Glottiz:

Doesn't seem like it was very obvious to you, since you are the one who tried to compare your failed game preorder, to preordering hardware, a very limited commodity constantly increasing in price.

Eh..

In this stresfull times what else can you do but staying on your pc playing video games. If only mining was not a thing all this would be even more fun.

Well, this article shows little about gamers... since the biggest sales increases were with headsets, keyboards, and monitors. Home office hardware. Also, games sales numbers doing better with lockdowns... not that much of a surprise 😀 Wake me once they talk about increased sales of actual PC hardware like GPUs... oh wait... they can't even meet the demand of miners (which again gives no indication on what a gamer spends at all, in relation to the op's title).

I bought myself a new system for 560€ + a used 5700XT for 300€. In 2021 I added a Vega64. And in a few months I will have earned more than spent 🙄

No, not PC "gamers" you mean MINERS! Stop skewing damn data, you all know full well these cards can't be had at MSRP for the real gamers, do you think we are all damn millionaires WTF MAN.

Well, for all that matters some enterprise hardware went up, even used of second hand. Example: an used HP Proliant Microserver gen 8 was priced around 150-200€ last year, basic configuration. Now, price on eBay is at least 400€ or closer. Same configuration. I could go on, the basic idea is that 2020 and 2021 are the most expensive years hardware prices related.

fantaskarsef:

Well, this article shows little about gamers... since the biggest sales increases were with headsets, keyboards, and monitors. Home office hardware. Also, games sales numbers doing better with lockdowns... not that much of a surprise 😀 Wake me once they talk about increased sales of actual PC hardware like GPUs... oh wait... they can't even meet the demand of miners (which again dives no indication on what a gamer spends at all, in relation to the op's title).

Yeah, the only gpu that have reasonable availability is ironically the 3090, cause it's not cost effective for miners, so they dont buy it.

in 2019 I bought a 3700X and some memory which was just shy of $500 and in 2020 I bought a RTX 2070s which was just shy of $500. So about even for me.

I expect Activision, EA and the likes have already had boardroom meetings to discuss how they can make lockdown a annual thing.

Easy to spend more in 2020 with the jacked up prices thanks to mining.

It explains part of the supply issue with CPU an GPU's. I was one of the lucky ones able to score a 5950x and RTX 3090. Imagine how high the numbers would have been if the supply chain was able to keep up.

I think it was a confluence of factors in 2020 that drove demand so much higher, and now that I have some clear idea about how much demand skyrocketed last year I can understand all these sell-outs & the current shortages. No way anyone could have foreseen a 62% rise in expenditures/demand over 2019! Healthy people at home and playing games during all the shutdowns and government lockdowns, and so on, in 2020 is a partial explanation for such an increase, but some other factors helped to make it happen: Zen 2 retail sales for AMD continued to shoot through the roof--and then AMD began shipping Zen 3 to enormous accolades. So, pent-up demand for markedly better CPU performance than Intel had been delivering over the last several years, was largely satisfied by AMD in 2020--as AMD broke the bank on performance-per-watt, clearly trouncing Intel's best CPUs in Enterprise, retail professional computing, and computer gaming. Then there was the coming of the new consoles which AMD also propelled to new heights of performance--creating and fulfilling yet more large demand. Then came the phantom GPU launches from both nVidia and AMD which served to create yet more demand and which ate up existing stocks of GPU product from both companies in record time, adding to the CPU shortages. Ironic that although the "pandemic" *cough* shutdowns were largely almost totally unnecessary, that AMD had a record-breaking year and is continuing to sell everything it can manufacture. I wouldn't be so quick to forecast a measly 3% growth for 2021! Personal computing and gaming in general have received massive shots in the arm from AMD, and 2021 will see the ramping up of new and very powerful but reasonably priced GPUs (I hope!) from nVidia and AMD, as well as a robust Zen3 ramp up this year, so I think a 3% forecast is far too miserly...;) If demand continues for the mining craze--well--a lot of that demand will be satisfied, too, in 2021. AMD is swiftly moving to overtake and overcome Intel in the laptop markets in 2021, too, though Intel has a sizable lead there. In short, the markets for tech haven't been this competitive in 15 years or more. Competition breeds interest--breeds demand. The thing that surprised me is just how enormous the computer gaming and general processing markets have become--they are far larger than I would ever have guessed! The numbers being reported for various game sales just blow me away. I can remember when 10,000 copies sold over a year's time was the ultimate peak of success for a game dev/publisher!

