Worldwide PC sales numbers up first time in over 6 years!

[Stefan Payne]

Interesting

 

AMD brings Ryzen, PC Sales go up first time in 6 years.

There probably isn't a correlation between the two 

 

Especially since I've seen many cases where people who upgraded to Ryzen had either a Sandy or an Ivy Bridge class processor. Well, tbh, I kinda did the same (Sandy-E)...

[Commodus]

10 hours ago, 2Buck said:

Yep! A Core 2 Quad, 8GB of RAM, a 560ti and an SSD still make a surprisingly solid machine. Throw in a CPU overclock and it'll be even better. (Getting a q6600 to 3ghz is easier than blinking). But that's just gamers and enthusiasts doing that kinda stuff, which is a tiny minority.

 

As for casual use, anything better than a Pentium 4 is fine for most. My HTPC is a Athlon 64 x2 with a x850xt and I use it to watch Youtube and Twitch.

 

So I'd say that's definitely a contributing factor to slow PC sales, the vast majority of people just don't need/want better. Main reason casual use people buy new computers is because "my facebook won't load" or "it's moving slow" or "it won't turn on".

That's part of what makes the OP's claims so baffling.  He's touting a single quarter of growth in six years as proof the PC is 'victorious' (I didn't realize it needed to win something) when the reality is that there's little incentive for people to upgrade as frequently as they did in the past.  You'll see businesses and major OS releases prompt bursts of sales activity, but the days of the PC enjoying rapid, sustained growth are likely over for good.  The OP will just have to accept the truth that mobile devices are more popular, more essential and (currently) making greater strides in technology.

[Drak3]

29 minutes ago, Commodus said:

The OP will just have to accept the truth that mobile devices are more popular, more essential and (currently) making greater strides in technology.

That's not a truth though. That's an assumption, and a bad one at that.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

 

On 7/13/2018 at 5:23 PM, Ginger_ said:

... RAM is still up there ...

 

On 7/13/2018 at 5:27 PM, MageTank said:

Still doesn't satisfy my extreme thirst for 128GB of 3866mhz B-Die

 

On 7/13/2018 at 5:29 PM, BuckGup said:

$$$

 

On 7/13/2018 at 5:30 PM, MageTank said:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232668

 

Could use about 4 of these... Though I'd settle for 2 kits. 

 

On 7/13/2018 at 5:32 PM, BuckGup said:

2 grand on memory isn't bad... That'd be sick though

 

Yeah, I could maybe use a little more RAM.

 

If I'd known prices would spike like they did, I would have bought two of these kits.

(My laptop supports a max of 64GB.  I wish a BIOS update or something would make it support the newer 32GB SO-DIMMs, as well as a non-K 65W TDP yet-to-be-released 8c/16t CPU.)

 

If only I had and could afford one of these...

... and the LRDIMMS (if supported) to fill every slot.  (I was going to use a pic of one of the 32- or 48-DIMM boards, but didn't have one readily available.)

 

[BuckGup]

4 minutes ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I could maybe use a little more RAM.

 

If I'd known prices would spike like they did, I would have bought two of these kits.

 

(My laptop supports a max of 64GB.  I wish a BIOS update or something would make it support the newer 32GB SO-DIMMs, as well as a non-K 65W TDP yet-to-be-released 8c/16t CPU.)

 

If only I had and could afford one of these...

 

... and the LRDIMMS (if supported) to fill every slot.  (I was going to use a pic of one of the 32- or 48-DIMM boards, but didn't have one readily available.)

 

Lol you are talking to a person that as 64Gbs of RAM in their PC WHO ACTUALLY UTILIZES IT

 

[PianoPlayer88Key]

12 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Lol you are talking to a person that as 64Gbs of RAM in their PC WHO ACTUALLY UTILIZES IT

 

If I had a board with 8 slots (or any number of slots), I think I'd want to have these in it.

 

Or better yet, these.

 

[Commodus]

6 hours ago, Drak3 said:

That's not a truth though. That's an assumption, and a bad one at that.

No, it's the truth.  Let me explain.

 

Take the number of shipments: there were 62 million PCs shipped worldwide in a quarter... and as of the most recent info, there were 332 million smartphones shipped in a quarter.  A similarly large gap has been true for years.  And remember, PC sales declined for six years where smartphone sales only recently hit a plateau.  Many of those people are buying smartphones because they can only afford one computing device (particularly in places like China, India and parts of Africa), and a phone clearly takes priority over a PC -- hence the "essential" remark.  But even in places where multi-device ownership is an option, people still tend to upgrade more aggressively than they do their PCs... why do you think that is?

 

Part of it is that people are still in the rhythm of two-year contracts or instalment plans.  However, there's nothing obligating them to do so unless their phone breaks -- in many cases, they just want the new device.  They feel there's enough of a benefit that it makes more sense to lock themselves in for another couple of years than to hold on to a device until it fails or becomes completely obsolete.

