Since ancient times, I'm partial to technology and everything connected with them, try to be aware of the changes. I want to share my observations recently about the changes in the computer market.
For several years in connection with the change in consumer preferences towards smartphones and tablets - the market for personal computers continues to fall (three years ago it was over 30%, now about 12% year-on-year). This year according to experts the first time we will see something similar to the "calm" of the market.
There are even those who expect the end of the year - recovery by increasing the supply. Perhaps, but notice, no one talks about sales growth! To increase the supply is one thing, but to sell is quite another :) See, I can hardly believe it (all computers already have).
The basis for the growth of this market now laptops and gaming/system performance + corporate sector. The tablets show a negative trend of sales (a drop of more than 30% year-on-year). I guess there will be only a small niche + korp. use.
Processors
Remember a few years ago there was a long dispute interested people about the necessity of a large number of processor cores. Your time has come :)
You can start a new discussion "or Intel ?", AMD release their processors Ryzen line Threadripper with 16 cores. Intel, though playing catch-up, will release its Core i9 with 12 cores, and 16 and 18 nuclear in October. It's time to get "fancy" cooling system for these "monsters" a new round of the microprocessor of the war for the title of "maker of the fastest processors".
In the industry leaving the days of predictability and long-term strategies encountered the end of the famous Moore's law (the doubling of transistors every eighteen months). It remains only to rely on the gradual reduction of production costs semiconductors and transistors with the further complication of the circuitry itself.
The GPUs
How would chipmakers (graphics processor) not talking about their highest priorities for the gaming niche market, of course they received a strong impetus due to the boom of mining (production) cryptocurrencies. According to various estimates, Nvidia and AMD got this about a billion extra profit from the beginning of 2017 (and in fact "up" on this and more than 40 companies - producers Board).
Waiting for reports, I wonder how did Vega graphics architecture from AMD on the performance of the company. Still they fight with 70% market share from NVIDIA (which is well kept because of the integrated/embedded solutions in the segment of mass of the PC). How? How will the struggle for high-performance solutions, "Paskal VS Vega"!?
One should not forget about the role of promotion in society of the VR technology (virtual reality), for the practice of which many consumers began to purchase new items. To the sample solution, with use of the Nvidia GPU generation "Pascal" show twice better performance (compared to previous generation GPUs) for the VR task.
Memory
In the last year because of the rapid growth of mobile devices sales expensive and the cost of memory chips: as DRAM (memory - to process transactions) and NAND (storage - memory card, pendrive, etc.). By the way, the market for memory chips has already become more CPU.
In the news on the topic just seen the opening of new factories and company claims about the inability in the near term to meet the demand. It's predictable lead to shortages of memory and the growth of the wholesale purchase price. Well also directly affects the timing of release of various devices that use chips or even a "pause" production.
Are waiting for further increase the capacity of the chips on the same substrate NAND memory, which will result in drives with greater capacity at a more accessible price. Really don't forget about the quality, will consider whether the manufacturers possible to spend on normal controllers (when moving from MLC to TLC chips, some "received" only a mass marriage). The word Toshiba is launching a pilot production is already QLC (quadruple level cell) memory that can store 4 bits in each cell (the price is great, but the speed, and most importantly, the reliability can be even lower).
Everything goes to the fact that the development of the structure/layout of NAND memory will likely serve as a replacement for DRAM memory, the only question of time and amount of investment on completion of the interfaces (which already clearly appear as the "narrow neck" which does not allow to realize the full potential).
Except that Samsung can rejoice, the demand and rise in prices of memory chips caused a "change leader", Samsung will likely become the world's largest "chip maker" semiconductor industry (for the first time ahead of Intel).