with at least 120-144hz
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Why... other than bragging rights? I have three 24" monitors and sit 2'-3' away. There is no benefit to greater than 1080p for me. I should mention that games are single display and I use the other two monitors for other tasks. I have never liked one game across three monitors.

There was a time where I upgraded my pc religiously every few months. This was driven by software pushing it. I haven't had to upgrade in years now as there has been no meaningful reason.
 
Games push the hardware but if you are not a gamer then most people don't need the latest in PC hardware.
 
When you're doing a console port based on 6 year old PC technology, it's not exactly going to push the envelope on new hardware.
 
UnrealCpu said:
I believe when the new Nvidia Pascal cards are released with HBM 2 it will help game developers push the PC even more. No console will be able to compete with this new generation of video cards. We will see new graphic technologies being pushed further and PC games will just be better.
I remember when unreal tournament 2004 was released on PC no console could even match it no matter if they slapped the name unreal tournament on a console disc.

Star Citizen will be out within the next 2 years and will never be released on the console . PC will always be the ultimate gaming machine
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
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I guess maybe, but a single game isn't really a going to fill the killer app niche that drives widespread hardware purchases. Star Citizen has it's fans and if the system requirements for the game are pretty high, then those fans will likely purchase new hardware for it, but the game itself has limited appeal and may have trouble getting to market to land sales.

I admit I'd like to see a new process node for GPUs, but mostly for power savings and not for greater performance. I think its utterly stupid to require so much electrical power to run just a video card which is why I prefer Intel GPUs and for gaming own a GeForce GT 730. More than that is too much and I'll happily wait until technology advances so I can play something on either Intel graphics (preferred for me) or a small/low wattage dedicated GPU if I absolutely must.

heatlesssun said:
Top end performance isn't the only reason to buy a new PC. Particularly in the mobile space there have been a good amount of advancement. Smaller, lighter, thinner devices with better thermals and battery life. Lots of different form factors. Touch is becoming common and those screens look amazing with high color accuracy 4k becoming the norm at the upper end. Then there little conveniences like Windows Hello which is pretty cool. Nothing by itself that's shock and awe but when combined today's mobile PCs are much better than they were just two or three years ago.

I guess we'll see next month when all the numbers start coming out to see how well these new PCs did.
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This stuff I agree with. I just recently got a newer Atom laptop which doesn't have or need cooling fans. That's a huge advantage and even though it's pretty low end, it gets like 10 hours of battery life with no moving parts. R&D needs to go in this direction further instead of being wasted on immovable, huge desktops that need over 100 watts to do anything useful.
 
HockeyJon said:
When you're doing a console port based on 6 year old PC technology, it's not exactly going to push the envelope on new hardware.
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Not all games are PC ports, plenty of games that will bring even latest hardware to its knees. Try ArmA3 or Wittcher3.
 
mi7chy said:
I think it's as simple as more people building custom built PCs that don't get counted as branded pre-built.
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There was more custom rigs being built 10-15 years ago than nowadays, but a lot of the gamers have moved purely to consoles now as keeping up with GPU's & the latest gaming titles requirements become extremely expensive. £400 on a video card & then really needing to install two or three of these to play games with a similar amount of detail to a console running the game at the same resolution!

When you consider that people play their games on consoles & brose the web on tablets or phones instead of using a computer, it is not surprising that PC sales are going through the floor! Then include all the Macbook's that the hipsters are using now instead of a Windows based PC - I am glad that I moved completely out of the retail sector.
 
PCs have been good enough for what most people do with them since the Core 2 Duo came out in 2006. They are now typically only replaced after a major hardware failure, which can take 5 or more years to happen. They aren't failing. You just aren't going to see the exponential growth you had in the early days of computing because most people who want a computer now have one.
 
VanDiesil said:
There was more custom rigs being built 10-15 years ago than nowadays, but a lot of the gamers have moved purely to consoles now as keeping up with GPU's & the latest gaming titles requirements become extremely expensive. £400 on a video card & then really needing to install two or three of these to play games with a similar amount of detail to a console running the game at the same resolution!

