Boring PCs Slow PC Industry, Says Gartner

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It's not that they're not aware of this, but the fact that no-one cares about users upgrading their PC's because it's such an insignificant part of the overall PC market. It's also shrinking one, as more and more people buy notebooks, with the majority of desktop sales being to businesses.

Gartner know what they're talking about and invest a lot of time and money into researching, that's why technology firms and hedge fund managers pay them for their information instead of asking on the Tom's hardware where people have a distorted image of reality due to personal experience.

PC's have basically reached saturation point in western countries, there's not large groups of people buying computers for the first time in their lives like there was in the 90's and early 2000's. Not only that there's not the same level of increaseing demand from hardware that there used to be, so natural turnover time has extended. Apart from gaming and heavy media editing (which are both tiny niches) there's nothing a Conroe Core 2 with 1GB of RAM can't do.

What's probably going to drive PC turnover increasingly in the future is longer battery life, thinner and lighter models and lower power consumption rather than increases in performance. Intel has basically said as much, and that's where Ivy Bridge is focused.
 
Good thing about PC enthusiast is when a new technology comes out we get it first before the world does announced to the world or not. I will agree that software development isn't aggressive on the PC as it once was all because users moaning and griping about upgrades and look what happen. Now you guys are complaining that PC is boring?? Gee I wonder who's fault is that???? What needs to happen is Game developer really need to start pushing the PC hardware again.
 
Lol, but no. People do care about upgrading their pc's or etailers such as newegg, mwave, tigerdirect, xoxide, amazon, frys, jab-tech, and insert another 1000 here would not exist. But let's discard all those users on those sites too because they are surely delusional when they were upgrading parts because there is no obvious market for it. Do you have proof it's shrinking based on the sells of parts? Please enlighten me and show some links. We already established that not much people are buying new pc's for all the reasons everyone listed and it is noted and I already agreed. What you are ignoring is the fact that there is a demand and market for everything else besides buying a whole new pc and thinking that only pc's from oems should count as a sale. I bought my laptop from Dell, an OEM, surely my personal experience with being a sole upgrading fanboy is a distorted image of reality, lol. Riiiight.

The only thing i've been trying to say, there is a niche market for upgrading, and new games will drive it, by how much we might never know. Just because it isn't counted as a "sale" doesn't mean it can be discarded in the overall economy. If no one ever upgrades then ATi, Nvidia, Corsair, Kingston, Patriot, OCZ, Seasonic, Antec,etc would be out of business.

And yea, that's pretty much common knowledge that longer batt life and lighter models would drive future sales. I don't think companies were shrinking their processors just for fun, HAHA. Oh yea, I heard that SSD's also saves power and are lighter too but since it's an enthusiast item for now, surely no normal user would ever get one, even though just like all pc parts, it will eventually become cheap enough to include in normal casual user computers but let's not get into that again. HAHA.
 
PCs still remain within ideas of consumption. Why consume say 1000 watts for "computing" when 100 can do what you need and are looking for? And to say that a vast majority of the industry can even put a 1000 watts to decent use without being say "deriveted" from most use of such consumption is probably more highly then anything. Otherwise it seems to be of a small business or endeveour (cant spell, sorry) of "extend time of prolonged knownledge or awareness within a broader perspective or spective". So to say within the consumption of it all to just stay put for it, probably isn't as practical for it. Especially, when you are probably just shy or short of something within PC use other interests have in mind or covered. But to say at all times is to anyones' dismay or delight for when that time would be or is.

To say say as a society of not ow of know being dumb may be placed but probably not as fitting for its place of say as such.
 
I must admit that I stay up to date with my PC specs, but even me, I don't change my PC until I really see the need to.

Right now I run every games I want at MAX setting at 1080P with an PII X3 720 and two 6850 in CF. I don't plan to update my PC for at least 3 years if not 4. Anyway, the consoles are holding back the DX10 and DX11 jump which IMO is pathetic.
 
