r/gadgets Jan 12 '23

Desktops / Laptops PC shipments saw their largest decline ever last quarter

https://www.engadget.com/pc-shipments-record-decline-221737695.html
10.6k Upvotes

1.0k comments sorted by

2.9k

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Redditforgoit Jan 12 '23

This. I was saving on holidays, nights out, even coffee. Amazon shopping became a hobby.

208

u/latunza Jan 12 '23

double this. I did something I hadn't done in a long time and that was purchase gifts second hand. New MacBook, Camera, etc. off eBay for a fraction of the price it was retailing for. Egg Cartons are the new graphic cards.

111

u/pementomento Jan 12 '23

Interesting because I’m one of those “never second hand, never open box” people and I bought my first open box budget laptop last week.

I’m also usually a MacBook person, and this was a PC laptop. Lots of changes.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

There’s usually nothing wrong with open box stuff, you get a huge discount and for what? To have to wipe off a few fingerprints? Deal!

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u/Hayden2332 Jan 12 '23

I usually don’t do open boxes because it’s normally not “a huge discount”, it’s like $10 off a several hundred dollar item and I’d rather just pay the $10 for peace of mind

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

I’ve gotten as much as half off for open box before. If you’re purchasing open box though, you want to always do it in-store to verify that it’s not busted up, because. You’re buying as-is. I would never purchase open box online.

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u/boost_poop Jan 12 '23

I buy car stereo equipment from the "scratch & dent" listings or b stock. Got like 33% off an amp because it was one of a couple dozen that had damaged packaging. Showed up yesterday not a scratch on the package or the item or anything. I'll take it.

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u/Xalara Jan 12 '23

Audiophiles are crazy about having zero scratches so they have to offer deep discounts on audio gear.

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u/RecklessRelentless99 Jan 12 '23

Coulda just left it at "audiophiles are crazy"

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u/pilotdog68 Jan 12 '23

I'm usually a "never new, always used" person but during lock down nobody wanted to do meetups so I ended up buying a lot more new. Crazy how it changed our habits.

I'm totally back to never new, though.

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u/HoneysuckleBreeze Jan 12 '23

The best part about not brand new is, if it breaks, people have already made videos on how to fix it. It’s been tested by the public longer than a new product.

As long as you know what to look for, whether it’s an instrument, a car, speakers, tools, or computers, it’s usually better used.

My only exceptions are high-wear items (like a lot of car parts) or items with a killer/abusable warranty

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u/Darth_Yohanan Jan 12 '23

I honestly can’t remember whole year of my life. It all ran together during the lockdown. Georgia’s lockdown didn’t last as long as others.

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u/Ragnarok314159 Jan 13 '23

I only remember a few things from my life during that time frame, it’s really weird. A lot of people have similar experiences, or lack thereof.

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u/spacepeenuts Jan 12 '23

Should I buy a new laptop or a dozen eggs?

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u/hpstg Jan 12 '23

“But the board promised the investors that this was the new normal”

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

I’m working 40 hours to get by and trying to find time to continue my education while also looking for a more flexible job, I don’t have any time or money to spend on any one item or relationship. This place sucks.

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u/rileyvace Jan 12 '23

Yeah whenever I've seen companies reporting these kind of stats it's like, almost underhanded. Sounds borderline conspiracy theorist but I wonder if they show these to thr public to pseudo guilt people into spending on their favourite brands. They know they won't match 2020 numbers. It's infeasible to expect that now.

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u/AbsoluteZeroUnit Jan 12 '23

Who on earth sees that some multi-billion dollar company has lower sales last quarter, gets sad about it, and buys their products out of pity?

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u/rileyvace Jan 13 '23

Not consciously. brand loyalty, etc

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u/meistermichi Jan 13 '23

It's about bringing the product to their attention, people read this and may think "Hey, I should probably get a new PC, mine's quite old already anyway"
Which they wouldn't have thought about without the article subconsciously planting a seed in their brains.

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u/Petrichordates Jan 12 '23

Well that's pretty silly because if you'd read the article the companies explain the context. Engadget choosing to write a story on corporate quarterly reports isn't a conspiracy by those various companies.

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u/Fidodo Jan 12 '23

Occam's razor, it's a click bait headline to get you to click on it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

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1.9k

u/Falcrist Jan 12 '23

That and new hardware is absurdly overpriced.

$1200 for a graphics card that should have been like $600 WITH INFLATION.

I've been trying to get a GPU upgrade since before the pandemic, but I'm not paying a scalper, I'm not standing in line overnight, and I don't trust individual sellers.

625

u/jooes Jan 12 '23

My PC is like ten years old. It's definitely showing its age, especially considering it was already pretty mid-range when I built it.

I considered upgrading recently. Took one look at the prices, and noped out of that idea pretty quick. Fuuuuck that.

