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PC share of DRAM biz falls below 50%

First time since the early 80s

PCs, once the final destination for almost all of the world's memory chips, now consume less than half of the world's DRAM shipments.

During Q2, only 49 per cent of DRAM shipments ended up in desktop and laptop PCs, down from 50.2 per cent in Q1, market watcher IHS iSuppli said this weekend.

This at a time when new machines typically come with more memory than ever before.

It's easy to lay the blame on the rise of the tablet and the smartphone, but these devices use relatively little memory compared to PCs: 512MB to 1GB, compared to 4-8GB for PCs.

And the PC's share of DRAM shipments slumped to around 55 per cent in 2008, from which it has been falling very slightly ever since, until the Q1 2012 drop to 50.2 per cent.

It's the end of an era, said iSuppli's Clifford Leimbach. "PCs are no longer generating the kind of growth and overwhelming market size that can single-handedly drive demand, pricing and technology trends in some of the major technology businesses.”

Leimbach expects the PC's share of DRAM shipments to have fallen to 42.8 per cent by Q4 2013.

"However, it’s important to note that PCs will remain the largest single market for DRAM at least through the end of 2013, and overall DRAM bit shipments for personal computers will continue to grow," he said. ®

Re: And I feel slightly sad if this IS indicating...

Nothing is changing, it's just that many PCs in the past were [mis]used as consumption devices, and vast quantities of silicon and power were meaninglessly wasted in the pursuit of trivia.

Now at least the mindless consumption is a bit more efficient.

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"Your PC probably doesn't need more than 4Gb"

Can't see 512MB cutting it any more. Perhaps you mean 4GB?

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And I feel slightly sad if this IS indicating...

that we are moving from creation devices to consumption devices. Woe betide the users of the future.

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"The "consumption devices" tend to be heavier on flash memory than traditional DRAM."

I think most devices are heavier on non-volatile storage than volatile. In fact the ratio is usually much lower for "consumption devices" than "creation devices", which is why they use flash memory rather than (say) magnetic disks.

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Anonymous Coward

Re: And I feel slightly sad if this IS indicating...

Why?

In the past people bought devices capable of creation with all the overhead that they didn't need.

Now there are products that suit them better. As far as I can see no creation device has disappeared so for those that want to create nothing has changed.

Why is it so worrying that additional more appropriate devices are finding favour?

Presumably you'd have us hark back to the "You can have any colour so long as it's black" days.

Posted from a creation-centric device by the way....

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