Question Xbox Series X and AMD Zen 2 CPU

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beginner99

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Jun 2, 2009
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Not really true, the gap was never like this, they are selling to MS the equivalent of a 3700X along with a unreleased absolutely top of the line Navi GPU and the whole console will probably cost less than a equivalent Navi GPU once released.

Exactly. Thats why sales of GPUs are tanking because people aren't that stupid. Makes no sense to buy a new gpu now. if you really need one get a used polaris for $100 or less.
 

beginner99

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2009
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Unless you are using it to help cure the Corona virus. The GPU is the best thing in F@H.

Let's be real. The real problem is making health care a business for profit and hence having enough supplies in storage and enough beds available is very bad for profit. If there were enough masks, gloves, disinfectant, ventilators,... the issue would be far more managebale. I mean countries have oil reserves for months-years but run out of masks in couple of days?
 

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
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Not really true, the gap was never like this, they are selling to MS the equivalent of a 3700X along with a unreleased absolutely top of the line Navi GPU and the whole console will probably cost less than a equivalent Navi GPU once released. This means to get a PC with equivalent console power you need to spend about x4 the money, maybe more, this never happened before and this means that the hardware that the are selling on PC sector is overpriced.
That's a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think? You can spec out a full 3700X/B450/5700XT system with a 1TB M.2 and 16GB ram for $1000 today, and the 3700X will be more performant than the TDP limited one in the Series X. A 52CU RDNA2 GPU might could add a couple hundred to the pricetag, but that brings it to 3x the price, if you use $400 for a release price.
It's still a great value, but it's not like you could buy a $600 computer in 1990 that would give you a comparable gaming experience to a $200 SNES.
 
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eek2121

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Aug 2, 2005
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Let's be real. The real problem is making health care a business for profit and hence having enough supplies in storage and enough beds available is very bad for profit. If there were enough masks, gloves, disinfectant, ventilators,... the issue would be far more managebale. I mean countries have oil reserves for months-years but run out of masks in couple of days?

At the risk of going off-topic: you can’t plan for worse case. What do you do with all those extra medical personnel when there isn’t a 100-year health crisis? Medical equipment like ventilators need regular maintenance as well. Also, using ventilators specifically as an example, the ventilator of today is far more advanced than the ventilator of 20 years ago.

It’s like saying we should hold onto 100-year old cars just in case...

Finally, in most countries, our health system isn’t being overwhelmed. The vast majority of deaths are people in the hospital on a ventilator.
 
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Valantar

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Aug 26, 2014
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it doesnt sound amazing to me, sounds OK and since it only runs games it should do OK with that. to bad it cant do 1440@120hz like a PC who uses 60hz nowdays?
What are you on about? The Xbox One X supports 1440p, so I would be very surprised if the XSX doesnt. The XSX also supports 4k120 (with VRR) over HDMI 2.1, and while most games will likely target 4k60 that would translate well to 1440p120 in games that need it. Might not hit that without cutting detail levels, but it should be entirely possible in games where a framerate like that can make a difference.
 

mikegg

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Jan 30, 2010
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Not really true, the gap was never like this, they are selling to MS the equivalent of a 3700X along with a unreleased absolutely top of the line Navi GPU and the whole console will probably cost less than a equivalent Navi GPU once released. This means to get a PC with equivalent console power you need to spend about x4 the money, maybe more, this never happened before and this means that the hardware that the are selling on PC sector is overpriced.
If your PC is only for games, then XSX will be a far better bang for the buck. Microsoft will probably sell these consoles at break-even or at a loss. On top of that, they're ordering components in bulk and skipping the retail markup.
 
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Atari2600

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Nov 22, 2016
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Let's be real. The real problem is making health care a business for profit and hence having enough supplies in storage and enough beds available is very bad for profit. If there were enough masks, gloves, disinfectant, ventilators,... the issue would be far more managebale. I mean countries have oil reserves for months-years but run out of masks in couple of days?

I wonder is there a ventilator design that can be (mostly) 3D printed and then use commercial off-the-shelf components for seals etc.

Would be great if a lot of industries that use such printing could quickly retask (as opposed to time-consuming re-tool) to produce such items.


google is my friend (well, no it isn't - its a multinational with no ethics) - but does give me this: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/19/o...ilator-validation-prototype-in-just-one-week/

I posted a warning already but some of you may not have seen it. Stick to the thread topic and leave the politics to P&N.
This will be the last warning before infractions are handed out.