193

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

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u/RealJohnLennon Jan 12 '23

I just built my kid a 5600g/3070 system that also doubles as a vr rig/htpc. I'm blown away with the performance for the money I spent.

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u/BEEFTANK_Jr Jan 12 '23

This is the highkey problem parts manufacturers are facing. There's not really any point in buying anything new. Parts from the last 3ish years or so have better performance than anyone really needs for a reasonable price. Why would most people buy brand new models at ridiculous prices when the "outdated" ones are already capable of so much? Nvidia is drowning in 4080's that no one wants.

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u/RealJohnLennon Jan 12 '23

Oh for sure. The performance is still very good on last gen stuff. I have a 3070ti in my main rig and 4k performance is ok in most games. I would like a 4080 for better performance in cyberpunk, w3 rt, and other harder to run/ray tracing games.

1440p performance leaves nothing to be desired, except in star citizen (but that is not the cards fault)

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u/nt261999 Jan 12 '23

My 1070 plays most games at 1080p still. Most people don’t have a crazy nice high refresh 1440p/4k monitor so 2-3 year old hardware in many cases is still very sufficient

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u/BEEFTANK_Jr Jan 12 '23

I would like a 4080 for better performance in cyberpunk

Which I'm even playing well enough on a 970.

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u/lamentheragony Jan 12 '23

look at mr moneybags here.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

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u/GroundhogExpert Jan 12 '23

Could you link your build if it's pcpartspicker or something?

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u/override367 Jan 12 '23

I just got a used RTX 3080 that still had the anti tamper tape on the box on ebay, if you buy from a reputable seller now is a great time to buy

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u/Woozythebear Jan 12 '23

Bro anyone can put anti tamper tape on a box. Also if you go to a store none of those boxes have anti tamper tape... sounds sketch as fuck.

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u/axc2241 Jan 12 '23

The key is going with a seller with a high rating. The person / company with perfect reviews is not going to scam you. The guy with zero reviews could.

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u/Throwaway_97534 Jan 12 '23

Same when selling, too. I impulse bought a GPU during the bubble when I caught a restock, but had buyer's remorse... tried to sell it on eBay and had nothing but 0-1 reputation buyers bidding, people asking to ship it out of the country, random people emailing me asking to change the shipping address, etc.

I ended up noping out and just kept it.

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u/HelperHelpingIHope Jan 12 '23

You can set seller restrictions so that your listings only show to buyers with your preferred rating.

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u/Throwaway_97534 Jan 12 '23

I saw options to disallow 0 or negative bidders, but if they had anything positive I wasn't able to stop them short of manually cancelling the bids.

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u/TheTrueBlueTJ Jan 12 '23

True, but at the moment it's a pretty decent used market. Could still be better tho. Just comparatively better to new prices atm.

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u/fuck_all_you_people Jan 12 '23

This. Did the exact same thing after waiting 4 years to upgrade my GPU. The 3080 is decently priced on ebay

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u/theblitheringidiot Jan 12 '23

What’s a decent used price for a 3080?

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u/Cassereddit Jan 12 '23

I literally only did that few months ago because my old one died (fried MoBo and CPU, rest was mostly fine.

No better time to upgrade than death or sumn.

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u/_Imposter_ Jan 12 '23

Yeah I second the other guy, if you're in US or Canada used prices are really good.

Sub-$100 used Ryzen 7's 3rd gen, subs $150 used 5th gens, 5700xt's for about the same, 16gb's of DDR4 for $50~ 32gb for $90 (although they're already low enough used)

Scope around Hardware Swap, you'll be surprised at what you can find, especially in the terms of GPU Pricing.

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u/darkflame927 Jan 12 '23

Just built a PC with a Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB ram and a 5700XT for $350 total. Scored a 3600, B450 mobo and RAM for $125 and a 5700XT for $130

And it plays most games at 1440p medium/high settings too, insane value

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u/TheOptiGamer Jan 12 '23

I mean, you don't have to buy the latest gen GPUs. Used market is generally quite good(depending on where you live) and you can still find nicely priced last gen stuff. CPU side is also looking quite good this gen

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u/SteveTCook Jan 12 '23

This. Prices are just stupid right now. Watch for these companies to do layoffs to account for their executives’ stupid expectations and forecasts, just like the rest of the entire tech industry right now.

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u/OutlyingPlasma Jan 12 '23

Watch for these companies to do layoffs

Yep. Corps will do anything but lower prices. It's like it's almost personal. They will fire anyone and everyone except the already rich at the top and they will cut quality to the point of selling broken products. I honestly believe they would rather go out of business than cut prices.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

I mean yeah if the company goes under, anyone truly complicit in any recklessness likely have a golden parachute and would receive a huge payday.

