All three CPU forums, AMD/, Intel and VIA added together don't even have 10% of the threads posted in the motherboard, or video card forums. Hell, all three together have less threads than the Monitor forum.

To quote an old Science teacher I had in 7th grade, "What does this tell us"? What I see is the CPU becoming a commodity, like Optical drives or cases. I saw something written about this happening back in 1998 I think. But not a word since. Not a good sign because If DVD burners get any cheaper, you'll get a free one with a full tank of gas.*

You can see this happening in peoples attitudes toward CPU's. Once upon a time the speed difference between a PII chip and the next one up the food chain was either 33Mhz or 50Mhz. That extra 33 or 50Mhz would cost you $100 or more. No one complained much. In fact they saved money and happily paid for the fastest PII they could get. Now we see people going with the slower chip many times instead of the next on up because it is $150 more and "only" 100mhz faster. The megahertz haven't changed. 100Mhz today is the same as 100 megahertz was then. What has changed is peoples attitudes and what they see as value.

*with what gas costs today, with a full tank you should get a free computer and a hug from an Exxon employee.  :)

Not exactly sure what you are getting at, so I'm just going to say a few things and see if they are even relevant. lol

Firstly, it isn't accurate to base an observation on one forum alone. It could be that members here don't need help with CPU related matters here. Or there isn't as much news. Maybe it isn't talked about much because it is more easily understood than other computer components.

You say that people nowadays are going with the slower chip many times instead of the next one up because it is $150 more and "only" 100MHz faster. It is true that MHz hasn't changed. But architecture has. That is why people are buying Core 2 processors instead of the high GHz processors from the old Pentium family. But even within the same family, not everyone is going to buy the extreme edition processor. If you are basing your observations on forums like this that are geared towards enthusiasts, you also have to take into account their income. We would all love an Extreme top of the line quad-core if it was for $100. But I'm sure we all make decent enough income to build a gaming pc and that is why for the most of us, bang for the buck is pretty important. Then throw overclocking into the equation, and a low-end cpu can turn into the high-end model for a lot less money.

Also, I don't think the CPU gets upgraded as much as the graphics card. Graphics cards are refreshed quite often and is probably more difficult to understand than a processor. For the video card, you can't just look at the core/memory speed and the amount of memory.  More doesn't always equal better. Look at the 8800GT with 512MB and 1GB of RAM. They perform almost identical in the benchmarks I've seen. There are the amount of shaders and their speed. And with so many products from both AMD/ATI and Nvidia, it gets a little confusing. Also, they have manufacturers to make the cards for them. They offer different bundles and cards with different heatsinks/fans (sometimes). Well, I'm getting to much into video cards so I'll stop...

Good points. I wasn't basing the whole industry on just the foums here. In general they get a lot less discusion than other things. I believe a lot of this is due to the "sexy" factor. CPUs are after all just tools. Video cards are toys. :)

My point about speed and peoples buying habits was I think people have changed what they see as value. And really your point about Core2's vs. faster Pentiums makes the same point. I think we all see value differently than we did a short time ago.

Anyway, I post these things mostly late at night when I am pondering the hardware business. Mostly they are meant to play devils advocate and stimulate discussion.