Is now a good time to buy a new PC or should I wait?

[Cromulent]

I need to buy a PC for various reasons and I'm not really up to date with PC hardware. Is now a good time to buy a new PC or should I wait? It'll be used for programming and gaming along with standard office tasks.

 

[henry hoov3r]

I think its a decent time but i built one during covid so what do i know.

 

[azazl187]

There is never a good time to buy a pc. Just do it and enjoy it. Think about paying it after

 

[Cromulent]

Thanks both.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

This same question gets asked every year multiple times from what I can remember since 1990s. I quote..

There is never a good time to buy a pc. Just do it and enjoy it. Think about paying it after

 

[throwaway4372]

it's an ok time, graphics cards are expensive but everything else is ok so it sorta balances out.

 

[Freddie1980]

It's a good time, memory prices are dirt cheap at the moment and Intel and AMD have almost their whole product stack put on full release.

 

[StarShock]

Nothing terribly exciting on the horizon. Couple amd gpus meant to come out soon. But they expected to be roughly the same price and performance as the rx 6800xt and 6900xt so not exciting

 

[Quartz]

I need to buy a PC for various reasons and I'm not really up to date with PC hardware. Is now a good time to buy a new PC or should I wait? It'll be used for programming and gaming along with standard office tasks.

AMD are launching new GPUs imminently. Rumours indicate Gamescom - next week - for the announcement.

There is never a good time to buy a pc. Just do it and enjoy it. Think about paying it after

Pretty much.

 

[Cromulent]

Thank you all!

 

[MissChief]

AMD are launching new GPUs imminently. Rumours indicate Gamescom - next week - for the announcement.



Pretty much.

'Paper' launch in typical AMD fashion with less than 10 cards per retailer or hundreds available from everyone?

 

[Quartz]

'Paper' launch in typical AMD fashion with less than 10 cards per retailer or hundreds available from everyone?

Only @Gibbo knows, and he's likely under NDA!

 

[PaulCa]

It depends on what you want. If you want a high end gaming PC your going to be paying through the nose for the likes of GPUs and high end Mobos. However that situation could take years to resolve and it's unlikely the most recent card out will get "cheaper".

If you willing to go a "generation" down on everything, Ryzen 3rd Gen, B450/B550, Gen3 NVMe then the market is quite sweet. A barebones mobo/cpu/ram can be got for under £250. GPUs prices still suck. No avoiding that, but the 5600G or other "G" range AMDs could be a stop gap, allowing you to save up for a GPU.

NVMe drives, particularly Gen3 ones are stupidly cheap with 1Tb for £30 from brands.

I just built a new server with a 5600G, 32Gig 3600Mhz RAM, Dual 1Tb NVMe Gen 3 drives and an Asus Prime Plus mobo for about £350 including FD case. No GPU and 2021/2022 spec isn't a bad market.

Given the cheap price of NVMes, I also bought 2x1Tb Gen4 drives and a dual riser card for ~£80 put them into "Striped volume" and got a seq read speed of over 10,000MB/s.

 

[Tetras]

I'd agree with the above, if you want to go high-end then the prices are pretty bad, especially for a graphics card, but for a midrange or lower-end build then it is fine.

DDR5 and AM5 motherboards have come down quite a lot since release too, so you can go AM5 around 1K, e.g.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Six Core 5.10GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DW-AM) = £218.99
• 1 x AMD - Starfield Ryzen Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00523) = £0.00
• 1 x Asus Prime B650M-A WIFI II (Socket AM5) DDR5 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6K6-AS) = £139.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLBD532G5600HC36BDC01) (SKU: MY-0BB-TG) = £99.95
• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-39K-SP) = £319.99
• 1 x AMD - Starfield Radeon Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00542) = £0.00
• 1 x WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T2X0E) (SKU: HD-591-WD) = £129.95
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 205M Mesh Micro-ATX PC Case Black (SKU: CA-7B2-LL) = £69.95
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM750e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020262-UK) (SKU: CA-27S-CS) = £114.99

Total: £1,105.80 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

or last gen, as suggested:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-12400F 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AR-IN) = £154.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B660 DS3H AX - Intel B660 DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5AN-GI) = £125.00
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMK32GX4M2D3600C18) (SKU: MY-4D1-CS) = £79.99
• 1 x Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Pulse Gaming 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-39K-SP) = £319.99
• 1 x AMD - Starfield Radeon Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00542) = £0.00
• 2 x WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3B0C) (SKU: HD-589-WD) = £43.99
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse G300A Mid-Tower High Airflow PC Case - Black (SKU: CA-0C0-PT) = £64.99
• 1 x Seasonic Focus GX-650 650W 80+ Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-06V-SS) = £94.99

Total: £939.92 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

General pricing thoughts:
- CPUs: (under £200) great or (above £200) good.
- Motherboards: (under £150) good or (above £150) bad.
- RAM: (DDR4) great or (DDR5) good.
- Graphics: (under £500) good or (above £500) bad.
- SSDs: great.
- PSUs: bad.

