Global PC Gaming Hardware Sales Shrug off PC Market Decline: JPR

[btarunr]

In a challenged PC market one user group is standing firm against the winds of change blowing many casual computer users to the "good enough" mindset behind sales of tablets and cloud computing devices-PC gamers. PC gamers continue to buy and build with a fervency that could be compared to motorcycle, 4X4, and sports car enthusiasts, always looking for more speed, power, utility, and handling.

Jon Peddie, President of JPR said, "Not only is gaming becoming an even more important purchasing influence of PC sales due to the offloading of more basic functionality to smart devices, but we are forecasting growth in the most expensive discrete graphics products. We are also impressed with the embedded graphics offerings this generation and going forward."



Ted Pollak, Senior Gaming Analyst at JPR said, "The effect that key titles have on hardware sales is phenomenal. Enthusiast PC Gamers embrace content creation and modding, so when titles like Bohemia Interactive's ARMA 3 are in the pipeline, we start to see anticipatory hardware sales. In fact, we are estimating over $800 million of PC builds influenced primarily by this title. A major component of this situation is that many games are placing increasing demands on the CPU. The result is that swapping out the graphics add-in board is not enough this time around and gamers are building (and ordering) overclocked PC's from the ground up."

JPR believes that PC's have an advantage for casual gaming as X86 tablets expand the market, and new powerful CPUs with built-in graphics have opened the door to the living room. On the high end of the spectrum nothing can surpass PCs at this point in time because they can run ultra high resolution graphics better than any other platform. Because consoles have display restrictions and forgiving couch based control input, they just can't compete with the PC's precision and power.

Pricing and Availability
The Worldwide PC Gaming Hardware Market report series by Jon Peddie Research which covers 33 countries, notebooks, desktops, DIY, and accessories, comes in three versions: Enthusiast, Performance, and Mainstream, with each version selling for $7,500 and the set of three for $15,000. In addition, with the set is a summary report of the Total PC Gaming Hardware Market worldwide.



Photo Credit: D1nky, TechPowerUp Forums

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Jorge]

In other words the PC industry is desperate for sales, so please gamers...go out and buy some new toys, the real expensive ones, to keep these companies from going under.

 

[rtwjunkie]

In other words the PC industry is desperate for sales, so please gamers...go out and buy some new toys, the real expensive ones, to keep these companies from going under.

No, I don't think that's what the article is saying at all. As has been pointed out in several editorials by the OP, PC sales are declining. that's PC units, pre-made PC's...the standard stuff.

The whole premise of this article is that despite that trend, sales of PARTS, purchased by gamers and enthusiasts, are through the roof, with big profits in that arena because of high demand.

 

[mandis]

There can never be a "Fast Enough" home computer! I use the following metric to describe Consumer computer performance: Barely Acceptable > Slow > Very Slow > AMD > Dead Slow > Pretty Damn Archaic > C64 Slow.

At least until computers become fast enough to render A0 CAD images in under the 1 minute mark...

 

[dj-electric]

mister JP is MILES far from being objective as a very very close friend of NVIDIA. His analysis and opinion could not matter less.

Although, in this case, i do agree that the PC market is not as close to dying as some people think it is.

 

[Jack1n]

The System in the image looks rather familiar.....

 

[RCoon]

The System in the image looks rather familiar.....

Dinky Dik Damo Pips!

 

[d1nky]

great article, good to see components are selling well. $800million just because one title... and just the other day it was published theres a slump.

Dinky Dik Damo Pips!

you are a true mofo LOL

 

[PopcornMachine]

This is good news in an age when Intel is trying to wean us off building and overclocking, and AMD unable to produce anything to change this course.

They now make CPUs with OC limited to a few models, and those few inexplicable made to run extremely hot.

I guess GPUs are the focus now. I have little reason not to stick with my 2500K and look for improvement in this direction.

 

[de.das.dude]

congrats d1nky

 

[ShockG]

This is good news in an age when Intel is trying to wean us off building and overclocking, and AMD unable to produce anything to change this course.

They now make CPUs with OC limited to a few models, and those few inexplicable made to run extremely hot.

I guess GPUs are the focus now. I have little reason not to stick with my 2500K and look for improvement in this direction.

That's not true.
Granted it may look like that to us, but I think we may be wrong there.
INTEL is actually a huge proponent of overclocking and if anything they are trying to encourage overclocking, even putting money and huge resources into it.
In fact a lot in Haswell was designed specifically to allow even more aggressive overclocking. (New clock gen DB1200 as found on the SNB-E), more bclk ratios, increased CPU multiplier (80X), improved IMC, ring bus ratio adjustments (ring bus isn't new but was previously not adjustable), XTU software. Overclocking competitions etc.
There's so much that INTEL does to promote overclocking and to make the platforms even more overclocking friendly it's just ridiculous for us to say they want to wean us off building our PC's and overclocking.

Ivy-Bridge-E even has a low end K SKU that costs less than a 4770K and actually runs cooler (as a result of the thermal interface).

 

[RCoon]

That's not true.
Granted it may look like that to us, but I think we may be wrong there.
INTEL is actually a huge proponent of overclocking and if anything they are trying to encourage overclocking, even putting money and huge resources into it.
In fact a lot in Haswell was designed specifically to allow even more aggressive overclocking. (New clock gen DB1200 as found on the SNB-E), more bclk ratios, increased CPU multiplier (80X), improved IMC, ring bus ratio adjustments (ring bus isn't new but was previously not adjustable), XTU software. Overclocking competitions etc.
There's so much that INTEL does to promote overclocking and to make the platforms even more overclocking friendly it's just ridiculous for us to say they want to wean us off building our PC's and overclocking.

Ivy-Bridge-E even has a low end K SKU that costs less than a 4770K and actually runs cooler (as a result of the thermal interface).