Unfortunately that is true Imagine what direct X 11 could bring. Imagine what kind of visuals and physic could bring if it wasn't for those pesky consoles
 
If you're continue to continue to insist component sales on retailers like newegg and tigerdirect constitute a significant sector of the overall PC sales market, then there' no point even continuing this, since you have absolutely zero sense of scale. I know you're reasoning that all these sites exist and they're all in business so it must be a significant element of the market, but you're just completely wrong, it's not. For instance you can find plenty of websites and stores dedicated to selling aftermarket and uprated car components, but you'd be completely out of your mind if you thought the constituted a significant part of car sales, in comparasion to the major car manufacturing groups (the equivilent of PC OEMs in this analogy). And even amongst people that do build and upgrade their own PCs (which I'm one of, by the way) only a select few buy the high end graphics cards and processors, the majority buy 5770s and i5s, not 5990s and i7 Extremes.
 
[citation][nom]aznguy0028[/nom]And yea, that's pretty much common knowledge that longer batt life and lighter models would drive future sales. I don't think companies were shrinking their processors just for fun[/citation]
By the way, semiconductor manufacturing processes have been shrinking since the 1970's, and the focus previously has always been purely on improved performance. Notebooks have pretty much remained the same size, with similar battery life since the 90's, it's only recently we've seen thin and light models that have prioritised size over performance.
 
LOL. Never did I say they constitute a "significant sector". Since comprehension isn't your strong point, let me summarize it in one sentence for u to understand.

"There.is.a.demand.for.upgrading.parts."

The money from that demand, goes to the overall PC economy, that is it. We already established that it doesn't impact the whole industry like 20 posts ago. HAHAHA. Thanks for the laughs though.



 
[citation][nom]gnookergi[/nom]I hate to break it to you, but that's a high end "super powerful" rig, by most peoples standards. By most people, I mean normal people who aren't "hard core."[/citation]

I was thinking the same thing. That makes my system, what I consider a mid-high end rig, look small. I think he needs some perspective; an HP netbook can barely, barely play Audiosurf. That is the low end of PCs. Mid starts with using an i5's integrated graphics for stuff because even that can play Half Life 2.
 
[citation][nom]aznguy0028[/nom]LOL. Never did I say they constitute a "significant sector". Since comprehension isn't your strong point, let me summarize it in one sentence for u to understand."There.is.a.demand.for.upgrading.parts."The money from that demand, goes to the overall PC economy, that is it. We already established that it doesn't impact the whole industry like 20 posts ago. HAHAHA. Thanks for the laughs though.[/citation]
Well you realise you're completely backtracking from your first post then.
 
I have a QX9650 and two 9800 GTX's in an SLI (when it's beneficial of course because there are a number of games that run worse in SLI) or PhysX setup, and 4 gigs of RAM.

I run at max settings on 98% of the games out there with absolutely no problem and near 60 FPS with the exception of a few with poorly optimized engines (GTAIV and Crysis come to mind, and GTAIV runs pretty smooth, just has a major buttload of textural oddities when you turn things to the max). I built this in late 07/early 08. The only thing I've upgraded since the build was the graphics cards when 9xxx series went on the cheap, and I swapped out the MOBO because the damn Northbridge chip kept overheating and bluescreening me (and after 2 RMA's and no change I am no longer using ASUS).

Aside from DX11 functionality, which is only implemented in fewer than a dozen games (hell most games released post DX10 release didn't even use that), there is no pressing need for me to upgrade. Maybe once the new consoles come out in 3-4 years dev's will start pushing, and maybe it will warrant an upgrade.
 
It's a general dumbing down of the gaming populace.

People are increasingly engaged in flicking birds at pigs with fingerswipes. Seriously, if your girlfriend is an ace at some game, you can generally count on it being mindless and something that just burns time. Nothing that pushes the envelope; just something pulling it back.

Game developers love this increased "efficiency". It's sheer profit.

 
[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]boring? PC's are better then they were 6 years ago where they were slow as hell and they all came in the color beige. i remember in 2005 when i bought a pre built computer they snickered at me because i wanted everything in black[/citation]
How old are you? 12? I remember the 80s where computer came in gray (Amiga, Atari, Archimedes, IBM & compatibles), brown (C64) or black (Spectrum).
 