 

And yes, it's a concrete fact that smartphone technology is advancing at a faster pace.  Intel and AMD have both slowed their processor developments (even the new Ryzen chips are basically speed bumps).  NVIDIA hasn't had a consumer desktop GPU performance upgrade since February 2017, and that was a minor iteration of a GPU they'd released in 2016.  In mobile, meanwhile?  You're still seeing large performance improvements with mobile CPU and GPUs.  Camera, display and biometric tech is making noticeable strides.  Things are slowing down, to be sure, but you're still likely to notice improvements if you get a new phone every couple of years where you can't usually say that with PCs.

 

Simply speaking, the smartphone market is still much more active and vital, even it's slowing down.  The PC market, meanwhile, lost its spark several years ago and is unlikely to ever get it back.

[D13H4RD]

5 hours ago, Commodus said:

Simply speaking, the smartphone market is still much more active and vital, even it's slowing down.  The PC market, meanwhile, lost its spark several years ago and is unlikely to ever get it back.

That's probably because the PC (especially desktops) has been relegated to enthusiasts and gamers. 

 

Hence the reason why every PC store I go to is pushing gaming hardware over standard regular hardware. Where my local PC store would have ordinary laptops front and center a few years ago, entry-level to midrange gaming laptops now take up that space. They still sell the ordinary ones, but they're deep inside 

[ZacoAttaco]

On 7/14/2018 at 10:32 AM, Captain Pirate said:

Isn't the whole memory market pretty much getting sued for price fixing. I have no source that I remember so I could be crazy.

Might have been mentioned on the WAN show, DRAM shortage is, from my understanding, companies like Samsung and Micron needing to improve their supply output by acquiring more factories, more locations etc. but are refusing to do so, which is leading to a shortage in supply, so prices have risen. They can't handle the demand and are refusing to do anything, leading to price inflation. This is obviously not in the best interest of their consumers, so they are being sued. That's my understanding of the situation anyway.

[Fullmental]

Remember when tablets and netbooks were going to take over the world and eliminate the need for a PC? Yeah that didn't last long. Still waiting on a decent tablet that can just handle remoting into my desktop with 100% functionality with KB + mouse, let alone a device that can power a desktop OS perfectly on its own...

[ZacoAttaco]

12 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Lol you are talking to a person that as 64Gbs of RAM in their PC WHO ACTUALLY UTILIZES IT

12 hours ago, PianoPlayer88Key said:

Yeah, I could maybe use a little more RAM.

Don't worry guys, I hear Chrome is getting even less resource hungry now...

 

Wait a sec..that can't be right...

[Commodus]

7 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

That's probably because the PC (especially desktops) has been relegated to enthusiasts and gamers. 

 

Hence the reason why every PC store I go to is pushing gaming hardware over standard regular hardware. Where my local PC store would have ordinary laptops front and center a few years ago, entry-level to midrange gaming laptops now take up that space. They still sell the ordinary ones, but they're deep inside 

Exactly.  Gamers represent one of the few groups left in the PC industry that upgrades with any kind of frequency -- and despite what some on this forum would have you believe, they're rarely a large enough group to move the needle in PC shipments.  Everyone else?  They're waiting several years, and I suspect businesses will only upgrade kicking and screaming.

 

You'll see bursts of upgrade activity, but a sustained recovery?  Doubtful.  It felt like the OP was grasping at straws, hoping for the pre-iPhone PC supremacy that will likely never come back.

[D13H4RD]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

You'll see bursts of upgrade activity, but a sustained recovery?  Doubtful.  It felt like the OP was grasping at straws, hoping for the pre-iPhone PC supremacy that will likely never come back.

It's unlikely that the PC will see that sort of resurgence. Not when many people who used to have PCs for web browsing and emails now find that a decent smartphone does a capable job of accomplishing the same. 

 

But that doesn't mean the PC market is dead. Far from it, in fact. It's just relegated to a more niche role towards gamers and enthusiasts, hence why even though PC sales of regular hardware are down, sales of upper-end stuff is still quite strong 

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

It's unlikely that the PC will see that sort of resurgence. Not when many people who used to have PCs for web browsing and emails now find that a decent smartphone does a capable job of accomplishing the same. 

 

But that doesn't mean the PC market is dead. Far from it, in fact. It's just relegated to a more niche role towards gamers and enthusiasts, hence why even though PC sales of regular hardware are down, sales of upper-end stuff is still quite strong 

Agreed.  That last part, I think, is the OP's problem.  He's acting as if the PC needs to win for the market to be alive, like he can't feel good about being a PC gamer unless computer shipments are improving year-over-year.  No one expected the PC market to shrink to nothing -- it's just that you're now seeing what the market is like when the PC is no longer the most important computing device in most people's lives.

