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AI Hardware Technology

PC Shipments Stuck in Neutral Despite AI Buzz (theregister.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the no-thanks dept.
The PC market is not showing many signs of a rebound, despite the hype around AI PCs, with market watchers split over whether unit shipments are up or down slightly. From a report: Those magical AI PC boxes were supposed to fire up buyer enthusiasm and spur the somewhat listless market for desktop and laptop systems into significant growth territory, but that doesn't appear to be happening. According to the latest figures from Gartner, global PC shipments totaled 62.9 million units during Q3 of this year, representing a 1.3 percent decline compared with the same period last year. However, this does follow three consecutive quarters of modest growth.

"Even with a full line-up of Windows-based AI PCs for both Arm and x86 in the third quarter of 2024, AI PCs did not boost the demand for PCs since buyers have yet to see their clear benefits or business value," commented Gartner Director Analyst Mikako Kitagawa. This is perhaps understandable when AI PCs are largely just a marketing concept, and vendors can't agree on exactly what the the definition of an AI PC should be. Even worse, some buyers of Arm-based Copilot+ machines discovered that their performance isn't actually very good with some applications.

PC Shipments Stuck in Neutral Despite AI Buzz More | Reply

PC Shipments Stuck in Neutral Despite AI Buzz

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  • Windows on ARM has failed before for the same reasons it will fail now - because nothing works on it, not even Office is complete.

    And the x86 devices from yesterday can still run AI without it, training AI happens in the datacenter on Intel+nVIDIA.

    • Re:You mean Windows on ARM ? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Saturday October 12, 2024 @08:17AM (#64858923) Homepage Journal

      For most people AI and Copilot are irrelevant as well.

      Most of the PCs are for gaming, surfing and business bread and butter cases where most of the processors the last 10 years are quite sufficient.

      The remaining are for data analysis and simulations where you'd get a benefit from the bleeding edge machines. Some servers like web servers and virtualization hypervisors also get a benefit from higher CPU performance.

      • Yep, Arm windows will fail for the same reason IA64 died, Windows 11 will never be widely adopted, and why Intel now produces AMD clones. Intel’s own 64bit architecture had a craptastic emulation of 32bit x86 and after years of trying to push their 64bit CPUs they finally licensed AMD’s design with better 32bit and use it for all Intel’s current 64bit CPUs. Windows apps are basically never updated and people running windows will always need 32bit x86 support.

        • Only gamers care about performance of 32 bit windows software now, because for everyone else they either need to run it on the bare metal for hardware support reasons or the code will run faster in emulation on a modern ARM than it did on any of the original hardware. And of the gamers, it's only those who play old games that it matters to at all, and most of those will run great in emulation on modern machines as well. If they don't, they probably won't run on a modern OS at all since Windows' backwards co

          • Only gamers care about performance of 32 bit windows software now, because for everyone else they either need to run it on the bare metal for hardware support reasons or the code will run faster in emulation on a modern ARM than it did on any of the original hardware.

            Except when it doesn't run at all, like Google Drive for example. Microsoft seems to be tone deaf to the fact that there is value in 40 years of EVERYTHING WORKS, no matter the software or peripheral you want to use, it's the de facto standard,

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ukoda ( 537183 )
              While generally right I think your title should read "X86 Windows 32bit will never not be needed by some people". I ditched Windows 10 years ago and have never looked back. To be fair I have spun up a VM a few times but only for Chinese software that only runs under XP to intially configure stuff like network cameras.

              Likewise "40 years of EVERYTHING WORKS" is somewhat subjective. For routine programs that is largely true. However back circa Windows 2000 and XP they liked to change the device driver m

          • most of those will run great in emulation on modern machines as well

            If it requires 3D hardware acceleration from around the XP era, then nope it won't. VMs are inadequate for that use case. (No real support for a virtual nVidia / ATI GPU that's compatible with the older drivers, and no virtual custom GPU outside of Linux guests.) Wine is also a non-starter due to it's ever increasing memory requirements caused by it's constant chasing of a moving target. Without any consideration given for older software needs. (Example: User32 has bunch of additional code that those 32bit

            • If it requires 3D hardware acceleration from around the XP era, then nope it won't. VMs are inadequate for that use case.

              I have had decent results with vmware player, though that has become increasingly unusable, especially with modern kernels. Still, the graphics support was very good.

              wined3d continues to improve, if I really wanted to run old windows software though I'd keep an old laptop. I really do need to remember to see if I can find my Dt166, I was just thinking about it the other day. It does a great job of running DOS, it has 2d accelerated VGA graphics which make it very compatible with cheap available displays, an

        • I wouldn't be desperately optimistic about client ARM Windows(especially since both AMD and Intel's more recent forays into laptop chips have suggested that they can actually put in pretty solid battery life along with the x86 compatibility you'd expect from an x86 when made sufficiently nervous about it; and when Qualcomm seems committed to positioning their parts as relatively premium even when emulation overhead can still be pretty rough); but it seems less likely to follow the path of IA64.

