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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

The PC industry has ended a two-year run of declining shipments, by growing 0.3 percent in Q4 of 2023, amid a warning that the cost of components will rise this year, as will the cost of laptops and desktops.

This is according to analyst Gartner's figures, but other analysts have a different view of proceedings: IDC reckons this was the eighth straight quarter of "sales-out" shrinkage - meaning sales to retailers and distributors - and Canalys estimates the market actually grew three percent.

We've chosen on this occasion to go down the middle and mostly focus on the data emitted by number crunchers at Gartner, which calculates that some 63.37 million PCs were shipped in the three months.

“The PC market has hit the bottom of its decline after significant adjustment," said Mikako Kitagawa, director analyst at Gartner. "Inventory was normalized in the fourth quarter of 2023, which had been plaguing the industry for two years.

"This subtle growth suggests that demand and supply are finally balanced. However, this situation will likely change due to the anticipated component price hike in 2024, as well as geopolitical and economic uncertainties."

Talk in the Asian supply chain is that SSD prices could jump 50 percent this year due to rising NAND and DDR costs, with an 18 to 23 percent impact forecast for this quarter alone, according to analyst TrendForce.

There was mixed trading performance among the six biggest vendors: Lenovo grew 3.2 percent to 16.2 million; HP grew 5.6 percent to 13.95 million; Dell declined 8.3 percent to 9.98 million; Apple grew 7.2 percent to 6.35 million; ASUS shrank 9.4 percent to 4.4 million; and Acer was up 11.1 percent to 3.98 million.

The US market expanded 1.8 percent; EMEA grew 8.7 percent - the first growth since Q4 2021; and Asia Pacific declined on the back of a depressed market in China.

Over at IDC, the analyst estimates that PC shipments were down 2.7 percent to 67.1 million, and also said the market has "bottomed out." Canalys was more bullish, and reckons shipments were up three percent to 65.3 million.

Things certainly seem to be improving but those heady days of the pandemic, when the total available market swelled to 350 million in 2021, seem like a long time ago.

PC prices to jump as cost of memory rises, say analysts

Scores are on the doors for Q4, as after 2 years shipments grow again... by 0.3%

www.theregister.com

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

If you plan on upgrading your PC's storage or RAM you should be doing it sooner rather than later.

 

[StereoVsn]

Yeah, been debating if I want to get another 32GB DDR5 for one of my systems and this whole thing finally pushed me over an edge.

If only 8tb SSDs got cheaper, even SATA ones. Samsung got down to just under $400 at one point during the holidays.

 

[nemiroff]

Yikes. Anyway, while not directly linked to the current situation, interestingly enough European and US government are now pouring billions and billions of dollars into building chip factories locally to try to stop Asian dependency. It'll take years, but it'll be interesting to see how it will affect the market once they're up and running.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

There are still great deals on SSD's if you think you might be in the market for one soon. Prices on those are expected to rise in 2024 too.

 

[kruis]

Talk in the Asian supply chain is that SSD prices could jump 50 percent this year due to rising NAND and DDR costs, with an 18 to 23 percent impact forecast for this quarter alone, according to analyst TrendForce.

It's not manufacturing costs that are driving up NAND and DDR prices. The higher prices are the result of manufacturers producing far less memory chips compared to previous years. They'd been producing more memory chips than the market could handle which was driving prices down and causing losses. Now the big memory manufacturers have all reduced production and prices are going up. Great for Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, but not so much for us consumers.

Samsung extends cut in memory chip production, will focus on high-end AI chips instead | TechCrunch

Samsung Electronics extends to cut back its memory chip production and double down on its high-performance chips used in AI.

techcrunch.com

Samsung to further cut production of memory chips to stem the losses

The company's memory chip business posted its first loss in 14 years in Q1. Production of DRAM and NAND chips will be reduced to deal with the slump in demand.

www.gsmarena.com

 

[SmokedMeat]

I was holding off on adding another stick of M2, but maybe I’ll just go for it while prices are sane.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

It's not manufacturing costs that are driving up NAND and DDR prices. The higher prices are the result of manufacturers producing far less memory chips compared to previous years. They'd been producing more memory chips than the market could handle which was driving prices down and causing losses. Now the big memory manufacturers have all reduced production and prices are going up. Great for Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, but not so much for us consumers.

Samsung extends cut in memory chip production, will focus on high-end AI chips instead | TechCrunch

Samsung Electronics extends to cut back its memory chip production and double down on its high-performance chips used in AI.

techcrunch.com

Samsung to further cut production of memory chips to stem the losses

The company's memory chip business posted its first loss in 14 years in Q1. Production of DRAM and NAND chips will be reduced to deal with the slump in demand.

www.gsmarena.com

.I'm 100% this happens every now again I'm sure remember it happening on more one occasion.

 

[kruis]

.I'm 100% this happens every now again I'm sure remember it happening on more one occasion.

Absolutely.

Pork cycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DenchDeckard]

I posted this the other day...

Well, not the article...but a bit of inside baseball information.

