Timing of purchase & bang for buck

Aloreth

Aloreth

Aloreth

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So I am looking for a new PC, I have a Corsair 700D case which I will probably try and reuse and have all of the peripherals etc.

I will probably be looking at spending around £1500 but would be interested to understand whether now is a decent time to buy vs up to 3 months in the future?

The last PC that I built, I figured that sweet spot for getting performance for your money was around the £1000 mark. Now there seem to be people spending £1000 on a titan x graphics card alone. I could increase my budget if needed, im just wondering whether the general consensus is that its worth it?

Bit of a rambling post...any thoughts welcome.
 
No point waiting IMO.

Depending on your budget and game choice (assuming you're gaming) an i5 and high-end (like an R9 390 or GTX 970) not extreme-end (Titan X, 980 Ti) are the sweet spot IMO.

As a rule of thumb, spending more than about £250 on an individual component gives poor value for money in the current market.
 
If you have the money buy now otherwise you'll always be thinking "what if I get a better deal in future". Technology will always be replaced with 'newer and better' stuff reducing the price of your current kit.
 
If you're building a whole new PC from scratch then I'll stand by my first comment and recommend waiting for Skylake. It's estimated release is around August/September, so not too long to wait really :).
 
Firstly, no need for a TITAN X. A 970/980 or a 390 would be ideal, for a high end machine.

Its true, you will always be chasing the 'next' thing, so best to either settle 'cheaply' or 'bite the bullet'.

The settling option is gathering a current gen tech at cheap prices, annoyingly these are cheapest when new tech is just about to be realeased (retailers selling off bulk stock before new stock comes in). Depending on what you're after you could save a good £80-£100, all in all.

The 'bite the bullet' route is basically strikeas soon as the newtech comes out, keep as close to your budgetas possible and don't worry about the extra +£100 or so over previous gen tech. This obviously gives you a better performing system and maybe a longer lifespan; its a bigger outlay...

Honestly, i think Skylake is the biggest upgrade (from what i've read) since Sandybridge was released. The Jump to DDR4 and PCI-E 4 shoudl see a larger increase all over the system.

Whether this comes to fruition or not, no-one is yet sure, that's why its a bit of a risk. It mayjust turn into a £100 more expensive version of currently gen tech..
 
I think your last sentence will be the most true, I mean what increase is DDR4 and PCIE-4 really going to bring? Not a big one if I'm honest but the performance in general of the chips are meant to be an improvement.

Personally I'd just bite the bullet as any system you build now is still going to be good enough for a few years at least.
 
OP, it would help if you told us what you are upgrading from. I see little point in upgrading if you are on Sandybridge and going to Haswell. What are your current specs?

Personally I would also say wait for Skylake, it's so close now. Intels current prices are disgraceful so if you are going to pay a premium anyway you may as well wait and at least be on the current socket instead of one that's just about to be replaced.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that there will be many people making the jump up to Skylake when it is released, which has the knock on effect of dropping used prices for current Z97 and maybe even x99 components.

Its another reason imo to wait for Skylake. You'll have the benefit of seeing how Skylake really performs and more importantly whether its worth the premium over current tech.
 
JimboJet said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that there will be many people making the jump up to Skylake when it is released, which has the knock on effect of dropping used prices for current Z97 and maybe even x99 components.

Its another reason imo to wait for Skylake. You'll have the benefit of seeing how Skylake really performs and more importantly whether its worth the premium over current tech.
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Good point, I always find myself upgrading to old tech when new is released since it's best bang for buck :D
 
dacads said:
Good point, I always find myself upgrading to old tech when new is released since it's best bang for buck :D
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I also think this is the best bang for buck method as far as new unboxed items are concerned. When the GTX 780 came out in 2013 I bought a new 680 for £250 (less than half of its original price when released in 2012).

And if you need more performance than that, then buy two cards for the price of one after just a year, which will give you more performance than the newest card available for that total cost. Obviously SLI/XFire issues have to be taken into account.

Also, not all cards drop to half-price after just one year, but fairly expensive ones (£400+ @ release) tend to.
 
Thanks for the replies all. The current computer is listed below (so useful being able to access order history on OcUK). From your comments above, I guess I will be better off waiting for Skylake. Is there a concrete release date?

Krypton Intel Core i7 920 D0 2.66GHz @ 4.00GHz
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
Corsair Obsidian 700D Full Tower Case
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
 
Between the 5th and 9th of August keeps being suggested.

In the meantime a new gpu would give you a big performance boost. That seems to be the weakest part of your pc at the moment.
 
I dont know if its a hugely inefficient way to go about using computer but I generally dont upgrade a single component. I will buy a PC, use it and love it then buy a whole new computer.

Holy Moly....just checked when I bought it...2010! Its lasted pretty damn well.

Definitely think its time for a new one....now do I wait for Skylake or not? In terms of pricing is there a short term drop between release date and a month later?
 
Aloreth said:
I dont know if its a hugely inefficient way to go about using computer but I generally dont upgrade a single component. I will buy a PC, use it and love it then buy a whole new computer.

Holy Moly....just checked when I bought it...2010! Its lasted pretty damn well.

Definitely think its time for a new one....now do I wait for Skylake or not? In terms of pricing is there a short term drop between release date and a month later?
Click to expand...


That's just mad. A new gpu now will give you a massive boost. A overclocked 920 is still a very capable cpu. Intel has only given us tiny incremental performance gains with each new release so things haven't moved on as much as you may think. Skylake is rumoured to have 15-18% more performance than Haswell which is why it's worth the wait. As to prices, I expect the i5 to be £210-220 at least. Maybe more on release day. I doubt if prices will drop much either. Haswell has increased in price considerably since it's release.
 
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