          It's true
          • I think Arm has basically already won I just don’t see a future for Windows where it’s not a niche thing running old cash registers and the stuff(kinda like how Blackberry is still alive, but the Blackberry OS is now basically only used in automotive systems).

            Copilot and Arm-Windows are silly.

        • Itanium was pretty good for its day. OpenVMS and Linux both ported successfully. 32-bit was tacked on for Microsoft. X86-64 was decried for stretching out the 64bit transition and being a rather energy inefficient way of doing it which ainâ(TM)t wrong. The problem is and always will be Microsoft.

      • For most people AI and Copilot are irrelevant as well.

        Wrong point of view. Many people are taking advantage of "AI" without ever actually knowing it. It is relevant to them. However what isn't relevant to them is throwing dedicated hardware at the problem. We frankly don't do anything critical which needs it. For the things we do which are less critical, existing GPUs can grunt the problem away fast enough for most users. We are just not in the position to need new dedicated hardware for this yet.

    • Office on Mac works well enough that I have no trouble these days exchanging documents with Windows users.

      Office on Mac Intel, Office on Mac ARM, both work fine.

      So, somebody at Microsoft understands how to write cross-platform applications.

      Does it work because they are using the macOS tool chain?

  • What exactly *is* an "AI PC" (Score:3)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Saturday October 12, 2024 @08:17AM (#64858921)
    I don't know if I need one if I don't know what is.

  • I am sure just about everyone here told relatives and friends to avoid Windows 11 like a plague. I know I have. But that is hard to avoid paying for it with the Microsoft tax.

    So, I know I have suggested Apple and for one person I will be finding a referb Thinkpad and put MX on it for her. I wonder how many people here have done the same.

    Granted Apple is not a great deal better that windows with it spyware. But Apple does not have anything like CoPilot plus I heard you can disable Apple's phone-home func

    • I wouldn't be so sure ... that windows is on the decline in any important way.
      The millions of businesses that are "vendor locked in" all seem to shrug and pay for the next release without much thought. The main argument is that it's just too much work and expense to change or fix. It's going to really have to hurt before they rip the bandage off.

      The trend that I perceive is that your Microsoft, Apple, VMWare, Cisco, Adobe, all the giants, they just shove the horseshit down your throat, take the inevitable c

    • Everyone here? That's not a lot of people anymore. We don't have much influence.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Mac with Apple spyware? To which spyware do you refer?

  • Why would you buy brand new obsolete stuff? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Saturday October 12, 2024 @08:24AM (#64858933)

    Do you honestly believe that anything "AI" you buy now is going to cut it in a few months? Anyone who's surprised hasn't been around long enough to learn not to sink their money into manic trends.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      What do you mean by "cut it"?

      I am not excited by the prospect of an "AI" accelerated CPU because I have a tolerably powerful GPU, and because only the new and thus expensive parts have this label slapped on them. I am only now upgrading from Zen+ to Zen3 and to a system with PCIe 4.0 for reasons of being a cheap bastard. But how many people out there are really excited to spend big money on a PC right now? A very small percentage of people, almost all of whom are computer professionals, have both the inclin

      • If the market were strong, layoffs would not be in the rise. Don't be fooled by high stock prices driven by inflation and speculators

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I think most people are just waiting to see what happens with Windows 10, such is supposed to be EOL next year. If Microsoft doesn't reverse course and consigns millions of PCs to landfill, people will either make the decision to upgrade then or just switch to something like a Chromebook or even just a tablet for their computing needs.

        • ...people will either make the decision to upgrade then or just switch to something like a Chromebook or even just a tablet for their computing needs.

          Or forgo them completely. One of my adult sons never replaced his broken laptop a decade ago, and the other has never had one. Today's "phones" are more capable then yesteryear's towers.

          • PC Gamers are moving to Linux in larger numbers than ever before thanks to the good work from the Wine team, Valve, and others. We are of course still a small slice of the market, but Windows 11 has spurred a surge of interest in Linux.

    • Yes I can. The reason I can believe this is because despite all the hype about new hardware virtually all consumer AI applications run perfectly fine on 3year old non-dedicated a hardware. If you are playing games, you likely have a powerful enough GPU to run any current AI application from an end user point of view already (not talking about generating new models here, but simply applying existing ones.)

  • AI on PCs is for the ad guys, not users... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The AI on PCs is intended for the people to sling ads and go through your files to figure out the most salient, salable data points. It isn't for the end user.

    Why should end users bother upgrading so Big Brother has a sharper and more focused camera lens?