I think the only upgrade I did in 2020 was my cpu going from the 2600 to 3700x as i don't see there being a viable upgrade for quite some time and I feel like I lucked out since the only other option to upgrade would have been going for the 5800x at a nearly 50% premium over the 3700x I got. And looking online now most of the more reasonable listings on newegg are just straight up out of stock so i'm happy with this 3700x. We need another player in the silicon space to aleviate these shortages and make more competition too bad glofo decided they didn't want to go beyond 14nm.

I upgraded my GPU... which in 2020 cost about 3 entire 2019 gaming computers, 2 polar bears, 4 fur seals, and 3 sweet pairs of mukluks, after back ordering and waiting 6 millennia. Thanks Jensen you fat leather jacket abusing son of a diddly. The prices are insane, and have been speeding towards this insanity the moment the first Titan was announced. I said this would happen, I said step by step what would happen, and few believed it. You guys said I was exaggerating, meanwhile talking about how you'd like to suck off Jensen. I'll take apology payments in the form of souls and virgin blood. Might as well, at this rate that's the currency the RTX 4080 will cost, not that I, or anyone normal, will be able to actually get one.

I built 3 new rigs. 2600x x370 Vega 56 to 2700x, X470 and 5700xt. Added new 850w psu. Went full custom loop too. Added a bunch of SSD and storage. Upgraded my server from dual x5550 xeons 24GB, GTX 670 to Threadripper 1920x, X399 taichi, 32GB GTX 970 Put my 1000w from game rig in this setup. Did a console killer. 1600AF, B350, 16GB, NVME, 512GB for games. RX 480. Alot was bought used, alot new as well. Most I have ever spent on computer parts in one year. 2700x bundle was $375 2700x MSI X470 Gaming Plus 16GB Vegenance RGB 3000 H115i Pro RGB 1920x bundle was $475 1920x X339 Taichi DeepCool Captian 240mm AIO RGB GTX 780 Also bought a 35 inch 1440 ulrawide. Sold it for a 49 inch superwide 1080p Almost $1600 in monitors alone LOL. Also have bought other cheap parts and gpus for helping friends build rigs.

XP-200:

I expect Activision, EA and the likes have already had boardroom meetings to discuss how they can make lockdown a annual thing.

They do not need to. There is going to be part of population receiving shots every few months to evade persecution. And part of population that's going to be unconstitutionally locked in or severely limited in freedoms. In our country, where we have constitutional obligation to send our kids to school, government is already talking about not letting kids that do not regularly subject themselves to procedures into school. And talk about excluding them from this Schooling obligation. Today, govt is going again on new law about c19 which will give Minister of Health (single person) higher executive power than parliament has in times of State of Emergency. In other words, in times of State of Emergency, our constitutional rights are suppressed in name of "Greater Good". And new law will enable this suppression to be even bigger without having State of Emergency in place. Will prevent senate from having a word. And can be enabled at any time there is risk of c19 resurgence. Which basically means 365 days a year. (Worst part is criminal prosecution being part of it. And Fines between ~$2,200 ~ $190,000 for those who violate rules. Paragraph which is fined with ~ $4,500 per violation is not even exhaustively stating violations. It just states "or other anti-epidemy measures. Which currently means keeping 2m distances.) Last week Senate decided to end State of Emergency after very long time. And Leading parties in Parliament unconstitutionally renewed it before its end with help of Hetmans. Tonight there is going to be discussion and voting about ending this again. (Our Prime Minister has close to Unlimited Power in State of Emergency and he likes it.) By tomorrow, we will know how screwed our country is going to be in next few years. But one thing is clear. There are multiple attempts to increase personal power of few select people and extremely limit/suppress rights of population. - - - - And yes, c19 statistics for Czech Republic are worst in any country on Earth with population above 1 million people even with very strict rules in last 5 months. That's because we are nation of drinkers, smokers, ... We like our fried meat and everything else. And even with all those unhealthy life style choices, we have 20% of population in age of 65+. And there is sad truth. Above c19 deaths, we have ~40~50% extra deaths caused by anti-c19 measures which prevented people from getting medical help or prevented them from keeping at least minimum healthy movement they used to have. When old person stops moving, it is death sentence. - - - - So I would not really worry about EA needing to move an finger. It is coming. Epidemic Scenario 2019 came to be exactly way it was "pre-dicted/planned" in 2 months after it was played. But there were already Epidemic Scenarios 2021. And now there are Epidemic Scenarios up to 2028. Now, that I would call conspiracy theories, except big money is involved, and they exist. Same way as "Agenda 2030" and similar exist. Different power groups have different ways to achieve their goals and they clash and crash each other while regular people are in between like in between mill stones. - - - - And with topic. Yeah, it is easy to say, that people will spend even more on PCs this year. (That's if they have money to spend.) Because only way to get PC with GPU is to buy pre-built. And they cost double of what separate components cost... Just because they have GPU included. Can anyone imagine buying PC with average CPU like Ryzen 5600X for $2,700 USD, just because it has RTX 3070? Well, I have seen such offer today.

