Future Cost Of Current Hardware

SoildSnake

SoildSnake

SoildSnake

Associate
Joined
15 Feb 2010
Posts
474
Bit of a strange question hear; i am thinking of buying a new PC for like £1000 and was wondering how much i could expect to save if i buy in say 3, 6 and 12 months?
 
Depends on the PC.
when new tech arrives, normally prices start to drop on old tech.

Not by much though! The current i3/i5/i7 CPU's etc are due to be replaced next year so the prices will drop a little. Its such a difficult question to answer though! Prices might drop, they might stay the same, you could save a few quid, you could save £100, its difficult to say!
 
Don't think of it as "will my current system get cheaper"- that's all academic, really. Set a budget and buy the best computer you can when you want to buy it. Waiting will get you a more powerful computer that will last longer, but you'll have to wait longer for it.
 
Depends a bit on what you would do with new tech as it comes along

1991 bought 286 12.5MHz £900

1993 bought 486 DX33 £1000

1996 bought P233MHz £1000

etc.

What I am saying is while the same tech goes down in price say 20% there is inflation of speed, capacity, need etc which means that your £1000 now will not necessarily be less in three months, 6 or 12. You will still spend a £1000.

If you spend a £1000 now it will be worth approx £850 in six months, £700 in a year.

andy
 
Last edited:
I usually, wait for new tech to be released (ex. SandyBridge), then pick up the enthusiasts previous gen stuff second hand. Means the market determines when I should upgrade - and I don't get caught up in a supply demand price war.

Only occasionaly I jump on new tech from release. Monitors/Speakers/Mice/Keyboards you get the drift.
 
Well to be honest - if you tried to buy the same exact hardware (say an i5/p55/4GB DDR3/GTX 460/60GB vertex 2E) in 6-12 months time from a retailer then the price will not drop much from what it costs today.

This is due to a few factors: The CPU, SSD, GPU and mobo will all be end-of-life, so buying these parts (just like buying s775 parts today) will not be simple, not much cheaper and not recommended.

However, if you aim to buy a system with similar performance, but not necessarily the same components then it is likely you will get it cheaper - how much is difficult to determine. Some things prices are unlikely to change - these include HDD, PSU, case, DVD drive and CPU cooler. RAM prices are difficult to predict - DDR3 prices could even go up. The only components that will get cheaper (ie next generation components with the same performance, but lower price) are the GPU, CPU, SSD and motherboard. For a £1000 gaming system you would expect to pay ~£600 in CPU, GPU, SSD, mobo. At a guess in 6 months time you will be able to shave ~£50 off this and maybe £100 in 12 months. However, prices are also heavily dependent on exchange rates, so this is no where guaranteed. Also VAT is going up to 20% in the new year.
 
Don't, it may seem like a big increase - but on a £1000 system its only £22 more. If you only wait until the 5th of January - Intel "Sandy Bridge" is launching- which imho is worth the penalty.
 
ALSO

New tech leaves old tech obsilete (excuse the spelling.. work IE) in some cases. Things like SSD's then require you're personal valuation and opinion of how much that extra speed will benefit you in normal 'day to day' tasks. Same thing with dx development. Wonder how many frames I can push out with my 470gtx in dx6? etc.

Plus compatibility/expansion/power management are all areas that move with gens of hardware. So they are (generally) beneficial to the newer tech.

As for deteriating prices of the same hardware... It doesn't happen often. As cmndr_andi says; once it reaches end of line it still holds a similar manafacture cost to it's launch and thus holds price tag. I find ATI drop prices on old tech more predicably than Nvid as they have larger margins and can afford to do so on their smaller silcon chips. Nvid are the bigger company so they simply cut a fine loss on their EOL products and move on.

Anyway.

Depreciation of hardware is inevitable and dependant on too many variables to accurately predict. But one thing you can be pretty sure of, is that prices will fall - and more so when there's competition on the horizon.
 
Lemin said:
Come back in 6 months and ask the same question... oh wait... ;)
Click to expand...

he hee. I might just do that anyway; then we got some research for the future!

So what is this Intel "Sandy Bridge" going to do; would i not have to wait another 6 months for full compatibility / prices to drop?
 
SoildSnake said:
So what is this Intel "Sandy Bridge" going to do; would i not have to wait another 6 months for full compatibility / prices to drop?
Click to expand...

Its the next generation intel mainstream platform (at least the initial release in January 2011) using a new micro-architecture. They will replace the current LGA 1156 chips and take up the same price points. Expect the prices to be at around the same level as i3/i5/i7 chips when they launched (ie not a lot more than they cost now).

For more info on sandy bridge - have a look at this article.
 
Bulldozer is the AMD equivalent to Sandy Bridge and the MM is the members market. This is unlocked when you reach a particular number of posts and period of time on the forum.
 
If I was buying a new PC, I would wait till January 9th and the release of the Sandy Bridge mainstream chips. Also the AMD top-end graphics cards will be out in later this month, so by January 9th you will be able to make an informed decision on whether to go for AMD or Nvidia current-generation graphics.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom