Good time of year to buy a new PC?

Greylor

When buying a gaming PC, my policy is to buy top-notch stuff (basically the best of the proven gear) so that it will last a long time.

With my PC somewhere between 4 or 5 years old I am well due for a new one and seeing as I have gotten BF3 and will be getting SWTOR, I really want to get moving on a new kickass computer in the next month or two so that I can realy get the best out of these next-generation games.

Historically I tend to have bad luck when I upgrade computers though...for example the last time I upgraded was just as DX 10 launched, and like a spastic I got a graphics card that was top-notch for DX9 but not compatible for DX10...things like that.

So you can imagine my dismay when I read this month's PC Gamer magazine and an article said that this time of year tends to be very quiet on the hardware front....which translates to me as "in a few months there will be the next big leap forward, so if you fork out for a great PC now it will be average in 3 to 6 months."

My question is this: Is the article talking rubbish and it is as good a time as any to buy, or is this indeed a bad time of year to buy a new PC?

If it is a good time to buy a new PC, I'll proceed to ask for advice on what compenents to get (don't want to land up with what I had previously where I got components that were great, but all choked by something else).

Sand

Good a time as any Id say. "The next big leap" is always a few months away. At least now you know all the various driver issues and incompatability problems with "The last big leap" have been sorted out by now.

Fluffy88

It's a very silly question really to be asking in a tech world, since you can be almost guaranteed that after 6 months there will be new tech released.

Having said that though, it's a pretty good time to buy I think.
The Sandybridge CPU's are pretty revolutionary and even though in 4 months time they will be old tech since IvyBridge will be released early next year a 2500k is a monster of a processor and will last you a long time.

It could be worth waiting until after Christmas to buy though since ATI are due to release their Radeon 7000 series graphics cards by the end of the year, so one of them paired with a 2500k should be a pretty damn good gaming machine

ShadowHearth

Well I think that we passed stupid times of pentium 1 and pentuim 2. When technology was getting better by days and pc you bought 3 months ago is totally useless.

Technology got in to position, where even few year old technology still alive and kicks hard now.

Example: my old q6600 is 5 years old. I updated only my gpu from 8800gt to ati 6870 and my pc is still kicks everything in the nuts. I can play bf3 on high settings with 40++ fps.

Where am I going with this? Well if you buy pc now, I bet that it will be bullet prove for next 5 years atleast. There will be allways something newer and faster, but it won't be something that you MUST have to play!

Just buy it with no fear!

Tropheus

The only possible consideration now is HD prices. They've gone up considerably in the past few weeks. However, thankfully, that's a relatively small part of a new PC outlay so shouldn't really stop you from buying now.

Personally, I'm waiting until after Christmas, but that's more a budgeting issue rather than a technical one.

Serephucus

I'd say wait, personally. The current hardware has been out since the start of the year. Next year will bring socket 2011 (which by all accounts will destroy 1155), and potentially - though you may have to buy a stop-gap card for this - AMD's 7000 series.

Fluffy88

Will IvyBridge be that good??

And if it is that good, will it's pricing be similar to SandyBridge or is it going to be in the region of the Extreme series?

I'm looking at buying a laptop atm(because I have no where to put a desktop ) and was looking to get the mobile comparison of the 2500/2600, but if IvyBridge will really be that much better it could be worth waiting.

ShadowHearth

Fluffy88 wrote: »

Will IvyBridge be that good??

And if it is that good, will it's pricing be similar to SandyBridge or is it going to be in the region of the Extreme series?

I'm looking at buying a laptop atm(because I have no where to put a desktop ) and was looking to get the mobile comparison of the 2500/2600, but if IvyBridge will really be that much better it could be worth waiting.

No one knows. Look what happened to bulldozer. So many expectations and it failed.

I would not speculate. If you will be always chasing new technology, you will always end up with no pc.

crazygeryy

Fluffy88 wrote: »

It's a very silly question really to be asking in a tech world, since you can be almost guaranteed that after 6 months there will be new tech released.

Having said that though, it's a pretty good time to buy I think.
The Sandybridge CPU's are pretty revolutionary and even though in 4 months time they will be old tech since IvyBridge will be released early next year a 2500k is a monster of a processor and will last you a long time.

It could be worth waiting until after Christmas to buy though since ATI are due to release their Radeon 7000 series graphics cards by the end of the year, so one of them paired with a 2500k should be a pretty damn good gaming machine

is it really a silly question?

http://news.techeye.net/hardware/prices-of-hard-drives-continue-to-soar

Greylor

I'm well aware that technology moves along very quickly...that's why I buy high-end rather than mid-range.

There is straight-up development within a range (like single-core processors would get faster and faster), and then there is technology taking a step up, like going from single-core to dual-core...or dual-core to quad-core.

Getting a good system when the technology is simply "getting better" is different to when the technology is going to take a step forward....if that makes any sense. What I'm concerned about is the possibility of getting a system that will become, as an example, "single-core processor in a dual-core processor world," type of left behind because I bought the single-core processor right before the dual-core era started.

Note: I am well aware that single-core processors are ancient....and I am also not focusing on processors...I am trying to make a point about technology development vs technology leaps :P

Monotype

If you're in no hurry, wait until the new year. AMD's new cards and Intel's new processors be out and hard drives should be down a bit.

I've noticed that there's often the best prices/deals around Easter-Summer time. Demand is higher from the present onwards with people buying for Christmas and students buying stuff in Autumn for the new academic year. January sales are usually crappy in hardware so the slump time is after that. Tech releases can be any time of year, although Intel appears to be settling with the start of the calender year for their CPUs/platforms.

Don't buy the top end hardware. You're often paying an extra 50% for 10% more. Aim for a solid base that you can upgrade.

MakeNine

Yeah, it's frustrating indeed. The new Intel Ivy Bridge processors are coming out along with new sockets and motherboard chipsets, and then you also have new generations of GPU's both from AMD and nVidia...

I'm on a laptop right now so would really like to upgrade and get to play BF3 and such on proper settings, but I think I'll force myself to wait :eek: