5 PC hardware trends we desperately need in 2025 and beyond

It goes without saying that the PC hardware industry is going through a rough patch. Besides the ongoing GPU supply and pricing crisis that has dominated most of the headlines, we’ve also had to deal with middling generational gains, unfinished products making their way to customers, and a lack of options for budget buyers. Even components that came out years ago haven’t dropped in price as much as they should have, making PC building unappealing for the average consumer.

If we want to make gaming PCs exciting again, the following wishlist needs to become a reality. Instead of grappling with unsustainable prices, disappointing performance uplift, and non-existent supply, PC builders deserve to worry about build ideas and budget optimization.

5

Better testing and accountability before launch

Defective PC components need to go away

Intel’s 13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs were out for a long time before the overvoltage bug started wreaking havoc across consumer PCs around the world. Maybe Intel thought the instability and crashes due to the bug would never actually happen, or maybe the company wasn’t even aware of the bug at all — I can’t decide which is worse. The only right answer here is that Intel should have caught the anomaly in testing way before the CPUs left the factory.

This new trend of unfinished PC components isn’t limited to Intel; Nvidia’s RTX 40 and RTX 50 series have been known to burn the 12VHPWR connector, despite modifications to resolve the issue. The Blackwell GPUs even shipped with missing ROPs (Render Output Units) on RTX 5090, RTX 5090D, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti units. Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs continued the trend of unstable CPUs for a while, and the company’s Arc Battlemage GPUs faced a curious performance overhead when paired with budget CPUs.

Manufacturers have gotten way too comfortable launching components without enough testing, since they know customers have no option but to buy whatever is available. Even after the fact, companies have failed to take the necessary accountability for their blunders, and tried to deflect blame. With the next generation of CPUs and GPUs, manufacturers need to get their act together, unless they’re ready for more class action lawsuits for knowingly selling defective products.

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4

Substantial generational gains or nothing

Don’t launch it if you know it sucks

What do you expect when buying a new CPU or GPU that came out two years after the previous generation? Your answer is probably “significant performance uplift”. That’s exactly what we haven’t seen in a long time in the PC hardware space. AMD hyped up its Ryzen 9000 CPUs to no end, only to launch a lineup of processors that was rightly dubbed “Zen 5%” instead of Zen 5. Intel, trying to one-up the competition, launched the Arrow Lake series, which was actually slower than the Raptor Lake series in gaming.

Neither of these lineups were refreshes of existing CPUs; they were full-fledged new generations of products, and marketed as such. It’s unacceptable, then, to receive what we did in the name of the latest and greatest CPUs in 2024. The pricing of these chips was yet another slap in the face of consumers. Nvidia carried the baton further with the RTX 50 series, delivering what can best be called a refresh of the RTX 40 series.

I would much rather manufacturers not launch anything at all instead of rushing half-baked products to the market. Of course, companies need to answer to the shareholders, so that’s not a realistic ask, but expecting a new generation of chips to behave as such is also a fair ask. I hope we can wash off the bad taste that the year 2024 left in our mouths with whatever is coming in 2025 and beyond.

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3

Cheaper DDR5 motherboards and Gen5 SSDs

It’s about time

When DDR5 motherboards and RAM first started trickling to the masses, prices were prohibitive, and it wasn’t worth upgrading from DDR4-based PCs. The “DDR5 tax” might not be as prohibitive anymore, but motherboards in the budget segment haven’t come down in price as much as they should have by now. If I want a B650 or B760 ATX motherboard for my mid-tower PC, I need to shell out at least $150 for a decent option.

Add to that the scam that are the more expensive B840 and X870 chipset boards — posing as premium motherboards when they’re simply a refresh of A820 and B650E motherboards, respectively. Even PCIe 5.0 SSDs need to chill already (in every sense of the word). They’re still not worth the premium over Gen4 SSDs when it comes to gaming, but they still cost around $100 more than the latter (for 1TB or 2TB models).

The pricing of these components has not kept up with their reception in the market, and desperately need a correction this year. With DDR5 being the most popular standard for new PC builders, it’s high time manufacturers stopped treating DDR5 motherboards and Gen5 SSDs like novelties.

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Get the most from your motherboard

2

Real competition in the budget segment

When did we abandon affordable components?

With the internet dissecting the RTX 50 and RX 90 series to no end, it’s easy to forget that the budget GPU segment has largely been ignored by both Nvidia and AMD. Only Intel’s Battlemage GPUs are holding the fort, although even the Arc B580 is selling for $100 over its $250 MSRP. It seems as if everyone silently agreed to stop caring about budget GPUs sometime around 2022, when Nvidia launched its RTX 40 series. Between the Arc B580 at $250 and the RX 9070 at $549, there’s not even a single current-gen GPU on offer.

As for CPUs, when did we last get a great affordable CPU? I’m not talking about $200-$250 chips that currently masquerade as “budget CPUs”. Where did decent $100–$150 CPUs disappear? Today, you only have 4-core options like the Core i3-14100 or last-gen models like the Ryzen 5 5600, if you want a $100 CPU. They’re decent for those on extreme budgets, but we sorely need new and affordable 6-core chips from AMD to compete with Intel in the budget segment.

Intel Arc B580

The Intel Arc B580 is the best budget GPU you can buy this generation. It can run ray-traced titles, features impressive upscaling, and is mighty capable of 1440p Ultra gaming.

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1

Robust supply or realistic MSRPs

Something needs to give

Whenever a hotly anticipated CPU or GPU series arrives, seeing sold-out listings and slight price hikes over MSRP is par for the course. This time, however, the way the RTX 50, RX 90, and Ryzen 7 9800X3D launches have panned out, it’s clear that things are much worse. The supply has been almost non-existent, creating a market filled with sky-high prices and unrestricted scalping.

The worst thing about all this is that manufacturers like Nvidia and AMD set unrealistic MSRPs in the face of crumbling supply chains. They chose to advertise prices that they knew would exist solely on paper, simply to garner more eyeballs and show their products in a better light. Companies either have to delay launching their products till they get the supply chains in order, or admit that the situation is dire and advertise “real” prices that consumers should expect to see on the shelves.

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Gaming PCs might become more trouble than they’re worth

The joy of gaming PCs is in crafting a machine tailored to your needs, tinkering with it to extract every bit of performance possible, and making upgrades during its lifetime to keep it up to date. The current market, however, has PC enthusiasts worried about how to buy a GPU at half-decent prices, defective hardware, and a glaring lack of worthwhile budget components. If these trends aren’t reversed, building a PC could become a challenge that fewer and fewer people might be brave enough to take on.