Am I upgrading at the WORST possible time

[NOBEL]

Right now I have a:
Asus P3V4X Motherboard
256 SDRAM
667 Pentium III
Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO

I am interested in getting:
P4 3.0C
Abit AI7 or P4C800E-DLX (leaning towards P4C800E)
2 Gig 3200 Memory
ATI 9800XT 256 Meg
Enermax 365 PSU (is this enough)

Now I hear that the Prescott CPU's are due in 2 months, should I wait or just go ahead and get my system?

 

[Sid59]

wait 2 months and then if it's there and you want to spend the money go for it.

if it's not ready then ... post again and ask the same question.

 

[Looney]

Hm 2 months is a long wait... and the upgrade you're planning is huge compared to your current set up.

 

[eviltommy]

but the upgrade in 2 months is worth more in the long run. be patient.

 

[Amused]

It's ALWAYS a bad time to upgrade. There is always something big coming soon in this business. If you want to wait for the next big thing, you'll be waiting all your life.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: eviltommy
but the upgrade in 2 months is worth more in the long run. be patient.

That's if the product is released on time and everything goes well... plus, you're also goign to be paying a lot more for the new CPUs.

There's always going to be something just over the horizon. In 2 months, there might be a new videocard due out in another couple of months, so he should wait for that as well?

 

[Vonkhan]

Prescott
PCI Express
New Raptors
New Radeons

I'd wait

 

[RussianSensation]

Its better to wait because the pricing for prescott has been announced:

2.8 prescott 178
3.0 prescott 218
3.2 prescott 278
and 3.4 i think for 478

when i upgraded from athlon xp to p4 the new 865 chipset came out it cost me 100 for IS7 like 1 week after it came out so the new chipset motherboard will still be 100-120 look at Athlon 64 they are dirt cheap its the processor thats expensive but in this case you already know the prices for new pentium as i've listed above and they aren't as ridiculous as athlon's

basically the new motherboard will let u upgrade on socket 775 and not be stuck like me on 478 so right there u've extended upgrade paths by at least 2 years

February 2nd is only 2 months away thats true but come on no one plays videogames in december, ppl spend time with friends family gfs go away somewhere and party so that means u only have to suffer January without playing games and except for need for speed Underground and call of duty there is nothing good anyways that came out recently. But it all depends on how important is it for you to have a new computer? to play games now or later?

I agree its never a good time to upgrade but probably the best time is when you can minimize future costs. That means if you get latest "family" of processor and mobo with it, at least you pretty well off for upgrade paths. With videocards its less clearcut cause somethign new comes out every 6 months but the processor stays for 2 years + so get the new processor be it Ahtlon 64 or prescott on all new platforms. With videocards you can upgrade as required.

 

[Corporate Thug]

you waited this long, whats another 2 months

 

[NOBEL]

Thank you for the input guys, I'll wait a little bit longer, but it has been so long.
The last game I played that actually ran on my system was RtCW.
UT2003 crawled, and that was when I realized that it was time to put the old girl to rest.

 

[xSkyDrAx]

Tough it out. You'll be glad you did, but then again, is it worth paying full price for brand new(technology wise) parts? I mean, since its brand new, it can only get better right? The 'good' stuff now is really cheap and sure its not a prescott or even the FX but it can still handle the apps we use now. So whatever's more economical to you.

 

[Looney]

Well you have to ask how much of an increase are you going to get with waiting? 10%? 20%? If it's 20% or more in performance, then it might be worth it.

 

[adams828]

i'm kinda in the same boat, but i think it's just a matter of how well you can make yourself wait until then. i do somewhat agree with the idea of waiting until the new "family" of processors, but at the same time, if your old system has lasted you this long, getting the setup you mentioned should last you quite some time as well. as i'm sure you know, no matter when you upgrade, something "better" will come out soon after.

you'd probably be quite happy with upgrading now (in terms of use/performance) and it'll last you a long time... so i see it not so much as "do i wait for just for the new processor" but "will i wait 2 1/2 months to upgrade?"

think about it.. if you upgrade now, when prescott comes out of course the benchmarks are going to make you think "dang, it's faster than what i have" but unless you get one and run it side by side w/a computer you buy now, you won't be missing it, ya know? and your games, apps, etc will still run a cr*pload faster than your current system

ok.. hope that made some sense.. a 'lil sleepy and hungover right now