^ This. Every time a new CPU generation comes out, we go through the same recycled
"is X now dead?" based clickbait from self-sampling enthusiast writers. "Real world mainstream people" are the ones who don't argue about CPU's / GPU's in tech / gamer forums day after day, and are too busy playing games (not even AAA's) to argue over who a "Real Gamer (tm)" is. "Mainstreamers" often have static needs regardless of available hardware, eg, light office work, email, web, ripping a CD to MP3, etc, haven't changed in +15 years). Those who need heavy "time is money" parallel workload solutions (ie, 4K video encoding, rendering, etc, for work) will have their employer buy them one and then be too busy using it to make daily
"look what I just bought" posts. Enthusiasts often over-sell exotic use-case scenario's as "every man's needs" via goalpost moving to justify a new upgrade whilst those with lower hardware simply avoid those same scenario's with greater common sense. Examples:-
- Video. A guy has a typical 20min video to encode for Youtube upload that evening. Let's say encoding times are TR 1950X = 3m / R7 1800X = 5m / i5-7600K = 10m / G4560 = 18m. The guy starts the encode at 6pm then goes and eats dinner, watches the news, etc, and comes back at 6:30pm. All four tasks are complete, have been sitting idle for +10mins and none have held him up for typical light usage until the amount of video encoded becomes substantial (hours per day). The 16/32 chip may be
desirable and benchmark 3-6x faster vs 2/4 & 4/4 chips but it's not
necessary for the average user to need one to accomplish the same sub-30min task in any evening, nor will the user get 3-6x more done if he only needs that one video encoded. It's why despite funny comments of 4GHz 4C/4T not being good enough, half the people with Youtube channels have 2GHz 15w "U" chip 2C/4T laptops and don't see what all the fuss is...
^ This is what separates enthusiast from mainstream. The benchmark obsessed enthusiast will argue how much faster everything will be for all future
infinite work. The mainstream user will simply ask "Can it do this
finite task" (ie, "encode a video whilst I'm making dinner / watching Netflix", "type letters", "play music", etc) and literally not care about number chasing beyond that. Same goes for other stuff:-
- Photo editing : Enthusiast =
"Now I can run batch Adobe Photoshop scripts for 80-layer banner-size 50MP prints I may develop a future interest in!" Mainstream = "Can I crop, resize, rotate, remove red eye, adjust color and add funny captions to my 5-20MP single-layer grainy smart-phone JPG's in PS Elements / Paint.NET / GIMP on this? It's so simple even my phone has enough horsepower, but I want to use a bigger screen."
- Web browsing. Enthusiast = "OMG, my i5 rig is so slow during 100 tab web browsing sessions with 90x of those tabs all auto-playing video and flash ads. Therefore a 16/32 ThreadRipper is the new low-end to browse the net". Mainstream = "When I asked how to speed up web browsing, I was universally recommended to install ublock Origin and since then my web page render speeds have quintupled with all the trackers, pop-ups, pop-unders, etc, removed as a bonus. Now my i3 is so fast!!!"
- Office. Enthusiast = "My Excel Monte Carlo benchmarks are too low. I need to upgrade just in case I decide to become a Fortune 500 statistician working from home specialising in uncertainty probability modelling". Mainstream = "My son just swapped out my hard disk for something called an "S-S-D". Now all my normal sized office files open in under 1s on my Pentium laptop!"
- Audio. Enthusiast = "Even though I have zero interest in audio now and don't have the software anyway, at some point I may need to apply multiple filters to 32x tracks simultaneously. Ryzen 1800X or i7?" Mainstream = "Can this laptop rip a CD to MP3? I'm told even the slowest dual-core CPU's available today are bottlenecked by the optical drive speed"
- Gaming. Enthusiast = "I have an i7-7700K @ 5GHz with GTX 1070 and this is the third f****** stupid sh*tty console port that keeps dropping below 50fps. I DIDN'T SPEND $450 FOR ANYTHING LESS THAN ULTRA!" Mainstream =
"Currently rocking 60-70fps in BF1, Doom, GTA V, etc, on custom High/V High mix on a 1050Ti. It's surprising how many heavier games can run at 60fps too by turning all the silly Pure Ultra sh*t off like "Chromatic Aberration, Lens Dirt", etc. I just don't see the point in putting higher res textures in only to smudge 80% of them outside the centre of the screen all out again with 3 layers of blur. By switching off "smear your monitor in Vaseline and pretend you have severe Myopia and Glaucoma simulator" in the settings menu, I easily turned the 50fps that the 'proper' benchmarks said I would get into a solid 60fps".
Enthusiast = "PC's are my hobby for life. All other enthusiasts online agree that's what mainstream is"
Mainstream = "
I'll get what's good enough for what I need and then run it into the ground. One thing I've learned is that half of performance isn't just what you have, but the way that you use it"