Iron Woode

Super Moderator
 
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Shivansps

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Sep 11, 2013
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It's not overpriced if it's selling way better than Intel. Surely Intel is overpriced then as well?

They are all overpriced, Intel, AMD and Nvidia. The fact that AMD can sell to MS and Sony such APU for near nothing means PC prices are overpriced across the board for all brands.

Lets see, the PS4 APU is a 8 Core Jaguar with a HD7850... due to TDP limits, an 2C/4T I3 with a 750TI had similar perf... The PS4 Pro version is a higher clocked version of the same jaguar cpu cores paired with something very similar to a Polaris 10.

The Xbox X APU is a 3700X with turbo disabled with a RTX2080 Super, more or less. Im fine with consoles getting decent hardware for once, but lets face it, PC hardware is overpriced and we have to expend a lot more to get similar perf, well see once new gen launches but im not expecting this to change much, price has been only going up over the past few years (for GPUs).
 
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Saylick

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Sep 10, 2012
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They are all overpriced, Intel, AMD and Nvidia. The fact that AMD can sell to MS and Sony such APU for near nothing means PC prices are overpriced across the board for all brands.

Lets see, the PS4 APU is a 8 Core Jaguar with a HD7850... due to TDP limits, an 2C/4T I3 with a 750TI had similar perf... The PS4 Pro version is a higher clocked version of the same jaguar cpu cores paired with something very similar to a Polaris 10.

The Xbox X APU is a 3700X with turbo disabled with a RTX2080 Super, more or less. Im fine with consoles getting decent hardware for once, but lets face it, PC hardware is overpriced and we have to expend a lot more to get similar perf, well see once new gen launches but im not expecting this to change much, price has been only going up over the past few years (for GPUs).
There's a reason why I've largely transitioned from PC gaming to console gaming (r/pcmasterrace has entered the chat).

Next gen 1st-party console titles are going to actually lead the way for next gen games, in my opinion, especially since they are going to be designed from the ground up to take advantage of PCIe SSDs. If a game was designed to be able to instantly stream in gigabytes of game assets, either the minimum specs will require you to have something similar on your PC or it won't be a PC port at all. I feel this is especially true for PS5 exclusive titles as it has an SSD capable of 5.5 GB/s of throughput. You simply couldn't play a game with an engine designed around this capability on a PC if you were stuck with an HDD.

The question is: A) will consoles keep within the sub-$500 mark, B) will console prices increase towards their PC brethren, C) will PC parts come down in price?
 

Valantar

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Aug 26, 2014
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They are all overpriced, Intel, AMD and Nvidia. The fact that AMD can sell to MS and Sony such APU for near nothing means PC prices are overpriced across the board for all brands.

Lets see, the PS4 APU is a 8 Core Jaguar with a HD7850... due to TDP limits, an 2C/4T I3 with a 750TI had similar perf... The PS4 Pro version is a higher clocked version of the same jaguar cpu cores paired with something very similar to a Polaris 10.

The Xbox X APU is a 3700X with turbo disabled with a RTX2080 Super, more or less. Im fine with consoles getting decent hardware for once, but lets face it, PC hardware is overpriced and we have to expend a lot more to get similar perf, well see once new gen launches but im not expecting this to change much, price has been only going up over the past few years (for GPUs).
Saying they're overpriced shows that you either don't understand how manufacturing, distribution and retail sales work, or that you are woefully underinformed about console ecosystem economics.

On the one hand, you have a rather traditional open market value chain, where you have a product made by one of several small-to-medium manufacturers (AIB partners for GPUs) or a couple or large ones for CPUs, which has its own suppliers of components (for GPUs AMD is mainly a parts supplier, even if they sometimes supply the GPU, VRAM and reference PCB design). For this finished product you then have a manufacturer that needs to make a profit, as all it does is sell that product. To sell the product, it needs to be distributed to points of sale in all relevant markets, which means the manufacturer sells to distributors (who sometimes sell it on to other distributors) who again sell to retailers. All these steps add to the price, as they all have costs to cover (wages, shipping costs, rent, etc.). So the manufacturer needs to make a profit, the distributor needs to make a profit, and the retailer needs to make a profit. In this system there is no post-sales or side-channel profit, which means that if you lose money on selling a product, you lose money outright. Even if margins at each level are 10%, you then end up with a product with a $300 production cost selling at $440 at retail if you have a manufacturer, a global distributor, a local distributor and a retailer. 10% would for most businesses be an effective break-even in terms of covering basic costs of operation, which means that for any business seeking actual profitability (which most do in a capitalist economy) margins are going to be more than 10%.

