News - Intel issues sales warning as PC industry declines

[OilSheikh]

My point is ... you price an item way too much and have elss sales. Maybe Intel could have reduced the price and have had more sales?

[Sputnik]

Could it be just that more people are buying AMD CPU's instead? When you look at the spec and pricing of the i3's to the AMD A8 -3870k it would not be surprising that people might choose the AMD route.

It might be as has been said that people just no longer want to spend a fortune on some very high powered system they don't have need for.

[pctech2012]

AMD aren't doing that well either http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases...2012jul19.aspx

I have to agree about socket types, people are more likely to upgrade a CPU if they don't have to replace the motherboard too.

Regarding a move into the cloud I believe while this maybe a trend at the moment it will come full circle again over the next 20 or so years.

Big players like Microsoft, Amazon, Sony, Google and Facebook have suffered outages or had their systems compromised, when this happens there is a mass outcry.

If devices become totally dependent on remote boot ROMs that connect to off site server clusters then when this happens individuals and businesses will be crippled.

This will happen sooner rather than later.

[Sputnik]

AMD aren't doing that well either http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases...2012jul19.aspx

Well, maybe just people are not upgrading so often now too. I used to upgrade every 2 years at one time and now I'm on every 5 years.

Regarding a move into the cloud I believe while this maybe a trend at the moment it will come full circle again over the next 20 or so years.

I don't want to be forced into that, I'd rather have all my stuff local to me.

[AGTDenton]

Intel have Nehalem partly to blame as anyone with Nehalem based systems still do not need to replace their whole PC. People can get away with simply upgrading so its little surprising that we're in a bit of a stale stage.
Even a top spec Core 2 Quad/Extreme would see you through a couple of years as a gaming device, and quite happily cope with basic browsing for many more years after that!!

DDR3 is probably the only thing showing it's age at the moment, and DDR4 doesnt look set to hit the shelves for another year.

As a gamer/enthusiast my next gaming build won't be when the next gen consoles are released (excluding Nintendo) and DDR4 is on the shelves.

[pctech2012]

I don't want to be forced into that, I'd rather have all my stuff local to me.

Yeo me neither, the only cloud based services I use are Xbox Live, Steam (got a local copy of the game cache) an e-mail host so I don't have to leave my machine on, Netflix and Prevx AV (the last two so I don't have to wait for DVDs in the post and Prevx isn't dependent on virus signatures.)

[Whiternoise]

I'd guess more of a dip than a continual decline.

I would expect a transitional period where people attempt to make the jump to small form factor machines, like netbooks or tablets before realising that they're underpowered for certain applications or unsuitable for others. It will be interesting to see how Surface changes this.

On the Desktop front is it a massive problem? Intel will keep ticking and tocking until they hit the wall with Silicon and then there'll be the race for the new tech. Until that happens I don't see myself upgrading and I'm only running a Q6600. The new chips are faster, yes, but they're more than fast enough for most people here (including gamers, who depend far more on the GPU). Obviously industry types will want the latest and greatest, but they'll pay for it anyway. I'm not trying to say that we should stop because stuff is fast enough, but I don't think the incremental gains in moving down to sub 20nm are going to be big enough to sway most people from upgrading. Power has never been a massive concern for desktop users, 20W decreases here or there isn't a game changer when your GPU is sucking 200W+ on the latest AAA title. Again industry might care if they own 5000 machines, that -20W*5000 starts to look tasty, but then they'll buy it won't they?

And yeah OK, there are little features like encryption chipsets and streamlined instructions for making toast, but as most people here understand buying an SSD will make much more difference. Heck, even RAM has pretty much bottomed out with 8GB+ getting stupidly cheap and no consumer software really needing it.

I use my laptop more and more, so getting much faster chips (now that quads are starting to be standard in mobile configurations) would be nice.

TL;DR - Desktop will be stagnant until the next big leap in processor technology happens. In the meantime, Intel can hoover up revenue on mobile markets which are burgeoning.

[wasabi]

IT departments are wasting all their money on the usual suspect poser toys - iphones and tablets, and skipping a desktop refresh cycle. People who want sexy stuff buy consumer tat nowadays as the old PC still works. Quite a few businesses are going VDI, so 100 end users' processing needs are being met by a couple of servers and low end Atom / thin client desktop or the old laptop.

[Roobubba]

The company says that less people are interested in buying new desktops and laptops, rather investing their hard earned cash in new tablets and smartphones

FEWER people!

[Reyey]

Apple, consoles, tablets and ultrabooks - these will contribute to Intel and AMD's demise.

[DLUK]

Agreed with Scainer.

If Ivy bridge had clocked to 5GHZ+ (on air) many would have upgraded, but it's thermal issues vs Sandy bridge put paid to that. The extra internal GPU power while great for laptops and HTPC is the exact market the tablets have been killing. So AMD and Intel need to make desktop CPUs that with OC that run at 4.8-5 GHZ+ and have 8-16 cores-threads-modules and cost the same as I7 now. The tablets-phone jumped in cores and Mhz this year quite a bit in the exact way desktop stayed pretty much the same.

Hopefully what ever AMD and Intel do next in 2013 will be 'mindblowing' and see people want to spend again on desktop vs ultra-web book, phone, console or tablet for proper gaming and app' use.

[Zanny]

if they can place two gtx 690 on a tablet and smartphones. well goodbye desktop

The Tegra 3 crushes everything up to the Nvidia 6000 - 7000 series that was king of the hill a decade ago. So you're 10 years off.

[abaxas]

PC compatibles are a small but very visable section of the whole computing market.

Do no confuse visibility with sales figures.

[shaithis]

Not really surprising tbh. We are in a double-dip global recession, smartphones and tablets are taking off, 3+ year old CPUs are "doing the do" for a lot more people then they did historically and PC gaming is at it's lowest point in a long time.

[heXuser]

Smart Phones are becoming really powerful e.g. Motorola Razer HD Maxx, Nokia Lumia 920, Sony xperia and LG L9. These Smart Phones are very convenient way to browse the INTERNET (Email - Shopping etc). You could hook your phone to a TV/Monitor and use your phone as a light weight portable pocket-sized computer. Most people have a computer to do heavy lifting at home, but even then, nowadays - all you need is hybrid laptop/tablet and you will be fine, considering cloud computing will greatly take the stress off the smart phones and tablets, its going to get worse for the desktop PC.

Smart Phone + Hybrid Tablet is the future and all you need

[Mihai121]

We love PC's because we can do whatever we want with them we can upgrade when we feel we want too we can sometimes repair them ourselves but with a tablet or some other stupid device you cant do anything of those things which is very sad.