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Businesses upgrading to Windows 10 forced global PC sales into the black for the first time in seven years in 2019, but it could have been so much better if Intel's chip drought had eased.
Preliminary findings from Gartner pegged shipments at 261.23 million, up 0.6 per cent year-on-year, and rival analyst IDC reckons 266.69 million found their way on the shelves of distributors and resellers, itself up 2.7 per cent.
Forced upgrades from Microsoft still seem to outweigh jumps to Linux. Will that ever change?
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Global PC Sales Up for First Time in 7 Straight Years
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If the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 15 2020, @05:01AM (3 children)
High end games still need some hefty hardware, especially in graphics.
Even if you don't need a gaming machine, it's still hard to say no to new hardware that gives twice the performance for half the energy. The 14nm node was a big jump from 22nm. Even accounting for marketing hype overstating the die size shrink and the resulting performance improvements of what they call 10nm and smaller, a computer that's just a few generations behind is a candidate for replacement.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday January 15 2020, @09:51AM (2 children)
Indeed. I built a (at the time anyway) decent gaming computer around seven years ago. OC'd 8 core, 28nm, 2Gb graphics card and only now am I running into games it starts to struggle with. It has been fine on heavily modded versions of SkyrimSE, GTAV, (wife's favorite oddly enough, such violence under that sweet exterior...) CivVI, Kerbal Space Program, Black Flag and such but struggles a bit with RDR2, high levels in Oxygen Not Included and very likely will with Kerbal Space Program II when it is released. CPU, MB, memory and Graphics card are all due for a refresh, only the case, psu, and primitive cold cathode lighting will remain of the original computer (don't need it more flashy than that, it's not a Christmas Tree). I may opt for water cooling if the dual fan 120mm air cooler shows signs of not keeping up, but it currently never exceeds 80c even in summer under heavy use.
Considering it was an AMD build at the time I have been quite happy with it's performance thus far, and only now has it showed signs the current crop of top tier PC games are exceeding its ability to play them with graphics set to high.
It still blows away the current gen consoles, (ok, that's not much of a feat admittedly) and I am really excited about the current lineup of new AMD chips, 8Gb graphics cards and such. Even though it was never 'quite' as fast as a comparable and more expensive Intel system of the time would of been, I've not had a compelling reason to update it until now. Five or ten fps wasn't worth a few hundred extra dollars to me.
It's especially nice, as you noted, that my psu will still be able to handle my proposed refresh. I just hope the long term reliability is as good.
Great time to upgrade.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday January 16 2020, @07:28AM (1 child)
It's time to consider holding out for Zen 4 on the AM5 socket. Likely due in late 2021, maybe early 2022.
That could bring DDR5 support, maybe PCIe 5.0. And then there should be an upgrade path to Zen 5 and later CPUs.
What you could do is pick up a new graphics card. You can find Radeon RX 570 (4 GB) for around $100, 8 GB version or the Radeon RX 580 for a bit more. The VRAM increase will help on some titles.
Next-gen consoles are due in late 2020 and should push the envelope. They will have 8x Zen 2 cores, whereas I assume you have 4x Bulldozer/Piledriver modules, basically the fake version of an 8-core. Memory on these consoles could be as much as 24 GB, although that could be shared with the GPU.
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(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday January 17 2020, @01:06AM
Thank you for the advice Takyon.
Yeah, it's the FX 8320 Piledriver. I got a good one. Supposed to run at 3.5Ghz but ran at 3.7Ghz out of the box and has spent the last seven years OC'd to 4.2Ghz when gaming, the highest I could make stable.
Still made a great gaming platform, but getting a bit long in the tooth.
The RX 580 8GB is first on the list as it is, with a new MB and CPU as greenbacks allow for. With your insight, I think I will hold off on those two for the next gen, as I have been very pleased with the 8320. It was the best I could afford at the time, but I was amazed at how good it turned out to be despite its weaknesses. It never gave me a reason to upgrade, and with the Intel problems coming to light, upgrading really fell off the radar until AMD exploded recently.
You rock. Thanks again.
I have a console for my wife oddly enough, I only play golf with her on it. Unfortunately two of my favorites are more CPU bound (Kerbal Space Program and Oxygen Not Included) so I doubt they'll get much of a boost, but maybe they'll pick up a handful of frames since the graphics on KSP especially are heavily modded (an addiction that there is no cure for...).
Thanks for the advice.
An insightful for thou!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.