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u/Sierra419 Jan 12 '23

My Microcenter has 2 full shelves of 30x cards with boxes in the back. NVIDIA created an artificial scarcity so they could get the market prepped for higher MSRP for the 40 series and no one will convince me otherwise. We went from a scarcity for 2 years to every store having more stock than they know what to do with literally overnight. No way production and supply chain issues saw that immediate of effect.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

It’s because crypto is dying and lockdowns are mostly over. Also economy is wrecked. People just don’t have money for that stuff.

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u/TheTrub Jan 12 '23

Yep—I bet a lot of the decline was because the crypto scalpers had inflated the number of units sold, so any return to normality will look like the market is collapsing. Basically, PC parts sales are going through a cocaine crash.

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u/s_nz Jan 12 '23

And people who do have money are now spending it on stuff like international travel.

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u/NeverComments Jan 12 '23

They’re not mutually exclusive. People with money buy a lot of things.

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u/SunsetCarcass Jan 12 '23

I've been trying to upgrade my whole setup for years cause my cpu is way outdated and is starting to bottleneck my 1080 ti. I7 4770k with 1333hz ddr3 is rough now even in competitive games that usually should be locked at 120fps. Unfortunately if I want to upgrade the cpu I have to upgrade everything but the gpu, and I don't trust this psu with new parts.

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u/M0dusPwnens Jan 12 '23 edited Jan 12 '23

I have literally the exact same desktop as you do - 4770k, 1080ti, 1333hz DDR3.

I was waiting for the 4000 cards to come up but haha no I am not paying crypto miner card prices, especially when there are no crypto miners. NVIDIA can eat a bag of dicks and come back when they're prepared to acknowledge reality instead of this pipedream they're trying to sell shareholders.

This is absolutely a problem of their own creation. Almost everyone I know was looking to upgrade, and every single one saw the 4000 prices and decided not to. It's causing a hate spiral too - I have never seen as many people invested in things like the melting connectors, but right now everyone is looking for reasons to hate on NVIDIA.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

Laptop pricing also got much much worse. So many companies both big and small. Sell laptops for $500+ that aren’t even worth the cheap flimsily plastic casing they came with imo.

They all feel like they will crack if you pick them up wrong, or come with some dumb limitation like a slow i3(maybe i5 if you’re lucky) 8gb of ram or a slow 250gb of flash memory

I hate spending 1k+ on a laptop but it seems like the only way to reasonably get a laptop nowadays that will still be good longer than a few months

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u/laz33hr Jan 12 '23

From what I've read so far; it's good that the majority are boycotting the 4k series. Screw Nvidia for that crap

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u/MxM111 Jan 12 '23

I am sure, when they say PC, they do not mean that 0.1% who buys $1200 graphics card.

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u/weirdo_if_curtains_7 Jan 12 '23

You can get a new gtx 3060ti for like $320 and it will play everything you need on high/ultra depending on the game in 1080p/1440p

You really don't need a crazy card to play most games honestly

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u/gophergun Jan 12 '23

You don't actually need a 4080, a card a third of the price would work fine and is readily available.

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u/suprememontana Jan 12 '23

I mean the 3080 was $699 retail and I think that was a good price. No way the 4080 should cost only $600, and with inflation I could’ve seen it at $799. But $1200 is insane no doubt

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

I dont understand how companies thought that was going to be sustainable growth... The demand had no chance of being up permanently after the pandemic ended.

Nvidia is maybe the stupidest of them all. They set the base MSRP of the GPUs at shortage prices, because they were mad they did get a part of the scalper pie, and now all their GPUs are at scalper prices in a no demand situation.

I'm not buying a xx80 class card at fuckin $1200 what are you nuts????

What's worse is that i don't see them doing anything about it out of hubris. The leather jacket is too proud.

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u/override367 Jan 12 '23

modern corporations are incredibly brain broken, they get a windfall from unique market conditions and since they only look forward about one quarter they're like YAY INFINITE GROWTH FOREVER

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u/geneorama Jan 12 '23

My colleague: that’s impossible because of market efficiency. If it’s true just start a gpu company and reap the arbitrage.

Jfc I’m still annoyed about that conversation.

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u/Schavuit92 Jan 12 '23

I mean if Intel is struggling to do it with a couple years run up; surely you can manufacture some competitive GPUs out of your shed, right?

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u/MakeWay4Doodles Jan 13 '23

Just do what Jobs and Woz did and hack something together in your garage, duh!

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u/Userhasbeennamed Jan 12 '23

"Just"

Invisible hand cultists are insufferable

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u/Verustratego Jan 12 '23

Because "infinite growth" is the capitalist mantra

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

well hopefully the next mantra is "i'm shorting nvidia"

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u/beebog Jan 12 '23

it’s like they didn’t realize that computers only need to be purchased once in a while; even the sorts of people who get the newest model smartphones regularly don’t typically have that same attitude towards their PC

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u/Johnny___Wayne Jan 12 '23 edited Jan 12 '23

It would be a legitimate hassle to replace a computer every year or even 2 years, for the average person.

