I feel bad for people working in manufacturing for parts like cases or cooling systems. When nobody builds PCs anymore, nobody buys their products either and they go out of business for good.
This whole AI mess is killing gaming as we know it.
60% of PC gamers have no plans to build a new PC in the next two years — AI pricing crunch on RAM and other components paralyze enthusiast market
Submitted 3 days ago by mintiefresh@piefed.ca to games@lemmy.world
Comments
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 days ago
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 3 days ago
AI is killing people and civilization.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 days ago
A few companies or departments have already shuttered for this exact reason.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
I’m surprised that so many (40%) have plans to build a new PC in next two years. Especially because we are talking about PC Gamers, who are already PC Gamers. I would assume that most either do not, or upgrade instead build a new PC. From those 40% of 1.5k tomshardware readers who participated in the survey, I wonder in what state their PC are and if they HAVE to build a new PC or they just have a lot of money around and can afford it. Do they sell the old system or parts of it? Unfortunately these are unanswered at the moment.
cRazi_man@europe.pub 3 days ago
In online communities at least, people seem to be keen to stay on the cutting edge and always have the best and shiniest. Toms Hardware is going to attract this very audience.
I accept that I’m probably too far the other way on the spectrum of patient gamers…but people don’t seem to think of the utility of the item and rather stay obsessed with “10% performance gains”. For the vast majority of people, phones, laptops and computers can easily last over 5 years (sometimes 10 years depending on use case).
Although these frequent upgraders do give a good stock of items for people like me to pick up and stay in the sweetspot of positioning behind the frontline of cutting edge products on the secondhand market.
NannerBanner@literature.cafe 2 days ago
I just wish I could get my friends into ‘patient gaming’ for multiplayer stuff, rather than that 10% performance gain for the latest and greatest ‘’‘’‘AAA’‘’'. The patient gamers communities here seem a little slow for finding people who want to play the same genre, and linking the lemmy account to any other account, like steam, gog, epic, etc., just doesn’t seem kosher.
mushroommunk@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Anecdotally but several of my friends build a new PC and then slide their old one to siblings who game but don’t need high end
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s way easier to get rid of an entire computer second hand than it is bespoke parts that you’ve replaced, so this is what I do too. I used to be on a 4-year cadence with new PCs, but then I kept getting more and more mileage out of my machines, since graphics don’t leap forward so quickly like they used to. My current machine is 5 years old and still runs the latest games on high settings.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Heeeey, it’s me! Your sibling! You got any of that sweet sweet ddr5 ram??? Don’t hold out on me, boy!
virku@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I got my friends old box the same way. I’m into games that don’t require all that much. And will also use it to play minecraft with my kids.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Domated mine to the after school “day care”.
They helped me so much, I wanted to repay it in some capacityluluberlue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Well… I did upgrade mine progressively, I don’t think it still has any original parts, maybe some sata cables? I was able to get a smaller pc offspring out of this, ended up as my nephew’s gaming rig, does it count as my old rig? are both the same rig? damn computer of theseus causing philosophical problems!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 days ago
that is the hand me down way, saves money to buy a new one. im not a heavy gamer but i do get hand me down from someone who games.
KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Yeah I found that strange too most of my gaming PCs have lasted me somewhere between 7 and 10 years. Would seem completely unnecessary for most people
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I just upgrade one or two parts every 2-4 years. seems to have worked fine for over a decade. dreading when I need to do a mobo update which will include ram
nahostdeutschland@feddit.org 3 days ago
The question is kind of weird. I want to build a new gaming computer, but that is nothing I’m doing at current prices and I can totally live without building a new one. If that one breaks, I might reconsider. But I really do not know if there are people around who are planning to build a new computer in May 2028.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
I replaced my old PC only because I went from an i5 6600 to a ryzen 7800x3d and thus needed to replace the RAM as well.
Combone that with an old 4GB 960 and an older 2TB HDD and wanting another case the math was quite easy.It’s alao a quesrion how you interpret that? At what point is it a new PC vs upgrading? If you have replaced all parts from the original starting build?
Might explain the higher percentageSanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 days ago
I recently built new to pass my current rig to my kid who is only interested in Roblox and other smaller games. And I mean the entire rig, including the desk.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 3 days ago
i built a monster pc in 2024 and maxed out the RAM and CPU the motherboard could handle. New 4k monitor and a 32gb RTX video card. I think I spent about $1.5k
no way could I get that stuff for the same price. I could probably sell the parts for more
it’s still a monster and in Linux, I can tweak it just a bit more to get everything it can give.
