Is now a bad time to buy - the CPU market over the next few months

Participant · 27 May 2007 at 11:27

I'm considering how to advise my brother who wants to upgrade his PC. I recently upgraded mine because of need rather than desire, but for him, he wants the best for his money and is prepared to wait.

How is it looking in the next few months in terms of new technology, both CPU and GPU, that is worth waiting for?

I know Penryn is coming up so P35 would potentially be the way forward if we're considering that, as well as DDR3, Barcelona, better / more affordable quad core, etc etc...but the information I really want is - what would he be looking at for £500 for motherboard, memory, CPU, and GPU in three month's time? I know this information requires a crystal ball to be accurate, but your best guess would be handy and interesting.

Is now a good time to hold off, or a good time to buy into P35 / C2D/Q and DDR2?

VoG · 27 May 2007 at 11:32

Intels next round of price cuts are due 22nd July so ide wait till then. there'll be more P35 boards out by then as well so he'll have a wider choice if Intels the route he winds up following.

Jokester · 27 May 2007 at 11:32

Now probably is a bad time to buy if you can afford to wait.

The next few months sees the release of new cores from both AMD and Intel and it's not clear yet which will be best performance/cost (though at the moment my money is on Intel). The only issue will be whether Intel release Penryn based cores at the low end of the market (and probably being the best bang for buck chips) or whether it's just the high end CPUs at first with the cheaper ones appearing 6 months down the line like has happened with Conroe/Allendale based cores.

Motherboard wise the X38 chipset is due in the same time frame and no doubt AMD/ATIs effort for K10 as well later on.

GPU wise is the 98xx series from Nvidia and I think also the replacement for X2900 towards the end of this year.

Jokester

Participant · 27 May 2007 at 11:34

What are the realistic UK retail prices of C2Ds and C2Qs likely to be come the price cut?

SkeeterUK · 27 May 2007 at 12:08

6600 duals should be 100 as there about 130-140 on average in the uk at the mo. Quads should be 150-200 range i think.

slap ed · 27 May 2007 at 20:39

Jokester said:
Now probably is a bad time to buy if you can afford to wait.

Motherboard wise the X38 chipset is due in the same time frame and no doubt AMD/ATIs effort for K10 as well later on.

.

Jokester

.
x38 chipset ? whats that then

Jokester · 27 May 2007 at 20:41

slap ed said:
.
x38 chipset ? whats that then

It's the performance version of the P35, featuring I think true dual x16 PCI-E sockets for Crossfire.

Jokester

slap ed · 27 May 2007 at 21:15

thx jokester

setter · 28 May 2007 at 00:39

VoG said:
Intels next round of price cuts are due 22nd July so ide wait till then. there'll be more P35 boards out by then as well so he'll have a wider choice if Intels the route he winds up following.

can we see much of a price drop on the q6600, thats the cpu im interested in
currently i have an e6600, 2gb team xtreem 6400 c4 and an evga 680i on the way which will upgrade the core parts of the rig in my sig (wont have the new board until wednesday but i hear theyre a pretty good clocker with the right cooling

The Halk · 28 May 2007 at 00:45

It's always a bad time to buy

In a few months when the new chipsets and cpus come out it'll be a bad time to buy since the prices will drop in the next few months. As well as that, when new motherboards come out, nobody will know which ones are dogs or not. Socket A the Abit was king, when socket 939 came out it was a dog, and it seems Abit have gotten their act together a bit, and their newer boards are decent - but they might go back to being dogs again. Always risky when a new socket comes out, because you can't tell which board is going to be the "king" that everybody has and you can get a load of info on how to push it further.

If you wait another 9 months, for the new cpus and chipsets then it'll be a bad time to buy since there will be more CPUs and or chipsets around the corner.

Jaffa_Cake · 28 May 2007 at 01:02

Robbie G said:
What are the realistic UK retail prices of C2Ds and C2Qs likely to be come the price cut?

link gives information about price cuts, if you still want that

http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=789466&starttime=0&endtime=0

OP'd HERE

Im definitely liking the look for the Q6600's price.

Participant · 28 May 2007 at 09:39

Ok thanks all. I'm going to recommend waiting until July and plumping for a Q6600, and a P35 board that supports DDR2 and DDR3 (probably Gigabyte) if by then we have some positive overclocking data for the chipset.

Thanks for the info, very useful.

kirkster · 28 May 2007 at 13:56

Thats exactly what I am going to do Robbie G. I have a capable enough rig at the minute to wait for the Q6600 to drop to around £130 or so and I think this is a realistic expectation. Time will tell.....

Steve

marl · 28 May 2007 at 19:48

I'm in a similar position to your brother. I'm holding off mainly because, although i'd like a new PC, i don't really need one. Although i just have an xp2600 9800pro the only thing i'm missing out on is games, but i can live with that over the summer.

I look upon it like entering a race you cannot win. As soon as you enter the race you'll start to fall behind, because you'll only ever be a few months away from something faster!

Troop · 28 May 2007 at 21:32

July 22nd seems so far away when you have most of the gear for a new system sitting at home, need a CPU for my DS3R, I will never be able to hold out to late July.

My only hope is to find a cheap low speck C2D to get the system up and running.

Troop.

Jaffa_Cake · 28 May 2007 at 22:34

Troop said:
My only hope is to find a cheap low speck C2D to get the system up and running.

They seem to be clocking as high as the 6320's with not much drop in performance due to the smaller cache.

easyrider · 28 May 2007 at 23:50

Robbie G said:
Is now a good time to hold off, or a good time to buy into P35 / C2D/Q and DDR2?

DDR is cheap
P35 DS3 is cheap
plop in a 2160 for 50 clock it to 3.2ghz you have a very fast system

for around

£220

Plus you have scope for penryn and DDR3 when they hit

ginge51 · 29 May 2007 at 10:55

setter said:
can we see much of a price drop on the q6600, thats the cpu im interested in
currently i have an e6600, 2gb team xtreem 6400 c4 and an evga 680i on the way which will upgrade the core parts of the rig in my sig (wont have the new board until wednesday but i hear theyre a pretty good clocker with the right cooling

tell me something.

why on earth do u need to upgrade your computer?
nothing takes the power of that rig up yet?
depending on ** gfx card thats a very nice rig u have already
why the upgrade?

matthew2456 · 29 May 2007 at 11:19

when isnt a bad time?

tomorrow things will always be faster and cheaper

bloodline76 · 29 May 2007 at 12:31

Reminds me of the saying "tomorrow never comes"

You could wait forever if you want the best. My rig has lastest me about 4 years and only just beginning to see it beginning to strain.

But mine will certainly last another year for my needs if I am true to what I need it for.