Why are PC sales declining ? (Skybuck thoughts on it too)

[Tom Lake]

"DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno" wrote in message

Hiya George,

Building a good gaming rig is not easy, I tried myself, and you can google
for the results, it was a pain in the ass.

You are an idiot. you proved it yourself. Time and time again.

C'mon, Decadent. Don't hide your feelings. Tell us what you really think of
Skybuck.

 

[Skybuck Flying]

I think this is a pretty good guidance/rule:

For every hertz there should be a byte and vice versa

So if you plan on buying a 8.0 GHz processor, for example 4 cores x 2.0 GHz
then do indeed get 8 GB of ram !

Better be safe than sorry

Bye,
Skybuck =D

 

[Skybuck Flying]

Funny thing is my mam already has a samsung tablet...

She already has one for a month now.

She kept it secret from me ! LOL.

Later today I am going to visit her and meet the thing ! LOL =D

Bye,
Skybuck =D

It's a black one btw, a samsung galaxy 10 ! =D

 

[Yousuf Khan]

The latest and greatest graphics card is the nvidia titan. Even a super
computer was named after it.

You got that wrong, the Titan video card was named after the
supercomputer, to take advantage of the marketing potential from Nvidia
being put into that supercomputer. Interestingly, that same computer has
CPU's made by Nvidia's main rival, AMD. Both could've taken advantage of
Titan as a marketing tool.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hello,

I was just on the Sega/Company of Heroes Beta feedback forum and I
wondered and thought this is a good question for usenet people ! :

Question is: why are PC sales declining ?:

1. Lack of demanding games ? (probably not)
2. Lack of good games ? (maybe)

No, games have nothing to do with it. It's been shown that only about
10% of PC's are for hard-core gaming. The rest are playing Solitaire, or
Angry Birds, which a computer from 10 years ago could easily play.

As far as hard-core gaming goes, the PC is the only game in town (no pun
intended). They are higher power than all of the gaming consoles (until
the next generation consoles come out, which will ironically be using
AMD CPUs & GPUs, used in PC's as well). So if all a PC was for was for
gaming, then there would be no PC sales decline, as there is always a
market for faster and faster in that market.

Unfortunately, there is no longer a market for faster and faster in the
regular PC market. Most computers from 5 years ago are still more than
powerful enough to run all of today's applications, quite fast. There
was a time where you needed a faster computer just to run the latest
Office. Now you don't.

3. Windows 8 sucks ? (bad reason, can use windows 7 as alternative)

Yes, that has something to do with it, I'd say that's probably 70% of
the problem. No, you can't simply use Windows 7 as an alternative. When
you buy a new off-the-shelf PC, most of the latest ones are required by
Microsoft to have Windows 8 installed, not Windows 7. This is not a
problem if you're building your own, since you are buying whichever OS
you want, but when you're buying an off-the-shelf computer, you don't
have that choice usually.

So people are avoiding buying the computer rather than holding their
noses and buying it anyway. Combined with the fact that most computers
from 5 years ago are still more than adequate, people can afford to hold
off these days. Microsoft's successful strategy of forcing people to
change for the sake of change, has now backfired.

4. Sick of overheat and associated problems ? (maybe... I am surely sick
of it )

Not really a huge problem anymore.

5. Mobile/phones/tablets (I dont believe that... PC/laptop still better
for many tasks... though some decline is to be expected)

Phones, yes maybe. Tablets, no I don't think so. Everybody needs a
phone, even if you don't do much more than use it to make phonecalls.
Eventually, you'll find that smartphone is also pretty handy for making
quick accesses of the Internet. Tablets are more of a luxury item, not
everyone needs one of these, like they do a phone.

Me thinks: Perhaps 2 and 4 is cause of decline.

What are your thoughts on the decline ?

3 & 5.

Yousuf Khan

 

[josephkk]

Perhaps, but allowing downgrading to Win7-64 means there's a chance I
might buy a Win8 computer in the next year or two. Otherwise, there is
approximately zero chance.

I recently bought a new laptop and promptly UPgraded it from Win8 to Win7.

 

[hamilton]

I recently bought a new laptop and promptly UPgraded it from Win8 to Win7.

