*** Intel Kaby Lake is HERE! ***

Surely you can't complain about small gains and high prices, as it means the older gen CPUs are lasting longer, and would have cost less initially. If you don't like these prices, buy a second hand i5 or i7, or wait to see how AMD performs and is priced.
 
As mentioned, prices have gone up across the spectrum... no PC component is immune. Obviously Brexit and £/$ rate has made a significant impact, but that aside, we'd still be seeing higher prices. There's definitely been a move in recent years to new for the sake of new. Nobody needs a £200 keyboard, a £150 mouse, an £800 case or a £1200 binned 5GHz CPU that for all intents and purposes performs the same as a £300 one from the previous gen. There is an absurdity to this which seems to go ignored, and from a psychological point of view verges on the disturbing. It makes me wonder what the future has in store, but I do not think it will be bright.
 
Legend said:
Nobody needs a £200 keyboard, a £150 mouse, an £800 case or a £1200 binned 5GHz CPU that for all intents and purposes performs the same as a £300 one from the previous gen. There is an absurdity to this which seems to go ignored, and from a psychological point of view verges on the disturbing. It makes me wonder what the future has in store, but I do not think it will be bright.
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Seems like a radical thought process, got to bear in mind that the forums are just a little niche of people with opinions generally about enthusiast products. What people discuss has moved on from just figuring out how to make things actually work to how things can be far more personal and faster (because things do tend to work pretty good these days!). Not saying those things didn't exist previously but now they have become a focus of everyone and with that things get more extreme to suit their needs. But that extreme was already there, hell i've known people for a long time with individual keycaps worth more than a claymore, remember all that SR-2 hype too! Things are ok and there is an absurdity to everything, prices gonna price, I just hope we can continue to have nice things. On one little note at least HDD prices have fallen back to where they were, and SSD's. Damn when I first had a 120GB SSD it was insane. Now I have 1TB on an M.2 that's 3x as fast!

JR

Edit: That £800 case is a joke though right?
 
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JR23 said:
Seems like a radical thought process, got to bear in mind that the forums are just a little niche of people with opinions generally about enthusiast products. What people discuss has moved on from just figuring out how to make things actually work to how things can be far more personal and faster (because things do tend to work pretty good these days!). Not saying those things didn't exist previously but now they have become a focus of everyone and with that things get more extreme to suit their needs. But that extreme was already there, hell i've known people for a long time with individual keycaps worth more than a claymore, remember all that SR-2 hype too! Things are ok and there is an absurdity to everything, prices gonna price, I just hope we can continue to have nice things. On one little note at least HDD prices have fallen back to where they were, and SSD's. Damn when I first had a 120GB SSD it was insane. Now I have 1TB on an M.2 that's 3x as fast!

JR

Edit: That £800 case is a joke though right?
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I do see your point, but it's not exactly radical. This is something sociologists have been talking about for a long time. Mass consumerism is hardly a recent phenomenon, it stretches back many years. There is far greater emphasis on 'things', having the latest tech, new for the sake of new etc. We see this throughout society with virtually ever consumer product, from washing machines to mobile phones. The 'want' has come to outweigh the 'need'. Couple to that the frustration many enthusiasts have in respect to PC tech, with CPUs not offering the same performance between generations as they one did, GPU prices going through the roof, the RGB-ification of all the things, monitors that cost north of £1000 and don't even go through the QC process properly... yet it's all sold to us as a must have, and people buy it... A LOT of people buy it (admittedly there are more savvy people on this forum who are wise to this though). Niche is becoming less applicable a word when it comes to the world of PC consumerism, and although I know it's hardly mainstream, it's still indicative of the bigger picture and the society we live in.
 
