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Lenovo And Dell Seeing PC Growth in US, But CPU Shortage Takes A Toll On Overall Market (crn.com)

Posted by msmash on from the where-we-are-at dept.

Lenovo's resurgence in the U.S. PC market continued during the final quarter of 2018 with gains in both shipments and market share, while Dell also saw growth in the fourth quarter in spite of supply chain and market challenges, according to research firm Gartner. From a report: It marked the third quarter in a row that Lenovo enjoyed strong growth in the U.S. PC market, solidifying the company's position as the No. 3 player in the market ahead of Apple and Microsoft--but still trailing well behind HP and Dell. However, overall PC shipments in the U.S. slid 4.5 percent during the fourth quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, Gartner reported. In a news release, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa blamed the decline in part on market uncertainties -- given that the quarter is "typically a buying season" for businesses looking to use up budget money by the end of the year.

65 comments

  1. new intel CPUs not hyperthreaded by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen a lot of discussion about when an I7-8700 is faster than the new I7. Whereas threadrippers are going in the opposite direction.

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    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:new intel CPUs not hyperthreaded by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      AMD = threadrippers
      Intel = threadrippedout

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    2. Re: new intel CPUs not hyperthreaded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And what the hell is up with slashdot and double quotes?

    3. Re:new intel CPUs not hyperthreaded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the 9700k and 8700k are about a wash. sometime a few percent faster, sometime a few percent slower. if the difference really matters then get the 9900k.

    4. Re:new intel CPUs not hyperthreaded by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      Intel = threadstripper

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      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    5. Re:new intel CPUs not hyperthreaded by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Add an "s" to the end of that and you've got yourself a sale, mister!

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      #DeleteFacebook
  2. Peak PC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    From this point on all businesses will be switching to a bring-your-own-device policy. This will shuffle equipment costs onto employees. Who now much use shitty cloud services to do day to day work.

    1. Re:Peak PC by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      However the thing is most employees already have their own devices. It isn't like the 1980's where it was a big deal for someone to have their own Computer, especially something compatible with the business, nearly everyone has their own computer that is powerful enough to do the work they need to do.

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      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Peak PC by tepples · · Score: 2

      However the thing is most employees already have their own devices

      That's no help for people outside the "most", particularly someone seeking a job to earn the money with which to buy a desktop or laptop computer in the first place.

    3. Re: Peak PC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can buy a serviceable used laptop on Craigslist for a under $100, and I often see computers listed in âoefree stuffâ core2 or even I series processors.

    4. Re: Peak PC by tepples · · Score: 1

      You can buy a serviceable used laptop on Craigslist for a under $100

      For example, I bought a ThinkPad X61 tablet laptop with a Core 2 Duo CPU on eBay for $101 shipped. But for some, finding that $100 before a job may itself cause a problem.

    5. Re:Peak PC by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Its not peak PC for a few more generations. New CPU designs from new upgraded factory production lines will we ok for a while longer.
      Its just someone has to pay for and design the new production lines.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    6. Re:Peak PC by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Peak PC was 2012. The PC market declined at a 4% compound annual rate after that. Unknown if this will continue.

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      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    7. Re:Peak PC by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The new CPU and GPU designs will be fine for a few more years.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    8. Re:Peak PC by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      The PC market is still big, one of the world's biggest markets. New products are still coming out. But it is shrinking, so far it has shrunk 25% from its peak. This is the meaning of "peak", just to be clear.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    9. Re:Peak PC by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Peak PC will happen when a CPU and GPU cant out perform the last generation at a price.
      Until then the market will move up and down with changes in CPU and GPU demand.
      That "peak" will move up and down with the demands of math, the skill of designers, what people expect from advanced new content and games.
      4K, 5K, 8K video encoding and decoding is on the way at consumer prices.
      4K, 5K and 8K computer game support at the expected refresh rates will need new hardware support.
      The ability to store, work with and encode large video files. Not having to wait days/hours for 4k/8K projects to be ready and miss a news cycle/product review.
      Photography, movies, video clips, games and other new products and services will push CPU and GPU demand.
      Low cost new 4K and 8K displays will need new content.
      Thats all good until existing CPU design hits real physics with new limits soon and someone has to really invest in a very different production line.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    10. Re:Peak PC by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      No, sorry, peak PC already happened six years ago. This is reality, not sure what you're going on about.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    11. Re:Peak PC by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Another gerneration is going to need to work on their 4K and 5K and 8K content.
      That will need powerful computers... again. Just like past generations found with HD content and new codecs.
      Every decade feels it has its own special "peak PC" due to low sales numbers until everyone creative, interesting and smart needs a new powerful computer.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    12. Re:Peak PC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The new CPU and GPU designs will be fine for a few more years.

