Is the PC industry in trouble?

I used to think that the newest was always what I needed. I was frequently upgrading or tweaking my system. But it gets expensive.

Now I think of my PC like a car. I will "drive" it until it no longer runs, and then I'll replace it. Sure, I'd like to have dual P4 2.5 gHz processors with 1 GB RAM and 256 MB video RAM. But I'd also like to have the new Maserati Spyder instead of my old Bronco.

Unfortunately, I can't afford either and both my Bronco and my PIII do everything I need. I think I've finally learned the difference between "wanting" a new computer and actually "needing" one.

Depends on what yo uare doing. If you are using an app like Photoshop or 3d studio max that will soak up any and all resources that you throw at it, sure, the high-end stuff has validity. I mean, faster rendering and more history are perks. But for the average user, buying a box that is 3 times the minimum requirements of the average software is a tad nutty. I have a 1.8 with a gig or ram, which puts me a whole gig behind 'cutting-edge', and I bet it'll be a long time before the minimum requirements for any software creeps up to where I am. The three gig processors will be out by christmas... wtf? Must be a lot of people using seti_at_home or donating their flops to Kazaa...

I just replaced mine (2.4 GHz, P4, DVD-R, Loads of Ram, dual flatscreen, blah, blah...) It's blazingly fast (even with Bryce renders). I'm running all the so called "killer apps" I choose, CAD, Photoshop, 3D modeling, video editing, all the processor intensive stuff. And these programs are all so mature that it seems unlikely that they'll add much more that will make such serious demands on PC's that it demands a faster machine.

Of course I've said that with every new machine I've purchased so I fully expect to be proven wrong.

Now if all I used was Office apps, email and the internet, I never would have upgraded from my 933 MHz.

Upgrading your machine every year = stupid

It's like buying a new tv or car every year. What's the point?

I don't think it's stupid, your analogy doesn't work in computers.

In years past, the visible performance difference per year was significant enough to justify it.

From 1989 to 2001, for me, each year a new machine delivered a productivity improvement that exceeded the cost.

Now, my dual P4 1.7ghz (from 2001) runs Photoshop as well as I need it to. I compile my code plenty fast. It lets me do graphics design plenty fast via Corel Draw or whatever. I can do my office apps plenty fast.

A new machine wouldn't make a substantial difference in my case and I think this is becoming the case for an increasing percentage of people.

By contrast, my 35 inch Sony TV from 1996 is essentially as good as what I see today. HDTV doesn't have nearly enough support or appeal to justify the cost (and I would worry if my Tivo would work right with it). And the difference between cars per year is miniscule.

Computers are fast becoming like cars and TVs and other appliances that last for a few years before needing to be replaced.

If a hypergeek like me who upgrades every year (previously) isn't finding the new machines worthy of uprading to, I can only imagine what normal people are thinking of.

i upgrade rarely anyway..this year is nothing different.

I think it's best to upgrade in small increments - a video card here, a stick of ram there - and spread out over time. It saves money and still keeps the PC decent. Within the next 6 months I'll be getting a new processor because the old celery 400 is starting to show it's age. It did serve me well though .

Still think it's a luxury problem. Joe's approach is more how I look at it. If things become too slow to work with effectively, it's time to upgrade some bits and pieces.

Yeah. Me too. Just got a new CD/RW drive that's ten times faster than my old one. Before that it was more RAM. Before that it was more disk. Before that its was XP. Before that it was an LCD monitor. Next time it'll be a new mother board or a new Video card.

And so it goes...

If it is for your work, upgrade!
If it is for your hobby, upgrade more often!
If it is none of them, be smart and don't upgrade!

what is this!!!! another joe blow?????? I don't believe it!! It can't be.....

Wait, what are we talking about?? Ah yes, I am not an update freak and tend to tell others who are that IF you don't know what your doing, you will end up buying something you already have. You might be better off tweaking the system or buy to attach.

