8 year upgrade cycles future? Intel running on fumes.

[Fjodor2001]

The peak in 00 was perhaps for the western world. But since then more people in the rest of the world have also been able to get a PC, so PCs have sold pretty good until the last few years.

As for smartphones, I agree that they have grown in importance, but not many people rely on them as their single source of computing. They still have a desktop or laptop too.

BTW, mobiles and tablets will peak soon too. They are also reaching a good enough state.

Soon we'll all be upgrading out stuff only when the battery life gets too poor, due to too many recharge cycles...

 

[TheELF]

BTW, mobiles and tablets will peak soon too. They are also reaching a good enough state.

Soon we'll all be upgrading out stuff only when the battery life gets too poor, due to too many recharge cycles...

Depends,intel invests in wearable computing like google glasses,VR and enhanced reality might become a big thing relatively soon.
If intel can get the mainstream CPUs into those it will be a fun future,having your desktop pc equivalent built into some wearable piece seeing a 3d desktop through your glasses and giving commands through cortana.

 

[Charmonium]

Depends,intel invests in wearable computing like google glasses,VR and enhanced reality might become a big thing relatively soon.
If intel can get the mainstream CPUs into those it will be a fun future,having your desktop pc equivalent built into some wearable piece seeing a 3d desktop through your glasses and giving commands through cortana.

VR is going to be about as popular as 3D was but unlike 3D where it's just an added option to a purchase you were going to make anyway, VR requires actual gear which at least up until now, has all been bulky and essentially crap. VR is never going to take off until there is a reliable way of reading brainwaves so you can think about doing something and the gear is able to read that reliably. But that isn't going to happen anytime soon - or even not so soon.

The only real market is going to be for very low end processors for the IoT (internet of things). And there are better alternatives than Intel for that sort of processor. But Intel, like IBM before it, relied too much on steep markups for hardware. IoT is going to be a commodity market and it's much harder to make money in that sort of environment. Plus it's not how Intel is organized. They're not a lean, mean, discounter. They're a pudgy, top heavy organization that relies on fat margins.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I think providing 5-8% yearly performance increased may have worked decently for Intel for some years, since the people with 5+ year old computers still got a decent upgrade when upgrading to the latest CPU.

But soon we'll be having a situation where all CPUs that are 5-8 years old are still good enough. Who will upgrade then?

If Intel doesn't find an answer to that question, I think the downwards PC trend will escalate, and Intel will be in big trouble...

Erm, no. x86 software is the key driver for the success of PC, which in turn lifted up Intel, due to lack of other consumer alternatives until the smartphone era. The CPU performance is a red herring in comparison.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I don't see VR going anywhere in the next 5 years.

 

[Hugo Drax]

VR is going to be about as popular as 3D was but unlike 3D where it's just an added option to a purchase you were going to make anyway, VR requires actual gear which at least up until now, has all been bulky and essentially crap. VR is never going to take off until there is a reliable way of reading brainwaves so you can think about doing something and the gear is able to read that reliably. But that isn't going to happen anytime soon - or even not so soon.

The only real market is going to be for very low end processors for the IoT (internet of things). And there are better alternatives than Intel for that sort of processor. But Intel, like IBM before it, relied too much on steep markups for hardware. IoT is going to be a commodity market and it's much harder to make money in that sort of environment. Plus it's not how Intel is organized. They're not a lean, mean, discounter. They're a pudgy, top heavy organization that relies on fat margins.

The irony for Intel is they are so greedy and shortsighted that they do not make AVX across the entire new platform. So in essence. I one writes new compelling software to take advantage of AVX which in return means there are now new killer apps to encourage users to upgrade.

At this point all skylake CPUs should offer AVX

 

[Unico]

At this point all skylake CPUs should offer AVX

Unfortunately the Skylake Pentiums, G4400, G4500, and G4520 do not support AVX. Just SSE4.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/88179,90732,90730

 

[bigboxes]

Windows 7 is still full of bugs. And no new features will be added either.

Support wise its really hard to justify Windows 7.

We can then argue about what OS version we like and we dont. But there is also a reality to take into account.

I'm not arguing that point. What I meant is that Win7 is a mature OS whole Win10 has just been released. It will take MS a while to get the kinks worked out on it.