      No. Looking at PC sales it's clear we've peaked. Moore's law is finished. We've only seen incremental improvements in processor designs. If you look closely at their specs you'll see that die area has ballooned in the last few generations of chips in order to compensate.

      You can't make a processor with a die area larger than your smartphone and still expect it to fit in a phone. In a PC the cost for larger dies becomes huge as yield plummets. We'll see new chips that are more powerful, but they will be for scientific computational problems only.

    13. Re:Peak PC by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Some will be making content while most just consume it. This decade doesn't just feel like peak PC, the numbers back it up. There is nothing comparable in earlier PC history.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  3. Intel is up shit creek good thing they locked appl by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Intel is up shit creek good thing they locked apple into no AMD.

  4. important clarification from TFA by nimbius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    this CPU shortage is only for Intel CPUs. AMD's Ryzen platform is not experiencing supply chain problems at all, but the likelyhood anyone at Lenovo or Dell has the muscle to steer the ship away from Intel is pretty slim.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re: important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is your comment backed by elaboration at all?

    2. Re:important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ??? Both Lenovo and Dell sell Ryzen computers.

    3. Re: important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I donâ(TM)t think so. I doubt they keep their websites up to date. If they got a big order for something I think they would try to fill it but they have no contractual agreements with suppliers. It is why they keep so many out of stock products up so people will choose them. If they get an order then they direct dial suppliers and ask for items. It has always been like this with most suppliers. If you want a Ryzen there are any number of companies who could order one for you

    4. Re:important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They still remember what Intel did to the last time they had the nerve to try that...

    5. Re:important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go ahead and try to find one with an r7-2700x. Most of the "ryzen" systems from these makers are bulldozer on am4 (why AMD?), and the rest are special order.

      Good luck convincing even a small organization to start buying these given that the OE won't make them without special request.

    6. Re:important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this CPU shortage is only for Intel CPUs. AMD's Ryzen platform is not experiencing supply chain problems at all, but the likelyhood anyone at Lenovo or Dell has the muscle to steer the ship away from Intel is pretty slim.

      That's a pretty big assertion. Do you have any evidence to back it up? AMD is a small player because they can't ship the volume that Intel does (They were also run by idiots, which is related) Even if their supply chain is running well, it's minuscule in comparison.

      (Custom chips for gaming console toys are not PC processors, before you start whining about that)

      The processor market is a complex one and the number of parts available is not just dictated by fabrication capacity. It's mostly a financial issue. It comes down to money.

      Do you know why socketed chips exit? If you think it's because so computer geeks can have fun building whatever computer they want. It's all about money. Processors are expensive and in consumer systems represent a large portion of the BOM cost. Processors are socketed and interchangeable so they can be purchased desperately, secured with a seperate loan, and integrated at a later date closer to sale time to better meet market demands- Sometimes by a completely different party!

      It's all about money. And Intel has a lot more of it than AMD.

    7. Re:important clarification from TFA by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Last time I looked, AMD was responsible for around 20% of total CPU shipments. Even if they aren't suffering from any supply-chain problems, even gaining 1% of the market would require that they increase production by 5%, getting a majority of the market would require that they increase their production by 150%. That's not normally very easy.

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    8. Re:important clarification from TFA by ToTheStars · · Score: 1

      Many of Dell's laptops are using AMD Ryzen processors, and they're also using Threadripper processors in some high-end Alienware desktops.

    9. Re:important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That may be a secondary effect but the real reason is because it allows system integrators like Dell etc to have more flexibility in their product chain. It also simplifies logistics because you aren't tied to a single source for a complete system board + cpu. Motherboards are easier to make and source than cpus so they can settle on a single board and for several different SKUs and then tier them based on the cpu, memory and graphics options added. Just like how auto makers have different engine options for a given car chassis.

      I highly doubt there is much trading in cpu "futures" as you describe. The market moves too fast for that to be viable even today when things have slowed down a bit. And we have many examples over the years of various component shortages, not just cpus, that have immediate effects on system integrators. Issues in storage, memory and even battery supply chains in the past have had very quick results. If anyone was stock piling components on loans then the effects would be much slower to be felt. The evidence simply isn't there.

    10. Re:important clarification from TFA by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Last time I looked, AMD was responsible for around 20% of total CPU shipments.

      ...and it cannot be allowed to grow beyond that like last time, because when that happened Intel had to do things to brazenly that they get convicted multiple times of anti-competitive anti-trust monopolistic practices, repeatedly.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    11. Re:important clarification from TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OEMs prefer to ship CPUs that have integrated graphics. Basically all of Intel's desktop offerings have them. AMD's line maxes out at a 4C/8T APU. It's only a little cheaper than an i5-8400.

      This could potentially change with the Zen 2 series of chips, though. AMD might offer 8-core APUs at some point.