At any rate, I would be paying a PC not so much to upgrade but to replace the one I have. That is mainly why I m, and always have, bought a new PC. I always thought the industry knew that a regular consumer buys a new PC every 3 years or so.

I've been paying my studies off assembling and selling computers. I've always felt sorry for people spending fortunes buying new PC's (then becoming too slow over a year) and not beeing able to upgrade constantly to the top notch hardware. Of course I have always had the best machine made off the stock components that I needed to demonstrate (to sell them) anyway. I felt like I was lucky. But since about two years ago when (luckily) I have kissed my professors goodbye and got a job as a software developer I have upgraded barely anything. Sure... CD-RW a month ago (cause my old Plextor refused to coast any more disks) and an Athlon XP 1800 (burned my previous Athlon 1000 when I decided to clean/dust the insides of my computer and did not firm the heat sink properly). I feel comfortable with my 3 years old now Matrox G400. I almost never even fully utilize all of the 640 MB (it even seldom use more than half of it). The (2 years old) disks of total capacity of 100 GB are never filled with the essentials so there is always plenty of stuff I can safely delete and even keep the CD's I use most frequently copied to disk for faster and more convenient access (not to mention that i won't have to look for them inside the pile now much higher than myself). The printer? I have tried to count the pages I print and in the eBook and Internet times I think most of us do not print more than 10 - 30 pages per month. I have printed something about that for the last half a year. Good for the computer manufacturers is that the equipment breaks now and then (especially the home 'inexpensive' one) and good for them that corporations embrace Java more and more as it can still make your 2GHz processor slow down to the times of a Pentium 100MHz (I know what i'm saying as I work with and develop Java software every day).

I'd bame console market for the PC sales decline (at home market) as the Games industry have always been using all of your system resources and screamed for more, no matter how fast your computer was. Corporate market have reached the level of satisfaction about 2 years ago when the have replaced their computers during the the Y2K campaign and I don't think they are much likely to put much more into it (after all most of them refuses to upgrade to latest Windows/Office so they do not bother to upgrade their PC's too).

When GeForce entered the market i've promissed myself to upgrade to it when it will reach a price of about $150, when it did, there was GF2 so I've modernized my promise. same with GF3 and yesterday i've decided to wait for Radeon 9700 to reach this point

I think I can safely survive one more year without an upgrade. Me in 1998 feel sorry for "me now"

/me is about to replace AMD 1460Mhz to AMD's new 2133Mhz chip

1st CPU was Pentium3 450Mhz then jumped straight to 1460 AMD & GFX Card was Voodoo3 3000 replaced it with GeForce3

i prefer to Upgrade at least every year and half or so no point spending 3 numbers on piece of hardware thats couple hundred Mhz faster

Been waiting a long time for 2Gig AMD chip

This CPU is just over year old now same with GeForce3, last Upgrade i done was in November changed motherboard, SDRAM for DDR and now holding of till NVIDIA's NV30 chip that'll do me for another year or so.

I wanna run as much Object Desktop stuff as possible. The Ultimate Desktop!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Transparencie rules!!!

I am from a family of six siblings. All have varying degrees of interest in computers. None as much as me. Every year to 18 months I upgrade. Then I pass along my present PC to one of my siblings. If the PC that sibling has is still in good condition and is better(faster) than one that another one of my siblings has then that is passed along....and so on down the line. It's our own little recycle program.

But that's ok, my oldest bother is a car freak. He does the same as me, only with cars. That's how I got my '99 Mustang.

A big family is a great way own lots of things for relatively little money.

