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When it comes to specs, PC trounces consoles. Entatech business development manager Andrew Williams looks at how system builders are taking advantage of the situation in this opinion piece.
With the PC gaming market dominating console, it comes as no surprise that the PC build market is on the rise.
Entatech has held a strong presence within the system integrator market since its establishment over 25 years ago. We’ve been witness to just how much the market has evolved, we’ve seen a change in the market leaders, the demands of the user, and how much users are willing to pay for the latest bespoke build.
There’s been a massive increase in the sales of PC builds this year, which has been heavily fuelled by the PC gaming market.
With so many brands available for gamers – whether novice or enthusiast – the price points vary massively. Entry level builds start at around £499, mid-point around £599 and premium builds hitting anywhere from £899 to £2,000. That being said, we are aware of some specialist gaming partners selling custom builds for as high as £10,000.
We specialise predominantly in the higher end of the market, and sales have surged following the release of new VGA technology from AMD and NVIDIA. When it comes to purchasing a PC build, users know they need a high quality graphics card for the best performance available.
As a result, most gamers will choose to invest more on the graphics card and less on other components, such as the case. When it comes to cases, it’s all about brand loyalty, with Fractal Design, Corsair and Cooler Master as the leading brands in the market.
Those who are less specific on their brand of choice will opt for a cheaper alternative, with a generic opening price point. Memory and motherboards are another strong area for Entatech, with sales for branded memory particularly high amongst PC builders.
“Gamers choose to invest more on the graphics card and less on other components.”
Andrew Williams, Entatech
Those opting for a high to premium machine will often opt for Corsair or HyperX memory, with entry to mid-level machines suiting ADATA solutions. The biggest challenge that system integrators will face is the marketplace and where they will be able to sell their builds without losing out on profit. The grey market has made it difficult for some builders to successfully sell their builds to end users, and it is unfortunately not a problem that will be easily resolved.
We don’t believe that there will be any threat from the ‘A-brands’ such as ASUS, Alienware or MSI, and that our leading brands will remain dominant within this field, in part due to their fantastic price points.
In our opinion, the sales of various performance PC builds will remain strong as technologies evolve in the future. And this, in turn, will further boost the market presence of many of Entatech’s leading brands.
