State of pre-built, Home, Business, and Gaming PCs?

[VirtualLarry]

I've been a bit out of the loop. Dave_the_Nerd posted about pre-builts in another thread, and realized that I was a bit out of touch with the current state of things.

Are pre-built PC sales in general still on a downward spiral?

Out of the PCs still selling, in retail stores, what form-factors and types are selling?

Are AIOs still a thing? (Apple is releasing their first "iMac Pro" AIO, of all things.)

Are Towers still popular? (For anything above and beyond a "server" PC for SMB.)

Do ordinary consumers go for SFF / slim towers?

Are mini-PCs (NUC-sized) making any inroads at retail? Atom-powered or Core-powered?

Thanks if anyone can fill me in on these.

 

[whm1974]

Other a notebook or a Mini-PC, I highly doubt I myself would buy a pre-built system. AFAIK Towers are still popular, although AIOs are becoming more of a thing in some circles.

 

[cbn]

I'm still seeing a lot of towers.

However, a new breed of "small" full width (ie, non slim) tower (using SFF psu) is also showing up---> https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...add-a-dual-slot-card-to-this-desktop.2492114/

 

[cbn]

Here are the desktops at Best Buy sorted by "Best Selling":

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?cp=1&searchType=search&_dyncharset=UTF-8&ks=960&sc=Global&list=y&usc=All Categories&type=page&id=pcat17071&iht=n&seeAll=&browsedCategory=pcmcat143400050013&st=categoryid$pcmcat143400050013&qp=condition_facet=Condition~New

The top 3 are Towers (as are rankings #5, #7, #8 in the top 10).

 

[Yakk]

A number of companies I deal with have switched to NUC sized PCs for regular employees and high-end laptops for managers and executives.

Only some engineering/drafting departments will have towers, and of those more and more are going virtual stations with shared server resources.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I've been a bit out of the loop. Dave_the_Nerd posted about pre-builts in another thread, and realized that I was a bit out of touch with the current state of things.

Are pre-built PC sales in general still on a downward spiral?

Not if you include laptops and tablets, although people do wait longer for replacements than they used back in the day.

Out of the PCs still selling, in retail stores, what form-factors and types are selling?

Mostly laptops.

Are AIOs still a thing? (Apple is releasing their first "iMac Pro" AIO, of all things.)

Never really caught on.

Are Towers still popular? (For anything above and beyond a "server" PC for SMB.)

Only with nerds and pros. Everybody else uses laptops.

Do ordinary consumers go for SFF / slim towers?

Yes - more than they do towers. But not as much as laptops.

Are mini-PCs (NUC-sized) making any inroads at retail? Atom-powered or Core-powered?

Yes, but laptops.

There are actually places that publish numbers on this stuff. A lot of them charge for access, but if their releases are always accompanied by a bunch of "state of the industry" articles - if you read a bunch of them you can usually get a pretty good picture of what is going on.

 

[cbn]

Here are the Newegg desktop listings sorted by "Best Selling":

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...And&ActiveSearchResult=True&order=BESTSELLING

Intel compute stick is number #1......but the Towers are ranked #2,#3,#4, #7,#8,#9,#10. (So 7 out of the top 10 spots are occupied by Towers)

 

[cbn]

Do ordinary consumers go for SFF / slim towers?

Yes - more than they do towers. But not as much as laptops.

So far looking at the Newegg (post #7) and Best Buy (post #4) Best selling lists that doesn't appear to be the case.

......but I'll bet for businesses SFF desktops outnumber Towers.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

So far looking at the Newegg (post #7) and Best Buy (post #4) Best selling lists that doesn't appear to be the case.

......but I'll bet for businesses SFF desktops outnumber Towers.

Also depends how you define SFF. A lot of the "slim" desktop PCs are stuff I would consider SFF, but different market research companies might put the line in different spots.

Back in the day, uATX was small.

 

[cbn]

Also depends how you define SFF. A lot of the "slim" desktop PCs are stuff I would consider SFF, but different market research companies might put the line in different spots.

I consider slim desktops SFF as well.

Tower would be pretty much any computer with at least four full width expansion slots.

 

[XavierMace]

You also have to remember volume buyers aren't buying from BestBuy or Newegg. They're either buying direct or through a VAR. So you're not getting a full picture checking Newegg/BestBuy.

 

[cbn]

You also have to remember volume buyers aren't buying from BestBuy or Newegg. They're either buying direct or through a VAR. So you're not getting a full picture checking Newegg/BestBuy.

Oh yes, I do agree for businesses slim/SFF desktops would most likely be more popular than Towers. In fact, just looking at the Arrow direct refurbished desktop sales over the past 2+ years it does appear that SFF (and slim desktops) are more popular than Towers.

For home shoppers, It is probably laptops > towers > Slim and SFF desktops.