Yes, buying the highest end computer every year IS stupid if you can't afford it. Just like every year buying the Mustang of the year.
But, for those who can afford it, go for it. I personnaly know people who can't stand the idea of driving the same car two years in a row. Like I know some people who couldn't be caugh dead with last year's computer. But they can afford it, so whatever, do what you want with your money.
But for real, hardly anybody needs to change their computer every year. A computer is not outdated before at least 2 or 3 years. I'd say 2 years for hard core gaming and 3 years for the latest applications.
My home computer is a Celron 333 (about 4 years old) and it gets the job done. I run all the latest software (Windows XP, Photoshop 7, Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, yada yada yada) perfectly fine. Of course, it's slower than my computer at work (1.4 Ghz), and I wish I could have something faster. But really, I don't see it being worth 2,000$. I do all the same work, run all the same programs. To save 2,000$, yes, I will wait an extra 10 seconds for Photoshop to open. The way I figure it, I can probably get this computer to last another year, then I'll buy me a new one. Depends on the money issue. But I need a new car before that (a 10 years old Ford Escort).

I recently upgraded to a 2.2 GZ machine, with a Gfarce Ti4600, all the goodies. I did this for more than just apps though. I'm a sucker for a smooth running game. I think I used the recent slowdown of my 1gz in some newer imaging apps as an excuse to upgrade I intend from now on only to upgrade components, not the whole system again, until motherboards are redesigned and no longer fit the case. Do your upgrades a peice at a time folks, that's what my last expenditure taught me.

im still running off my 700mhz laptop i got 4 years ago, its a littel slow from the out dated video card(8mb) but it gets the job done, well to a degree =D

already did in Febuary, the other one died

I usually upgrade in small ways every year just swapping out a hard disk, gfx card etc) and then a big upgrade (swap machine usually) when necessity demands it.

My old PC's tend to go to my parents. They are currently running on a P100 (upgraded from 486 33) with 2 1GB hard disks (saved from being thrown out at work) quite happily. I would have been perfectly happy on my P3500 with 768MB on a Radeon 8500 but the mobo and CPU decided to die on me. I tried to just get another P3 to replace it but none were available at my regular supplier.

So I decided it was time to upgrade. Got an Athlon XP 1700+ and 1GB DDR. Then I had 768MB lying about doing nothing. Bought a new case with a Duron 1000, put 512MB in it (all it would take of the 768MB SDRAM) and a GFti4600. I thought that was going to be it but ended up by the end of my spending spree buying a new 80GB hard disk and a TFT monitor which allows DVI and analog connections. All in all I don't want to think about how much I spent on my two PC's this year. I just think how nice it is to have a spare PC for 2K, 98, XP, linux that I can use without affecting my main PC. Having lost a 7GB partition two years ago in my last foray into the world of linux I am not risking it a second time. And the TFT monitor with it's input switching is fantastic allowing me to flick a switch and change between viewing the duron or the athlon and also giving me the capability of multimon on the athlon. Certainly one of the best purchases I've made in a while.

Geez, and I'm still running my PII/266mhz. But I have done some things to make things "faster" on an older motherboard...added an ATA/100 controller card to support 40gb WD Caviar,etc.

'Course I am putting the parts together for a major upgrade....Dual PII/333mhz......with an AGP slot(just need a new graphics card)

Have run my current setup side by side with a machince running a Celery 800/100fsb......with the stuff I use(Corel Draw, Mech Warrior II, Office 2000).....I could not see any speed difference, so sold the Celery....

All totalled my current system has cost me less then $300, and my upgrade is going to cost an additional $150, but will have two computers when completed, and on my way to having networked home system....
Now if someone would just bring faster online hookups to my neighborhood........

I will be buying a new computer within a year.. And then i will change over to XP (I guess I'll more than likely buy a system with Xp preinstalled) And say a goodbye to 98se, But first i will going on my vacation. yo baby !

Whenever I upgrade to a better CPU it nealy always means getting a new motherboard and RAM, I tend to upgrade CPU every 9-10 months. I upgrade things like Graphic cards and soundcards when I feel they are getting slow (for games mostly)

Current system
1900+ Athlon XP
512MB pc133 RAM
ATI Radeon 8500

Next due upgrade is in 6 months time

From 1990 to present I've upgraded several times. started with a 8088,upgraded to a 386dx, P100, p300, Amd1300, Amd1700xp. I think I will wait awhile for the next one. Probably 2004.