Not just not a good time. Kind of an awful time.
And by "real computers" I refer to nice high-/extreme-performance/gaming stuff. Not necessarily the record-breaking overclock platforms, but not far off. Sure, low-end value computing, where bang-for-the-buck is paramount above all else, is pretty impressive. And the middly systems range all over the middle, some of which peaks out surprisingly near the top for not-too-bad pricing.
I suspect there's basically two reasons for this:
1)
Intel and AMD traditionally leapfrog each other, alternately juggling positions on who offers the best tech. Also, incidentally, forcing them to innovate more aggressively and keep their pricing tiers trimmed down. But, in recent years, AMD's focus has been elsewhere and they've lagged considerably in their top PC offerings. While Intel has focussed unchallenged on numerous incremental minor refinements and finer lithography/substrate/microcode technologies which offer diminishing-returns in flat performance but command exponentially inflated prices.
and 2)
PCIe 3.0 (GEN3) motherboards, processors, chipsets, and graphic cards are - as always - "just around the corner". Yes, a few offerings do exist, enough to build an entire working GEN3 system. But, when you dig into deep electronic/logic details, these seem to all be PCIe 2.0 platforms which incorporate added parts and complexity to somehow merge PCIe 2.0 components into half as many PCIe 3.0 components. With less than expected performance and reliability. In short - these products are basically PCIe 2.0/3.0 hybrids which are experimentally prototyping PCIe 3.0 implementations, they aren't as good as they should be.
Any thoughts?