That rustling you hear outside your door is the press getting ready to once again predict the impending doom of the PC industry, ready with bon mots describing how the world, including statisticians, engineers and animation creators will be using tablets for their work from now on. As is always the case, these doomsayers are vastly overstating their case, though this is not to say there are some hurdles facing the PC industry as a whole.
Windows 10 has failed to drive consumers to update their hardware, for a variety of reasons obvious to everyone but Gartner, IDC and Microsoft's marketing team. Intel's latest offerings have not provided a solid reason for enthusiasts to upgrade their machines and AMD is worryingly quiet lately. This has lead to a fall in sales compared to this time last year of between 9.6-11.5% depending on which of the two sources The Inquirer quoted you choose to believe is more accurate.
Apple and ASUS are the only two companies showing growth and a 1% increase is nothing you should brag about, even if you are beating the competition. Even Lenovo is seeing their sales shrink, to the tune of roughly 10%. There is new hardware slated to arrive soon and the falling price of M.2 and PCIe SSDs may provide some impetus for enthusiasts to pick up a new motherboard at the very least, so hopefully we will see this trend begin to reverse itself before the end of the year.
"Gartner's report said that PC shipments reached 64.8 million units in the first quarter of 2016, while IDC offered the more pessimistic figure of 60.6 million. This represents a decline of 9.6 per cent or 11.5 percent, depending on which figure you go on."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Tesla Recalls 2,700 Model X Cars, Highlighting Risk of Massive Model 3 Rollout @ Slashdot
- Come in Microsoft SQL Server 2005, your time is up @ The Inquirer
- Windows 10 debuts Blue QR Code of Death – and why malware will love it @ The Register
- HTC 10 vs Galaxy S7 specs comparison @ The Inquirer
- You keep using that word – NVMe. Does it mean what I think it means? @ The Register
- Infected with Petya ransomware? This tool will rescue your data @ The Register
This is going to be an
This is going to be an ongoing trend.
I reckon in less than two decades PCs as we know them today will be a relic of the past. Everything will move toward mobile computing (e.g. phones, tablets, laptops, who knows what else) and stationary computing devices will be only for enthusiasts/workstation environments.
Reality is for the vast majority of people, a desktop PC is obsolete for their needs.
They can browse Facebook on their phone, email, play casual mobile games – and with tablets and laptop-tablet hybrids even work or school-related tasks will not require a tradition home computer.
And the PC gaming market?
And the PC gaming market? These reports tend to only count the Pre made PC markets which yes is going down and will go down, but the Self built gaming market is only going up.
I was looking for stats on
I was looking for stats on self-made pc sales and its trend. Do you have any sources for your claim?
“only tend to count”?
No,
"only tend to count"?
No, they only count PC sales, as in full prebuilt PC sales because that is what they are tracking. It has nothing to do with individual GPU or CPU sales, or even mice or keyboards for that matter … the statistics they are talking about only reference full built systems.
Peddie didn't release any stats today so I apologize on their behalf for not having the information you wanted today.
10% from Pre built market?
10% from Pre built market? whats gone down? these measures dont work because if they are just saying pre builds are going down, that has no correlation to how well PC use is, specially in the game market.
The shrinking will NOT STOP!
The shrinking will NOT STOP! This is mostly dew to the trend towards mobile, and I include laptops in the Mobile definition! Most users of non OEM PCs have wide latitude on how they update their computing platforms, so many will simply replace motherboards as required and also graphics cards and CPUs/SOCs and not be in the market for any of the measured OEM PC systems listed under the current statistics! There needs to be a metric that measures the non OEM/pre-built market against the actual OEM PC/laptop market that is included in these statistics. The PC market for desktops is shrinking and has been shrinking relative to the laptop market, and even the laptop market is shrinking relative to the Tablet/Phone markets that now take much of the sales away from both PC/Laptops.
It should be noted in the laptop market that there has been a trend towards the weakening of the laptop SOCs/APUs relative to the laptop market of 3 or 4 or more years ago! This weakening of the laptop’s APU/SOC SKUs(Ultrabook SKUs/thin and light SKUs) has rendered the new laptop generations over the past few years as unacceptable for any laptop as a desktop functionality, so laptops that where once able to provide their end users with more power are few and in short supply relative to the previous years regular form factor laptops that could do more strenuous processing work.