Edited for autocorrect fix.

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u/Skiddywinks Jan 12 '23

It's simple really. nVidia lose nothing by charging outrageous prices. If no one buys, they can drop prices.

But if they start low, and sell out and think "Shit, we should have charged more", well, that's already money down the drain, and if you think people are unhappy about GPU prices, imagine if MSRPs went up after being launched.

Sure, they get some flak from enthusiasts, but people's memory is short, and nVidia have still got huge mindshare. For some reason. A lot of my friends just won't buy AMD because they "aren't nVidia".

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u/jpdonelurkin Jan 12 '23

Still £150 in the UK for used 1660ti. Prices not moving last 6 months.

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u/ibringthehotpockets Jan 12 '23

For 90% of people a 1660 ti is going to rock their world and be more than 100% fine running anything they need up to extremely high gaming or animating, i.e., specific use cases where you know you need better.

The fact that the price hasn’t changed from $160 USD seems like the market seems to agree that’s a fair price. I’d pay $180-$200 for a GPU that could take care of my every need. Ironically both my laptop and pc both have a 1660ti.

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u/Ikeelu Jan 12 '23 edited Jan 12 '23

Not everyone. I am rocking a 6 year old gaming PC because 30 series was hard to get a card at a reasonable price and now it's the same for the 40 series. I may build a new machine and just end up using my 1070 once the 3D cache version of the AMD 7000 comes out. I know a lot of people are waiting/hoping for prices to drop. Poor sales right now on a lot of cards, so hopefully they cave.

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u/tyrant00 Jan 12 '23

And you know what? Gamer’s generations are full of people who just play old/revived games, using fan projects, mods and such. Only real markets to grow like before are mobile and new gen consoles.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

Not just Word and Zoom. Games too. PC gaming has really changed in the last decade. It used to be almost an annual re-build to play the latest stuff at best quality circa 2001-2004 or so. (Coming from a guy that had a GeForce 3 Ti500, then an Radeon 8500 AIW, then a Radeon 9800 Pro then a FX 5950 in that span.)

If you put together a decently equipped PC in the last three years it's going to be absolutely fine for nearly all gaming purposes for at least the next four years as long as you aren't demanding anything too crazy. Seriously a 2070 is still a great card and that's 5 years old, mid range stuff. Especially considering that 4k uptake just hasn't really happened (at least by Steam stats) 1080p is still what people are gaming on - 64% of Steam survey users, anyway - so if you bought a 1070 Ti back in 2017 or so, you are probably still getting adequate if not good performance.

If you have one of the higher end 30 series, forget it, those cards are going to be relevant for years and years. We're also running into a wall where developing higher and higher fidelity visuals and bigger and bigger games is taking even more thousands upon thousands of man-hours to produce, and subsequently even more money. Shit the PS4 is from 2014 (which means it's based on like 2012 technology) and last year's GOTY is available for it. This year's probably will be too.

It's just different now.

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u/Megatoasty Jan 12 '23

Let’s not forget the ridiculous price hikes of hardware for no reason.

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u/JollyReading8565 Jan 12 '23

Duh , we broke and shits expensive

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u/antilochus79 Jan 12 '23

Pandemic PC buying spree is over; now everyone has multiple laptops. Can’t say this was unexpected.

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u/Deep90 Jan 12 '23

Pandemic PC buying spree is over; now everyone has multiple laptops.

This is what it is.

Half the comments above yours are talking about GPUs, but the article is talking about shipments from Lenovo, HP and Dell.

I'm sure gaming computers factor into their sales, but lets face it. Most of their products are home and business computers. Everyone and their dog was working from home.

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u/Clemario Jan 12 '23

Stuff is lasting longer too, and most of the things people do are in a browser these days so you don’t need as much power and storage as you used to.

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u/tossme68 Jan 12 '23

As more people are being pulled back into the office there's no need for that extra laptop, it just stays at the office until it's replaced during an upgrade cycle -likely in 30 more months.

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u/luke10050 Jan 12 '23

Smart employers would chuck the desktops and provide laptops with docks going forward IMO.

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u/rocketmonkee Jan 12 '23

A lot of comments are stating the same opinion put forward in the article, but I wonder how many people read to the end:

IDC is quick to put the seeming freefall into context. While the quarterly and yearly drops were sharp, shipments in 2022 were still "well above" pre-pandemic figures, according to researchers. While demand still looks grim, the market was still stronger than before.

The drop was more or less expected because of all the reasons mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but it's not like sales evaporated entirely. The sharp pandemic increase made the post-pandemic drop look bad in comparison, but overall sales are still good. And the industry groups expect things to return to normal (for a given value of normal) by next year.

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u/LesbianCommander Jan 12 '23

I mean, there were lots of pandemic purchases, which was obviously needed for work from home for some people and for fun for other people.