Did you pay the Micro$oft tax twice !?!?

 

[rickman]

I used to have a rule of thumb that I would buy a new PC or laptop
whenever the performance of a new one was more than three times the old.
This was typically about every three years since 1985. Back then they
typically cost around £2k+ and were decidedly specialist kit.

Using that rule of thumb you won't buy a new machine for the next 20
years! lol I don't think PCs are actually getting much faster these
days are they? The clock speeds stopped increasing some 12 years ago
and it seems like the only thing they can do now is increase the amount
of on-chip memory.

Moore's law has basically run out of steam at a clock speed at 4GHz
without increasing the core count. And the processors have now become so
powerful that domestic users have no need of any more horsepower.

I wouldn't say there is no need for speed, they just can't deliver any
more. I do need to replace my 4 year old laptop though because it only
has 3 GB and that is just not enough anymore. I'm hoping the price of
flash disks comes down a bit more and I will extend the life of this box
another couple of years by compensating for the lack of memory with
faster disk access.

I saw a mention of some sort of combined disk. I expect it was a
rotating disk with a flash component. That would be very interesting if
it fits a 2.5 inch drive size.

 

[Paul]

On 18/04/2013 10:09 AM, Skybuck Flying wrote:


Yes, that has something to do with it, I'd say that's probably 70% of
the problem. No, you can't simply use Windows 7 as an alternative. When
you buy a new off-the-shelf PC, most of the latest ones are required by
Microsoft to have Windows 8 installed, not Windows 7. This is not a
problem if you're building your own, since you are buying whichever OS
you want, but when you're buying an off-the-shelf computer, you don't
have that choice usually.

Yousuf Khan

When buying a new Windows 8 PC (with its installed OEM OS),
check with the tech support of the company for "downgrade rights".
You may be able to replace Windows 8 OEM, with Windows 7 OEM. Now,
if it was in the actual sales menu, all the better. You can downgrade
a Windows 8 PC with a pre-installed OS, but it does not apply
to a copy of Windows 8 you bought yourself at the store. Downgrade
rights were intended to protect the pre-built PC builder, from
the tastes of the market.

"Downgrading from Windows 8 to 7: What you need to know Nov 20, 2012"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2015107/downgrading-from-windows-8-to-7-what-you-need-to-know.html

"Hewlett-Packard is typical: It does not support downgrades of
consumer-grade Windows 8 PCs to Windows 7. But if you buy a machine
loaded with Windows 8 Pro, you can make the jump. HP's policy is
based on Microsoft's licensing terms, which support downgrade rights
only to new PCs preloaded with Windows 8 Pro, the version of Windows
designed for business."

I expect the price adder for Pro, probably amounts to effectively
just buying a license for Windows 7 :-( But, do the math and
see for yourself.

"We ran a quick comparison survey of machines from HP, Dell, and Toshiba,
and found that an upgrade to the Pro version of Windows 8 increased
system prices anywhere between $35 and $100."

You probably can't buy 7 that cheaply. At least, a legit copy.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Roberto Waltman]

I saw a mention of some sort of combined disk. I expect it was a
rotating disk with a flash component. That would be very interesting if
it fits a 2.5 inch drive size.

Hybrid hard drives - Such as:
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/solid-state-hybrid/laptop-solid-state-hybrid-drive/

 

[Flasherly]

It's all part of a big dumbing down process. And it's not just in the area of
electronics. Just listen to some of the stuff people are calling good music. Feed
everybody sh*t long enough and a lot of them will develop a taste for it.

Larc

I can read/play my own or go to a collection without having to tune
into much. Dunno. No teevee, either. Just a shortwave. Used books in
stacks from the Inet. People, popularly, always look up to emulate
what their government is doing. Facebook and Twitter, according to
The Atlantic, almost had to go into emergency recess to accommodate
all the newfound prayer group interests praying for Boston's mangled.
And, meanwhile, if the Senate turns up dressed as peacocks in silk
transparent dresses, sadly, there is an element in truth also in that.

 

[Martin Brown]

Using that rule of thumb you won't buy a new machine for the next 20
years! lol I don't think PCs are actually getting much faster these
days are they? The clock speeds stopped increasing some 12 years ago
and it seems like the only thing they can do now is increase the amount
of on-chip memory.

