2007 in PC Hardware
Vista Gaining Ground Slowly While Memory Capacities IncreaseMicrosoft's latest operating system offering, Windows Vista, has been off to a rather slow start. In January, when it was launched to the general consumer, Vista accounted for around 10% of all 3DMark06 submits. The OS has been slowly gaining popularity since then, but still today just 35% of submits are made with the latest version of Windows and the rate of Vista adoption seems to be slowing down. YouGamers data confirms that XP remains as the default choice for PC gamers. Given the number of YouGamers reviews that have shown DX10 and/or Vista to generally have lower performance than DX9 and/or WinXP, and the lack of any conclusive reason so far to move into DX10 country, this isn't all that surprising. It seems that Windows Vista still needs that "killer game" to convince people to change OS.
3DMark06 users' memory capacity has also been increasing throughout the year. In January, over 40% of users had less than 2GB of memory, but right now, this number is down to about 10%. Even the number of users who have two to three gigs is now declining with more and more users opting for 3 GB of system memory or more. The data from the Game-o-Meter shows that outside the enthusiast circles, having under 2 GB of memory is still common.
Odds and EndsOne side effect of Windows Vista is that, since the launch, 64-bit versions of operating systems have been steadily gaining ground in 3DMark06 submits. Today about 13% of all submits come from a 64-bit system. Another feature steadily gaining ground this year have been widescreen displays. In 3DMark06 submits, widescreen users accounted for around 25% of all at the start of the year, but rose to 45% towards the end, meaning that soon about half of the enthusiast market are running widescreen resolutions on their PC systems. YouGamers data shows a similar trend, but with a slower rise and in smaller numbers.
ConclusionsWith millions of pieces of data available, reasonable "averages" can be extrapolated. For example, the typical 3DMark06 user today has Windows XP, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 graphics card and 2GB of system memory. Not very surprising data, now was that? Multi-core processors and DX10 graphics cards were hot upgrades in 2007; Intel and NVIDIA emerged as this year's winners, both staying ahead of the competition, and users today have more memory than ever. Quad core CPUs are already starting to gain ground from dual cores and the GeForce 8800 GT is shaping up to be the most popular choice in graphics cards in this generation. While the upgrade cycle is progressing at a nice pace in hardware, Windows Vista still looks like it needs a big boost (and some will argue that upgrade is the wrong word to use when speaking of moving from XP to Vista); many are still waiting for jaw-dropping DX10 graphics, but from comments made on our forum, some seen to already have given up hope. I hope you have enjoyed this look at 2007 in hardware from 3DMark06's perspective and found the data informative and interesting.
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