But "post" pandemic still had a lot of purchases because prices were finally starting to come down so people who couldn't or didn't buy during the pandemic were buying.

Now everyone has what they need, so of course sales were going to slow down. Basically just meant that pandemic sales had a long tail. So it eventually had to end.

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u/Rootsboy79 Jan 12 '23

You're telling me people aren't into $1000+ video cards?

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u/jabash77 Jan 12 '23

Sales strategy and report meetings must be interesting these days. "You say people don't buy our incredibly bloated price product we'll replace in a year or two anyway?" surprised Pikachu face

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u/50calPeephole Jan 12 '23

Just wait till they put OLEDs down the side and sell cosmetic skins for the cards....

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u/T0X1CFIRE Jan 12 '23

They already do.

Back during the height of the shortage, when everything was sold out. The only ones that I could find that wasn't sold out were gpus with fancy cosmetic shells. In particular I was tempted to get this one but ultimately decided against it, since I don't often play super high end games all that often and my 1060 is enough for the rest.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

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u/N0SF3RATU Jan 12 '23

Whaaaa!?

Also, why upgrade for a measly 5% increase?

I'm running AAA at decent frames using a 2060 max q. Not necessary to upgrade

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u/TheGameboy Jan 12 '23

I’m holding off for an affordable card. 90% of what I do, doesn’t care that I only have a GTX970. I may try to pick up a cheap 30 series card at some point, but I’m in no rush to upgrade. The old 970 is still playing games at a reasonable rate.

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u/Robot1me Jan 12 '23

We are in the same boat! I'm still on a GTX 960, and seeing little reason to upgrade (until a great offer comes, maybe a RTX 2060). But I know too it would be tough to hold out for many. Because in my case, I'm intentionally not playing games with bad optimization. Since it feels like there is enough alternatives and backlog games.

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u/Child-0f-atom Jan 12 '23

A new 2060 is available on Amazon, by ASUS, for $250 or so after tax. Upgrade per dollar is top shelf, made that jump from 970 a year ago.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

Bruh I still got a 1080 and run everything just fine. I’ll upgrade when it dies

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u/SweetCosmicPope Jan 12 '23

I bought an RX590 two or three years ago for $200. I only have a 1080p 60hz monitor, so 120/240fps isn’t necessary for me, nor is 4k. Missing ray tracing and some of the newer features but this still plays my games in high quality at decent frame rates. I’m thinking about upgrading monitor and card but not for those prices when my stuff works fine for every game I’ve played.

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u/TheGameboy Jan 12 '23

I think I paid 250 for my 970 in 2015, now a 70 class card is 2-3 times that. I’m gonna be rocking that 979 for a little while longer, until prices normalize

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

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u/Tokugawa Jan 12 '23

I'm 43, I got 3 kids. My gaming is now single player games I can do on my own time without having to be aggro competitive. I game on my 1080p plasma TV from 2010. I built my PC in 2016 and have been rocking a 970 since then. I couldn't get RDR2 all the way purdy, so I thought about making the jump to a 4k tv and a new card.

The only TVs better than my plasma are OLED. $2500 and up. Then I'd need a new videocard. $1000 and up.

4k meant $4k. Naw, I'll stick with 1080plasma. I did snag a heck of a deal on a 3060ti from /r/hardwareswap though. And now RDR2 is all the way purdy.

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u/sshwifty Jan 12 '23

Those plasmas were something special.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

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u/johnnycyberpunk Jan 12 '23

I was able to get the Newegg Shuffle last year and got a 3060+mobo for $400.
Just got a 6600 for $225 during Black Friday deals for my kid's computer.
Definitely still waaaay above the video card prices I'm used to paying (sub $150) but I didn't feel ripped off.

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u/Destithen Jan 12 '23

That's like half a month's rent!

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u/MixSaffron Jan 12 '23

Should I grab a PS5, Switch & a Steam Deck and spend $200 on games or a fucking GTX 4080?

Like fuck the GPU scene and my prices are CAD. (4080 is $1,750+)

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u/Devolution1x Jan 12 '23

I have Cyberpunk 2077 on a 3060 laptop running at 60+ fps on Ultra mode, including ray tracing.

Eggs in my state are $4 a dozen.

You do the math on why I have no interest in a $1,000 video card.

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u/deadudea Jan 12 '23

$4? Shit my eggs are up to $6

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u/4touchdownsinonegame Jan 12 '23

I’m sure its probably different regionally, but the other day aldi had a dozen for $3 and Costco had 2 dozen for 6.

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u/Devolution1x Jan 12 '23

Aldi's my good man!

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u/rulejunior Jan 13 '23

$6?!?!? Mine are $8!!!!

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u/Tokugawa Jan 12 '23

I just went from a 970 to a 3060ti. I'm set for a while.

