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Graphics Chip Shipments Sink 34%
Sale shipments of graphics chips had sunk a startling 34 percent in the fourth calendar quarter of 2008, according to market research firm Jon Peddie.
The group’s estimates suggest that this is the first time that sales of graphics chips have fallen in the lucrative fourth quarter of a calendar year since 2000. The sales plunge sits 28 percent lower than 2007’s final quarter.
Total graphic chip shipments in last year’s fourth quarter was around 72 million, says the researcher, a fall from 111 million shipments in the previous quarter. The group adds that the final quarter in 2007 saw over 100 million GPUs shipped.
The researcher states that the shipment numbers are not exclusively representing PC GPUs; the chips are used in numerous devices, such as industrial and medical systems, point of sale terminals, kiosks, digital signs, etc. The researcher adds, however, that an apparent third of all PCs being shipped today will be using more than a single GPU.
Source: Jon Peddie
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
It just has to do with people not having money. I actually think its still strong in the PC Gaming market, but everything else, businesses just can't afford updating or adding new hardware. Take in the fact that a ton of retail stores are closed down, those are lost customers for GPU hardware, so that falls on the percentage.
But as far as PC gaming goes, people are buckling up on costs, but there are a ton of games out there that we would spend on. So it comes down on gamers if they really need a new gpu or get that copy of left 4 dead
I think it's mainly because for the most part people are pretty happy with the visuals of games right now. As nolim said 11 million people play WoW. Very few play Crysis on high or very high, which is the only reason to buy super enthusiast cards. besides the fact that why spend $AU 900 on JUST a video card when you can buy a PS3/360 that can do nearly the same thing for a lot less? i mean there is ONE game that stresses these cards enough to need a 4870x2 or GTX 295. ONE GAME!
ATI saw the writing on the wall and concentrated on cheap low to middle rage cards that run the games people want to play at an acceptable level.
Obviously this report is about more than the high end games GPUs, but focusing on that area I have to say is this really a surprise to anyone?
PC gaming has taken a nose dive in the last few years, with MMORPGs and casual games being the only real success stories, neither of which require much in the way of GPU power. Add to this the trend to require two GPUs to get the best performance and you're looking at a spend of £500 or more just on graphics cards for a cutting edge PC, thats before you even consider the CPU, RAM, motherboard and monster power supply that will match your graphics leviathan, and all this to play what? Crysis and and bunch of console ports!
I totally agree with you. For a long time now PC gaming has effectively piggybacked on technology built for an entirely difference purpose. PCs were designed to run our banking systems, telecommunications networks and business systems. Nowadays they occupy the majority of homes and have been billed to for fill and entirely different purpose.
You're right it's hard for many of us to justifying those top end graphic cards every couple of years. It's just not sustainable for a home user on a limited budget. However the current generation of Consoles have now given us a cheaper and more efficient alternative. For what is costs to purchase an Nvidia 295 you could probably get yourself two of the three next gen. consoles.
In my humble opinion, I don't think PC gaming will die out totally, but I could foresee it going back to the good old days, were PC gaming was the realm of Sim's, RPG's, Strategy and FPS. Hopefully at some point though, it will stop trying to be all things, to all people.
If Nvidia and ATI will cool their heels with regards to releasing so many GPU revisions, it will allow dev's and user to catch up with technology.. Because no sooner have you saved for those new cards, you know damn well that a new revision will already be on the horizon.
And in the gaming scope, a lot of those cards ar not so Game capable, at least for recent games, motherboards with integrated graphics solution and budget cards are everywhere.
I would like to see how many decent graphic cards are shipped...