I’m thinking that the way games have progressed in the last 5 years, there’s nothing on the horizon that says prepare for the new technology that will blow my mind
db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
32g vram gpu for less than 2k is unlikely. A 4090 itself would be close to 2k
Khrux@ttrpg.network 3 days ago
I finally got round to a significant upgrade to my PC last week. I’ve been running the same PC for 10 years, and it’s really been dying. Fans and HDDs were failing, and it couldn’t play new games at all.
I haven’t replaced my GPU (still on a GTX 980ti) but I jumped to some decent DDR4 RAM, a better CPU, and moved into an SFF case, but I have no confidence any prices are set to stabilise, so I just gave in and built what I could.
alakey@piefed.social 3 days ago
I don’t believe in “just upgrading” at this point. If you built your PC with efficiency in mind, there’s like nothing you can even “upgrade”. Anything I can think of will get outdated by the time you need the next thing. A new GPU? Oh, you are still on Gen3… that means a new motherboard. Updating from AM4 to AM..4? Nah that feels like bad value, but AM5 requires DDR5, both of which have already been out for almost 5 years and will likely get replaced in a year or 2. Upgrading RAM? Again, just bumping DDR4 for a marginally better/larger cap DDR4 feels like bad value and unwarranted. Storage? Whoops, your old motherboard doesn’t support NVMe booting and it’s BIOS hasn’t been touched in over 5 years! You are lucky if you even have an M.2 slot.
And believe it or not, these prices are not even the worst they’ve ever been, so might as well just get a new PC every 5 or so years, maybe keep your old storage, CPU cooler, PSU and case, but that’s about it.
Meron35@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Don’t forget this market insanity started around COVID, and has basically been succeeded by consequent crises with few dips.
The typical release cadence of PC components is around 4-6 years, which requires new motherboard, CPU, and RAM.
Adding in the GPU basically results in a new build, and that’s being generous assuming no upgrades/changes to other parts like PSU and storage.My take is that a lot of these people wishing to upgrade are those who have simply been holding out since 2020 or earlier. This seems to vaguely match up with the Steam Hardware results, with a fair number of people still using RTX 3000 series or RX 6000 series, of which even the top end cards are starting to become par/outperformed by their modern mid level counterparts.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
The typical release cadence of PC components is around 4-6 years, which requires new motherboard, CPU, and RAM.
Not with AMD though. Usually the motherboard can be reused if you buy new generation of CPU and RAM (good luck if you have Intel, then you are screwed and need to change everything). But besides that, even after a few years upgrading graphics card and RAM is all you need to stay “competitive” to play top games. Maybe new SSD too. I don’t know how usual it is to upgrade parts along the way, not all at once. Especially in times like these just upgrading certain parts at a time is the only option for most.
IronKrill@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I think you may overestimate how many people build their PCs instead of buying a prebuilt.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
That’s not my estimation, that is the direct result of the survey.
Katana314@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It can be people budding into the genre. They’ve heard about how nice Steam is, and maybe play some games on a cheap laptop, but recognize a genuine desktop is the better experience.
One streamer I follow is in that situation. She streams off her PS5 and Switch, but has a donation incentive to help build her PC.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Not really, as the article is about PC Gamers who already have a PC. Otherwise they are not PC Gamers who want to build their next PC. I don’t think this survey is meant for newcomers, as far as I understand.
Klear@piefed.world 3 days ago
I might fall in that category, depending on how they’d ask me. I have a solid PC I built after crypto stopped inflating the prices but just before the RAM shortage and I’m mostly good, but I’ve got the money and have been thinking I could upgrade soon as a treat. Not at these prices though.
So it all depends if the situation improves in the next two years somewhat. This year? No chance, IMO. next year? Maybe. Maybe I’m too optimistic. But I definitely wouldn’t rule out be building a new PC in that timeframe.
yggstyle@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The other 39% are optimistically hoping the bubble will pop within that 2 years and there will still be a market to buy from.
I have no such illusions - but a bit of me wonders if, possibly, this may drive the pc market back in the direction of its origins:
Devs were incentivised to write more efficient, leaner code because resources were expensive.
PC users focused on squeezing every. goddamn. drop. of performance out of their existing gear. Overclocking wasnt about making your 200 fps into 300 - it was about making that aging beast play something it had no right to even run.
I dont look forward to the coming days with any optimism… but maybe this whole scene needed a purging fire to foster new growth and diversity.