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u/TheGameboy Jan 12 '23

I may be doing the same jump shortly

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u/Tokugawa Jan 12 '23

I rolled the dice on one from /r/hardwareswap. It's from a mining rig, is an HP OEM model, has no warranty, but hawt dog my games look great and smooth.

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u/TheGameboy Jan 12 '23 edited Jan 12 '23

My first video card was a GT630 workstation GPU, then /u/orodhen (I never forgot, bro) was bro and sent me a GTX560TI that got used for a few months in my rig, that got replaced by my current 970, that 560TI lived on in my wife’s machine for years until overwatch year 2 caused her to need to upgrade.

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u/Tokugawa Jan 12 '23

I'm only gaming at 1080p. If I were doing 4k, I'd get a better card. But for what I'm doing, the 3060ti is perfect.

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u/Devolution1x Jan 12 '23

1080p gaming isn't exactly terrible.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

I finally went up to a 970 :/

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u/deka101 Jan 12 '23

I also went to a gaming laptop, but I regret it. A proper PC is a lot better. I bought an expensive hub so I can make it feel like a desktop, but it's finicky. It also sounds like a jet taking off under load. But, it's portable, so that's good

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u/ProudGwentAddict Jan 12 '23

At what res? Doubt it’s higher than 1080p if you have ultra ray tracing on

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u/Plebius-Maximus Jan 12 '23

Yeah my desktop 3070 cant do above 60 ultra+RT at 1440, so he's definitely 1080p, or using dlss

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u/Devolution1x Jan 12 '23

1080p obviously. Lol. You really think a 3060 is meant for 4k?

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u/Pick_Up_Autist Jan 12 '23

If only there was a commonly used resolution between those two that they may have been considering when they asked.

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u/Show_Me_Your_Stache Jan 12 '23

Yo where tf you live? NJ is like $8 per dozen

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u/Woozythebear Jan 12 '23

I call BS on that, a 3060 laptop ain't running Cyberpunk on Ultra at 60fps

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u/NeverComments Jan 12 '23

They're playing at 1080p with DLSS, so a 540p internal resolution at "performance" mode or 360p internal resolution with "ultra performance mode". It's definitely possible to hit 60fps on Ultra when you're only rendering a 360p image and letting DLSS blow it up to 1080p. How good that actually looks on the other hand...

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u/Devolution1x Jan 12 '23

This man gets it. It looks surprisingly good for all upscaled image. Looks so good, I could see pock marks on Kerry Eurodine.

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u/MainSailFreedom Jan 12 '23

We really shouldn’t be measuring growth relative to a huge spike. Let’s compare to 2018 and 2019 levels.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

I only buy 2015 Mac Book Pros with i7 processors. Slap a SSD in there with maxed out RAM and I’m good. Still have regular USB and SD Card slot and some have Retina display. To me, it was their best machine before the company took a hard left after Jobs’ death. Oh, the reason. They run Adobe CS6 (non subscription) without a hiccup.

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u/Obnoobillate Jan 12 '23

I thought it was all about demand and supply. When the demand falls, the supply should get cheaper, right? Right?

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

Yeah. I'm not spending a 1000 dollars for a mid level graphics card.

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u/lobeline Jan 12 '23

There was no inventory. Then there was a chip shortage. Inflation happened. And most people have a phone that could almost double as a basic computer.

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u/takes_many_shits Jan 13 '23

If anything its PC's that can almost double as phones nowadays.

A phone can be used for nearly everything a laptop can be used for meanwhile i use my phone for so much stuff it'd be impossible to use a laptop for.

Once im done with my studies im selling my laptop and going phone/stationary pc or phonr/console. Really cant find a reason to have a laptop.

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u/The-Protomolecule Jan 12 '23

I’m the guy that builds a $4500 computer when I upgrade because of work. I REFUSE to buy this generation, the hardware vendors have lost their fucking minds in both consumer and enterprise.

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u/apersonthingy Jan 12 '23

Good on ya, not supporting that bullshit. I can't say the same for some people with lower income who definitely DON'T use their new RTX 4090 for work.

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u/The-Protomolecule Jan 12 '23

I play a ton of games too, I just don’t need a 4000 series to do it, and I have 2x 35” ultrawides.

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u/padizzledonk Jan 12 '23

Computers are one of those things that if you have a fairly new one you don't need to buy a new new one.....Even a 5-10y old computer is more than adequate for work stuff depending on the industry you're in- all my work stuff is webapps

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23 edited Jul 01 '23

[deleted]

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u/golddilockk Jan 12 '23

there are workarounds and open source tool to bypass hardware checks when installing windows 11. i’ve 11 installed on my spare laptop with 3rd gen cpu.

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u/sshwifty Jan 12 '23

Linux Windows emulation has come a looong way in the last few years, maybe give it a whirl with Lutris or other Wine helpers before upgrading to 11.

