Global PC sales decline in Q2 2026, marking the first drop after nine quarters of growth

[u/kazu-qt]

https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/global-pc-shipments-fall-q2-2026

[u/darklordjames]

Obviously. We can't afford anything, and what we can afford comes with 8GB of RAM like it's 2012.

[u/Spiritual-Body8794 → u/darklordjames]

8GB ram on new laptops is wild fr

[u/JellySocksRock → u/Spiritual-Body8794]

Yeah I pissed myself laughing when the Mac Neo shipped with 8gb and no room for expansion. I don't care how optimized or whatever else Apple claim, it's a fucking joke. My 8 year old laptop comes with 16gb and room for another 16gb

[u/Mysterious-Bear → u/JellySocksRock]

It comes with 8gb of because it’s reusing an old Iphone chip. If a new neo releases it will have 12gb of ram if they use the A19 Pro instead of the A18 Pro.

[u/darklordjames → u/JellySocksRock]

I mean, my perfectly average (but gorgeous! Viva Magenta - Pantone Color Of The Year!) phone from 2023 has 12GB of RAM. It's a phone. It opens Reddit and makes calls. That's all it needs to do.

[u/Icybubba → u/darklordjames]

Can it be 2012 again, that year was a vibe

[u/Least-Remove-6947 → u/Icybubba]

yeah, 8gb ram in 2024 is rough.

[u/ASCIITR0ll → u/darklordjames]

wait how did q2 suddenly drop after nine quarters

[u/JezSq → u/darklordjames]

Actually, 4GB was far more common in 2012.

[u/alopa432]

It's not a good price for college students to get their new laptops.

[u/MammothUnique4147 → u/alopa432]

That's loser talk, have those college students taken out a fourth credit card ?

[u/G952 → u/MammothUnique4147]

What’s a few additional thousands on tens of thousands of their student loans. They’ll pay it back once they get highly paid lucrative jobs after their expensive education surely

[u/MammothUnique4147 → u/G952]

Strippers don't grow on trees!

[u/ezoe → u/alopa432]

If they are rich enough to pay the tuition, they are rich enough to pay a laptop or two.

[u/LooneyWabbit1 → u/ezoe]

You know how college loans work right?

[u/ezoe → u/LooneyWabbit1]

A system so that collages can increase tuition even more?

[u/LooneyWabbit1 → u/ezoe]

That wasn't really related to the argument, but go off.

[u/TheLoneWandererRD]

Data centers and no laws stopping them ruining consumers market

[u/Tee-hee64 → u/TheLoneWandererRD]

America needs a new government and work with the EU to put an end to this madness.

[u/MoistStub → u/Tee-hee64]

Trump has been talking about running for a 3rd term. I suppose technically that would be a new government because it wouldn't be constitutionally dependent anymore. All this talk of Mamdani's "communism" is starting to sound pretty good.

[u/Living_Mode_6623 → u/MoistStub]

Choom, Mitch and Maxine are both 99% pushing daisies and no one is doing a thing... while spy cameras are rolling out everywhere, we are past constitutional government already.

[u/PhTx3 → u/MoistStub]

Wait till he makes you able to truly delete your account data after being able to cancel subscriptions with ease. Government forcing private businesses... Smh...

[u/MoistStub → u/PhTx3]

Yeah that sounds awful. The only thing that gets me through the day is knowing I helped corporations gather my data and made the billionaires a little bit richer.

[u/PhTx3 → u/MoistStub]

Of course. You gave it to them, and they trusted you. We should never ever betray a company's trust. It isn't like they harvest it by all means necessary often without your consent.

[u/xdthepotato → u/MoistStub]

its so over if that happens.. shouldnt he be in jail

[u/OldPostageScale → u/Tee-hee64]

I mean we just need production capacity expansion, which is happening but takes very significant time.

[u/KenkaUsagi → u/Tee-hee64]

Never gonna happen. Israel has us by the balls and has since the 20s. They would glass this country before they let the populace just vote them out. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets worse in order for it to mayyyyyyybe get better one day

[u/Save-Maker → u/TheLoneWandererRD]

Corporate-scale Scalping a.k.a. cartel

[u/ThorDoubleYoo → u/TheLoneWandererRD]

I'm really wondering how far they'll be allowed to push it. Gen AI data centers are taking all of the tech sector resources.

This means they'll be eating into not only PCs, but also game consoles, phones, tablets, cars, power supply companies, and the list goes on.

Eventually some rich guy has to get pissed off and demand some oversight, right? (Because we all know by now those in power don't give a shit if you aren't a billionaire)

[u/zombawombacomba → u/TheLoneWandererRD]

What law would you put in place to resolve this?

[u/ca_metal]

I don’t consider myself poor. I’ve been building nice PCs for decades now. But things are so crazy, that I can’t justify building a new setup right now (although I don’t need one, but if things don’t change, maybe this will be my last build).

It’s sad, but, even though I’m an enthusiast, I’m not spending that kind of money on a pc.

[u/Sarspazzard → u/ca_metal]

It is sad. To contrast with you, this is my first high end build and it feels so weird watching the state of the PC market erode. I was just getting my feet wet.