It is about every six years now to get a threefold increase. I generally
buy for the best price performance at the time. Clock speed used to be a
simple metric from the original 4.7MHz right up to some now on offer
brutally overclocked to 4.8GHz that is a 1000x increase since 1981 or
roughly speaking a 25% average improvement annually. Recent improvements
have been largely in CPU utilisation, pipelining and speculative
execution rather than raw clockspeed.

My old Q6600 benchmarks at 2962 and uses ~350W with graphics card
whereas the new i7-3770K benchmarks at 9461 and about ~120W all in.

Actual benchmark speeds are still increasing provided that you have the
right software and can use fully multicore and multithreaded code. The
problem is that after about 6 CPUs the law of diminishing returns sets
in and the code spends an increasing amount of its time sharing the load
between threads or worse still doing work in parallel that will later be
scrapped when the independent thread results are combined.

These days the biggest performance increase can be had by putting
frequently used files onto an SSD with essentially zero seek time and a
transfer speed that maxes out SATA3. The Samsung 830 & now 840 drives
are very impressive - beware that some benchmarks give artificially high
performance figures of merit on highly compressible data.

The SSD upgrade is capable of giving old kit a new lease of life.

I wouldn't say there is no need for speed, they just can't deliver any
more. I do need to replace my 4 year old laptop though because it only
has 3 GB and that is just not enough anymore. I'm hoping the price of
flash disks comes down a bit more and I will extend the life of this box
another couple of years by compensating for the lack of memory with
faster disk access.

You can get the 256GB Samsung 840 for around £180 and the cheaper
consumer grade 250G one for ~£130. Provided that you keep it backed up
just in case the storage medium fails then what are you waiting for? The
prices may fall a bit more but the technology is available and the price
is not outrageous for the performance boost it offers.

Be sure to disable MS lame indexing and never defrag it!

I saw a mention of some sort of combined disk. I expect it was a
rotating disk with a flash component. That would be very interesting if
it fits a 2.5 inch drive size.

My desktop has the Intel SSD cache installed. It does make the thing a
lot more nippy. It also has a dedicated Samsung 830 SSD for bulk high
speed data which makes a big difference for random access lookups.

 

[Skybuck Flying]

Ok,

Yesterday I saw it and played with it...

It was quite an amazing experience.

None the less it remains somewhat of a toy device.

What irritated and annoyed me the most is the way the scrolling is down.

The fingers have to glide over the screen, and if one is not carefull it
might activate
a button.

What also irritated me is that there is only a backward button and not a
forward button.

If I want to return back to were I was that's not possible. I would have to
restart the play store
for example which is very annoying.

Also it's very sensitive... all kinds of buttons will be activated... also
menus in the weirdest places
it's not really centralized at any spot... will be difficult to learn and
remember where all the menus
are located.

Also the device shuts off real fast, and it seems to have some problems with
the lightning of it...
it goes dark... and then bright again... kinda weird.

The device shuts off in like 5 seconds or something... this can probably be
changed.

I also looked at the software... it's mediocre here and there... it reminds
me of my ms-dos days when I wrote all kinds
of crappy little programs.... this is just like that... all kinds of
neato/crappy apps... there are probably also some nice
apps... my mam is way too scared to download anything... so I didnt download
anything.

There were some slightly interesting games but nothing to exciting, also
somewhat mediocre.

I am kinda surprised that this device is already 2 years old... so it seems
they sold her an older one ?

It still looks fancy pancy... I wonder what the latest and greatest is ?


Android will sure give Microsoft a run for it's money... for now I am not
too worried...

I haven't really seen windows 8 yet on a tablet... have seen it in virtual
machine...

Maybe windows blue will make short work of android... time will tell

Androad did run extremely fast though, everything was butter smooth, except
for the occasional video
download, that sometimes failed and the device shutdown.

Flash was also not available kinda weird.

Perhaps this model is a bit older and perhaps it's solved in newer version
me dont know, maybe not.

It costed 500 euro or so with 50 euro cut or so.

I ask here about the warranty period she didnt ask

Probably dont matter... it will probably die a few days after warranty
expires as usual

Though it didn't seem to run hot.. and it made zero noise...

