http://www.howtogeek.com/183381/are-pcs-dying-of-course-not-heres-why/

I thought for along time the market was saturated and there's really not much reason to upgrade a 3-4 year old OEM machine, on the other hand the enthusiast market is doing very well.....   

Results of a survey at the Game Developers Conference:

Good info guys.  Nice to see the hard data backing up my gut on this one.

Thanks.

backs out of the room slowly...  

Given the phenomenal amount of money Intel and AMD have invested in the future of desktop PCs, and that companies like ASUS and Gigabyte have continued to build upon and improve motherboards and other desktop hardware, it is very hard to take the various media 'experts' seriously when they speak of the desktop PC's demise.  Every so often one of them will write/broadcast that the desktop PC is on its last legs and soon we will all be using some piddling tablet to manage all our computing needs, but do any of them really believe what they're saying... after they just typed it up on their Hewlett Packard, Dell desktop PC ?  So what is the purpose of this misinformation and the oft fudged statistics to substantiate what to me are quite ludicrous stories? 

For mine, the multi-billion dollar tech companies would know about the impending demise of desktop computers long before we the buying public would, and if there really were an end date, would they really be striving to produce the next best thing in PC tech?  Of course not, and if anybody wants to check if desktop PCs have been scheduled for execution, check with Intel, AMD and Nvidia to see if they've shut up shop to start building hi-tech cars instead.

id say there will be a hole in the market this year since many folks don’t see the need to upgrade hardware on desktop pc´s.
The new gen consoles should have been better way better in terms of Hardware, but they stuffed them with things like the "Jaguar" processor that secretly runs under the codename "pussycat".  Since I don’t want to go into detail you can go and view the performance of that processor in comparison to an current i5 or i7.
The station is equipped with a GPU with 1,84TFLOPS...while others are able to calculate with 4,5 TFLOPS.
So the used console GPU is able to calculate with  40,8% of what modern GPU´s are capable off.
Even a GTX 580 does about 3 TFLOPS. 
SO basically if you have a 580 an i5, 8gigs of RAM with good timings or 16 gigabytes in dual channel you will not need to upgrade anything for a good period of time if you want to play games.
And that isn´t even an enthusiast build it’s a mid-range settings PC.
Enthusiast rigs are mostly water cooled overclocked and have 2-3 or meanwhile 4 GPU´s in xfire or SLI ´some have (dual GPU cards) attached.
That is so much Power that on average 2 PSU´s are required to run the damn thing.
Some will continue to upgrade but I personally don´t see the need of doing so until the next gen release.
There will be a gap in sales but i think desktops will be here for much, much longer to stay.

Of course PCs aren't dying, that's silly.

Only Kona's... heheh. 

I also hear Linux on the desktop will finally break through this year. 

'The desktop PC' may not be dying as such, but it has certainly outlived its usefulness to me.

I used to build my own rigs every year or so in order to keep up with current hardware trends etc.  Then more and more I came to the realisation that (especially when you have a solid networking infrastructure) with a few DLNA boxes (WDTV Live SMP for instance plays anything and everything with no need to convert formats), a gaming console or two, notebooks/tablets and windows phones there is barely still a need to keep a server or two in the mix and everything I personally require from the digital world is covered.

As to the comment about consoles vs PC hardware?  While of course the graphics on a console are and will always be eclipsed by those of a 'desktop PC gaming rig' I again came to realisation that 'graphics' do not equal 'gameplay' (and ease of matchmaking with friends etc.) and they (consoles) just keep getting better and better in that regard and other ways.  Netflix, video chat and the ability to tie your consoles in with your tablets/smartphones are just other ways they (consoles) have contributed to squeezing the venerable 'desktop PC' right out of my life. 

Lastly, (and perhaps most importantly) It has always burned me when I was building my own 'gaming rigs' to know that due to the piss-poor optimisation of PC gaming software I was having to buy/build for 'overkill'.  For me personally?   I'm done 'wasting' money on more hardware in order to run PC games decently while they 'memory leak' and 'crash' all over the place in the background.

Again, just my opinion.  Flame away........

Yeah don't get me started. Was gonna buy a brand new PC with my tax return but we needed a car.

Just kidding around, Kona. 

Et tu, Brute?

It's an echo....keeps coming around every year.....has done so since Linus was a character in Peanuts....

What the hell.....

http://www.robolinux.org/

You are so naughty, RND.... so naughty, in fact, I'm gonna have a word with Mrs. RND to see if she'll take a paddle to your bottom.

Yeah, I know, punishments are a bitch, but I also know you'll get across her knee like a good boy and take it like a man.

kona, kona, kona, you really need to lighten up buddy.  There might well be some less than pleasant people who'd say such a thing nastily, but RND isn't one of them.  He was just kidding, as denoted by the winking smiley... and like Google, smileys are your friend.  They can help you see if a person is just kidding or not, thus saving you some unnecessary aggravation.

Peace, man.

I've used Ubuntu at various times and found it quite nice, as well as useful and not so hard to use as I'd heard.  Linux Mint is another I've been told is a good Windows alternative, and maybe I might just turn my 3rd PC into a multi-boot Linux box to have a bit of an experiment with the various flavours.  Seeing the one RND placed a link to has me quite interested.  The fact it suggests Windows programs can run within it made my ears prick up immediately.  Anyway, I've bookmarked it to take a proper look later. 

Thanks for the heads up, Jim, it's a good find.

Actually, I pass the thanks along to Stramp, who linked me a few weeks ago.

Thanks, Stramp! 

Thinking of the A-Team movie with Liam Neeson: I just love it when a community comes together.

Thanks, Stramp

I had a bit more of a read and I'm rather impressed.  Thing is it was getting past my bedtime and I didn't want to leave my rig on unattended, but I will download it today and give it a try on my 2nd spare rig, which I think is best suited to Linux distros out of the three.  I definitely want to give Ubuntu another try and also give Mint a go, but this RoboLinux has me really intrigued.  I have a bit of setting up on the rig, but I will download it and the others now so I have them on hand when ready.

Oh how I love playing with new toys.

Well I just downloaded the RoboLinux OS and the Virtual Machine to run Windows inside it.  Took a while for the 1st donation to go through, like it was frozen or something, so I cancelled it and started again. The second attempt took so now I'm now the proud new owner of a RoboLinux license.  Okay, so I'm a few bucks out, but for mine it's money well spent and I don't mind supporting such projects... it helps them to help you through continuous development... a win win situation.

Now for Ubuntu and Mint... finish preparing the machine.

Installing Linux has what exactly to do with the thread op?   Just wondering if I'm 'lurking' in the wrong thread........or maybe every thread on these forums is just a 'chat' now......   

Well, given they are OSes that can reside on PCs, and the fact they're gaining in popularity, maybe it's an indicator that shows PCs are in fact alive and well. So yeah, I guess it's related.

And pray tell, what is wrong with a chat?  It'd be a pretty dismal world if we all stopped, dontcha think!

Just found this regarding Intel's refocusing on the desktop PC and thought it relevant to this thread.  While Intel has invested heavily in the mobile market and put desktop tech on the backburner for a while, it seems the chip giant has shifted focus to address the slowing desktop market,

Read more here