PC Shipments Stuck in Neutral Despite AI Buzz (theregister.com) 31
The PC market is not showing many signs of a rebound, despite the hype around AI PCs, with market watchers split over whether unit shipments are up or down slightly. From a report: Those magical AI PC boxes were supposed to fire up buyer enthusiasm and spur the somewhat listless market for desktop and laptop systems into significant growth territory, but that doesn't appear to be happening. According to the latest figures from Gartner, global PC shipments totaled 62.9 million units during Q3 of this year, representing a 1.3 percent decline compared with the same period last year. However, this does follow three consecutive quarters of modest growth.
"Even with a full line-up of Windows-based AI PCs for both Arm and x86 in the third quarter of 2024, AI PCs did not boost the demand for PCs since buyers have yet to see their clear benefits or business value," commented Gartner Director Analyst Mikako Kitagawa. This is perhaps understandable when AI PCs are largely just a marketing concept, and vendors can't agree on exactly what the the definition of an AI PC should be. Even worse, some buyers of Arm-based Copilot+ machines discovered that their performance isn't actually very good with some applications.
"Even with a full line-up of Windows-based AI PCs for both Arm and x86 in the third quarter of 2024, AI PCs did not boost the demand for PCs since buyers have yet to see their clear benefits or business value," commented Gartner Director Analyst Mikako Kitagawa. This is perhaps understandable when AI PCs are largely just a marketing concept, and vendors can't agree on exactly what the the definition of an AI PC should be. Even worse, some buyers of Arm-based Copilot+ machines discovered that their performance isn't actually very good with some applications.
You mean Windows on ARM ? (Score:1)
Windows on ARM has failed before for the same reasons it will fail now - because nothing works on it, not even Office is complete.
And the x86 devices from yesterday can still run AI without it, training AI happens in the datacenter on Intel+nVIDIA.
Re:You mean Windows on ARM ? (Score:4, Interesting)
For most people AI and Copilot are irrelevant as well.
Most of the PCs are for gaming, surfing and business bread and butter cases where most of the processors the last 10 years are quite sufficient.
The remaining are for data analysis and simulations where you'd get a benefit from the bleeding edge machines. Some servers like web servers and virtualization hypervisors also get a benefit from higher CPU performance.
X86 Windows 32bit will never not be needed (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Only gamers care about performance of 32 bit windows software now, because for everyone else they either need to run it on the bare metal for hardware support reasons or the code will run faster in emulation on a modern ARM than it did on any of the original hardware. And of the gamers, it's only those who play old games that it matters to at all, and most of those will run great in emulation on modern machines as well. If they don't, they probably won't run on a modern OS at all since Windows' backwards co
Re: (Score:2)
It's true
Re: X86 Windows 32bit will never not be needed (Score:1)
Itanium was pretty good for its day. OpenVMS and Linux both ported successfully. 32-bit was tacked on for Microsoft. X86-64 was decried for stretching out the 64bit transition and being a rather energy inefficient way of doing it which ainâ(TM)t wrong. The problem is and always will be Microsoft.
What exactly *is* an "AI PC" (Score:2)
Re: What exactly *is* an "AI PC" (Score:2)
Re:What exactly *is* an "AI PC" (Score:5, Funny)
It's like having a brother on your computer that watches over your shoulders and helps you with things like providing you with interesting offers from Microsoft's partners and give a real time view of what you are doing on your computer to the government.
Re: (Score:2)
It's like having a brother on your computer that watches over your shoulders and helps you with things like providing you with interesting offers from Microsoft's partners and give a real time view of what you are doing on your computer to the government.
It's the "interesting offers" that are my biggest turnoff. I do not need the OS provider using my platform for their advertising. The only time I use Windows is in a VM for the few apps that I use that are only available via Windows...and even then I'm starting to use Coherence mode (I use Parallels on a Mac) so I don't even see the Windows desktop at all, just the application.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: What exactly *is* an "AI PC" (Score:1)
I thought it's pre-loaded with Turbodong 2000 AI fart videos.
I am sure (Score:2)
I am sure just about everyone here told relatives and friends to avoid Windows 11 like a plague. I know I have. But that is hard to avoid paying for it with the Microsoft tax.
So, I know I have suggested Apple and for one person I will be finding a referb Thinkpad and put MX on it for her. I wonder how many people here have done the same.
