[quote name='Gavin Williams' timestamp='1353215744' post='5001963']I think Korea currently has an average connection speed of about 17 Mbps, making them #1 in the world.

• 1080p is already the most common resolution. I expect it will remain so for a while with 1440p IPS panels starting to become prevalent in the high end. I know I'm looking at one of these bad boys in the near future.
  
• There's a roughly even split between 2 and 4 core CPUs. Over the next few years, I'd expect to see that become a 3 way split between quad (~20%) hexa (another 20%) and 8 core [size=1]er, octo core? (40%).
  
• RAM is cheap. Again we see a split here between 3,4 and 8 gbs. By 2015, I would expect 8 to be the minimum and 16 or 32 to be the average. Simply because it's a cheap easy upgrade.
  

1gb/s internet

This is probably optimistic.
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Depends on where you live i think, 1Gbps connections are allready available where i live. at around 50-80 euros / month.
There just isn't a great need for it yet, (100Mbps is enough for pretty much everything a normal user does). but yeah, 1000Gbps will not be "average" anytime soon.

1080p is already the most common resolution. I expect it will remain so for a while with 1440p IPS panels starting to become prevalent in the high end. I know I'm looking at one of these bad boysin the near future.
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yeah 1080p will remain dominant for atleast a few more years, they are optimal for HD video and are being mass produced which pushes prices down on them so if we're just looking at the average mid-high end gaming PC then it is likely to use a 1080p monitor in 2-3 years as well, the next good step for the average consumer(Who most likely will still want to watch 1080p vidoes at high quality then) would be 3840x2160 (Those monitors should be available at the high end by then but are unlikely to drop enough in price to really become common)

In your opinion, is this what you think an average mid-high end gaming PC will be like in, say, 2015?

Intel Ivy Bridge processor
32gb RAM
x2 Nvidia GeForce GTX 880
8tb HDD
1tb SSD
1000W PSU
Blu-Ray Drive (with games that come on Blu-Ray, if discs are still around, but I don't think retailers will let them phase out)
1920x1080 monitor
some odd input device in addition to the mouse/keyboard
1gb/s internet

I was just curious, and I think that this is a pretty good prediction. What about you?

Ivy Bridge i7 (or better family)
HD 7970 (or equivalent GTX) + HD6950
2-4TB hard drive
200GB SSD
1000W PSU
16-32GB memory
5760x1080 (triple 1080p)
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My current build:

Sandy Bridge i5
HD 6950
1TB hard drive
120GB SSD
750W PSU
12GB memory
1920x1080
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can play essentially any game I throw at it on maximum settings, even the most recent ones, so I'll probably only update the graphics card in a year's time (and even then, I will keep the old one if it's still working and use it as a secondary card for GPGPU - I mean, if there's enough room in my case ) I've already saved up for the extra terabyte and second monitor for christmas. As for the internet, it is what it is over here - can't change that.


All that to say, I don't find games are really pushing the limits of hardware right now. Even an 6-year-old PC with its old 8800GT can comfortably play most recent releases on at least medium quality, so I don't feel the need to upgrade that much. But I feel game developers are neglecting the "gameplay" aspect of games, which makes technological advances rather moot (apart from the "wow, that looks lifelike" first impressions).

That's what I thought. 1000w PSUs for reasonable high end PCs? That's a disaster.[/quote]
Components only draw what they need from the PSU, and you want to be on the "too much" side than the "not enough" one. Though obviously getting a 3kW PSU is overkill, but even good-quality PSU's typically cannot sustain the advertised power, so you want to keep a bit of leeway. My build is only using 65% of my PSU's total capacity, but I'd rather that than cheapening out on the PSU and using 95% of its capacity, where plugging in my external hard drive would risk overloading everything.

yeah 1080p will remain dominant for atleast a few more years, they are optimal for HD video and are being mass produced which pushes prices down on them so if we're just looking at the average mid-high end gaming PC then it is likely to use a 1080p monitor in 2-3 years as well, the next good step for the average consumer(Who most likely will still want to watch 1080p vidoes at high quality then) would be 3840x2160 (Those monitors should be available at the high end by then but are unlikely to drop enough in price to really become common)