On the other hand, you have the closed market of game consoles. Firstly, this is an appliance, it does not require assembly or multiple parts to work, so the "ecosystem" of multiple manufacturers working in sync shrinks dramatically (accessory manufacturers are largely separate from this as their products aren't necessary, unlike the different components of a PC). In other words you have two huge manufacturers who design their own products and keep a lot of work in-house while manufacturing at extreme scale, all of which which drives down costs. Designing a single, integrated appliance will also always be more effective in price/performance than making something modular and scalable (as long as you can make and sell enough of them, as the cost of entry is enormous). Scale also helps a lot in keeping prices from suppliers low. You also have what is essentially a non-competitive duopoly where the manufacturers dictate retail prices, with very little leeway for adjustments (this is why all console sales and rebates are typically game bundles and typically supported directly by the manufacturer). Then theres' the entirely different value chain in play: while the distribution and retail system works much the same on the surface, through the promise of massive scale and secondary and tertiary sales (games, peripherals, accessories, a promise which the manufacturer can make due to their scale and control of the ecosystem) distributors accept lower margins for the main products - often very low. Back when I worked in retail, our margins on a PS4 or XBone were normally around 2-5%, which meant that unless we sold at least an extra controller or some other add-on, we were losing money for every console we sold. This is entirely normal in the console space, while in the PC parts space (which is still extremely price competitive) margins are typically higher across the board (even if high-priced components are typically loss leaders even there - you can bet the retailer isn't making significant money off your expensive GPU or CPU, but margins are still higher). Add to this that the manufacturer is guaranteed a certain amount of after-sales (games, accessories, etc.) which they get licence fees from unless they are making them themselves (due to the closed system; console games typically carry a $10 licence fee to the platform owner in the price, hence why they are more expensive than PC games) so they are normally willing to sell the hardware (which is just a one-time sale, after all) at cost or at a loss.

So, to sum up: consoles are cheaper due to scale and integration and the willingness of all parts of the distribution chain to accept minimal margins due to the promise of later sales of higher-margin products. PCs have none of these advantages and are thus much more expensive, but also give you more freedom in all aspects of purchase and use.

It's obvious that AMD can sell MS or Sony 10-20-30 million APUs over 2-4 years (likely with an option to buy more later) at much lower margins than if they sell a few hundred at a time to a distributor. It's especially obvious that these become dramatically cheaper when they also are built-to-purpose parts where the customer is covering a lot of R&D costs - which make up a significant part of any PC CPU or GPU. Integrating the CPU and GPU into one piece of silicon also saves on the cost of going from design to actual silicon, which is very, very expensive. And it's triply obvious that these will then be cheaper than a PC at retail when all parts of the retail distribution chain agree to sell the unit at as low margins as can be done.
 

beginner99

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Jun 2, 2009
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Saying they're overpriced shows that you either don't understand how manufacturing, distribution and retail sales work, or that you are woefully underinformed about console ecosystem economics.

While I don't disagree, why did they cheap out in last gen but not this gen anymore?

Last gen (including refreshes) they did say they want to make a profit from the pure hardware. Has this changed again? I simply don't see a 7nm SOC of this size can be priced the same as a PS4 at launch with same margins (for sony). SO either they will lose money on hardware again or prices are going to go up. Or what am I missing?

On top of that the comment you were replying to is that GPU prices have reason dramatically in last 5+ years. Ultra high end used to be $500, maybe $600. Now it's >$1000 and that isn't even counting the fact that gaming doesn't even get the largest chip at all.

performance/$ has been going up very, very slowly. I think that is the main point of the comment you are replying to. If Sony and MS can sell there consoles below $500 and not make a loss, it just shows how much NV and AMD have been price gouging on GPU side.
 
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maddie

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Jul 18, 2010
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While I don't disagree, why did they cheap out in last gen but not this gen anymore?

Last gen (including refreshes) they did say they want to make a profit from the pure hardware. Has this changed again? I simply don't see a 7nm SOC of this size can be priced the same as a PS4 at launch with same margins (for sony). SO either they will lose money on hardware again or prices are going to go up. Or what am I missing?