The entire PC, and Laptop market sometimes included with PCs, is shrinking and it’s because of the Ultrabook/Thin and light marketing/designing of laptops more towards competing with Tablets/Phones that many users of laptops as a desktop replacement have been ignored, resulting in more potential lost sales for the laptop OEMs. I used to replace my laptop every year but ever since Intel(Via Apple’s market influence) starting pushing for Ultrabooks, and AMD started following Intel’s lead with AMD’s Thin and light Ultrabook equivalents there is no reason for me to be updating my laptops every year!
I had been getting mostly quad core i7 regular form factor laptops to use rather than getting a Desktop PC, but those regular form factor laptop SKUs are not offered as much any more so I’ll probably just keep the 4 laptops that I already own and use them till they no longer work. I’m also not going to purchase any new laptop that has windows 8, unless it is windows 8 pro with the windows 7 downgrade rights, windows 10 is not an option and the Linux laptop OEMs that have some very nice regular form factor Linux OS laptops are only using Intel/Nvidia based more costly laptop SKUs. I hope that there will be some Linux based laptop OEMs that will start offering laptop’s with Zen(x86)/Polaris GPU options in the near future so I can purchase laptops after 2020 and beyond.
The PC/laptop market is saturated and there is really no value added in the current laptop market for any potential Laptop as a desktop replacement user like me to even consider purchasing any new laptop with windows 10(I’ll never agree to the EULA) or an ultrabook/thin and light SKU, as even my oldest dual core first generation core i3 laptop has about the same CPU processing power as the current low wattage ultrabook SKUs.
This is all probably due to
This is all probably due to outright asinine lack of any major innovation in the hardware R&D sector for the last 5 years. AMD hasn’t been putting any real competition for a long time, so both noVideo and Intel got extremely lazy AND greedy at the same time, which in itself introduced a massive stagnation to the overall innovation. People see what Intel’s been “doing” (read – NOT doing) in it’s CPU sector for the last five years, so they simply got weary and have no incentive to buy freshly offered hardware due to “my i5 2500K/i7 2600K is still more than enough and still runs circles around anything AMD/VIA/MCST/Loongson offer, so why bother? Especially since Ivy/Failswell/Scumfake are all the same sh*t with dragon semen under the cover” logic. And quite frankly, that logic is abso-effing-lutely sound. In all actuality, it applies almost perfectly to the noVideo and it’s asinine practices also. Especially after the 3.5GB lies, GimpWorse, and ShallowPay/pseudo-WHQL drivers fiasco. Unfortunately, neither Intel nor noVideo clearly show no signs of rethinking their “tactics”, so the “gimpage” and “+5% for 150+ dollars” will continue, right until that very moment until someone (it really doesn’t have to be AMD exactly. Lately there has been a surge of new players entering the hardware market, especially in the CPU sector) introduces an actually competitive-to-Intel-at-the-very-least product to the scene. IF AMD fails with Zen and their upcoming HBM2-based video cards…this is going to be a much MUCH rougher time for the entire industry, mark my words.
You went with noVideo when
You went with noVideo when NVIDIOT is so much better?
First of all – I’m no fanboy
First of all – I’m no fanboy nor a shill.