Or maybe we’ll just purge the source of these issues. Or both. Both would be nice. I can dream.
Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Don’t worry they’ll turn their datacenters into virtual PC hosting so that people who can’t afford to upgrade will have to rent the hardware…
yggstyle@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Middleman all the things. It pains me to say that, in all likelihood, this period of time will be known for nothing but reinventing something that already exists - making a worse version of it - then enshitify.
What blows me away is while most people read dystopian stories and view them as cautionary tales… these rejects are using it as a framework.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
That plus the ever growing push for device linked personal ID on personally owned device feels like the real end goal. Governments can already snoop all web traffic. Now they want to close the gap on device level surveillance by pushing more and more people towards renting virtual devices with traceable payment methods. For people who don’t, device link to personal ID means they no longer have any of that mess of having to prove ownership or who took the action.
Removing the tinfoil hat though, I really hope this causes cloud resource cost to drop through the floor.
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Thats ezactly what they want to do, bur when that happens we must resist it. Play old game. Use legacy hardware. Participation is tantamount to acceptance.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
I’ll stick with factorio if that is the case.
Rothe@piefed.social 3 days ago
Devs were incentivised to write more efficient, leaner code because resources were expensive.
AI are the devs now. And efficient code is probably the last thing they are known for doing.
reksas@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
hopefully this wont end with pc component market drying completely so companies can force us to use their stupid remote pc crap.
iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 days ago
That’s absolutely the end goal. You’ll own nothing and you’ll like it.
eletes@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I upgraded my 8 year rig right when Trump was elected thinking tariffs would screw me. Did not forsee AI being the bigger factor
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Gratz, good decision.
I live on the other side of the pond and did not build a new rig in 2024, because the tariffs were never going to affect me much… Did not foresee the bubble inflating this big though. I originally wanted to build in autumn 2025, now I have no idea when it’ll actually happen.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Switching to Linux breathed new life into my current, newest machine, built in 2019. I lost track of time, and didn’t realize it had been that long, but it runs fine and does what I want it to do, so why blow money on a new machine?
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I had exactly the same experience and I use the Linux machine for gaming.
Replacing Windows with Linux feels equivalent to a CPU and memory upgrade.
victorz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
New is nice, but not at these prices, yeesh. I built my new rig just before the RAMpocalypse. And also the rig before that in 2020 just before the crypto had inflated the GPU prices too high. Call me lucky. Hopefully the prices go down in about five years. 😅
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
I started putting together a RAID, got the housing and the first drive, the plan was to buy a drive with each paycheck until I had the 4 drives I need. The first drive was like $250, arrived last week. Then I checked the price this week and the same drive is now $650.
jamesrandysghost@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I’m rocking a 14 year old CPU (3570k), 16gb of DDR3 and a gtx1070 (non-ti).
I was so god damn stoked to build a new machine this year, only to watch first ddr5 then ddr4 soar our of my price range…
Now even the used stuff around me is jumping in price, with mobo cpu ram deals getting scooped up only for the ram to pop back up at twice the price the next day.
Fuck AI.
sleepmode@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I run my boxes for so long I end up having to basically build a whole new rig by the time it is obsolete thanks to socket, RAM and GPU changes. Feels like it almost defeats the purpose of rolling your own. I mostly just use my Steam Deck at this point. Tired of keeping up with all that combined with shortages.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This is what I’ve done for 35 years. My current build is almost seven years old. My previous build, now 12 years old, is my current media server, the ones before that are recycled.
Also, by the time I build a new one, I need to research everything all over again, because it’s all changed so much. I don’t keep up with the hardware very well between builds.
I don’t think this defeats the purpose, as I don’t expect a computer to last forever. I do reuse what few parts I can, such as power supplies, cases, fans, and hard drives.
sleepmode@lemmy.world 2 days ago
True. I guess it’s not completely purposeless as I’ll reuse and repurpose what i can. But for last build especially I could barely reuse any of it. GPU, increasing power reqs overall and avoiding bottlenecking seem to muck up that strategy the most. If anything i enjoy what feels like a huge leap in performance every time i build one.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 days ago
I think it’s always been like that, unless you upgrade a CPU for a 10% improvement.
I tended to do GPU as one upgrade, then the rest a few years later, treating the RAM, CPU and mobo as one unit.
But since prices of everything have been out of whack for ages now, I’m sticking with this 1060/i5-8400 box until something gives. If I want the latest whizzo graphics, I’ll play my PS5.
