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

[Participant]

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?

 

[Participant]

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

 

[Participant]

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.