It was a nice experience.... but for me being used to big LCD screens... and
a nice big keyboard and mouse... I'll stick with that

Also I like scrollbars way too much ! =D

The pinching and widening to resize pictures was fun...

The sound of the device kinda amazed me... I read before I went over
there... in the specs... that it had surround sound...

I was wondering how such a flat device could achieve that... the sound was
indeed impressive for a flat little thing.

But ofcourse it pales compared to my x-fi + 7.1 surround sound system (even
without the subwoofer) lol.

I don't have wireless internet so for me a tablet makes little sense in that
sense

Unless I want to keep it a little bit more secure... but it's probably not
really secure... it could end up on random wifi networks.

Though sometimes I wish I had one too for in bed... then I can be lazy in
bed

I will wait and see if any windows blue arm tablets arrive... me kinda fan
of microsoft/windows... that's what I know...

That android thing could kinda drive me crazy with all it's weird quircks...
but for newcomers they probably dont mind as much.

The way it swept the screen/menus was kinda fun to look at but not very
convienent hard to find things.

So it's all flashy and eye candy... but little real practical
value/handyness and that kills it for me mostly

Though the integrated deeper menus did show some sense and ordering... and
that was more okish

The screen was super reflective like a mirror... I could see myself when the
screen went black... it wasn't very pleasent to look at... though I am a
handsome guy * =D

I like looking at myself... but not when I am trying to look at the screen
lol.

Also the button to take a picture of yourself seems quite annoying... I
offered my mom to remove it... but I am not even sure if it's possible I
would think so...

Also setting before so many cameras makes me feel slightly uneasy.

Plus the added radiation of all that wireless traffic makes me wonder about
liver cancer and all that =D the final crazy nail in the coffin

Plus also wireless interception/hacks and cracks...

I asker her if she was going to bank with it... she said no... I thought
that was kinda weird.. cause she would do it with the bigger laptop.

I can see her point/argument though... the tablet is more convenient to
quickly catch up with some stuff... she seems to like facebook the most...
watching new pictures of family members and acquintences. I saw some
interesting photos as well, but mostly it bores me.

As a software developer I found watching at the stores the most interesting


I took a look at the software development stack needed, it's quite
large/immense... and it uses java for ****s sake ?

Though in a few days Delphi XE 4 is coming out and it might have android
support...

Would be fun to make a stupid little app/hello world for my mother's android
device

Maybe more but dont count on it... probably not a lot of money being made
with it... but that depends on what you call a lot and which store
service one uses.

I have seen stories of cap limits of 30k perhaps 5k per year... also 1m per
month ad stories <- crazy/angry birds anybody ? LOL.

What pisses me off is that most of this technology does not seem available
for PCs ?!

Can I please have some of this embedded into a PC ?!

Thanks ?!

Perhaps that's a pie dream for now... driving big LCDs requires a bit
more...

I don't really believe that though... I think it's already possible...
something is ****ed up... too hot processors for desktops... need more cool
ones =D

Bye,
Skybuck.

 

[Skybuck Flying]

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message

The latest and greatest graphics card is the nvidia titan. Even a super
computer was named after it.

"
You got that wrong, the Titan video card was named after the
supercomputer, to take advantage of the marketing potential from Nvidia
being put into that supercomputer. Interestingly, that same computer has
CPU's made by Nvidia's main rival, AMD. Both could've taken advantage of
Titan as a marketing tool.

Yousuf Khan
"

I know that... but look at it this way:

What is that super computer without the titan graphics card ? Probably not
much.

So it's the graphics card that probably gives it the most of it's processing
power.

Correct me if I am wrong

Bye,
Skybuck.

 

[George Herold]

Hiya George,

Building a good gaming rig is not easy, I tried myself, and you can google
for the results, it was a pain in the ass.

Problems faced: overheat, dust collection.

Having said that.

The latest and greatest graphics card is the nvidia titan. Even a super
computer was named after it.

However one would have to make sure the power supply can handle it and
perhaps the motherboard as well.

The titan probably gets hot though, so a passively cooled graphics card is
interesting too though they not as powerfull.

Perhaps a mid range card is safest.