Bakkoda@lemmy.world 2 days ago
There used to be a sweet spot of early adopter where you could resell early enough and still make back 75% or more of the price. It’s just so prohibitive and unnecessary now to upgrade like that
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
From my own experience I would say that you’re probably not finding a chance to do intermediary upgrades because upfront you bought the top-range everything and maxed out things like memory and storage, and/or did not get a really good hobbyist motherboard (which the one part where you should really splurge).
I don’t get into the muggers’ game of top-range were you pay 2x-3x for just an extra 10% but instead get the stuff at the sweet-spot of price-performance, and then some years latter I can get stuff with what was before top-range performance at normal prices without a premium.
Similarly I don’t max out on things like memory and storage from the very start - I get what I need then and when I see that I need more I get more, by which point normally (not this shit going on right now) Moore’s Law means it’s way cheaper.
For example, the PC I’m using now for gaming recently got an improved CPU which wasn’t even out when I first bought this PC and which was top range back then (as server CPU, even), which would’ve been $200 back then but was only $17 second hand some years later.
Of course, this way of doing things got totally fucked up with this PC parts bubble. Frankly the last PC upgrade I did was replacing Windows with Linux which in terms of how it feels was equivalent to a speed and memory upgrade.
sleepmode@lemmy.world 2 days ago
For one build I made that mistake. I went with SFF partly due to motherboard and RAM shortages and i could barely upgrade it… I won’t do that again. But before that i would start at low to mid spec for components, a mobo and PSU with room to grow, and slowly max them out over time.
However, like i said in another reply it seems like i can repurpose less and less in later builds as tech evolves more rapidly these days and or I run into a wall with bottlenecking something or another even if i can upgrade a component. As a result I’m definitely taking a longer pause this time.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 3 days ago
This box better not break anytime soon lmaooo
SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
One of my motherboard’s memory slots went bad, no idea why. Figuring out if it was RAM or, if the motherboard, exactly what was wrong, was a tense few hours because neither is getting replaced.
itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
builds a new PC.
continues to play Half Life 2.
ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 3 days ago
It’s not like we didn’t have a near infinite amount of games available from retro 8bit games all the way to the latest and greatest. Honestly, there’s enough games or there that don’t require high end PCs to play.
Heck, I got a long ass list of games I bought nearly 10 years ago that I haven’t ended played yet because I bought so many. On PC and Switch!
I’m good.
meowcar420@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
that’s especially true since games just kinda stopped looking better imo. i think 2014-2019 was the peak of game graphics, i just can’t stand that smeary ai upscaled temporal anti-aliasing look, i prefer msaa or just plain ssaa, it looks so much crisper
Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
For me that’s not true for VR games. There’s still a lot to do in terms of graphics and they are harder and harder to run with VR headsets that always need more resolutions to make the games look how they should look without so many visible pixels. The new 4K per eye panels are pretty much perfect but that’s really hard to run.
rounding_error@lemmy.today 3 days ago
It’s hard to believe that my PC build in 2023 was $1000 and now it is upwards of $2100 (some parts with no price available).
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Dodged the crypto gold rush twice by managing to buy my GPUs before they happened. The last hard drive purchase was more than a year ago, a 2TB Seagate to replace a damaged one.
Now I think I’ll have to be more careful while I use my PC, because we’re back to 1995 pricing.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“60% of gamers have no plans to build a computer for the foreseeable future.” The unspoken part is, “and the hardware manufacturers don’t care”. Maybe they will after the bubble pops, or maybe not.
I just bought a mini desktop-- Ryzen 5 with 16Gb memory and 1Tb SSD. It cost me almost $500US. It probably was $100 less last year. I’m not a gamer, but I do make heavy use of 3D CAD and sometimes with large assemblies. And my old Nitro 5 and 1650 nVidia had been starting to struggle.
I do like my new little computer, with Aurora 44 installed, win11 was aborted on first boot, it’s a snappy little box despite the modest specs. The downside is, there isn’t enough time to make a cuppa tea while waiting on a model regen.
And who knows, I may live long enough to afford another stick of ram, or I may win the lottery someday-- assuming I buy a lottery ticket first.
topperharlie@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I know is probably not possible, but I wish a competitor manufacturer would rise during this times and when the bubble pops we would let these worms starve.
RxBrad@infosec.pub 2 days ago
25% plan to buy this year. 40% in the next two years.
RAM prices have quadrupled since this time last year. So if only 25% as many people buy this year than last year, then the line still went up for the RAM companies.
This is a huge windfall for them, and there is absolutely zero reason for them to go back to $75/32GB DDR5 kits.
