Price of new systems not going down

[Cluent]

About a year an a half ago, when Nehalem first came out, I got a Dell system with a Nehalem i7 processor with the works. A year an half later, a similarly-equipped Dell desktop with a quadcore processor costs about the same as that i7, and I can't believe they're still selling desktops with dual and single core processors, for not too cheap I might add. i7 systems are more expensive than they were when Nehalem first came out.

What's going on here?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

It's the state of the current world economy, now we're not going to get political in this thread (forum rules) but it's probably not going to get any better as inflation rises; besides it always takes a long while for the price of new technology to come down.

 

[pebbly]

manufacturers always have to recoup there development costs, there's no getting away from that

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

manufacturers always have to recoup there development costs, there's no getting away from that

That's anothet excellent point.

 

[Tarka Dal]

I've also noticed at the moment is that manufacturers are making you think you are having a sale with a bargain of £100 off this laptop or Desktop only to find they've taken out some memory and downgraded AV cards...

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

look at Currency Exchange values -


Two weeks ago I went on a weekend trip to Brussels from London's St Pancras station on the Eurostar train.

Had I been mad enough to get some Euros in the station I would actually have had to pay 104 GBP for 100 EUR -- I.e 1 GBP was worth LESS than 1 EUR. (Mind you if you use currency exchanges in Stations and Airports you'll always get HUGELY ripped off).

Even though I'm on contract in the UK I'm lucky enough to be paid in Euros. Since the start of my last contract the Euro rate vs UK sterling has changed from around EUR 1.62 per 1 GBP to 1.02 EUR per 1 GBP.

This is great for me but of course without stores increasing the price one bit and disregarding any tax rises it means your imported stuff will be HUGELY more expensive --the UK doesn't manufacture things like computers etc any more so all these have to be imported.

Actually I'm surprised how stable prices have been considering the HUGE effective devaluation of Sterling.

I'm sure its the same in the USA or other countries where the currency rates have changed making imports a lot more expensive.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[HJA]

When sales go down they have to keep their profits up. Less for more is the easy way out. ChaChing$$$$$

 

[jimbo45]

When sales go down they have to keep their profits up. Less for more is the easy way out. ChaChing$$$$$

Actually it doesn't work like that in practice -- stock always has to be moved regardless of price every so often. If it didn't you would NEVER see end of season sales etc etc in clothing stores and so on.

However forgetting stores - you'll see if you try and source the gear yourself you'll find out that its CURRENCY FLUCTUATIONS that are the biggest culprit here of prices not coming down for the moment.

cheers
jimbo

 

[pparks1]

I think the other issue is that computers are only going to get so cheap. I recall back in the day when personal computers were easily a $3,000 investment.

As far as single and dual core processors go....everything is dependent upon the applications in use. For example, something like a single core atom processor would be better for lower power laptops and netbooks and such. Desktop based dual core CPU's are usually more than powerful enough for most any task that a typical home user would perform. Tons of home users would be happier paying less for a dual core CPU over a quad core CPU and would likely not notice any speed difference between them...thus making it a good choice.