8 trends that will sound the death knell for gaming PCs

The ongoing GPU crisis (oh boy) and the past lackluster year for PC hardware have forced me to ponder where the PC industry is heading. PC components selling out in seconds and greedy scalpers holding the market ransom isn’t new, but what has changed is that manufacturers now expect us to treat this as the new normal. No longer do I see the same outrage against hilariously insufficient stocks and faulty PC components.

This made me think about every single negative trend plaguing the industry right now, and how the combined effect could end up hurting PC hardware and PC gaming in the near future. Not only are gaming PCs becoming inaccessible to the larger population, but internal and external challenges are threatening to make them less appealing than ever before. PC gaming will not die, but it might just become a lifeless carcass if we don’t take the foot off the pedal.

8

Minimalism has replaced DIY hardware tinkering

Every PC looks the same

This one might not be as damning as the other times on the list, but the visual variety in gaming PCs is gradually fading away. The 2000s had balls-to-the-walls hardware mods like CCFL tubes, UV-reactive components, EL wire lighting, custom fan grills & side panels, and submerged cooling. Even the 2010s replaced those with unique PC cases, RGB lighting, components with LCDs, and custom cables. However, the 2020s seem more boring than ever.

Every other PC builder is opting for fish tank cases, tons of fans, gigantic coolers, and RGB components. The stuff that was fresh a few years ago seems awfully stale now, and the components that have replaced it seem hell-bent on eschewing variety for minimalism. Sleek PCs, SFF cases, and fancy pre-builds that can double as home decor items are all the rage, and the scope for hardware customization is at an all-time low. If we don’t see fresh trends infuse the PC market with some much-needed diversity, custom PC building might become a rarity.

7

Insignificant generational gains are commonplace

The unfortunate death of Moore’s Law

It’s not like every single CPU and GPU generation in the past delivered stupendous gains over the previous one, but the 2024-25 season has made this trend more acceptable than ever. First, we saw AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series deliver essentially the same gaming performance as the Ryzen 7000 series, earning the endearing nickname of “Zen 5%.” Then, Intel’s much-anticipated Arrow Lake CPUs ended up being slower than the 14th Gen Core series. And, finally, Nvidia’s RTX 50 series was more a refresh of the 40 series than a whole new generation.

I feel manufacturers have prematurely made their peace with the death of Moore’s Law, as claimed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. They are content with pumping out the same products in newer packaging, demanding more money for lesser value. Even the outrage against these launches doesn’t have the punch that we used to see in the past, which either means manufacturers have worn us down, or that even we don’t care as much anymore — I don’t know what’s worse.

If this trend of minor gen-on-gen gains continues, it won’t be long before PC enthusiasts will question the very purpose of building a new PC. When gamers find no reason to upgrade to the latest hardware, who will manufacturers sell to? I’ve already declared that my dream upgrade from the RTX 3080 to the RTX 5080 is ruined, since the 50 series offers me nothing that the 40 series doesn’t. It won’t be long before many more gamers feel the same way.

6

GPU manufacturers are too chummy with AI

“Artificial Incentives” to upgrade

Artificial Intelligence became a major driver of GPU performance when Nvidia launched DLSS alongside the RTX 20 series GPUs in 2018. The underlying AI model in DLSS first took charge of filling in the gaps for upscaling and later enabled the generation of entirely new frames. While the technology also handles other departments such as denoising (ray reconstruction) and anti-aliasing (DLAA), AI really became a problem when the RTX 50 series introduced Multi Frame Generation (MFG).

This feature essentially multiplies the benefits as well as the downsides of Frame Generation, available on the RTX 40 series GPUs. Nvidia chose to market the AI-generated frames as equivalent to those rendered by the game engine, essentially misleading consumers with claims like the RTX 5070 offering RTX 4090 levels of performance. While MFG made it seem like the 50 series would offer double the FPS of the 40 series, the actual raw performance increase of the 50 series GPUs ended up in the 10–30% range (at 4K), depending on the SKU.

And it’s not just Nvidia that is relying on AI instead of raw hardware-driven gains. AMD has confirmed that AI will play a big role in its RDNA 4 GPUs, enabling enhanced upscaling, frame generation, and lag reduction using FSR 4. Intel’s Arc GPUs already have dedicated AI cores to handle upscaling and frame generation, and an MFG-like feature will surely arrive soon on Team Blue’s GPUs. PC gamers clearly do not welcome this shift toward AI to drive generational performance gains.

5

Games are more demanding, yet more broken than ever

The ship of voting with your wallet has sailed

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re a PC gamer. So, you already know the state of AAA games of late — a mess of unoptimized titles, uninspired multi-million-dollar failures, and a streak of studio closures even after putting out hits. It almost feels like we’re living through a dark age of PC gaming. Every big-budget studio is pushing the boundaries of photorealism, making games more demanding than ever, but games with predictable performance and engaging gameplay are a rarity in 2025.

