[CamperBob2]

Consumer demand likely depends on how local models end up working out. Nothing else really needs serious local computing power anymore. My guess is that even high-end games will probably stagnate for a while.

Many users will not want to risk their privacy, data, and workflow on someone else's rapidly-enshittifying AI cloud model. Right now we don't have much choice, but there are signs of progress.

[HappMacDonald]

> Many users will not want to risk

How "Many users" though?

I would argue that the segment of the market whose purchases incentivize personal responsibility on their PCs is outweighed by the segment of the market blowing their disposable income on tablets and smartphones who just want things to work and want whatever they see other people using on social media.

We both know which segment of the market the large companies want to win that battle. They want to sell rented compute resources through nothing but impossible-to-locally-administrate devices where every sensor spies on you and it's impossible to store any data or documents locally, let alone privately.

Even One Drive is pushing hard to literally erase your hard drive and only host your documents on their servers.

[bitmasher9]

High level games are far from stagnating, when viewed from usable performance.

Many new games cannot run max settings, 4k, 120hz on any modern gpus. We probably need to hit 8k before we max out on the returns higher resolution can provide. Not to mention most game devs are targeting an install base of $500 6 year old consumer hardware, in a world where the 5090 exists.

[CamperBob2]

That's what I mean by stagnating... most players already can't run with max settings, or even close to them. From the developers' point of view there's not much point raising the bar any higher right now, while the best GPU hardware is so far out of reach of your average PC gamer.

[achierius]

Compilers do, and AI models are making software more accessible than ever.