Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

If you think PCs are dying, you haven’t been paying attention

It’s been a grim week for the world of computers. If you aren’t up-to-date on financial statements (and I can’t blame you for that), let me catch you up to speed. Microsoft started the week by posting a 39% decline in its Windows revenue, followed shortly by Intel recording a 36% drop for its Client Computing Group (consumer products). AMD and Apple are announcing their earnings next week, with dire predictions as the demand for PCs comes to a standstill.

PCs are dying, or that’s how the story usually goes for these types of drops. In 2015, a 5% drop was enough for Wired to declare, “no, really, the PC is dying.” And in 2009, when PC sales dropped by 8%, John Herrman at Gizmodo wrote: “I just can’t go on pretending there’s a future for [desktop PCs].” Those single-digit drops were enough to ruffle feathers, so between a 35% and 40% decline? That looks like certain death.

But there’s a much broader context here, and for everyone holding tight to their beloved computer (myself included), fret not — PCs aren’t going anywhere.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

It’s pretty bad out here

Coffee spilling on a laptop keyboard.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Intel is down, and AMD, Apple, and Nvidia are expected to follow suit, but the glaring signpost is Microsoft. The 39% drop comes from Windows manufacturer revenue, which is the money Microsoft receives from brands shipping Windows computers. It’s not entirely representative of the PC market, but it’s close.

In early January, Gartner reported that PC sales had fallen off globally by 28.5% compared to the previous year, with multiple brands including Lenovo, HP, and Dell experiencing historic lows. Mikako Kitagawa at Gartner summed it up: “A decline of this magnitude only happens when market demand effectively comes to a halt.”

It has halted, but not because PCs are dying. Kitagawa points out that “since many consumers already have relatively new PCs that were purchased during the pandemic, a lack of affordability is superseding any motion to buy.” Record PC sales across the industry occurred in 2021 due to the pandemic, and that is falling off. After all, if you buy a new PC ever few years, why upgrade the model you just bought in 2021?

All the parts of the Concept Luna laptop laid out on the table.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

That’s the logic pointed out by Canalys’ analysis of the PC market. In fact, its report shows 7% growth in PC shipments in 2022 compared to 2019, with the massive decline only evident compared to the boom in 2020 and 2021. Ishan Dutt at Canalys recognized this current slump, but said it was only a short-term problem:

“… total volumes will remain higher than in the prepandemic era of 2019. Once businesses and consumers ride out the storm, we expect delayed purchases to begin boosting the market in late 2023, with momentum picking up in 2024.”

Canalys also points out the difference between laptops and desktops. Laptops dropped by 19% for the year in 2022, but desktops only dropped  by 7%. And that difference is the critical element to the long-term life of PCs.

But what about my PC games?

HP Omen 45L sitting on a table.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends / Digital Trends

Industrywide analysis generally focuses on the largest vendors, but a rising tide has been growing in a different segment of PCs: PC gaming. In October 2022, Steam reached an all-time-high player count of over 30 million, building on already high momentum from 2020 to 2021.

In addition, companies continue to see growth in gaming. In AMD’s November 2022 financial disclosure, it showed nearly a 40% drop in its client (consumer) revenue. Gaming, however, saw 14% growth. Similarly, Nvidia posted a 51% drop in its gaming revenue compared to 2021, but cash is still at the levels of revenue before the GPU shortage (and Nvidia’s massive gaming growth) hit.

Intel, despite showing a massive decline in consumer sales overall, also posted an 8% growth in 2022 for its Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics group (the group behind the Arc Alchemist A770 and A750).

Two intel Arc graphics cards on a pink background.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Much of the decline we’re seeing now comes on the back of “overly enthusiastic production commitments,” according to Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research, with hardware vendors rushing to produce more supply during the chip shortage. “There was a serious loss of common sense and historical perspective exhibited by many suppliers that has come home to roost. We see a slow growth ahead, but growth nonetheless.”

There’s no doubt that economic factors like massive layoffs at companies like Google are doubling down on a slump that was already expected coming out of the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean PCs are going away. We’ve seen this story a dozen times over the past decade, and PCs are still kicking.

Jacob Roach
Lead Reporter, PC Hardware
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
Intel just gave up on a plan it laid out years ago
An Intel executive holding a Lunar Lake CPU.

Intel is giving up on its 20A node, or at the very least, it won't show up in any desktop processors. Intel announced that it would shifting resources away from developing 20A toward its smaller 18A node. Intel 20A was the foundation of Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs. The company says it's now using "external partners" to create Arrow Lake chips, which will likely be chipmaker TSMC.

We first heard about the 20A node in 2021, where the then-new CEO Pat Gelsinger laid out a road map detailing how Intel would move off its storied 14nm node onto smaller manufacturing processes. You could read this shift to 18A as Intel jumping forward to more exciting future technology, but it doesn't bode well given Intel's long-standing road map. The release of 20A was supposed to start the "Angstrom era," as Intel called it, where we would move beyond measuring transistor size in nanometers.

Read more
I didn’t expect the Core i5-14600K to beat the Ryzen 5 9600X
Intel Core i5-14600K processor inside its socket.

During the past few years of searching for the best processors, AMD has usually come out on top. Aggressive pricing, a consistent core strategy, and assurance of future upgrades has been enough to explain away the few performance advantages Intel has had. So, I'm sure you could imagine my surprise when the Intel Core i5-14600K handily came out on top against AMD's newer Ryzen 5 9600X.

It comes out ahead in quite a big way, too. Although the Ryzen 5 9600X and Core i5-14600K are both excellent CPUs under $300, it looks like Team Blue is taking the win this time.
Specs

Read more
I tested AMD’s latest claims about Ryzen 9000, and they don’t hold up
The Ryzen 9 9950X between someone's fingertips.

AMD says that gaming performance on Ryzen 9000 is actually better than what you've read. As you can read in our Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X review, AMD's new Zen 5 CPUs are the best processors you can buy when it comes to productivity. Gaming performance, on the other hand, is disappointing.

According to a new blog post from AMD, there are a few reasons why reviewers saw lower gaming performance than expected. Chief among them are the fact that AMD used an unreleased version of Windows 11 -- the 24H2 update, which is available to Windows Insiders -- and that it used an administrator account for its "automated test methodology." In light of that, I downloaded the Windows update, spun up an admin account, and retested the Ryzen 9 9950X. And I'm not seeing what AMD claims at all.

Read more