Of course they did. I mean the 1650 currently retail for 400$ in Canada. The 1650 OC retail for 550. It used to be the price of 70 cards just 3 years ago. 1660 Super is around 900$. The only affordable cards you can buy in canada are GeForce GT 1030, 710 and 730.

Neo Cyrus:

I upgraded my GPU... which in 2020 cost about 3 entire 2019 gaming computers, 2 polar bears, 4 fur seals, and 3 sweet pairs of mukluks, after back ordering and waiting 6 millennia. Thanks Jensen you fat leather jacket abusing son of a diddly. The prices are insane, and have been speeding towards this insanity the moment the first Titan was announced. I said this would happen, I said step by step what would happen, and few believed it. You guys said I was exaggerating, meanwhile talking about how you'd like to suck off Jensen. I'll take apology payments in the form of souls and virgin blood. Might as well, at this rate that's the currency the RTX 4080 will cost, not that I, or anyone normal, will be able to actually get one.

I remember you saying that about the titan being $1000 and the morons buying them.

Fox2232:

They do not need to. There is going to be part of population receiving shots every few months to evade persecution. And part of population that's going to be unconstitutionally locked in or severely limited in freedoms. In our country, where we have constitutional obligation to send our kids to school, government is already talking about not letting kids that do not regularly subject themselves to procedures into school. And talk about excluding them from this Schooling obligation. Today, govt is going again on new law about c19 which will give Minister of Health (single person) higher executive power than parliament has in times of State of Emergency. In other words, in times of State of Emergency, our constitutional rights are suppressed in name of "Greater Good". And new law will enable this suppression to be even bigger without having State of Emergency in place. Will prevent senate from having a word. And can be enabled at any time there is risk of c19 resurgence. Which basically means 365 days a year. (Worst part is criminal prosecution being part of it. And Fines between ~$2,200 ~ $190,000 for those who violate rules. Paragraph which is fined with ~ $4,500 per violation is not even exhaustively stating violations. It just states "or other anti-epidemy measures. Which currently means keeping 2m distances.) Last week Senate decided to end State of Emergency after very long time. And Leading parties in Parliament unconstitutionally renewed it before its end with help of Hetmans. Tonight there is going to be discussion and voting about ending this again. (Our Prime Minister has close to Unlimited Power in State of Emergency and he likes it.) By tomorrow, we will know how screwed our country is going to be in next few years. But one thing is clear. There are multiple attempts to increase personal power of few select people and extremely limit/suppress rights of population. - - - - And yes, c19 statistics for Czech Republic are worst in any country on Earth with population above 1 million people even with very strict rules in last 5 months. That's because we are nation of drinkers, smokers, ... We like our fried meat and everything else. And even with all those unhealthy life style choices, we have 20% of population in age of 65+. And there is sad truth. Above c19 deaths, we have ~40~50% extra deaths caused by anti-c19 measures which prevented people from getting medical help or prevented them from keeping at least minimum healthy movement they used to have. When old person stops moving, it is death sentence. - - - - So I would not really worry about EA needing to move an finger. It is coming. Epidemic Scenario 2019 came to be exactly way it was "pre-dicted/planned" in 2 months after it was played. But there were already Epidemic Scenarios 2021. And now there are Epidemic Scenarios up to 2028. Now, that I would call conspiracy theories, except big money is involved, and they exist. Same way as "Agenda 2030" and similar exist. Different power groups have different ways to achieve their goals and they clash and crash each other while regular people are in between like in between mill stones. - - - - And with topic. Yeah, it is easy to say, that people will spend even more on PCs this year. (That's if they have money to spend.) Because only way to get PC with GPU is to buy pre-built. And they cost double of what separate components cost... Just because they have GPU included. Can anyone imagine buying PC with average CPU like Ryzen 5600X for $2,700 USD, just because it has RTX 3070? Well, I have seen such offer today.

Erm....ok then. o_O