When you consider that people play their games on consoles & brose the web on tablets or phones instead of using a computer, it is not surprising that PC sales are going through the floor! Then include all the Macbook's that the hipsters are using now instead of a Windows based PC - I am glad that I moved completely out of the retail sector.
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Except that PC gaming is more popular than it has ever been, especially on Steam, while the Wii U and Xbox One have been two of the worst selling consoles in history. Your post is completely wrong about everything.
 
Also lol at the idea that you need multiple $800 video cards to keep up with consoles. The Xbox One and PS4 have GPUs on par with what most of us were running in 2010 and were obsolete the day they launched. My GTX 460 could produce similar graphics in that came out in mid 2010. Troll harder.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Why... other than bragging rights? I have three 24" monitors and sit 2'-3' away. There is no benefit to greater than 1080p for me. I should mention that games are single display and I use the other two monitors for other tasks. I have never liked one game across three monitors.

There was a time where I upgraded my pc religiously every few months. This was driven by software pushing it. I haven't had to upgrade in years now as there has been no meaningful reason.
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No benefit to go from 1080p to 1440p? Sounds more like you are talking yourself into being happy with 1080p. Saying there is no benefit to higher resolution for you is pretty bullshit.
 
I blame it on the hardware manufacturers. They should have embedded suicide chips that make you computer burn out after a year. People keep robbing stores and companies by using their computer for more than a year.
 
Disposed said:
No benefit to go from 1080p to 1440p? Sounds more like you are talking yourself into being happy with 1080p. Saying there is no benefit to higher resolution for you is pretty bullshit.
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I'm pretty OK with my jump from 1200p to 1440p. But I do think I need to go higher. It helps with a lot of design software!

So if you're not finding a use for above 1080p, you're likely not doing much besides gaming/browsing/emails/docs. Otherwise, the higher resolution helps the workflow.
 
Steve Jobs was correct. PCs are trucks. Not everyone needs a truck.

That said, stagnation is certainly being contributed to by software. How many times do we complain about the lack of multithreaded games and apps? Developers simply are not scaling to the available hardware. It's difficult to justify pushing hard performance when developers aren't even trying to push their software.

We're also at the point of diminishing returns with silicon, at least on CPUs. We can't die shrink forever. There's a physical limit. Just like batteries, we're at the point where R&D needs to catch up to the market and provide something new.

This argument about office PCs being "fast enough" is a fallacy. Office desktops never pushed the computing industry forward. The server room did, and the enthusiast home did. Those markets need something new. The benefits will trickle down.
 
Firstly the PC never needed to be fast for majority of the people out there. To check Facebook, Email, and type documents you could still be using a Pentium 4. Games have always been the driving force of the PC. The same goes for the Tablet. That all came to an end when the Xbox 360 and PS3 was released and every game made since has focused around the hardware of consoles.

Other than that there's.

#1 Windows 10 sucks. Updates and installs whatever pleases Microsoft. Removes applications cause it angered the Microsoft gods.

#2 Internet bandwidth caps and limited speed. Even my cell phone is effected by these caps. Ask me if I care if my phone has 3.5G, 4G, or LTE? Fast enough, because even at 3.5G speeds I can suck up my data cap in a week.

#3 Lack of faster hardware. A 2500k is as fast as a 6600k when properly overclocked. It isn't worth to spend money to upgrade your hardware.
 
Disposed said:
No benefit to go from 1080p to 1440p? Sounds more like you are talking yourself into being happy with 1080p. Saying there is no benefit to higher resolution for you is pretty bullshit.
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Displays can be a tough nut to crack. In general, there is a trend that as the resolution goes up so does the display size (1080p => 24", 1440p => 27", 4K => 40", etc.), and so in those cases the PPI is very close and therefore not much of a factor in terms of a selling point (unlike mobile and laptops, e.g.).

So then it really comes down to the size that fits best to one's field of view, which depends on the desk setup, as well as work requirements, etc. When you get the right size then you'll want to match the resolution.

Just speaking from my own experience, it's not yet obvious what the best display set up would be for both work and gaming.
 
UnrealCpu said:
I think it has to do with Steam letting joe blow programmer putting a bunch of crap on Steam and selling it to the masses. Most of these games are in Alpha and never gets fixed properly. Also this takes away from the average person to recognize which games are truly better.
Another reason is because of Xbox and PS4 game developers making console ports to the PC. Which we all know most of them have come out to be crap. Poor optimization, programming , etc... I am still trying to figure out why a game develop releases a game with no 2560x1440 res support or even joystick support. I.e Dragons Lair PC on Steam.

