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.

 

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Thanks both.

 

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Thank you all!

 

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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.

 

[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.

 

[Cromulent]

As always, @Tetras views a budget as a target , I always try and get the best spec to meet requirements for under budget. In this case I cannot fault him.

All I would suggest to pare some of the cost is if you want it to switch to either a 4070 or 4070ti is they can provide sufficient performance for your needs. This would save you £300 - £500 as these are more than sufficient for gaming at 1080p - so it depends on whether the time advantage for ML is sufficient.

Thank you. That is useful information!