When flagship graphics cards can’t drive playable framerates in the latest games without upscaling and frame generation, there’s no hope for the average gamer using an RTX 4060. Plus, gamers need to be more wary than ever of “gotcha games” like The Day Before, which turned out to be nothing but a cash-grab scam, where the developers hyped up the game like there was no tomorrow (there wasn’t), and closed shop days after releasing a dud.

The pain of putting up with unoptimized games alone is enough to push PC gamers to consoles. Still, the gaming industry is piling on with unfair practices and using upscaling & frame generation as crutches.

4

Consoles are getting more powerful every generation

Talking about moving to consoles…

When the industry moved to the PS5 and Xbox Series X, there was a palpable shift in the perception toward consoles. They were no longer hunks of junk with jet engine noise, sub-par graphics, and slow-as-heck loading speeds. The latest generation of consoles boasts some of the fastest loading times and PC-level graphics. You don’t need to pump out insanely high FPS to offer a superior gaming experience if your machine can deliver 4K 60 FPS experiences.

The PS5 Pro even offers enhanced ray tracing and more GPU horsepower than before, bringing consoles closer than ever to PCs. Moreover, using upscaling as a crutch isn’t a downside for consoles when the technology is pervasive on PCs. The biggest draw of consoles today is much greater optimization in some of the biggest titles, offering gamers predictable performance at a much lower price of entry. The next generation of consoles might finally spur an exodus of PC gamers to the enemy camp.

3

Unfinished PC hardware has become more common

Games aren’t the only things coming out broken

Maybe PC hardware manufacturers didn’t want to be one-upped by gaming companies, so they decided that proper testing and quality assurance was for chumps, and launched products with some serious bugs. You might be familiar with Intel’s 13th and 14th Gen CPUs suffering from nasty crashes and lasting damage due to a bug causing high voltage delivery. Intel would have hoped to erase that memory with the Arrow Lake CPUs, but even those suffered from instability issues at launch.

On the topic of Intel launching buggy products, the otherwise excellent Arc B580 encountered a performance overhead when paired with budget and older CPUs, which, ironically, are the most relevant chips for it. The issue doesn’t seem easily resolved with a future BIOS update, since more fundamental factors could be at play. On the other hand, AMD couldn’t fix the gaming performance of its Ryzen 9000 CPUs even with BIOS updates, and probably regretted making tall marketing claims before launch.

Most recently, Nvidia’s RTX 50 series GPUs shipped with missing ROPs (Render Output Units), melting 12V-2×6 connectors (again), and driver issues causing black screens. Doesn’t it seem that this string of unfinished PC components is going on forever? At this point, it has almost become acceptablesince I don’t see enough consumers speaking out against it.

2

PC hardware has become ridiculously unaffordable

Do you even feel like building a PC anymore?

Companies like Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and others have gradually made luxury PC components a reality. Years ago, a $1,000 GPU seemed unthinkable, but today we’re seeing an RTX 5090 priced at $2,000, and performing not a lot faster than its predecessor for that price. AMD graphics cards have historically remained cheaper than those of Nvidia’s, but not by a lot. And both Intel and AMD have gradually hiked the prices of even their budget CPUs far beyond the “budget” segment.

CPUs and GPUs aren’t the only components that have priced out the average gamer. The latest motherboards, memory kits, and SSDs have also played their part. The death of budget components is being felt more than ever before, as there are truly a handful of decent affordable GPUs and CPUs left on the market. Nvidia and AMD have moved the goalposts of the budget and mid-range segments so much that it’s becoming unsustainable to upgrade one’s PC every few years.

Prices will obviously not come down anytime soon, so gamers will have to make a choice — buy crappy hardware they can afford or finally consider moving to a console or handheld.

1

The string of paper launches is set to continue

MSRP is no more

The silicon shortage and supply chain crises that plagued the industry from 2020 to 2022 seem to be making a comeback. No one but scalpers can find an RTX 50 series GPU or a Ryzen X3D CPU at sane prices anymore. Even previous-gen GPUs and CPUs are out of stock everywhere, contributing to an all-around terrible time to upgrade your PC. If you think these paper launches are just a temporary phenomenon, think again.

The same fate awaits AMD’s newly launched RX 9000 GPUs and any upcoming PC components on the horizon. Insufficient supply, trade tariffs, and an overall shift of priorities toward AI chips will continue to leave PC gamers in the lurch as time goes by. This trend might force people to buy an overpriced $1,000 console instead of an overpriced $2,000 gaming rig. PC gaming was already on the road to becoming a rich man’s game; the industry has now erected a freeway to help get there faster.

PC gaming won’t die, right?

The doomsayers who predicted the death of PC gaming have come and gone numerous times, and we’re all still here (in whatever state). The gaming PC market probably won’t self-combust anytime soon, but I don’t see a bright future either. Rising prices will continue to make PC gaming inaccessible to most people, availability will remain a challenge, consoles will continue to offer better value, and whatever is launched will probably be “bleh.”