  • AFAIK, "AI" doesn't make a PC or laptop "good" & I don't want to pay extra for something that has no clear & useful benefit. What makes a PC/laptop good? - Low power consumption/running cool/quietly, decent screen & keyboard, & an OS that doesn't interrupt our work with notifications, updates, ads, etc.. For some a decent webcam & mic may be attractive... but those haven't got any better for years now, & yet the ones on our phones are great. For laptops, make chassis & cases tha

  • 3D, Blockchain, AI (Score:5, Informative)

    by YuppieScum ( 1096 ) on Saturday October 12, 2024 @09:28AM (#64859007) Journal

    "AI PC" is just the latest buzz-term to try and convince consumers to replace their existing, perfectly serviceable, products.

    Despite the marketing hype of "everyone can be a creative," the majority of domestic PC use is browser-based, with a little letter-writing and casual gaming. In the corporate world, it's mostly browser/native in-house apps and Word/Excel/Outlook, often via thin-client. Neither use-case benefits from "AI," certainly not to the extent of spending significant cash.

    The next bump in hardware sales will only happen when Win10 goes EoL. Domestic users will discover that MS has arbitrarily locked them out of an OS upgrade, and the choice is either new hardware or Linux.

    • I'll be (morbidly) curious to see how MS reacts when Win10 goes EOL.

      They'd clearly like everyone to rush out and buy a shiny new 'Copilot+ PC with Windows 11 and Office 365'; but that's just not going to happen in a great many cases; and we've seen behavior in the past(eg. having Windows Update function normally even on PCs that have failed activation for a prolonged period of time) that suggests that they know that a major threat to their customers is their poorer or less enthusiastic customers running

      • ...buy a shiny new 'Copilot+ PC with Windows 11 and Office 365'...

        And here's going to be another problem - Joe/Joanne User doesn't know (or care) about the difference between ARM and x86/64, but will be mightily pissed off if their new Windows PC won't run their favourite app properly, or at all.

        Apple users are used to the fundamental architecture & instruction set being changed every few years, and being told to suck it up if stuff doesn't work on the "new hotness."

        On the other hand, Windows users - and the media - are so vocal that a hefty chunk of every new OS ver

        • but will be mightily pissed off if their new Windows PC won't run their favourite app properly, or at all.

          What is their favourite app? No one is buying these low powered devices for gaming. No one considers antivirus or security software their favourite app. Major apps already support ARM, and for virtually everything else Prism will handle translation transparently, even for 64bit applications.

          Just as we saw with the first roll-out of ChromeBooks, I foresee lots of dissatisfied customers returning ARM-based Windows machines.

          ARM machines have been on the market now for 5 years. While they haven't sold spectacularly well, they also haven't seen any massive returns or disgruntled users either. Having used a Surface Pro X many times I suspect m

  • Superresolution and distilling of a local data search index, that's about it. Even if you use AI search of your local data, it will probably use remote models in the process since they are just so much better.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abulafia ( 7826 )

      Privacy.

      If you think people's search engine terms can be revealing, wait until you see what people type at Enterprise Autocorrect.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      it will probably use remote models in the process since they are just so much better.

      So the MS feature everyone is mad about only uses a local model. MS has performance requirements to be called an AI PC specifically so it can run the local models. The issue wasn't the processing it was the storage. It was (haven't seen a analysis of their updated version) trivially easy to steal the database of screenshots if you got access to the PC.

      • If you got access to a logged in account someone will put something on github to still make it trivial. If Recall can access it, you can access it.

  • What does this DO for me? (Score:3)

    by linebackn ( 131821 ) on Saturday October 12, 2024 @10:07AM (#64859041)

    Ok, wise salesguys, what does this magic AI enabled chip actually DO for me? Why should I want it?

    I'm waiting for you answer.

    Still waiting.

    No answer? Then why should I buy it? I don't need it. I don't want if. You act all surprised that tacking on the letters AI aren't magically selling new PCs. The marketing hype still has sailsdroids brainwashed on this useless crap and someone still has enough money to bombard us with unwarranted praise for AI every five seconds.

    It's like how Windows 8 tried to turn desktop PCs in to large cell phones. Nobody wanted that.

