CPU Sales Decline

[wulf109]

Intel announced that it will delay introduction of it's next CPU core because of weak demand for CPU's in addition to the already weak demand for personal computers. I would like to suggest two possible reasons. First Intels decision to make overclocking almost impossible on it's newer CPU cores and secondly it''s multiple CPU core lines in production,at least four lines still being offered. They've alienated and confused buyers of CPU's so maybe the weak demand is of their own making.

[sanlyn]

IMO most consumers never used PC's for productivity or high speed gaming. Business IT is another story (and even there, many users just dawdle on the 'net or play simple games all day anyway). How much speed and mutlitasking talent is required for an iPhone, android, low-quality vids and music, etc.? As long as the toy gets fast access to email or the net, it matches to what users have been doing with PC's all along, and without all the complications of a full-fledged PC. And in my CP repair business I find that the average consumer with a PC in their hands has no idea what they're doing anyway. Fortunately for me, that fact keeps bringing in the fix-my-dumb-mistake PC business.

[Hoser Rob]

It's their relative lack of competitiveness in mobiles compared to personal computers. And sales of the latter are declining more than 10% annually now.

[Krispy Kritter]

The number of users that actually want or need a faster cpu is relatively small. CPU's haven't gotten "faster" in several generations. And as noted above, the majority of PC users run business apps/email/internet which performs well on most any dual core (several generations old now).

[bendixG15]

PC sales are way down cause people are buying other things that suit their needs. So why push new CPUs when the demand is not there ???

[yoda313]

Aren't they making a whole suite of mobile chips anyway? I would think they are readjusting there lineup to meet demand where it is - smartphones and tablets.

[ranchhand]

Yeah, I think in a few years we will be remembering the good ol' days, not building. Hope I'm wrong.

[Hoser Rob]

Aren't they making a whole suite of mobile chips anyway? I would think they are readjusting there lineup to meet demand where it is - smartphones and tablets.

They're trying but they're a bit late in the game now. It's very doubtful they'll ever achieve the sort of market share they have in PC's.

[Constant Gardener]

I assembled this "good enough" desktop several years ago. It's still good enough. So sorry, no more sales.

[Joe The Dude]

If, by some unexplained coincidence, their next line of desktop CPUs give a MAJOR speedup to PCSX2 and Dolphin, then they'll be flyin' off the shelves... XD

[OllieTSB]

We've gone from building 1200-2500 custom PCs a year from 2002-2009 down to 1000 from 2010 to 2012. This year to date, we've done 200 and just about all of those were replacing semi-dead (needing parts replacements) into new ones simply because of the 3Tb & Sata6 implementations. None for CPU speeds or additional cores.

The gouging high prices of HDDs stopped our recommendations for new massive-capacity computers during the Thai Flood Excuse. Now, it's the Hynix Fire Excuse that's driven memory up sky-high.

Our client base makes money on the units they have already. They won't make a penny more with a Haswell or an 8-core PhII. Why should they spend new money to make old revenues? They won't. They are not.

Many of our clients have bought smart-phones or mini-tabs to use our Apps in a hand-held environment (walking miles of shelves, doing inventories, or getting answers or doing demos at remote conferences) but few of these are 'productive uses' rather than 'show-and-tell' events.

None of the databases are compiling at twice the speed. No one's generating twice the code, or even 10% more. When Intel & AMD want to deliver significantly better products, then we can recommend spending new dollars. Otherwise, they should enjoy their own engineering stagnation that's walled off by these stupid excuses of single-event "crises". When the marketplace is so volatile that any single event in a single location can stall everything else out, well, that's the Suppliers' Choice. The marketplace is happy enough making New Revenues based on age-old Equipment Expenses.

[redwudz]

When I went from a 4 core to a six core CPU, I got a tremendous boost in performance. But the boost wasn't just the CPU, it was the RAM, the hard drives and the motherboard that were faster. Newer technology such as SATA 6, USB 3.0, faster, larger HDDs, SSDs with lower prices and better performance, Windows 7 improvements over Vista, some RAM improvements, all made a difference. Water cooling and overclocking also helped.

But at present I don't see that it's worthwhile to go to a 8 core CPU or even a faster version of what I have.
I would expect to see only a slight performance increase, not really worth the investment in a entirely new system as the rest of the PC parts haven't changed that much.

I just checked and I assembled the system in my computer details a bit less than two years ago. I usually plan on keeping a system for three years, so next year I may upgrade again if there are sufficient improvements available.
If not, my present system does everything I need it to do.

[fritzi93]

I built mine about two years ago as well, a six-core. It is a tremendous improvement over my previous dual-core build.

I suspect it will be hard to justify another build for a couple more years at least.

[yoda313]

I suspect it will be hard to justify another build for a couple more years at least.

Probably whenever h265 matures. - that's probably the next big thing - that and the proliferation of 4k video, if 4k takes off that is.

[Yanta]

I assembled this "good enough" desktop several years ago. It's still good enough. So sorry, no more sales.

I did likewise, although I used to keep my builds fairly bleeding edge.

But here in Australia, the prices of CPUs rose 15 - 20% just prior to the Haswell release, and the new CPU's were of course priced above that. So, the price difference between a I7-3770k and I7-4770K is at some places as little as $15, but still highly over priced.

The ASRock extreme 4 Z77 cost me $135. The ASRock Extreme 4 Z87 is $65 dearer with very little differences

Just before CPUs prices rose memory jumped 40% or more.

So, Price alone has stopped me upgrading my older PCs. If they dropped the prices by 15% I'd seriously consider upgrading a few machines.