Secondly – I call them the way I due only due to factual information, not to just insult them. “Idiot” is an insult and I tend not to use such remarks. “NoVideo”, on the other hand, actually represents quite correctly and very accurately what’s been happening with that company for the last several years. I’m not a fanboy or a shill of any side or the other, because I simply tend to use the most best of what’s available regardless of a maker/manufacturer, as long as it’s the best. My currently main station (out of the six different builds I have in my house at the present time, all of which were built completely from scratch by my own hands. Three systems based on AMD and three on Intel) has a set of two 980 Ti, so it’s pretty clear that I can’t be called a “Nvidia hater” or etc., because I’m not. I just despise stupid marketing moves/stunts and outright loathe PR lying mixed with bad treatment of the general user/consumer base. NoVideo has been doing a lot of that crap lately, hence my treatment. I’ve already said it some time ago, and I’ll never get tired of repeating it: for me personally, GTX 285 was the last truly great and 100% worthwhile product “Nvidia” made. After the truly GODLIKE GTX 285 and all the way up until the release of 980 Ti – NoVideo didn’t do even one video card that I’d personally consider 100% worth of buying. So I wasn’t buying their sh*t by principle, during that entire time gap. Even so, I’m NOT a “fanboy” or a “shill” of Radeon, simply due to the fact that I’ve started using Radeon cards quite late (my very first Radeon was an HD 4730 from TUL. I’ve pretty much missed the “Rage” era and all that almost entirely, due to simply not dwelling into the hardware news and trends surrounding ATi. I consider this to be a very big mistake of mine, but past is the past), and before I bought myself a GTX 285, I was using other Nvidia cards (7100GS, GeForce 2 MX400, and maybe one other – I don’t remember well) and before I moved to Nvidia’s products, I was a user of VooDoo cards. I’m really not a “shill”, “fanboy”, or a “hater”. I just tend to use what’s best. If I can get it, I’ll use it, regardless of who made it/who’s the manufacturer. For example: I try to steer away from Corsair’s cases, memory modules, and mice as hard and as far as I can, because I know by my own hard-learned way of personal usage of these aforementioned types of products that Corsair ABSOLUTELY cannot into these. Corsair’s cases, Corsair’s mice, Corsair’s memory, are all utter GARBAGE. AND extremely highly overpriced and overhyped, to the boot. I simply don’t tolerate this. On the other hand, I outright LOVE Corsair-branded PSUs, and also like their keyboards quite much, because, in my honest (and 100% personal, which is, again, purely based only on my own personal experience of dealing with the said products) opinion, THESE particular types of products Corsair actually CAN do very well. And they do. I will never forget AX850, and I will never stop using it until the very day it finally dies off completely and absolutely (so far, been working for the four years straight in a 24/7/365 non-stop regime, on constantly OverClocked system) on me. And for such products I truly respect both the Corsair and whatever OEM Corsair using. But their cases/mice/memory – HELL NO. And that’s basically how I operate as a hardware enthusiast. If it’s an underperforming/overpriced/fugly/unreliable/useless trash, it won’t matter for me personally who makes it – I will call it the TRASH it is without any remorse whatsoever at all, and would praise much better product from the different line/from a competing company/manufacturer, IF available at all. “Nvidiot” is a pretty lame troll theme. That’s now how I roll in life. If a product is actually bad – I’ll say so. But if it’s not – I won’t. Nothing less or more than just that. I will never call any fan or a user of noVideo’s products an “Nvidiot”, as well as I’ll never call similarly any users or fans of Intel or AMD. I might trash companies and some of their products for bad marketing practices, products, and treatment of their general user/fan audiences, but I’ll never attack the actual end user, because, after all, I am myself that exact user too.
“First of all – I’m no fanboy
“First of all – I’m no fanboy nor a shill.”
That made my day.
We work well together.
We work well together.
I work for no one.
I work for no one.
Now read past that, kiddo.
Now read past that, kiddo.
AMD had a nice Carrizo APU
AMD had a nice Carrizo APU offering that was gimped down by the laptop OEMs who are still trying that Ultrabook/Thin and light nonsense! The Carrizo SKUs at least had better than Intel graphics at the price point, as Intel will never offer its better graphics options on its lower end SKUs. That single channel gimping of some of the Carrizo FX8800P based laptop systems along with limiting the FX8800P to 15 watts forced usage model had a drastic effect of the APU’s performance, and still the FX8800P’s graphics was a better performance per dollar deal than Intel’s graphics even at that limited 15 watt thermal profile.
Should Laptop OEM’s continue to do with the Bristol Ridge Carrizo/Excavator refresh SKUs what they did with Carrizo/FX8800P then sales will not be good. Bristol Ridge will have DDR4 options and 35 watt abilities with some more tweaking from AMD for better performance. If laptop OEMs do not at least offer some 35 watt Bristol Ridge based laptop solutions and dual channel DDR4 options to let the APU SKU’s integrated graphics have better bandwidth then AMDs newer Bristol Ridge SKUs will suffer through no fault of AMD, as it will all be on the laptop OEMs this time around.