 

[Little Mac]

Just bought a 2TB M.2 SSD for my PS5. Not today PC Industry ...

 

[kikkis]

I only bought laptop recently, seems like it was good timing. 32gb upgrade was 80€ and 1tb ssd 50€ during configuration.

 

[kruis]

I was holding off on adding another stick of M2, but maybe I’ll just go for it while prices are sane.

Prices have already gone up quite significantly depending on the product.

I bought a Samsung 870 QVO 8TB drive in September for 340 euro. Price dropped to around 300 euro by November. Now the same SSD drive costs 560 euro.

 

[Kenpachii]

Luckily upgraded my laptop with, 64 gb of ddr5 and 2tb nvme drive + 4tb nvme drive 4 months ago. Seems like it was the right choice to go all out.

 

[hinch7]

Supply and demand. There was a huge oversupply of memory the past year or so. But now people are buying PC's again and with Ai taking off memory manufacturers want to profit.

The reduced production sounds like BS for price fixing - something that's been a thing since forever for these guys https://www.tomshardware.com/news/us-firm-again-accuses-dram-suppliers-price-collusion

Anyway, buy DDR5 now if planning to get a new PC this year as its going to get expensive again in a few months. SSD's already going up.

 

[simpatico]

I should probably hurry up but meh. None of the AAA games coming out inspire me to drop the cash. With mining losing its luster and game developers losing touch with reality, maybe hardware vendors will actually have to get competitive with pricing soon. Do they really want me to drop $1,200 to see a shinier version of propaganda from Sweet Baby? It'll be a while before the ol 1080 can't run based indie games.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

PC as a platform is already outpriced a significant porion of gamers. More or less valid 1440p machine is floating around $2K wolrdwide (add local taxes and shipping) and this holds true if we take severe corner cutting in some areas (cheaper case, just alright cooling, one SSD instead of two).

The current PC pricing is outright silly. In GTX 1080 era $1200 considered a very decent budget, now it's almost delusional to assemble something long-lasting for that money without resorting to second-hand market. And virtually everything is way more expensive: DDR5 RAM, mobos (their price-to-featire ratio is clearly downgraded), of course GPUs. Even some run-of-the-mill things like PSUs and cases went up in price quite decently.

With market like this consoles are becoming more and more viable. And I'm wiring this as a primarily PC gamer with a very decent machine.

 

[DenchDeckard]

PC as a platform is already outpriced a significant porion of gamers. More or less valid 1440p machine is floating around $2K wolrdwide (add local taxes and shipping) and this if we take with severe corner cutting in some areas (cheaper case, just alright cooling, one SSD instead of two).

The current PC pricing is outright silly. In GTX 1080 era $1200 considered a very decent budget, now it's almost delusional to assemble something long-lasting for that money without resorting to second-hand market. And virtually everything is way more expensive: DDR5 RAM, mobos (their price-to-featire ratio is clearly downgraded), of course GPUs. Even some run-of-the-mill things like PSUs and cases went up in price quite decently.

With market like this consoles are becoming more and more viable. And I'm wiring this as a primarily PC gamer with a very decent machine.

You can still get a very decent PC in the UK in retail for £999 to £1,299.00 and thats not building it yourself.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I held out a long time before buying my system last year because a lot of the prices were so out of control after Covid. Glad I got mine but I hope they don't go that way again.

 

[GHG]

The inflation resurgence is just getting started.

Shipping costs have also gone through the roof in recent weeks.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

You can still get a very decent PC in the UK in retail for £999 to £1,299.00 and thats not building it yourself.

Define decent. It's usually very basic mobos w/o monitoring features and with weak VRM, more or less cheapo basic RAM sticks and a true PSU lottery.

 

[cormack12]

If only there was an alternative with the best AAA games on the market at a reasonable price point.

 

[Quasicat]

I’ve been looking into upgrading the memory on my Steam Deck to a 2TB module. I figured it would wait until the spring, but I should probably get on that now.

 

[TVexperto]

im still happy with my DDR4 ram no plans to change within next 3 years

 

[AJUMP23]

Thanks for the heads up, way to be a bro.

 

[splattered]

Oh not again! The cycle of greed continues... sigh

 

[Fermbiz]

Damn it... I've been trying to get the Samsung 870 Evo 4TB SSD for a while. Been trying to hold off on a good sale, but yesterday I saw it for $239 on Amazon. Now it seems to be sold out and everywhere else is $300.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

Is this price hike natural market forces or memory manufacturer price fixing again?

 

[violence]

Damn it... I've been trying to get the Samsung 870 Evo 4TB SSD for a while. Been trying to hold off on a good sale, but yesterday I saw it for $239 on Amazon. Now it seems to be sold out and everywhere else is $300.

Same. Oh well.

 

[analog_future]

I bought my 4TB SN850X on Black Friday and I bought my 64GB of RAM like a week ago. I'm set.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Define decent. It's usually very basic mobos w/o monitoring features and with weak VRM, more or less cheapo basic RAM sticks and a true PSU lottery.