    12. Re:important clarification from TFA by guruevi · · Score: 1

      There's a lot more than gaming computers. Many, many businesses run on Intel and will not move away from it until AMD can implement the same instruction set. Yes AMD has a mostly compatible instruction set, but that doesn't mean everything about it is exactly the same, AMD is pretty opinionated when it comes to how to implement some things "better".

      Way back when, IBM built a drop-in compatible 80486DX33 chip as well, but it wouldn't run WfW 3.11. AMD won't run with certain virtualization platforms, I don't think VMWare has Ryzen on it's list at all and there is a bunch of stuff out there, computationally optimized things, that are written to run on Intel and will run like sticky molasses on AMD, even when compiled from source.

      It's a lot of inertia for AMD to overcome and historically, AMD has had these outliers for a few months/years (remember the hype around Opteron) but then totally shit the bed for years to come.

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    13. Re:important clarification from TFA by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      the likelyhood anyone at Lenovo or Dell has the muscle to steer the ship away from Intel is pretty slim

      Not only is it likely, but it already happened. AMD PC products are in the channel but we haven't seen them in bestseller lists yet, that's the next milestone.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    14. Re:important clarification from TFA by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      The more they shift to TSMC the easier it gets.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  5. Budget money by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    The quarter is "typically a buying season" for businesses looking to use up budget money by the end of the year.

    The first time I heard about this, I tought it was a completely idiotic way to manage money that can only insure ALL the fucking money will be spent.

    Seriously, who came up with that "solution" to managing funds in a company? This sounds like something first-graders would come up with.

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    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Budget money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "But if you don't spend the budget, your budget gets reduced next year."

    2. Re:Budget money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As another poster points out, if you don't spend the money, it will generally get reallocated the next budget year.

      The idea is that if you managed to go without spending what you were allocated, then you didn't REALLY need that much, so if you made do with less once, you can do so again.

      A similar thing happens with employee/position vacancies too. Around here we try to fill an open position ASAP, even if you eventually end up filling it with someone who is nearly useless. The idea is that once you've gone more than a few months with the position unfilled, if they see that the world hasn't crumbled yet, the higher ups are apt to decide that you're getting along just fine without that position filled afterall and they just eliminate it. By filling it - even with dead weight - you can hope that the NEXT time its vacant you can find someone qualified.

    3. Re:Budget money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The quarter is "typically a buying season" for businesses looking to use up budget money by the end of the year.

      The first time I heard about this, I tought it was a completely idiotic way to manage money that can only insure ALL the fucking money will be spent.

      Seriously, who came up with that "solution" to managing funds in a company? This sounds like something first-graders would come up with.

      How stupid is the average person? Half of them are dumber than that.

    4. Re:Budget money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 0

      I have never heard of a private business that "burns up" unspent money. Anyone caught doing that would jeopardize their job.

      But it is a common practice for government departments, where it is much harder to fire anyone, and there is much less concern about saving money because managers are judged by the size of their budget (what they consume) rather than what they produce.

    5. Re:Budget money by Junta · · Score: 1

      Add to that that 'dead weight' is often used as buffer in the event of layoffs.

      Big businesses are highly dysfunctional, lots of wasteful spending and hiring to counteract braindead executive behaviors.

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    6. Re:Budget money by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      That's the idiotic, "first-graders" part.

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    7. Re:Budget money by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      I've seen it in a bunch of companies. Not at a company-wide level, but if your division doesn't spend its budget this quarter then next year it will get a smaller one, so you have a strong incentive to spend it all. What companies have you worked for where not spending your budget in one quarter gives you more the next quarter?

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    8. Re:Budget money by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      What companies have you worked for where not spending your budget in one quarter gives you more the next quarter?

      Profitable companies.

    9. Re:Budget money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other words, no names or real answer.

  6. Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by ReneR · · Score: 1

    Not with stupid keyboard and layouts where you accidentally keep pressing page up/down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... – and not artificially throttling AMD Ryzen to make the Intel models look better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by Junta · · Score: 1

      I don't think they are crippling the Ryzen for Intel, they do the same thing to Intel processors a lot: impose a lower TDP envelope than you'll see on the spec sheet to try to deliver 'good enough' in a slimmer-than-needed form factor.

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    2. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what I want in a laptop? One that's function over form again. It can be an inch thick for all I care if it means a good battery and airflow so it lasts forever and doesn't throttle the cpu all the time. I want more screen options than just aspect ratios meant for watching movies. I want ports so I can hook up peripherals again. I want some level of upgradeability where I can install a pointless amount of ram and extra drives if I so choose. I want a decent ass keyboard that doesn't feel like oatmeal when I type and has a sensible layout.

      What is annoying about laptops to me is that regardless of market segment they all seem to be tailored to the same use case anymore. They are only good for taking to a coffee shop and browsing the web. Aside form gaming, I mostly use my computers for music production outside of work. I don't want a dinky little thin and light. I want something portable enough to get from point A to B and then let me hook a million inputs in and last all night running at a decent load all the while. And no, I don't want a 15 pound RGB equipped "gaming" monstrosity.