[citation][nom]techguy911[/nom] they want their game to run on low end hardware so game quality suffers[/citation]
Game quality is not defined through the latest expensive hardware.
 
[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]boring? PC's are better then they were 6 years ago where they were slow as hell and they all came in the color beige. i remember in 2005 when i bought a pre built computer they snickered at me because i wanted everything in black[/citation]

What? When I bought mine in 2004 (still the only PC I have), I insisted on everything being white, and no one questioned that, and I live in India!!!
 
Yeah, I can't remember seeing new PC's sold in beige after the late 90's, maybe very early 2000's at the latest. I bought a new case for my rig in 2005, a glossy black metal Silverstone TJ05, which was considered a pretty normal design, and before that I had an awful red plastic enclosure that I picked up because it was cheap, so it's not like it was hugely unusual to a variety of case colours at this time.
 
Gartner does have a good point. Most of you guys are failing to see his point. While componets do in fact get better by the years, they still do the same thing. I believe that PCs should be more focus on one specific task and be sold as such. For example, a pre-buit PC that all its components are for music editing, composing, and basically have your own music studio at home might tell consumers this type of tasks cant be done in a tablet. Software like that is expensive. Instead of including trial crapware, full software should be there instead.
 
As far as gaming at least goes, for PC to keep evolving I believe we need to see a drastic drop in LCD prices. Speaking from my experience - i own a 3x30" setup for playing in 5000/2560 resolution. That kind of setup brings gaming to a new level, and actually makes upgrading it meaningful again - a LOT of games can stress your pc with such resolution.

But to get there, there needs to be a stepping stone. Right now users can go a 1display FULLHD - requiring a very mainstream pc at best, or a 3xIPS 30" inch display + good crossfire/SLI setup. The difference is like 4k $ between the two - it doesnt matter that the 4k $ is worth it imo - most consumers arent willing to spend that much on entertainment.

And anything in between is subpar. Upgrade your PC without upgrading display - and you get no tangible benefit. Upgrade your display to like 3xTN - and you get annoying widescreen, or bad colors/view angles spoiling all the fun. It feels like there is a gap between 1.5k $ machines, which employ really everything you need to game at fullHD (and realistically a 1k$ is enough), and 5k$ + machines running super high resolutions.
 
YOU ARE ALL WRONG.
The PC market is dead because of two main reasons. Microsoft launched Windows Vista which backfired -> leading Microsoft into a dark tunnel of fear about upping the software package to allow faster machines to take advantage. Microsoft is held back by fear which means that your PC won't advance until Microsoft pulls out of their dazed and confused world..

The real question: Why is the PC gaming industry taking a dive? Because Crysis came out and the only thing everyone talked about was how their machine could not run Crysis.. Causing mass fear in the hearts of every creative director / game publisher on the market which caused all developers to pull back the reigns on requirements and there we have it - Stagnation based on fear.

It's what happens unfortunately when only a few large players control the market. Boring in this regard is an understatement.
 
@blackwater 11
what the hell man... crysis?? no dood. Crysis has nothing to do with this and so does the windows OS.

because of PC piracy, many of PC titles lost their exclusivity. Developers know that consoles are much more profitable due to less piracy. If there is a demand, develoers will be interested. While the PC market has a high demand for softwares, gamers just don't want to spend. People would rather spend their cash on the newest PC hardware.

THis is pretty evident by analyzing booming PC hardware sales.
 
If you want people to buy a new product, it has to provide some improvment that they would notice. One of my computers is a 6 year old rig with a single core 3ghz processor and an Nvidia 6600gt under the hood. I don't have any problem running anything I want on the thing (which set me back $950 at the time).

Roomate bought a brand new laptop at bestbuy two weeks ago for $499. Nothing runs as well on this new modern marvel as it does on my antique. Some things, like starcraft, won't run at all on it.

Go in and look at modern *on the sales floor* store product for yourself. See how many you can find with discrete graphics. It's all about lower prices and power consumption in the mass market. Performance stalled a long time ago, and in many ways has taken a step back.

If the average user has gotten a system in the last half decade, the really is no reason to replace it with current product.
 
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