On top of that the comment you were replying to is that GPU prices have reason dramatically in last 5+ years. Ultra high end used to be $500, maybe $600. Now it's >$1000 and that isn't even counting the fact that gaming doesn't even get the largest chip at all.

performance/$ has been going up very, very slowly. I think that is the main point of the comment you are replying to. If Sony and MS can sell there consoles below $500 and not make a loss, it just shows how much NV and AMD have been price gouging on GPU side.
I think the critical point that (Valantar) made is the depth of the distribution chain for PCs vs consoles. If all levels in the two chains decide to raise margins by a fixed amount, then the PC price rise will be much higher as we have a 4th or 5th order polynomial vs a 2nd or 3rd order one with the console.
 
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Valantar

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While I don't disagree, why did they cheap out in last gen but not this gen anymore?

Last gen (including refreshes) they did say they want to make a profit from the pure hardware. Has this changed again? I simply don't see a 7nm SOC of this size can be priced the same as a PS4 at launch with same margins (for sony). SO either they will lose money on hardware again or prices are going to go up. Or what am I missing?

On top of that the comment you were replying to is that GPU prices have reason dramatically in last 5+ years. Ultra high end used to be $500, maybe $600. Now it's >$1000 and that isn't even counting the fact that gaming doesn't even get the largest chip at all.

performance/$ has been going up very, very slowly. I think that is the main point of the comment you are replying to. If Sony and MS can sell there consoles below $500 and not make a loss, it just shows how much NV and AMD have been price gouging on GPU side.
That's a good question. I'm not a market analyst, so I'm not qualified to answer it by any means, but making a guess I would think it's something of a mix between needing to achieve something akin to a "generational upgrade" over the refresh consoles - which takes a lot of power! - and the massive development of gaming both culturally and economically since then. Not only is gaming much, much bigger now than it was in 2013 (let alone in 2010 or so when the previous generation of consoles were designed), but the types of games played have changed a lot. High frame rate displays (including TVs) have also gone from nonexistent to ... well, not uncommon, and esports gaming and other games where responsiveness is paramount has truly taken off and gone mainstream. Add hardware availability to that - AMD didn't have a high performance, low power CPU architecture in the early 2010s at all - and you have a lot of factors pointing towards much more potent consoles this time around. High frame rates require fast CPUs; there's no way they'd reduce the core count from previous gen, so then you get a fast Zen2 8c16t CPU (as using an older design would require porting Zen or Zen+ to 7nm, which would be very expensive). And soundly beating the XOX and PS4 Pro requires a serious jump in GPU performance - especially if you want to not only hit actual 4k60 but also have it look noticeably better than the last time around. 7nm is also expensive, but likely necessary to keep die sizes and power draw reasonable, thus enabling maximum performance increases. Economically there's also now a lot more direct income to console makers through direct game downloads and subscription services, which ensures them a lot more income than when the current generation of consoles were made, which I would guess gives them more leeway in pricing the hardware low. Xbox Game Pass didn't even exist back then, and the number of Xbox Live subscribers and PS Plus members is much higher now than then.
 
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Zstream

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That's a good question. I'm not a market analyst..

One of the reasons (I'm not qualified, but do advise on some tech stocks for various folks) is that they thought the mobile game market.. think iPhone, Android, and all of the tv conversion created like the shield and apple TV put consoles on a trajectory downwards.

It hasn't happened. In fact, the one and consistent market trajectory is that PC sales will decrease. That hasn't happened either.

The market is in chaos, not in a bad way, people can't project and that's a good thing. It keeps the market propped up vs. few market movers.

Anyways, they needed the expected margins on hardware back in the day, and now see that it's not the case.
 
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LikeLinus

Lifer
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One of the reasons (I'm not qualified)

It hasn't happened. In fact, the one and consistent market trajectory is that PC sales will decrease. That hasn't happened either.


PC sales were in decline for 8 years, until last year. "Sales boosted by end of Windows 7 support.

May want to hold off on giving advice to anyone, lol.
 

beginner99

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Economically there's also now a lot more direct income to console makers through direct game downloads and subscription services, which ensures them a lot more income than when the current generation of consoles were made, which I would guess gives them more leeway in pricing the hardware low. Xbox Game Pass didn't even exist back then, and the number of Xbox Live subscribers and PS Plus members is much higher now than then.

True. Subscription services might play a role. As I haven't owned a console in a long time, do you need that to play online? So in the long run if you pay even only $50 per year for the services, it add up quickly.
 

Zstream

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Oct 24, 2005
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PC sales were in decline for 8 years, until last year. "Sales boosted by end of Windows 7 support.