Also a good case is needed for ventilation.

You mentioned upgrading an old desktop and then you mention buying a new one
?

I am a bit confused about that.

If truely upgrading have to be carefull that all components can handle it..

If buying a new one, perhaps being a computer from a specialized gaming rig
company is an idea.

Perhaps they can throw it some nice water cooling... or just a decently
designed air cooled PC.

It all depends on the budget

Minecraft is probably not the most demanding game but you also mentioned
overheat of laptop... so you are familiar with the overheat topic

Dell is probably crap, HP is probably crap too... a little bit less crap
though just cheap... at least my mothers HP still running barely... it
little used though... my sister bought a Dell it died

All computers seem to die lately

1.) should I buy from Dell?  (I've used them in the past.)

If you lazy perhaps yes, or give Alien Ware a try or so <- they
selling gaming rigs if I am not mistaken

2.) Which operating system.  I was thinking of win8... but now you've
all made me nervous, but I wouold like some newer version of windows
(running XP at home and work.) moslty becasue the kids will be using
the newer version in school.  So maybe Win7?

Perhaps wait a bit for the new windows 8.1 operating system.

It would suck having to buy windows 7 with all those services packs and
patches... it would be patching 2 days at least.

Also it's on the way out so not really future ready ?! More and more games
will start focussing on windows 8...

3.) How much memory? I figured 8 or 12G.

It's a bit overkill but always good to have more.

Even my system with 4 GB ram only uses 3.2 and it works fine.

If you want to be future proof get 8GB otherwise spent the money on
something else.

4.) Do I need the fancy graphics cards for gaming?  (My thought was I
could let my son pitch in for a better card if that's needed.)

Yes for good gaming a graphics card is needed/essential.

I see more and more games using CUDA, so getting an NVIDIA card would be
wise plus I am a slight nvidia fan so I may be biased

I hope to have been of some help, trust me it not easy

Bye,
  Skybuck.

Thanks Skybuck, At the moment I'm eyeing an older machine here at
work. Maybe I can just upgrade to a better video card for my son.
It'd be useful for him to get his head inside hardware of a computer
too...

George H.

 

[Paul]

Thanks Skybuck, At the moment I'm eyeing an older machine here at
work. Maybe I can just upgrade to a better video card for my son.
It'd be useful for him to get his head inside hardware of a computer
too...

George H.

If you're going to use Windows 7 or Windows 8, there should be
a downloadable "Upgrade Assistant" or "Upgrade Advisor", which
will note any issues. These generally require some version of
..NET to be installed, so if they don't run, that would be
the reason.

W7UpgradeAdvisor (to check existing apps).
"make sure .NET Framework 2.0 is installed..."

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=20

Checking whether W8 will work. Not sure what version of .NET
this one needs. (Programs without .NET detection, die with a
"mscoree" dependency, for software that is too dumb to check.)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/upgrade-to-windows-8

To run Win8 x32 or x64, first, you need a processor of the
appropriate instruction set. If you wanted to run the x64 version
(machine has more than 4GB installed), then the processor would
have to support the x64 instructions. (Microsoft doesn't allow
desktop OSes to use PAE in a way that extends past 4GB, for program
usage. Only drivers can use PAE on x32, above 4GB.)

The next requirement for Win8, is the CPU must support NX/XD.
That means the processor must be more modern, than the last P4
processors they'd made. The P4 I have, doesn't have XD, so I
can't run Windows 8. I could probably run Windows 7 x32 on it.
On the AMD side, probably an S939, AM2 or later would be OK.
The advisor software from Microsoft should be able to figure this
out.

If you had some old P3 machine, then that probably wouldn't be
a good candidate.

Windows 7 could benefit from having around 2GB of memory. That
would be a comfortable starting point. It will run on less than
that, but with slight performance impact. More than 2GB, you'd
probably be better off with an x64 OS.

An x64 OS install, won't run 16 bit software. That might include
the installer from some of the older games. If you have some
crusty old games in your collection, that might be a potential
issue with an x64 OS install. If the games are 2013 releases,
there should not be a problem.