      Desktops dont have this problem. Integrators serve multiple segments just fine and if they dont have what you want building is easy. Laptops are different. They are lazy and they chase trends.

    3. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Intel is twice convicted of paying other companies to not use AMD parts. It is by no means a stretch that they would also consider paying companies to cripple AMD performance, especially since Intel was also convicted of crippling AMD performance in their compiler and paying benchmarkers to cripple AMD in results.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you want a thinkpad.

    5. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Start a laptop company, you'll sell 3-4 year meeting these requirements.

    6. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      You know what I want in a laptop? One that's function over form again.One that's function over form again. It can be an inch thick for all I care if it means a good battery and airflow so it lasts forever and doesn't throttle the cpu all the time. I want more screen options than just aspect ratios meant for watching movies. I want ports so I can hook up peripherals again. I want some level of upgradeability where I can install a pointless amount of ram and extra drives if I so choose. I want a decent ass keyboard that doesn't feel like oatmeal when I type and has a sensible layout.

      That's why my last three laptops have been Dell Precision M laptops. I used my last one for 5 years. I would still be using it, but I needed more then 2GB of video RAM. It did need a new battery, but if not for that and the VRAM I'd still be using it now.

      My last one weighed 10 or 11 lbs. The new one is 7 lbs. My biggest complaint is that I couldn't get it with a built in optical disk drive this time. My second biggest issues is that Windows has some issues with scaling on a 17 inch 4K display. It's annoying as hell, but I blame Microsoft for that rather than the hardware itself.

      If I'm running it on battery with no power saving options I get about 2 hours out of the battery. With power saving turned up I can get around 7 hours out of the battery. I currently have 32GB of RAM, but I think it maxes out at 128. There are three drive bays in the one I have. I currently have a 1TB SSD and a 2TB spinning disk. The keyboard isn't fantastic, but I'm happy for it being a laptop.

      I'm not sure what I'm going to do if/when I need a new one as they have been cutting back on the ports. But I'll worry about that when the time comes.

    7. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

      Seconded. The 'business-class' Thinkpads are excellent.

    8. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Not with stupid keyboard and layouts where you accidentally keep pressing page up/down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Hey, at least it has dedicated PgUp/Dn keys which is a luxury these days ;) A lot of laptop keyboards only have Home/End/PgUp/Dn accessible via Fn on the arrow keys, and I've seen these since the early 2000s. I agree that laptop keyboards in general are crap, though. Thinkpads were nice until 2013 or so.

      --
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    9. Re:Maybe they should build better laptops, ... by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      The 12nm Ryzen APUs with better power efficiency will do a lot to boost AMD on laptop. These are just starting to land in retail this quarter. Then 7nm APUs towards the end of the year will open up a power efficiency gap that Intel can't answer as yet.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  7. For me the bigger news by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    is they're selling CPUs without the iGPU. Meaning they're talking CPUs with bad GPUs and putting them on the market. That tells me AMD is really putting pressure on them since they haven't done this in the past in order to keep chip prices high.

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    1. Re:For me the bigger news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think its more likely that their latest process has more iGPU failures. If enough of them are OK the cost of setting up another SKU is probably higher than the return from selling the poorly binned CPUs. Things sure have come a long way in 20 years; I remember people saying we should stay away from celerons for business because they're partially defective. While this is true, none of even the i7s being purchased for business are fully functional, having failed the validation that would be required to sell as an i7-k.

  8. Memory prices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As long as memory costs about four times as much as it should the PC sales will not "take off" again.

    1. Re:Memory prices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will upgrade when DDR5 ram comes out...

  9. ram prices up , gpu prices too high now cpus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    guess devs for games better stop pandering to the streamers and think more about the people that buy there shit

  10. Take A Minute for Education by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's this company called "AMD". They make a chip called "Ryzen", and even another one called "Epyc". Now, I know those words are all scary and such, but don't be afraid! You too can make computers with them, and keep both volume and profits up!

    Crazy, I know, but true!

  11. Lot of parallel advancement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Still sort of flatlined with only a couple positive quarters. You start running benchmarks and realize nothing is improving that much. I sort of felt Intel and AMD are just slapping on more cores as a way to say they have improved. If you doing low impact tasks you don't need more and more cores. You will never notice the difference from a good duel core CPU.

  12. There is no CPU shortage by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

    just a shortage of Intel CPUs...

  13. Make some decently configured AMD laptops and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    there will be no deficit. The current bunch run 40-60 per cent throttled all the time. It's just like when Intel got caught paying vendors, benchmarkers, ... to discriminate against AMD and had to pay a billion in fines all over again.