84% of gamers simply won't pay for AI-enhanced hardware features, says new poll

AMD and Intel are about to unleash next-generation CPUs and APUs with beefed-up AI capabilities, but do you really need, or even want them? Probably not, and that's exactly how 84% of users voted in a new poll.

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TechPowerUp posted a new poll asking if PC users were interested in paying for AI-enhanced hardware, but 84% of the votes said NO. Over 26,000 people voted, with 7% saying that they would and 9% not sure what they wanted to do.

W1zzard posted: "AI capabilities are becoming increasingly integrated into hardware devices, promising enhanced performance and functionality. However, this advanced technology often comes at a premium price. Would you pay more for hardware with AI features?"

Most of the comments on the thread were negative, with most people saying that they had no interest in AI, or no use for it, while some will wait a generation to see how the AI game plays out on PC. One of the comments said "but the moment I can buy something that runs 100% locally (via GPU) and let's me talk to my PC and USE it that way, I'm 100% in" and I agree with that.

Another comment that I agree with was "I would pay slightly more to have it removed and more cache or some other useful hardware in its place". Beefer integrated GPU, on-package memory, more CPU cores, more cache, even X3D V-Cache from AMD at least, would be better for most gamers and PC users than dedicated NPUs for AI workloads that people can't really use (and don't want to).