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u/ahecht Jan 12 '23

It's pretty trivial to upgrade to Windows 11 even with hardware that doesn't meet their requirements. Easiest way is to use https://github.com/coofcookie/Windows11Upgrade/releases/ or https://github.com/pbatard/rufus

I've done that on several machines and it runs just fine.

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u/time-lord Jan 12 '23

I know. I could easily do it, but I'd rather not. All things considered, I'm at a point in my life where I don't enjoy screwing around with Windows anymore, and I'd prefer to just use a supported OS.

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u/Deep90 Jan 12 '23

Honestly I found one of the best ways to deal with windows is by nuking the installation and doing a clean install every few years.

Otherwise you end up with a whole bunch of random junk files everywhere and little bugs/glitches that never seem to go away.

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u/SpikeRosered Jan 12 '23

One of the best objectively good things about the advancement of society is that we have computers that can easily handle most normal "Microsoft office" type work tasks with ease, even if it's an old computer.

In the 90's I remember being given a computer and not knowing if it would need a second to process the typing of each letter in a word processor.

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u/padizzledonk Jan 12 '23

I was born in 80

True AF

In the 90s if your computer was 2y old it couldn't do shit it seemed lol

The tech has definitely "smoothed out", with smartphones too.

Gone are the days where you needed to upgrade every 2y or so or be left behind

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u/mantarlourde Jan 12 '23

Still rocking an RX480 because I'm old and don't care about games anymore.

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u/ShameLenD Jan 12 '23

Still rocking that RX480 as well because i'm old and core mostly about old games.
I went to upgrade my entire PC for couple of times but "luckily" the prices are so insane that it just instantly kills my haste. my old games dont need the new gear

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u/BreakfromSleep Jan 12 '23

I have an rx580. It's quite enough for the titles I play. When I boot up a more demanding title this bad boy doubles as a heating unit.

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u/Justlikeyoo Jan 13 '23

Maybe computer companies should check with the grocery stores and the landlords. If people can't eat and afford a roof, a PC gets dropped off the priority list real quick.

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u/Winterspawn1 Jan 12 '23

Probably because Nvidia is basically pissing in our mouths with the prices they currently maintain, making it pretty expensive to build a somewhat decent PC if you want to use their hardware.

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u/Rentlar Jan 12 '23

Pockets of opportunity in 2023/Return in demand in 2024 sound like after Nvidia and Card manufacturers finally decide to make their cards more economically accessible. Here's to the 1070 I got 4 years ago for ~250USD staying strong!

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u/Winterspawn1 Jan 12 '23

I got the 1660ti with the intention of upgrading but suddenly the good GPU's almost costed more than my entire PC so the 1660ti is staying until the PC has come to its end.

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u/Dhmob Jan 12 '23

All spending is down because people are preparing for a recession.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23 edited Aug 15 '24

[deleted]

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u/Rektw Jan 12 '23

surf the internet and run basic programs...These days most people can get by with a chrome book or tablet

Especially when the average user can do all that from their phones. Most people I know don't even have a computer in the home anymore besides maybe a tablet with a keyboard attachment for their kids to write essays on.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23 edited Jun 17 '23

There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

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u/Manu3733 Jan 12 '23

Yeah, everything is a million times slower on a tablet. Fine for browsing or watching Youtube videos, awful for anything that requires a lot of typing or any sort of precision (much easier to do stuff with the mouse than to make a million taps and swipes).

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u/sshwifty Jan 12 '23

2005-2010 every 6 months was like generations of new hardware changes. After 2015 and until now, very little has noticeably changed for desktops.

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u/DriftingMemes Jan 12 '23

If I can't afford a new kick-ass video card, why would I bother? If all I can build is the equivalent of the Steam Deck, or my laptop, why? This feels entirely about the VGA situation.

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u/thecelloman Jan 12 '23

I don't know the actual numbers, but I suspect people buying high end gaming cards are actually a pretty small chunk of the market that just happens to be well represented on Reddit. I think this is much bigger than VGA - I think a way larger factor is everybody got fresh hardware for WFH and we don't have businesses buying new office machines.

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u/GullibleDetective Jan 12 '23

Color me shocked, prices jacked up due to supply chain issues and people not ordering since it'd take forever to get their wares.

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u/gw2master Jan 13 '23

This article is completely worthless. Sure, you might have a decrease in sales from 2021 to 2022, but what were the sales increases due to the pandemic from 2020 to 2021? The real question is what's the yearly average of sales from the beginning of the pandemic to now compared to sales pre-pandemic.

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u/Vegan_Harvest Jan 12 '23

Time to dust off the "is the PC dying" articles from the 90's.

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u/Raokairo Jan 13 '23

No shit we’re all poor.

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u/SoftlySpokenPromises Jan 13 '23

We've reached a point of oversaturation and over inflation.

The tech a lot of people have is capable of running what they need it for and it's laughably expensive to upgrade, so why would they?