It’s getting to the point that after the Intel/Ultrabook and AMD Thin and Light response to Intel’s Ultrabook initiative, the effect on the laptop market became such that laptop SKUs that would normally today be considered Gaming Laptops, are in fact what used to be just the regular form factor laptops if one compares the new to the older model regular form factor laptop SKUs of years past.
Intel has so reduced the average ultrabook SKUs compute ability on the CPU side of the equation that the whole Laptop market’s performance bar has been so lowered as to make for no real gain in laptop SOC/APU performance dew to the computing power reductions across the board for laptop SKUs offered to the OEMs. Intel has done this to such a point that even the majority of the core i7 offerings are little more than dual core ultrabook/mobile offerings and quad core i7 based laptop offerings are rare beasts that only are found on the “Gaming” SKUs that today’s market considers gaming but is gaming in marketing name only.
Intel gets to tout core i7 but the core i7 ultrabook SKUs are little more than neutered of their once higher average performance metrics of years past, and users are even charged much the same for an dual core ultrabook i7 variant as they where for the older quad core i7 regular form factor laptop SOC SKUs in the past. Intel charges for the Ultrabook moniker a higher effective cost price/performance wise for its ultrabook SKUs and gets more of them on a single wafer owing to the fact that they are dual core i7s and not quad core i7s, so Intel makes even more money through larger wafer yields on top of the Ultrabook pricing scheme to charge more money at less initial cost. Intel marketed the Ultrabook branding and still is, and has made billions in extra profits at the expense of performance, and the entire laptop market has followed along including AMD/AMD’s OEMs going the same direction with the reducing of laptop’s CPU compute to push the all important battery life metric at the expense of all the other laptop performance metrics that could have been offered simply by plugging in the laptop.
OEM’s could have been designing laptops with USER controlled thermal metrics and the USER ability to set the laptops power/thermal usage profile for battery usage, with the option for the user to ramp things up when needed for whenever there was a power plug available, for better compute performance. But the laptop OEM’s low-balled the entire laptop market under Intel’s Ultrabook initiative banner and chose to go the cheep route of gimping laptops down to tablet power/performance/cooling metrics and not make enough regular form factor laptops with regular form factor laptop cooling solutions. Intel should have never been allowed to force its monopoly market control over the laptop OEMs with its Ultrabook initiative but now it’s too late and the whole market is clogged with these underpowered Ultrabook SKUs that no one really needs or wants.
you are the worst
you are the worst
No you are the paid suck-up,
No you are the paid suck-up, Ultrabooks suck and they are only for Intel’s profits at the expense of performance! The Ultrabook is an UltraScam marketing tactic to separate the fools from their money! Intel knew that Moore’s law/observation was on its last legs, so why not just slowly gimp down the overall laptop SOC SKUs overall performance and resale it back to users for more profits! The great gimping of the laptop(Ultrabook initiative) is just such a scam, and how about those expensive Ultrabook SKUs! It’s just Intel trying to force an Apple style overpriced and underpowered business model onto the non Apple laptop market! But the PC/laptop market is still getting smaller, and will continue to get to get smaller until the OEMs get out from under Intel’s/M$’s sticky fingers!
The mobile tablet/phone market is doing fine with Intel outside, and even without the x86 ISA, so Intel can not get its rings through the mobile devices makers noses. How’s that mobile market working out for you Intel!
I can’t really see a day
I can’t really see a day where I won’t have a desktop computer. I understand things are shrinking and yada yada but I enjoy building my own computer and putting my own customized spin on it all. I think even if 10 years from now they have a laptop processor with 20 cores 40 threads or whatever ill still buy the 40 cores 80 thread processor and water cool it along with whatever gpu is out that is amazing. As far as hardware innovation I do think that the past few processor releases have been *yawn* boring. I think that the main innovation in hardware is really going to the 1. storage speeds and 2. monitor technology. Both of those have increased so much over the past 5-10 years. I think we will continue to see faster and faster storage/peripheral innovation more than we will see increased ipc in processors. Thats my opinion. i could never play games on my phone i hate them.