You Guys Are Still Spending a Lot on Gaming PCs
Enthusiasts make up nearly half of all the dollars spent on gaming-related hardware on PCs.
Despite the doom and gloom around PC gaming that's gone on for years now, research shows that the PC gaming hardware market is still very strong. In fact, it seems that the type of people who like to read Tom's Hardware – the enthusiast class – account for nearly half of the dollars spent towards gaming hardware.
According to Jon Peddie Research, 46 percent of the dollars spent in 2009 on stuff like boutique PCs, high-end processors and graphics cards, SSD's, specialized gaming mice, keyboards, speakers, monitors and others come from PC enthusiasts.
The research firm figures that PC enthusiasts have a special style element to them that JPR calls a "muscle car element." These days, a respectable GPU from a recent generation has a pretty good shot at running any PC game at a decent frame rate and image quality level. This opens up the PC gaming market beyond just high-end systems and towards the more humble performance and mainstream users.
Jon Peddie, President of JPR, noted that "gamers are ordering, building, and modding their rigs with components that just a few years ago were simply not available with any economy of scale. SSD's, water cooling, gaming mice and keyboards and other components have come to the Performance class and gamers are starting to snap them up."
As a result of this, JPR estimates that the enthusiast class will only account for 35 percent of the dollars spent on gaming by 2013, despite projections of growing to $12.5 billion – up from 2009's $9.5 billion. This will be due to a spread of gaming towards the performance and mainstream segments, which should be good news to anyone making a PC game these days.
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Well what can I say, I do love gaming. I just built my very first gaming rig yesterday, all thanks to Tom's Hardware and it's community for guidance of course. Hello Crysis 2.
Just a pity that the great things about PC gaming are seemingly being eroded by the rush of publishers trying to shoe horn every game into a multi-platform (i.e. console ready) format.
When the day comes that the PC version of an FPS comes with aim assist enabled by default, that's the day we know it's over.
Well put Teghola. I couldn't of said it better myself
I'm just doing my part, and heating my apartment ^^
Well... Last week, I finally got round to replacing the following system:
Q9650
9800 GX2
8Gb standard ram
Slapped into a standard HP case/motherboard with
i7-920
6Gb G.Skill
Crucial M225 SSD
2x nVidia 280 sli
Thermaltake case
Lots of fans
Noctua heatsink/fan
It's DAMN fast and with luck, will run Crysis 2 at at least 15fps
DAMN fast and with luck, will run Crysis 2 at at least 15fps
I think we'll be looking at 480's in SLi for that kind of performance!
I would never swap my pc over for a console (although hot summer weather is rather punishing for the poor ol' thing).
35 percent seems like a decent slice of the market to me, especially taking into account:
1. The required hardware has become cheaper
2. The economic downturn and the resulting tightening of one's wallet
I don't really think wouldn't want the enthusiast to dominate the market, however..I prefer the middle of the road approach we currently have today and I still think you get a lot for your money even if you're on a limited budget. Just don't cut too many corners
Developers take note part 2 :
If you are still goin' multi-platform, release also those console games on PC!
Final fantay XIII on PC will be a good start.
BTW : Put your DRM also in the garbage can! Lower the price to fight piracy!
Wanna add about spending money for gaming PC :
PCs with gamer's specs tend to have a longer lifetime or more future proof then the low end PCs.
I still have a more than 5 years old Pentium D805, 1GB RAM, 80GB IDE HDD, with nVidia GeForce 6800GS at home, altough I am not using it as my main rig.
It is still better than those Atoms.
Ah yes, I have to agree that gaming components with decent peformance have become more affordable.
Well, who would expect that PC enthusiasts spend money on PC components and accessories. Captain Obvious is obvious..
IIRC Borderlands comes with aim assist enabled by default.
Well, who would expect that PC enthusiasts spend money on PC components and accessories. Captain Obvious is obvious..
Well said mate, well said... Marcus wtf is wrong with you? first fail article on TH.
Well... Last week, I finally got round to replacing the following system:Q96509800 GX28Gb standard ramSlapped into a standard HP case/motherboard withi7-9206Gb G.SkillCrucial M225 SSD2x nVidia 280 sliThermaltake caseLots of fansNoctua heatsink/fanIt's DAMN fast and with luck, will run Crysis 2 at at least 15fps
Umm, ok... I'm not 100% sure why you bothered when a Q9650 wouldn't bottleneck ANY game on the market, especially with 8GB of RAM. The 9800GX2 could be considered a bit on the old side but I can't really imagine that your system would have had any trouble running any game whatsoever. My rig runs everything at amazing frame rates with a CPU that is slower than the Q9650...lol
Oh well, if you have the money to throw away, so be it.