Paul

 

[rickman]

It is about every six years now to get a threefold increase. I generally
buy for the best price performance at the time. Clock speed used to be a
simple metric from the original 4.7MHz right up to some now on offer
brutally overclocked to 4.8GHz that is a 1000x increase since 1981 or
roughly speaking a 25% average improvement annually. Recent improvements
have been largely in CPU utilisation, pipelining and speculative
execution rather than raw clockspeed.

My old Q6600 benchmarks at 2962 and uses ~350W with graphics card
whereas the new i7-3770K benchmarks at 9461 and about ~120W all in.

I can't say I've run any tests, but I don't see how they are getting
more processing other than adding to the cache sizes. Pipelining and
speculative execution should have been mature some 10 years ago. What
exactly is left to improve on?

Actual benchmark speeds are still increasing provided that you have the
right software and can use fully multicore and multithreaded code. The
problem is that after about 6 CPUs the law of diminishing returns sets
in and the code spends an increasing amount of its time sharing the load
between threads or worse still doing work in parallel that will later be
scrapped when the independent thread results are combined.

That assumption is a big one! The study I read said the turn was less
than 4 CPUs. Many apps just won't see much improvement with even two
processors. The observed increase in performance is because the OS
needs elbow room, so a second processor helps get it out of the way of
the user app.

These days the biggest performance increase can be had by putting
frequently used files onto an SSD with essentially zero seek time and a
transfer speed that maxes out SATA3. The Samsung 830 & now 840 drives
are very impressive - beware that some benchmarks give artificially high
performance figures of merit on highly compressible data.

The SSD upgrade is capable of giving old kit a new lease of life.

I'm taking a look at the combined drives now. I'm not going to pay an
arm and a leg for one. I can get a SSD for under $200 that is bigger
than what I have now. A combined drive should be close to $100 I am
thinking.

You can get the 256GB Samsung 840 for around £180 and the cheaper
consumer grade 250G one for ~£130. Provided that you keep it backed up
just in case the storage medium fails then what are you waiting for? The
prices may fall a bit more but the technology is available and the price
is not outrageous for the performance boost it offers.

I'm not sure I want to go that route. I need to weigh my options.
Also, I have some work to do for the next month or so and can't have any
down time. After that I'll look at this harder.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message


"
You got that wrong, the Titan video card was named after the
supercomputer, to take advantage of the marketing potential from Nvidia
being put into that supercomputer. Interestingly, that same computer has
CPU's made by Nvidia's main rival, AMD. Both could've taken advantage of
Titan as a marketing tool.

Yousuf Khan
"

I know that... but look at it this way:

What is that super computer without the titan graphics card ? Probably
not much.

So it's the graphics card that probably gives it the most of it's
processing power.

Correct me if I am wrong

My only point was which came first, the supercomputer or the video card?
It was the supercomputer. The video cards inside the supercomputer are
actually not Titans, but it's their business version, the Fermis.

Yousuf Khan

 

[josephkk]

Did you pay the Micro$oft tax twice !?!?

No only one and a half times. Not much better, but better.

?-)

 

[josephkk]

I can't say I've run any tests, but I don't see how they are getting
more processing other than adding to the cache sizes. Pipelining and
speculative execution should have been mature some 10 years ago. What
exactly is left to improve on?

Yes and no. It has taken the past 20 years to move it from multi board
level to chip level.

That assumption is a big one! The study I read said the turn was less
than 4 CPUs. Many apps just won't see much improvement with even two
processors. The observed increase in performance is because the OS
needs elbow room, so a second processor helps get it out of the way of
the user app.

Twenty years ago it was hard into the performance limit curve. But that
was multi board level processors. The delay limits are relatively smaller
on chip and 8 way multi core is not as far around the diminishing returns
knee. Still memory bandwidth (even with today's huge multilevel caches)
is the fundamental limiting factor.

I'm taking a look at the combined drives now. I'm not going to pay an
arm and a leg for one. I can get a SSD for under $200 that is bigger
than what I have now. A combined drive should be close to $100 I am
thinking.



I'm not sure I want to go that route. I need to weigh my options.
Also, I have some work to do for the next month or so and can't have any
down time. After that I'll look at this harder.

Sounds like a good plan. Also a reason i have multiple machines, i can
slog stuff between them mostly. Not everything can be moved though.

?-)