Granted Apple is not a great deal better that windows with it spyware. But Apple does not have anything like CoPilot plus I heard you can disable Apple's phone-home func
Re: (Score:2)
The millions of businesses that are "vendor locked in" all seem to shrug and pay for the next release without much thought. The main argument is that it's just too much work and expense to change or fix. It's going to really have to hurt before they rip the bandage off.
The trend that I perceive is that your Microsoft, Apple, VMWare, Cisco, Adobe, all the giants, they just shove the horseshit down your throat, take the inevitable c
Why would you buy brand new obsolete stuff? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you honestly believe that anything "AI" you buy now is going to cut it in a few months? Anyone who's surprised hasn't been around long enough to learn not to sink their money into manic trends.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What do you mean by "cut it"?
I am not excited by the prospect of an "AI" accelerated CPU because I have a tolerably powerful GPU, and because only the new and thus expensive parts have this label slapped on them. I am only now upgrading from Zen+ to Zen3 and to a system with PCIe 4.0 for reasons of being a cheap bastard. But how many people out there are really excited to spend big money on a PC right now? A very small percentage of people, almost all of whom are computer professionals, have both the inclin
Re: Why would you buy brand new obsolete stuff? (Score:1)
AI on PCs is for the ad guys, not users... (Score:1, Insightful)
The AI on PCs is intended for the people to sling ads and go through your files to figure out the most salient, salable data points. It isn't for the end user.
Why should end users bother upgrading so Big Brother has a sharper and more focused camera lens?
Focus on what makes a PC "good" (Score:2)
3D, Blockchain, AI (Score:5, Informative)
"AI PC" is just the latest buzz-term to try and convince consumers to replace their existing, perfectly serviceable, products.
Despite the marketing hype of "everyone can be a creative," the majority of domestic PC use is browser-based, with a little letter-writing and casual gaming. In the corporate world, it's mostly browser/native in-house apps and Word/Excel/Outlook, often via thin-client. Neither use-case benefits from "AI," certainly not to the extent of spending significant cash.
The next bump in hardware sales will only happen when Win10 goes EoL. Domestic users will discover that MS has arbitrarily locked them out of an OS upgrade, and the choice is either new hardware or Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
They'd clearly like everyone to rush out and buy a shiny new 'Copilot+ PC with Windows 11 and Office 365'; but that's just not going to happen in a great many cases; and we've seen behavior in the past(eg. having Windows Update function normally even on PCs that have failed activation for a prolonged period of time) that suggests that they know that a major threat to their customers is their poorer or less enthusiastic customers running
What's the point of local AI? (Score:2)
Superresolution and distilling of a local data search index, that's about it. Even if you use AI search of your local data, it will probably use remote models in the process since they are just so much better.
Re: (Score:2)
Privacy.
If you think people's search engine terms can be revealing, wait until you see what people type at Enterprise Autocorrect.
What does this DO for me? (Score:3)
Ok, wise salesguys, what does this magic AI enabled chip actually DO for me? Why should I want it?
I'm waiting for you answer.
Still waiting.
No answer? Then why should I buy it? I don't need it. I don't want if. You act all surprised that tacking on the letters AI aren't magically selling new PCs. The marketing hype still has sailsdroids brainwashed on this useless crap and someone still has enough money to bombard us with unwarranted praise for AI every five seconds.
It's like how Windows 8 tried to turn desktop PCs in to large cell phones. Nobody wanted that.
Too expensive (Score:2)
20 years ago I would upgrade my PC a few times a year because PC related parts were sanely priced and it was fun. Today, not so much. When run of the mill motherboards cost $200+ and CPU upgrades year to year offer little to no performance benefit then what's the point? The icing on the cake is that Windows has become absolute shit removing the fun out of building and upgrading PCs. Sure, Linux is an option, but it's not even close to being ready for every day desktop adoption sadly. The tech industry is sl
Re: Too expensive (Score:2)
Waiting for 11 Deadline (Score:2)
I do think we will see a rebound in 2025 as businesses start migrating to W11. They will likely flip machines rather than rebuild/upgrade.
For Linux folks, there
The answer is simple (Score:2)
Older computers work fine for most people.
The current generation of AI is nearly useless, but hypemongers and investors demand that it be shoved down our throats NOW.
Windows on ARM is a bad, bad, horrible, no good, awful idea. Backward compatibility is a really good thing. For some, it's absolutely essential.
The latest news about Intel processor instability makes some people skeptical about new processors.