Legend said:
I do see your point, but it's not exactly radical. This is something sociologists have been talking about for a long time. Mass consumerism is hardly a recent phenomenon, it stretches back many years. There is far greater emphasis on 'things', having the latest tech, new for the sake of new etc. We see this throughout society with virtually ever consumer product, from washing machines to mobile phones. The 'want' has come to outweigh the 'need'. Couple to that the frustration many enthusiasts have in respect to PC tech, with CPUs not offering the same performance between generations as they one did, GPU prices going through the roof, the RGB-ification of all the things, monitors that cost north of £1000 and don't even go through the QC process properly... yet it's all sold to us as a must have, and people buy it... A LOT of people buy it (admittedly there are more savvy people on this forum who are wise to this though). Niche is becoming less applicable a word when it comes to the world of PC consumerism, and although I know it's hardly mainstream, it's still indicative of the bigger picture and the society we live in.
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Well i'm not going to engage in discussion of consumerism or the larger concerns of our society, however relevant, because that is bait. But I don't think we are going to enter a post apocalyptic era of death over extreme premium products, maybe small IPC gains could trigger something? And I do think it's likely there is a link between misunderstanding the specification of gaming orientated panels and shockingly advanced mental instability. Maybe just don't believe the hype, don't oppose the hype, just allow the hype in general and things are ok. Got to agree about RGB however and I live in anticipation that it will become forever one with the sea.

JR
 
JR23 said:
Well i'm not going to engage in discussion of consumerism or the larger concerns of our society, however relevant, because that is bait. But I don't think we are going to enter a post apocalyptic era of death over extreme premium products, maybe small IPC gains could trigger something? And I do think it's likely there is a link between misunderstanding the specification of gaming orientated panels and shockingly advanced mental instability. Maybe just don't believe the hype, don't oppose the hype, just allow the hype in general and things are ok. Got to agree about RGB however and I live in anticipation that it will become forever one with the sea.

JR
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No post apocalyptic fears necessary... but I for one am concerned that we will see ever decreasing movement forwards in respect to performance in many areas. It's ultimately down to 'us' though... the only reason Intel are putting out a CPU virtually the same as the last gen is because they know they can sell it and make millions doing so! Lack of competition aside, if they knew people weren't going to pay for it, we might expect them to work harder and wait until they actually had something worth upgrading to! Hype is a powerful motivator for many though... easy to say ignore it, but it's quite evident most people cannot. You'd think we'd have learned from the past, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I am sincerely hoping AMD can deliver on Ryzen and VEGA, as that can only help.
 
Legend said:
No post apocalyptic fears necessary... but I for one am concerned that we will see ever decreasing movement forwards in respect to performance in many areas. It's ultimately down to 'us' though... the only reason Intel are putting out a CPU virtually the same as the last gen is because they know they can sell it and make millions doing so! Lack of competition aside, if they knew people weren't going to pay for it, we might expect them to work harder and wait until they actually had something worth upgrading to! Hype is a powerful motivator for many though... easy to say ignore it, but it's quite evident most people cannot. You'd think we'd have learned from the past, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I am sincerely hoping AMD can deliver on Ryzen and VEGA, as that can only help.
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Are Intel able to put out much better performing CPU's? I remember reading years ago that future performance would have to be more cores as for the time being at least the speed of an individual cores has been reached and that has happened,hence, if you can afford it we have 10 core CPU's today. Also, if PC's are a declining market then they have to limit their spending on R&D.....or the prices go much, much higher to a price we simply wouldn't pay? Would we prefer it if no small incremental improvements were made and go much longer between new CPU releases?

As you said, maybe AMD will shake things up a bit but I wouldn't be surprised if not and that might be due to what they're willing to spend on R&D for desktop CPU's. I'm sure much of the lack of progression is down to lack of competition but think it's more than that alone.

I'm glad we no longer have to do a near full machine upgrade with each new release of Windows at least :)
 
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Legend said:
As mentioned, prices have gone up across the spectrum... no PC component is immune. Obviously Brexit and £/$ rate has made a significant impact, but that aside, we'd still be seeing higher prices. There's definitely been a move in recent years to new for the sake of new. Nobody needs a £200 keyboard, a £150 mouse, an £800 case or a £1200 binned 5GHz CPU that for all intents and purposes performs the same as a £300 one from the previous gen. There is an absurdity to this which seems to go ignored, and from a psychological point of view verges on the disturbing. It makes me wonder what the future has in store, but I do not think it will be bright.
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The thing is one big brand will raise prices to previously unheard of amounts and people will still buy it. Then you have other brands eventually following suite. Paving the way for higher prices across the board.

Keyboards is the best example, Razer were absurd releasing a £100+ keyboard back with the original Blackwidow but now they're all at it and starting to push £200. Where does the line get drawn? Next we'll be seeing PC components being pushed on finance plans because they're too expensive for the general consumer.
 
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