 

[Goody_GTI]

I’ve just built one for the first time in about 8/9 years, I thought the prices at the moment were decent (compared to what I could remember from a few years back)

 

[PaulCa]

Makes me wanna cry. My 5800X 3080 32gig baller machine barely 8 months old, can now have it's barebones outdone by a £1000 machine. Although the Crosshair heros are still the price of gold.

 

[Noughtboy]

I need to buy a PC for various reasons and I'm not really up to date with PC hardware. Is now a good time to buy a new PC or should I wait? It'll be used for programming and gaming along with standard office tasks.

Generally a good time for CPU/RAM intensive tasks less so for gaming (GPU's). Depending on your priorities and performance expectations, you can build a cheaper machine than @Tetras suggested or go full tilt. You need to suggest a budget for something that meets your needs. And whether you need a monitor(s) included and what you want from those. These can range from about £100 right up to your left kidney and part of your liver

 

[Cromulent]

Generally a good time for CPU/RAM intensive tasks less so for gaming (GPU's). Depending on your priorities and performance expectations, you can build a cheaper machine than @Tetras suggested or go full tilt. You need to suggest a budget for something that meets your needs. And whether you need a monitor(s) included and what you want from those. These can range from about £100 right up to your left kidney and part of your liver

I guess my budget is around £2500. I've been looking at Nvidia because of CUDA which is used in machine learning but I'm not entirely sure I'll use it. I'd like two 1080p G-sync (or Freesync if going with an AMD GPU) monitors with a high refresh rate as well.

 

[Tetras]

I guess my budget is around £2500. I've been looking at Nvidia because of CUDA which is used in machine learning but I'm not entirely sure I'll use it. I'd like two 1080p G-sync (or Freesync if going with an AMD GPU) monitors with a high refresh rate as well.

Something like:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £368.99
• 1 x AMD - Starfield Ryzen Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00523) = £0.00
• 1 x Asus ROG Strix B650E-F Gaming WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6JX-AS) = £255.54
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK64GX5M2B5600Z40) (SKU: MY-4DL-CS) = £199.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Trinity 16GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-13H-ZT) = £1,049.99
• 1 x Nvidia Fight For Freedom Bundle - Overwatch 2 Invasion (SKU: DIG-NVI-00681) = £0.00
• 1 x WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T2X0E) (SKU: HD-591-WD) = £129.95
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P600S Silent Midi Tower Case - Black (SKU: CA-08V-PT) = £139.99
• 1 x Phanteks M25 140mm PWM High-Airflow Chassis Fan - Black (SKU: FG-033-PT) = £9.95
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
• 2 x LG 24 24GQ50F-B 1920x1080 VA 165Hz 1ms FreeSync Widescreen Gaming Monitor (SKU: MO-16D-LG) = £109.99

Total: £2,499.37 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

CPU cooler: this (around £40).

I know nothing about monitors, I just chose the cheapest 1080p with freesync and high refresh.

 

[Cromulent]

Something like:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D Eight Core 5.00GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-3DT-AM) = £368.99
• 1 x AMD - Starfield Ryzen Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-AMD-00523) = £0.00
• 1 x Asus ROG Strix B650E-F Gaming WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6JX-AS) = £255.54
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance EXPO 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK64GX5M2B5600Z40) (SKU: MY-4DL-CS) = £199.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 4080 Trinity 16GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-13H-ZT) = £1,049.99
• 1 x Nvidia Fight For Freedom Bundle - Overwatch 2 Invasion (SKU: DIG-NVI-00681) = £0.00
• 1 x WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T2X0E) (SKU: HD-591-WD) = £129.95
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P600S Silent Midi Tower Case - Black (SKU: CA-08V-PT) = £139.99
• 1 x Phanteks M25 140mm PWM High-Airflow Chassis Fan - Black (SKU: FG-033-PT) = £9.95
• 1 x Corsair RMe Series RM850e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply v2 (CP-9020263-UK) (SKU: CA-27N-CS) = £124.99
• 2 x LG 24 24GQ50F-B 1920x1080 VA 165Hz 1ms FreeSync Widescreen Gaming Monitor (SKU: MO-16D-LG) = £109.99

Total: £2,499.37 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

CPU cooler: this (around £40).

I know nothing about monitors, I just chose the cheapest 1080p with freesync and high refresh.

Thank you very much! That looks great.