And yet they use sh*t paste for their chips hmm? doesnt sound like promoting overclocking at all to me.

 

[rtwjunkie]

That's not true.
Granted it may look like that to us, but I think we may be wrong there.
INTEL is actually a huge proponent of overclocking and if anything they are trying to encourage overclocking, even putting money and huge resources into it.
In fact a lot in Haswell was designed specifically to allow even more aggressive overclocking. (New clock gen DB1200 as found on the SNB-E), more bclk ratios, increased CPU multiplier (80X), improved IMC, ring bus ratio adjustments (ring bus isn't new but was previously not adjustable), XTU software. Overclocking competitions etc.
There's so much that INTEL does to promote overclocking and to make the platforms even more overclocking friendly it's just ridiculous for us to say they want to wean us off building our PC's and overclocking.

Ivy-Bridge-E even has a low end K SKU that costs less than a 4770K and actually runs cooler (as a result of the thermal interface).

And don't forget about their overclockers insurance, the Performance Tuning Plan. A company doesn't offer something like that if they are against overclocking.

 

[buildzoid]

Intel makes the chips overheat at voltages that are way bellow the breakthrough voltage of the chip so you will never give it some much voltage as to break it because at 1.35v Ivy and Haswell are way beyond the cooling abilities of normal air coolers yet the chips break at around 1.6v. If intel used proper thermal paste people would push the chips up to the breaking voltage and intel would end up replacing lots of CPUs but since people don't intel can of cheap overclocking warranties that only extreme overclockers really use. Also Sandy clocked to over 5.1Ghz on air Ivy hits 4.8Ghz on air Haswell hits 4.5Ghz so yeah intel supports overclocking.

 

[HumanSmoke]

And yet they use sh*t paste for their chips hmm? doesnt sound like promoting overclocking at all to me.

As far as I'm aware, Intel is fine with overclocking so long as the chips aren't (over)volted outside of their VID, which seems a whole lot more overclocker friendly than their main consumer CPU rival (who have just released a bunch of CPUs with no company backed warranty whatsoever) whose disclaimers- even when using their own overclocking utilities (pdf)- expressly note that damage arising from altering the stock settings voids warranty.

 

[PopcornMachine]

I think some people either didn't read the word wean, or don't understand it.

Didn't say Intel had stopped supporting overclocking, but the trend is heading that way.

 

[Xzibit]

Intel removes modest 'free' overclocking from standard Haswell CPUs

 

[Deadlyraver]

Its a good feeling that people like me are keeping the market in check. May not be promising, but still its a nice feeling.

 

[Fx]

There can never be a "Fast Enough" home computer! I use the following metric to describe Consumer computer performance: Barely Acceptable > Slow > Very Slow > AMD > Dead Slow > Pretty Damn Archaic > C64 Slow.

At least until computers become fast enough to render A0 CAD images in under the 1 minute mark...

Intel fanboy... check. Blind loyalty... check. Inaccurate assessment of performance... check. Typical.

 

[ShockG]

I think some people either didn't read the word wean, or don't understand it.

Didn't say Intel had stopped supporting overclocking, but the trend is heading that way.

I understand the word "wean" very well in isolation and in context. It is not a word that's appropriate in this discussion in the manner you used it in because your assertions are incorrect. We should however as a community wean ourselves off our ignorance and blatant disregard for facts and evidence.
There's no trend that suggests what you're saying. If there's any trend, its to the exact opposite of your assertions.
* OC workshop at IDF Beijing 2013
* another OC show at IDF this year in SF, two actually that INTEL is involved in.
* INTEL will also be officially involved at MSI's MOA 2013, along with having been a main promoter to the CORSAR/INTEL CO event earlier this year.
* IB-E will get another K SKU CPU that costs less than a 4770K meaning there will be 3 unlocked CPU's in total this generation as opposed to two in the previous generation, at launch.
* Haswell K SKU CPUs have more OC options than any others before.
* INTEL has released and is continuously working HWBOT on it's Xtreme Tweaking Utility, which is a vendor agnostic utility for overclocking and for use as a benchmark.

Intel has done more for overclocking this year alone than the company has in it's entire history.

 

[Xzibit]

Toms Hardware - Intel Responds to Overclocking on Non-Z Series Motherboards

 

[ShockG]

The removal of overclocking support on unsupported chipsets will be via an ME update probably. Those chipsets were sold to those vendors (ASRock and ECS) at a specific price that is different to the Z87 price. Said vendors found a loop hole and decided to exploit it, not for the sake of end users, but for PR purposes. INTEL is plugging this hole as they should. The pressure came from the larger vendors (who shift significantly more units) for INTEL to do something about this. It was not entirely INTEL's sole purpose to screw over the end user.

Add to which, If you buy motherboards, from any of the other vendors based on those chipsets, you couldn't overclock your CPU anyway. So INTEL has taken away nothing you didn't have to begin with.

 

[jagd]

It is how OC industry build up itself until today , users found ways to OC and manufacturers improved and made more friendly to mass market . I still remember dual abit socket 370 board it could not be made with that kind of logic ( = only do things allowed by intel )

Intel is against OC to sell more expensive chips it is why it only allows K series OC now (you could try your luck with every chip before, remember ? ) .You must pay the price if you want to OC now
No money = No OC

Said vendors found a loop hole and decided to exploit it, not for the sake of end users, but for PR purposes.

 

[d1nky]

i think this article was about how component sales are doing well, and theres no slump in enthusiasts purchasing such.

tbh BF4 will probably be the kick in the ass for me to buy a second card

 

[hardcore_gamer]

BF4 will probably be the kick in the ass for me to buy a second card

I didn't notice any difference in graphics between BF4 trailers and BF3. If your hardware plays BF3, it can also play BF4.