Yeah, definitely more basic motherboards, B650 / B760 but they are pretty decent brand wise. Corsair Memory / PSUs etc in some system integrators.

 

[veterangamerUK]

If only there was an alternative with the best AAA games on the market at a reasonable price point.

"best" is debatable and a very personal choice

 

[CuteFaceJay]

You can still get a very decent PC in the UK in retail for £999 to £1,299.00 and thats not building it yourself.

I'm currently seeing OCUK selling AMD 5600X systems with 4070's for £1400.... 5600X & 4070 is low end :|

 

[Magic Carpet]

I bought my 4TB SN850X on Black Friday and I bought my 64GB of RAM like a week ago. I'm set.

I just installed a 2TB SN850X That thing is FAST!

 

[64bitmodels]

PC prices to jump as cost of memory rises, say analysts

Scores are on the doors for Q4, as after 2 years shipments grow again... by 0.3%

www.theregister.com

The PC "price hike" already arrived in 2020-2021 with the shitass crypto boom fucking up GPU prices forever.

 

[64bitmodels]

More or less valid 1440p machine is floating around $2K wolrdwide (add local taxes and shipping) and this holds true if we take severe corner cutting in some areas (cheaper case, just alright cooling, one SSD instead of two).

you can build a 1440p machine for half that

 

[Hudo]

Yes, let's kill the market together!

 

[simpatico]

If only there was an alternative with the best AAA games on the market at a reasonable price point.

What you save in up front cost you end up spending when you have to rebuy the library down the road.

 

[StereoVsn]

Hmm… might grab another 4TB M.2. Will need it in a bit anyways. Prices are going to suck.

 

[tusharngf]

PC as a platform is already outpriced a significant porion of gamers. More or less valid 1440p machine is floating around $2K wolrdwide (add local taxes and shipping) and this holds true if we take severe corner cutting in some areas (cheaper case, just alright cooling, one SSD instead of two).

The current PC pricing is outright silly. In GTX 1080 era $1200 considered a very decent budget, now it's almost delusional to assemble something long-lasting for that money without resorting to second-hand market. And virtually everything is way more expensive: DDR5 RAM, mobos (their price-to-featire ratio is clearly downgraded), of course GPUs. Even some run-of-the-mill things like PSUs and cases went up in price quite decently.

With market like this consoles are becoming more and more viable. And I'm wiring this as a primarily PC gamer with a very decent machine.

those who wants PC get it no matter what price is,

 

[The Stig]

Dang. Glad I built my new PC just a couple of weeks ago.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I'm currently seeing OCUK selling AMD 5600X systems with 4070's for £1400.... 5600X & 4070 is low end :|

that is not a low end system, that's a mid range system and would be great for many.

 

[64bitmodels]

I'm currently seeing OCUK selling AMD 5600X systems with 4070's for £1400.... 5600X & 4070 is low end :|

people with actual low end systems would kill for any 4000 series card in their PC. bro is yapping about nothing!!!

 

[Gen.Grievous]

It's not manufacturing costs that are driving up NAND and DDR prices. The higher prices are the result of manufacturers producing far less memory chips compared to previous years. They'd been producing more memory chips than the market could handle which was driving prices down and causing losses. Now the big memory manufacturers have all reduced production and prices are going up. Great for Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, but not so much for us consumers.

Samsung extends cut in memory chip production, will focus on high-end AI chips instead | TechCrunch

Samsung Electronics extends to cut back its memory chip production and double down on its high-performance chips used in AI.

techcrunch.com

Samsung to further cut production of memory chips to stem the losses

The company's memory chip business posted its first loss in 14 years in Q1. Production of DRAM and NAND chips will be reduced to deal with the slump in demand.

www.gsmarena.com

Yes. This cycle always repeats itself every few years. If you want to build a system, do it now. CPUs, RAM and storage are still really cheap.

Only GPUs don't seem to go back down to pre-mining/covid. The AI boom does not help in this area I guess. Nvidia can sell their silicon at 10X the price when it's in an AI accelerator card.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Can I use 2X16(32GB) of 6000MHZ ram in my 13700F that really only supports up to 5600MHZ? Will it simply default to the lower speed or will it just not work at all?
Bestbuy has it for $109.

 

[CGNoire]

Just finished building by new PC... Phew.

 

[Griffon]

Alright, ordering my new parts now (especially SSDs).

 

[Jesb]

It’s not even worth being a pc gamer anymore.

 

[Fermbiz]

Alright, ordering my new parts now (especially SSDs).

Yea.... I have 870 Evo 4tb @ $300 () in the cart staring at me.

 

[CamHostage]

Bummer to see prices go up.

And there were no new advances or alternate types of storage or memory at CES this year, was there? I had looked up the state of storage when some Switch 2 specs rumors were going around and I didn't see much besides some speed increase promises in the SD/CF Express spec (which doesn't necessarily add up to theoretical specs) and USB4 devices. Some trends in speed and layers, but nothing new is coming that I know of? (Also, physical media storage doesn't have a next-big-thing coming either, although no need to look that up to know...)