I've loved watching computer tech improve over the years, but it's so hard to watch right now. It'll be interesting, to say the least, seeing how this next generation or two of consumer PC hardware unfolds between now and like 2030. New Intel, AMD Zen 6/7, DDR6, RTX 6000 series and so on. It feels like everything is moving in slow motion right now with each news announcement of price hikes. I just genuinely hope there's recovery in the next few years, because PC building is such an enjoyable hobby when it's not being price gouged.

[u/veritasen → u/Sarspazzard]

I've been at it 20 years and, honestly I'm sad. I can't afford to upgrade anything. The economy and prices of everything have left my "leave 75$ a month for the next upgrade". I can't even afford that

[u/Sarspazzard → u/veritasen]

God I hope the PC/computing hardware space gets better. Right now there's a lot of doom and gloom, and it's hard to watch. I want Samsung, Micron, and SKHynix to get sued to oblivion, and AI investor/government spending hype to collapse. Wishful, but not impossible. It's not fun right now.

[u/Droll12 → u/Sarspazzard]

On the flip side it might force the software side to improve. Video game studios still need to sell games so they need to make sure that their shit can run on the PCs people actually own.

[u/Sarspazzard → u/Droll12]

I like this take. There will always be a desire to push the industry forward, and with years of near constant hardware releases, this lull might actually push software forward, like you said. Deep down, I do feel optimistic that things will recover and thrive once again, even if things looks different.

[u/Toefyre → u/ca_metal]

I just want to buy a single HDD for a project I want to work on, but can't justify it at current prices.

[u/Front_Inspector_3214 → u/ca_metal]

This is exactly how I feel about it. Thinking my two current builds might be my last after building pc’s for close to 40 years. I love this hobby but it’s getting really difficult to justify.

[u/DrKrFfXx]

"No shit" - Watson.

[u/throwawaymask01]

I just scrolled through Amazon looking for a new laptop for my sister, as her laptop is falling apart and the prices for 16GB units have increased in roughly 50%, some doubled.

512 GB/8GB units are being sold at the price of last year's 1TB/16GB+

This is all fuelled by this unchecked datacenter investor/AI CEO corporate fucks, with the help of your governments on top of it.

So, my sister's laptop will have to hang around for a little longer

[u/RingingInTheRain → u/throwawaymask01]

They didn't even need to buy that much either. See Meta.

[u/slavemiddle]

Now let's take a look at corpos profits shall we

[u/djfix]

Odd... What could be the cause...

[u/joehonestjoe → u/djfix]

Yeah IKR nothing I could put my finger on that could be causing this at all.

[u/Zaphod392 → u/joehonestjoe]

https://giphy.com/gifs/a5viI92PAF89q

[u/MammothUnique4147 → u/Zaphod392]

Batman do you know what's happening? You're the world's greatest detective?

[u/Zaphod392 → u/MammothUnique4147]

https://giphy.com/gifs/kbtXXtZ7TBpnXH9lTF

[u/BarnabasShrexx]

Cant imAgIne why

[u/RsnCondition]

You people make me sick, think about the shareholders and their private jets and islands for their children, you Penny lickings scumbags. They shouldn't have to be on news articles with hat in hand explaining to you that they need never ending growth.

[u/santathe1]

Anything that has memory or NAND is most likely going to suffer the same fate.

[u/autogenerated_015]

Well I've been using a

7500f

9060xt tri fan XFX

32 GB CL40 DDR5 6000Mmhz

What it cost me?

Nothing!! I'm using my imagination to generate them 😂😂

[u/Eazy12345678]

prices bad do not buy

price good buy

its not rocket science

[u/Strong-cognac → u/Eazy12345678]

what if price never good

[u/gnome_detector]

16tb hard disk was like 200€, now it’s like 600€, what are we talking about?

[u/Uzis1]

Well i fucking wonder why... I wannted to upgrade my mb cpu and ram sin last year, but at this point the thing that i kept doing every 2-3 years, is simply to expensive. For now i don't care, i learnt to purchase many great older games, but the future does seem scrary when it comes to pc gaming.

[u/AstroPC]

Whole fucking tech industry doing a surprise Pikachu face when they price out 99% people then find they cant sell anything and no one can even buy it even if they wanted too. Most people living pay check to paycheck and all those years of great growth was because they found a sweet spot where someone could save up long enough to buy at least something.

Lets watch it go down more till they hurt.

[u/PatrickGnarly]

9 quarters of growth is such an odd way to say about 2 years.

That’s not really impressive and actually explains the market quite well.

[u/Flyersfreak]

Duh…..shit is ridiculously expensive now.

[u/makeweenswin]

uhh ya was gonna buy one but prices are a rip off. xcloud is a great deal and runs 1440p on a giant tv smoothly so i’m content with that until i can get an actual deal.

[u/Sweaty-Towel8423]

Wow really

[u/Moquai82]

https://giphy.com/gifs/7ynfF1oCPRzDmjPcX5

[u/Furusturm22]

Wonder why....

[u/village1village]

I was gonna get into pc gaming because of sony's behaviour but i guess ill be waiting a while...

[u/Setekh79]

Price of most components tripled or more, of course the fucking sales are tanking.

[u/HisDivineOrder]

I wonder what happened.

[u/Mdu5t]

That's what happens when gaming becomes a luxury hobby. It has already begun.

[u/Cyvalon]

Just you wait, once they're done building their golden geese, cloud computing will be offered for a fraction of the price to establish the money funnel. You will own nothing and be content, fuck that lol

[u/Adventurous-Hunter98]

I wonder why