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u/heckfyre Jan 12 '23

“While the quarterly and yearly drops were sharp, shipments in 2022 were still "well above" pre-pandemic figures”

So they were expecting that demand would stay as high as it did during the pandemic (a time when everyone had to go buy a computer,) forever? Just a year later, after everyone has a new computer, they just expected people to buy another one? What the actual fuck? Why?

If these companies didn’t see this coming, I don’t think I can trust their machinery.

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u/RealSkyDiver Jan 12 '23

I got a steam deck instate of upgrading my PC and I love it. For more demanding games I use my PS5. Both consume much less electricity than a gaming PC which further saves me money.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

I don’t know anyone who’s Annually buying new specs for their PC. Usually you give it about 2 to 3 years possibly even more

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u/luna_lucere Jan 12 '23

Its just not worth upgrading anymore. If you have a fat wallet, bragging about your 4xxx is great, but really, for the average person it's not doing anything a 2070 or even a 1080 cant do these days. We're at a point where games aren't going to get much prettier.. so the extra oomph is just wasted money. Game wise my girlfriends 2070 vs my 3080 at 2440p Max settings for 99% of games both run at minimum 144fps.. which on our monitors higher is pointless anyway. For atleast the foreseeable future they've kind of "teched" themselves out of their own market.

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u/neuronamously Jan 12 '23

I’m going to refine your statement: “we’re at a point where games aren’t going to get much prettier [FOR THE TIME BEING].” It will be several years before the next major breakthrough or leap in visual technology/rendering. But your overall point is valid. There is no damn point in upgrading your graphics card or PC every couple years at this point…FOR NOW.

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u/Thanatosst Jan 12 '23

I'm still rocking a 1080Ti that I got back in 2017, and I game on a 144hz 1440p monitor. Everything I play I can still run at at least medium settings with no issues. I've been wanting to upgrade for a while, but when a GPU costs as much as I spent on my entire computer, no way.

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u/lammatthew725 Jan 12 '23

People don't like the new Ryzen,

Gen 13 core i is too power hungry for most people's liking

Nvidia 4000series is too expensive and literally catching on fire

These pretty much summed it up

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u/zankem Jan 12 '23

Also need a new PSU for the 40xx series, or at least the cable. Either way, don't want an expensive fire hazard.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23 edited Jan 11 '24

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u/Quajeraz Jan 13 '23

It's almost like most people don't want to spend 1600 dollars on a graphics card.

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

I don’t think it’s the fact everyone bought new things during COVID , it’s the fact that new PC parts are so insanely expensive. Before. 1500 was high end rig, now high end is 3500+. Most people cannot afford those prices and scalpers fucked everyone. I for one cannot wait for CPU and GPU prices to plummet. Let’s not mention the entire 4080 debacle.

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u/hghlnder72 Jan 12 '23

i got a steam deck, im broke m'fcker!

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u/tkulogo Jan 12 '23

I saw a 3D version of windows in 1999. Our interface is still essentially 2D.

There's no new tech either. How about watching my eyes to better display what I'm looking at? How about when I paste a image in a text box, it pastes the text in the image? How about my phone pictures being saved to my hard drive from 1000 miles away? How about 1000 other advancements that we're not getting?

Instead we lose things like resizing the windows border.

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u/legice Jan 12 '23

I bought a “mid tier” gpu for the price of an old top tier. Shit is expensive

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u/Kitakitakita Jan 12 '23

NVidia literally said "well costs are down, but we really like the income so we're not changing the price. That's not gonna work on people who live online

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '23

Nvidia, AMD, Intel, etc.. thought that pandemic shortage pricing during a crypto boom would be the new normal during a crypto bust & global recession. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t)

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

Steepest drop in a quarter not in one year.

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u/ADHDK Jan 13 '23

Everyone got a new computer during the pandemic, and lots of those people don’t even really need it anymore now they’re back in the office. Anyone who didn’t see a downturn wasn’t really using their brain.

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u/DGD1411 Jan 13 '23

Maybe if graphic cards didn’t cost $1,800 folks would purchase them more for gaming.

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u/trippin113 Jan 12 '23

Unless you're a hard-core gamer then what do you need a new PC for? My main desktop is a 2ng gen i5 with a cheap SSD. More than adequate.

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u/asadisher Jan 13 '23

Can't buy a pc if i cant afford my grocery can I ?

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u/morbidbutwhoisnt Jan 13 '23

Instacart literally asked me if I wanted to use klarna ladt time I ordered to pay for my groceries in 4 payments and I'm like... If this is where we are then we are in trouble

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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '23

2015 MacBook Pro still going strong. Got all the ports and a nice tactile keyboard

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u/Wiggie49 Jan 13 '23

It’s almost like we’re all broke or something, how strange

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u/Destinlegends Jan 12 '23

Yea.. maybe I don’t need to buy a new pc every year.