Shame that nobody is capable of restraint…
Mearcfara@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
It’s wild, like people get into things when there is novelty and affordability and then leave when one of those goes away.
My biggest question now is, what will supplant PC building/other super high end stuff? I grew up on Halo and early CoDs, but now that I’m old and suck at video games (particularly online multiplayer), and seeing a huge shift toward battle royale and dark souls style gameplay, I felt like I was long overdue to start reading more/working out more/hiking/etc.
cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world 3 days ago
My rig is 10y old but it doesn’t actually feel all that old thanks to Linux. I also play mostly 2d games so that probably helps. Needless to say I’m overdue for an upgrade but that prob won’t happen anytime soon now :(
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Honestly, what game is coming out that’s a killer app that isn’t live service trash that they’ll cancel in a few months? I wish I still had my old consoles to play games on, some of them were real bangers even if I had beaten them. Space Marine 2 was my last top tier purchase and I only played it for a few weeks. Wasn’t a fan of their revision of the combat system.
Outside of that, none of the big studios are making ANYTHING worth the barriers to entry now. I don’t play at 4K, and I rather play New Vegas again for things I missed and different options.
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
I feel like that’d be the stats even if we didn’t have a component disruption. Do all gamers build a new machine every year? They’d be broke (said the guy who buys / builds a lot of toys).
It’s cool to phrase non-news as clickbait. 50% people think $MYTEAM will win the big game. Holy crap, that’s news!
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 days ago
Fractal North is still the prettiest PC case I’ve ever seen. I’m very happy with mine.
darthelmet@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I haven’t really felt the need to upgrade since I first got a gaming PC. I’ve only ever replaced it when the last one was broken enough to not be worth trying to repair.
The funny thing is, these days maybe 85% of my time gaming is spent playing games that absolutely don’t need all the processing power I have. It is nice to be able to play the occasional AAA game, but all of them have looked fine to me. I haven’t really thought “damn this could look/run so much better if I spent another thousand dollars or so.”
I’ve actually been joking with friends about the unnecessary level of detail in some of these games. I was streaming God of War Ragnarok for them and we zoomed in on Kratos’ head and we joked about how some guy had to model the wrinkles on the back of his head/neck when it never matters and you only notice it when you’re going out of your way to zoom in on the details.
Games have reached a level of detail that is more than enough to convey any gameplay or narrative sufficiently. There’s nothing to keep pace with and I’m just hoping this one lasts long enough to avoid the price spike.
zebidiah@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I’m ready to be on ye ole am4 for at least another decade… I see no reason to upgrade any time soon. If prices crash in 27 or 28 and upgrading to am5 became financially realistic id consider it but I realistically just don’t see that happening
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 3 days ago
In the other 40% there’s the people that, like me, built a good future proof pc several years ago (mine is 10 years old) and it still plays what I like but it’s showing signs of aging. One day, it will stop working.
I’m just praying it holds up for a couple more years because otherwise I’m screwed.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
At this rate I will end up downgrading when something breaks instead and just turn graphics down a bit.
laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
A hobby where 40% of people need a new fancy computer every 2 years is bad for the planet.
missingno@fedia.io 3 days ago
My rig still runs all of my favorite 2D indie games, so I'm good.
nerv@fedinsfw.app 3 days ago
I really want to see if the requirements for new games will go down or continue rising.
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
First it was crypto, now it’s AI.
Two stupid fucking things we never wanted.
Fuck every crypto bro and every AI enthusiast.
Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
There’s a lot of overlap in those two groups
criss_cross@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The Crypto bros needed something to offload all the gpus they bought and found a word salad maker that relies on them.
sheogorath@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s pretty much a circle. I got a friend who went all in on crypto is going all in on AI right now.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
It’s almost a complete circle.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Right wing lunatics are big in both.
Crypto because the hurrdurr keep gubmint outta my lyfe shit, and AI because they hate liberal reality, so AI lets them generate all the videos they could hope to have to validate their fake victimhoods.
polle@feddit.org 3 days ago
Imagine when the crypto train was full on, somebody said that something other will come along where the crypto train will be small joke in comparison.
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 days ago
Its the necessary pieces for the next steps. They need crypto for programmable money so they can turn you off, digital ID so they can track your every move in the modern world, AI combined with mass surveillance to enforce it all. Someone wants this world, thats for sure.
OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Even if AI somehow falls off the trend, I feel like we’ll see another stupid way to throw mountains of processing power at something. I can’t wait to see what goofy shit they’ll come up with.