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I was always a PC gamer and PC builder back in the early-mid 2000s in high school and college. At the time, upgrade cycles were very short, and building a PC was usually more economical than buying one. I had a couple of HPs, a Dell, and a Packard Bell before building, and most of these were unreliable, or poor performers at their price points. Doing virtually any gaming on a prebuilt PC was a no-go, as few power supplies could power a decent graphics board.
These days, the power of the average PC has gone far beyond the needs of the average user. I have a three year old i7 3770k/32GB RAM/256GB SSD/GTX 560Ti machine and downloaded Tomb Raider and it runs at 50+ FPS flawlessly. Movies convert very quickly - the machine does anything I've thrown it with ease. A decade ago, that three year old PC would be getting long in the tooth.
PCs are much cheaper to buy now. $300-$400 PCs are common and would be hard to build if you bought a legal copy of Windows. The economic edge is no longer really there. PC games don't seem to have big blockbuster releases that they did a decade ago.
Your title states "high end enthusiast" - I do not think this is going away at all, I think it is stronger than ever.
Your post states "DIY PC market" - Hard to tell. 15 years ago, even ten years ago, I knew a few people who would build their own and build for others, now I do not know anyone, and even those people just purchase the gaming PCs. I think a lot of DIY types did it because it was cheaper than buying one with equal capacity, and now days it is not like that anymore. A great gaming PC is relatively affordable compared to what a PC was 15 years ago with the fraction of the performance.
But on the flip side, I see online more activity regarding DIY PCs, but from a hobbyist perspective it seems more so than a need. I think more people are inclined to be hobbyist now than before if anything, due to costs.
Well, since photo and video editing is accomplished a lot faster with the high-end computers than the cheap and slow ones, at least in this sector of computing the high-end machines will be popular. Just look at the video and photo editing machines that are set-up for that kind of work and notice the price. Nowadays with the right setup, a kid in his or her garage can edit his or her own movie, something that is being accomplished as we talk about it.
I think the chase of high tech is long over. Its still popular with a mine segment tho. Many are turning to mobile devices more and more from even the basic PC.
Not really. Market in the doldrums for home computers, and even then, only for as long as two-dimensional monitors are not replaced or high-grade glasses 3-D reality or bulky screens. Here the question is no longer in computing power, but in technology. For home computer and graphics really limit is reached.
No. The death of PC Gaming has been predicted every year since the PS2 came out. It's not as strong as it once was...but it's not going anywhere.
Cal Of Duty: MW3 sold 1.7 million units on PC on or around launch day. That's about $96,000,000 in sales. no company wants to give up on that...
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