[sc:hardware-category ]I’ve been thinking of desktop hardware over the last couple of months as I consider replacing my main PC.
On a day-to-day basis, my primary PC get’s used quite a bit and it stays on all the time. Some of the various tasks it performs are:
- E-Mail client
- Blog writing
- Web surfing
- Media player
- Video transcoding
- PHP development
- Perl development
- Windows Phone development
Currently it’s a AMD 2ghz, dual core processor with 6g or RAM and a 10k RPM 300g hard drive and an ATI 5400 series video card.
At the end of the day though, I don’t find any issue with this PC. The only task that takes any noticeable time is the video transcoding and that’s just the nature of the beast. Even the fastest processor isn’t going to make that instantaneous.
Now of course there is one big caveat here, my gaming is done on a console. If you were using your PC to game, then the answer to upgrade is obvious 
.
This PC must be at least 3 years old, maybe more, so the question is has desktop hardware plateaued?
For most people, I think the answer must be yes. Why would I replace this much computing power when even the most strenuous of day-to-day tasks have it spinning its wheels for the vast majority of its time?
So I guess the answer is going to be no for now, until something significant comes along that I need more desktop horsepower for that is 
.
P.S.
On a side note I wonder if the recent slow down in PC sales is less to do with other form factors (phones, tablet’s, etc.) than with the realization that most people don’t need to upgrade their PC’s on the same kind of schedule as they used to.