The legend Chris Roberts can save us hopefully with Star Citizen .
Click to expand...


games are why pcs are falling?

steam and a space game?

what the hell are you talking about. gaming is probably less than 1% of PC sales.

some of you guys are in a bubble that think [h] and the like are indicative of 50% of the world.
 
I would find it far easier to be without a phone than without a solid laptop or desktop as an internet machine. That said I would like to keep both, as they both have a place. However I would not want just a phone EVER as my only internet device.
 
PC's aren't failing at all. That article was meh... People are holding on to older hardware longer but not only that they actually don't necessarily know much about newer hardware either. I built my brother decently hefty rig a few years ago and even though he's still happy he can play the latest games at 1080 he also knows how far behind in tech his rig is. We had a conversation not to long ago where he was amazed with how many people he meets with extremely out of date hardware and in a addition to that, how clueless they were about hardware in general. I remember showing someone what 3D gaming was like and his mind was blown.
Even with all this out of date hardware and lack of knowledgeable users, we're also at a certain level where people seem to be less and less able to afford new hardware.
The writer of the article even went on to ask what sort of software taxes a modern pc. That makes me wonder if they even tried video editing or audio editing (or even 3D gaming) We're reaching a level where pc technology is far beyond the average user. (perhaps even technology itself for that matter)
 
For what most people do PCs have gotten fast enough. They are much more user friendly and reliable than they were in the past. Going from Vista to 7 to 10 isn't very different for the average person. Going from 95 to XP, or XP to Vista was a rather large jump. But there hasn't been much of a need to upgrade your OS in years. Vista is mostly plug and play and runs just about any software the typical person needs.

And an i3 will run Firefox, watch movies without skipping, or do some basic tasks like the occasional ripping from a CD just fine. People are still buying them, just less frequently. Unless someone has a really low end PC most just upgrade when their laptop breaks physically.

rezerekted said:
Try ArmA3 or Wittcher3.
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ArmA 3 isn't the greatest example as it is poorly optimized. Going from a GTX 670 to a 970 netted me zero frame rate gains. Still the same 33-35 with 7 or so tanks burning on an empty map.
 
DF-1 said:
games are why pcs are falling?

steam and a space game?

what the hell are you talking about. gaming is probably less than 1% of PC sales.

some of you guys are in a bubble that think [h] and the like are indicative of 50% of the world.
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Yeah, it's completely off because GAMING pc sales have been INCREASING the entire time. So while PCs as a whole are levelling off, gaming PCs are more prolific than ever. Like people said, you don't a 980 Ti or 390x to check your email.
 
I mean, certainly outside of high end uses like gaming, video editing, photoshop, etc. it does seem hard to argue that most even low end PC's are good enough for most people now and there's less reason to upgrade.

I'm personally still running on a very old PC and I try not to think about how even the typical $400 PC I could buy today is probably a better performer now.
 
Disposed said:
No benefit to go from 1080p to 1440p? Sounds more like you are talking yourself into being happy with 1080p. Saying there is no benefit to higher resolution for you is pretty bullshit.
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Did you read my post entirely? or did you just knee jerk herp derp moar is better? See below. I specifically stated I have 24" monitors. As for my use, my PC is pretty much gaming only. "I" have absolutely no need and nor do I benefit from higher resolution. If I upgrade to larger monitors (unlikely since at my distance these fill up my FOV) then I will obviously go with a higher resolution. I was simply pointing out that his blanket statement of everyone needs to go higher was rather stupid.

jwcalla said:
Displays can be a tough nut to crack. In general, there is a trend that as the resolution goes up so does the display size (1080p => 24", 1440p => 27", 4K => 40", etc.), and so in those cases the PPI is very close and therefore not much of a factor in terms of a selling point (unlike mobile and laptops, e.g.).

So then it really comes down to the size that fits best to one's field of view, which depends on the desk setup, as well as work requirements, etc. When you get the right size then you'll want to match the resolution.

Just speaking from my own experience, it's not yet obvious what the best display set up would be for both work and gaming.
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Bingo.
 
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