    • Ok, wise salesguys, what does this magic AI enabled chip actually DO for me? Why should I want it?

      imagine playing a game, like strategy or rpg, and the game implements a way to display the game world to your computers "AI" interface in text format .. as well as enabling the "AI" to call functions in your game, in real time, to control the NPCs.. and you could use anyones "AI" software implementation instructed exactly the way you wanted, you could actually have diplomatic negotiations with other factions or council of war with your generals and governors .. keeping track of everything that needs to be i

  • 20 years ago I would upgrade my PC a few times a year because PC related parts were sanely priced and it was fun. Today, not so much. When run of the mill motherboards cost $200+ and CPU upgrades year to year offer little to no performance benefit then what's the point? The icing on the cake is that Windows has become absolute shit removing the fun out of building and upgrading PCs. Sure, Linux is an option, but it's not even close to being ready for every day desktop adoption sadly. The tech industry is sl

    • I too am a bit shocked when I see motherboard prices, but... speeds over motherboards these days are breath taking. Connection to Dram, usb3, pci express 5, multi phase on board DCDC converters, 24 bit audio,.., these things are mind boggling. I think the price is justified. When I look ate my old 80286 motherboard I think our ancestors were idiots.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      CPU upgrades year to year offer little to no performance benefit

      Are we really complaining about this? I'm perfectly happy to not feel the need to upgrade more often for performance reasons. I ran my main PC with a 4790K for over 5 years. I replaced it with a 9900XE (OK I might have gone a bit overboard but I run a lot of VMs for work/play so it made sense) in 2020 and I expect to run that until at least 2026 or 2027 before I will actually need to upgrade, and then probably more for faster PCIE/RAM speeds than CPU being too old.

      This reminds me of people complaining a

  • A lot of individuals bought PC's to work at home on during the pandemic, new and used. The used ones are about to have a major dilemma, not upgradeable to W11. The newer ones are probably already on W11. The need to stay supported will be the driver for purchases, not AI. While the AI function is cool, it seems like a gimmick, at least to me.

    I do think we will see a rebound in 2025 as businesses start migrating to W11. They will likely flip machines rather than rebuild/upgrade.

    For Linux folks, there

  • Older computers work fine for most people.
    The current generation of AI is nearly useless, but hypemongers and investors demand that it be shoved down our throats NOW.
    Windows on ARM is a bad, bad, horrible, no good, awful idea. Backward compatibility is a really good thing. For some, it's absolutely essential.
    The latest news about Intel processor instability makes some people skeptical about new processors.

  • It should read "PC Shipments Stuck in Neutral Because of AI Buzz"

    I'm going to not so dangerously speculate that most people are very done with all the spying that industry does on them. They're sick of the constant barrage of ads from every goddamned electronic thing they buy; and that "AI" buzzword just means more of that shit is going to be shoveled into their brainspace. That's a huge net negative for the average person, irrespective of what some delusionally extroverted influencer is peddling.

    I think i

  • AI PC boxes were supposed to fire up buyer enthusiasm

    Was anyone other than maybe some marketing people at PC makers or some goofs at Gartner actually predicting this? Like actual, reliable (!), industry analysts? I can't think of any and I can't think of any reason why consumers would be persuaded by AI specific features at this point in time.

    • AI is the new buzzword in technology. Most people simply do not care about it for them to want it in their next computer. They think AI exists in the cloud and they can get it now anyways. They are mostly right.

  • What in the world is an "AI PC"? I get what Apple Intelligence is ... pure marketing genius offered to a gullible market segment. But what is an AI PC? Are these PCs with 4090's for people either not connected to the Internet or who can't stomach the hundreds of millisecond lag in cloud-based AI response?

    I do give the PC makers some credit for realizing that they don't have Apple fairy dust and that a marketing blitz would not only be futile but also ridiculed. That's why the first time I've heard about

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hughJ ( 1343331 )

      There's also a world of difference between marketing buzz and market buzz. One is aspirational the other is real. As long as AI PCs aren't delivering some meaningful added value and/or consumers don't have excess money to spend, I'm not sure why anyone would think empty marketing would translate to sales. Anyone should have been able to see this coming when every AI NPU PC benchmark has had to advertise with synthetic performance metrics rather than real world applications. They literally decided to add

  • I went to Best Buy right after the AI PCs were first launched to decide between a Surface Laptop and a Surface Pro. For some reason, I thought the built-in AI features would let me do obvious things, like ask for basic stats in spreadsheets or launch menu settings. I was terribly mistaken, and the only AI feature I could figure out was the Copilot chatbot, which is effectively a skin for ChatGPT. I mean, I was dead-set on getting one of those new laptops, and when that happened I just left and had zero desi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      I pity you and I feel really sorry for you that you had to waste some time in order to find out. At least, you are healed now so everything is now fine I guess.

  • Yes, Intel included an NPU in their just released CPU's, but they're way too slow to be used in Windows 11's Copilot+ (even if you wanted to). And I know of no other purpose for that hardware, though have not spent a ton of effort looking for their marketing slides.

    No that is not the only definition of an AI PC, but it's what they meant in the article. Stuff "Joe Q Public" might go spend some new money on.

    Not the high end gaming GPU to run the poor man's version of what cloud service providers offer. And

  • If the PC dies, then Microsoft killed it. Greedy corporate bastards destroyed the operating system and turned it into their own ad machine. Who let Microsoft create a monopoly on operating systems anyway?

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