May want to hold off on giving advice to anyone, lol.
*sigh*

I'm aware of the trajectory, and results. The discussion is not around cheap CPU's, and integrated graphic shipments. The stocks relate to AMD/NVIDIA/INTEL/QUALCOMM/STMicroelectronics etc..

The PC market medium to high end has increased in growth. This is where the margins are at, and what stock holders care about. No one cares about a 5% margin CPU, as that doesn't even cover R&D.
 
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Valantar

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PC sales were in decline for 8 years, until last year. "Sales boosted by end of Windows 7 support.

May want to hold off on giving advice to anyone, lol.
PC sales have dropped everywhere except the gaming market, which has actually grown.
True. Subscription services might play a role. As I haven't owned a console in a long time, do you need that to play online? So in the long run if you pay even only $50 per year for the services, it add up quickly.
You need Xbox Live or PS Plus for online gaming, yeah (though Sony does allow online play in some free games without PS Plus IIRC). Game Pass IIRC includes Live, but also provides a very attractive package with access to a lot of high profile games, which has caused it to be quite popular (cross play across PC and Xbox likely adds to this too). So that's $50 a year for nearly every console owner, and something like three times that for Game Pass subscribers.
 

LikeLinus

Lifer
Jul 25, 2001
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*sigh*

I'm aware of the trajectory, and results. The discussion is not around cheap CPU's, and integrated graphic shipments. The stocks relate to AMD/NVIDIA/INTEL/QUALCOMM/STMicroelectronics etc..

The PC market medium to high end has increased in growth. This is where the margins are at, and what stock holders care about. No one cares about a 5% margin CPU, as that doesn't even cover R&D.

No one said anything about CPUs or any other related topic? You said that PC sales have not been in a decline. That is untrue according to IDC and Gartner. While the high end/gaming segment has grown, it's still a bit of a niche market. It's funny you say no one cares about those lower end PC margins, but I highly suspect companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo (the 3 largest PC sales) would disagree.

Their stock prices are not driven solely by high end PCs. Do you have data on the breakdown for mid-high end PC sales as a percentage of total market share for PC sales? Along with their growth over the past 5 years?
 

Zstream

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Oct 24, 2005
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No one said anything about CPUs or any other related topic? You said that PC sales have not been in a decline. That is untrue according to IDC and Gartner. While the high end/gaming segment has grown, it's still a bit of a niche market. It's funny you say no one cares about those lower end PC margins, but I highly suspect companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo (the 3 largest PC sales) would disagree.

Their stock prices are not driven solely by high end PCs. Do you have data on the breakdown for mid-high end PC sales as a percentage of total market share for PC sales? Along with their growth over the past 5 years?
 

LikeLinus

Lifer
Jul 25, 2001
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From your article.

"The PC industry faces a number of challenges. For seven years in a row, PC sales (laptops included) have been on the decline as consumers do more and more of their computing with smartphones and tablets. As early as 2015, 13.5% of the world’s population owned a tablet. The technology swept the market by storm, causing a significant decline in personal computer sales of all kinds. "
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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From your article.

"The PC industry faces a number of challenges. For seven years in a row, PC sales (laptops included) have been on the decline as consumers do more and more of their computing with smartphones and tablets. As early as 2015, 13.5% of the world’s population owned a tablet. The technology swept the market by storm, causing a significant decline in personal computer sales of all kinds. "
Well, not to get too off-topic, so please don't reply too much... If consumer PC's (not laptops and not tablets...) were not in wide use, the covid-19 research would not be so large on F@H and Rosetta@home. Please see the distributed computing forum for details. More computing power than the top 7 supercomputers in the world are being used for this research by F@H alone. Not sure how much Rosetta@home uses, but, from and article on it :

From a recent IPD news post:

"We are happy to report that the Rosetta molecular modeling suite was recently used to accurately predict the atomic-scale structure of an important coronavirus protein weeks before it could be measured in the lab. Knowledge gained from studying this viral protein is now being used to guide the design of novel vaccines and antiviral drugs."

Since the release of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in late January, a number of important corona virus proteins like the one described above have been modeled on R@h volunteer computers. A list of these proteins is provided by the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Disease (SSGCID).

Here is the link to the F@H situation:
 
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LikeLinus

Lifer
Jul 25, 2001
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I'm not disputing PCs are not widely used, at all. Everyone has one. But sales are down due to tablets and such. This has been known for years. Rather help educate someone who is giving financial advice based on flawed information.

Either way, it's good to see people helping to try to find a cure. It's pretty amazing to see that much computing power coming together at one time. Impressive.
 
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