[D13H4RD]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

Agreed.  That last part, I think, is the OP's problem.  He's acting as if the PC needs to win for the market to be alive, like he can't feel good about being a PC gamer unless computer shipments are improving year-over-year.  No one expected the PC market to shrink to nothing -- it's just that you're now seeing what the market is like when the PC is no longer the most important computing device in most people's lives.

Yep.

 

The PC isn't dead. It means that manufacturers are going to have to focus on upper end stuff since that's the money maker for the current market

[Christophe Corazza]

1 hour ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

The PC isn't dead. It means that manufacturers are going to have to focus on upper end stuff since that's the money maker for the current market

 

So... the biggest question will be then: do the prices of those higher end components rise (to increase profit margins)... or not? 

[The Benjamins]

On 7/15/2018 at 4:52 AM, Stefan Payne said:

Interesting

 

AMD brings Ryzen, PC Sales go up first time in 6 years.

There probably isn't a correlation between the two 

 

Especially since I've seen many cases where people who upgraded to Ryzen had either a Sandy or an Ivy Bridge class processor. Well, tbh, I kinda did the same (Sandy-E)...

I bet that Ryzen and Coffeelakes improvements over the past few gens have convinced more people its time to replace then other past gens

[Stefan Payne]

7 hours ago, The Benjamins said:

I bet that Ryzen and Coffeelakes improvements over the past few gens have convinced more people its time to replace then other past gens

No, having more cores for a reasonable price did.

Why should someone with a Westmere or Sandy Bridge upgrade to a Haswell or Skylake? Makes no sense.

 

The improvements over the last 10 years were tiny no increase in core counts over the last 10 years (CPUs with 4 COres on one package came in like 2006, with SMT in 2008), so evolution in CPU Technology stagnated - and then came ryzen.

 

And x86 was the frontline of new technology but there were mobile ARM Chips in mid range phones that already had 4 Cores and in higher end there were 4+4 (little + big) or even real 8 ones.

 

So yeah, of course the sales figures drop when there is no real reason to upgrade an almost 10 year old plattform and you play games on an equally old 6 Core CPU you can get for like 20-50 bucks (though the Motherboard is extremely expensive).

 

Lack of innovation was one of the reasons the Sales Figures were down...

 

[Stefan Payne]

On 15.7.2018 at 6:09 AM, 2Buck said:

Yep! A Core 2 Quad, 8GB of RAM, a 560ti and an SSD still make a surprisingly solid machine.

Now go back to 2008.

And now take a look at an equally old machine.

That was 1996.

 

in that year, the 150 and 166 MHZ P54C processors were released for 547 and 749 Dollars.

 

Back in 2006 you couldn't really use any of those processors. A Pentium 3 with 650MHz was AFAIR somewhat usable, but not the older ones.

 

And now we have 2008 and you can still use a Core 2 Duo (and AMD K8), wich proves that something went horribly wrong in the last 10 years and the development of CPU technology stagnated.

 

 

And that did tank the sales because there is no need to buy new hardware for the normal user as you can still use a Core 2 Duo Laptop for surfing the Internet and watch movies up to 720p (IIRC some 1080p also work). I know, because I do...

 

[Stefan Payne]

On 15.7.2018 at 6:09 AM, 2Buck said:

Yep! A Core 2 Quad, 8GB of RAM, a 560ti and an SSD still make a surprisingly solid machine.

Now go back to 2008.

And now take a look at an equally old machine.

That was 1996.

 

in that year, the 150 and 166 MHZ P54C processors were released for 547 and 749 Dollars.

 

Back in 2006 you couldn't really use any of those processors. A Pentium 3 with 650MHz was AFAIR somewhat usable, but not the older ones.

 

And now we have 2008 and you can still use a Core 2 Duo (and AMD K8), wich proves that something went horribly wrong in the last 10 years and the development of CPU technology stagnated.

 

 

And that did tank the sales because there is no need to buy new hardware for the normal user as you can still use a Core 2 Duo Laptop for surfing the Internet and watch movies up to 720p (IIRC some 1080p also work). I know, because I do use such a Laptop...

 

If the CPU development didn't tank, you would be unable to use a Core 2 Duo for anything these days.

 

[Zodiark1593]

14 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

It's unlikely that the PC will see that sort of resurgence. Not when many people who used to have PCs for web browsing and emails now find that a decent smartphone does a capable job of accomplishing the same. 

 

But that doesn't mean the PC market is dead. Far from it, in fact. It's just relegated to a more niche role towards gamers and enthusiasts, hence why even though PC sales of regular hardware are down, sales of upper-end stuff is still quite strong 

For most basic uses, I find an Intel Atom (or the higher clocked Pentium equivalent) does very well. For the same uses, anyone with a Core series processor (Nehalem or newer) would almost certainly not be feeling the pressure to upgrade anything besides going SSD.

 

My old laptop with a 1st gen dual i5 and SSD has absolutely no problems surfing the modern web, and can even decode (in software) 1080P VP9 and HEVC competently.