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Best time to buy?

I

imported_trajan

Member
About 2 1/2 years ago I built my first system, and I'm starting to get the itch to overhaul it. When I've thought it over more I'll post my plans here and beg for advice 🙂 but I thought I'd ask if anyone is aware of any big post-New Year price drops in the hardware department?

I know that there's no perfect time to buy, prices are always going down and new parts are always coming out, so at some point you just need to set a budget and pull the trigger. I've just recently started to follow the market again, though, and I'd be grateful for any predictions, hunches, wisdom.

My system is still very strong but I've been seeing a pattern of games not working on it, at all (Fallout 3, World at War, Mass Effect) which bothers me and nothing I've tried has worked - so, I'm tempted to do the overhaul a little sooner than I thought. As a really rough plan, I'm probably going to replace my early C2D system with i7, so new cpu, mobo, ram, and probably a new high end graphics card.

Thanks for any advice, I really appreciate the help this forum always provides!
 
Sorry that I was vague - I'm tentatively thinking:

* i7 920
* X58 Motherboard - undecided/ambivalent so far
* 1333MHz DDR3 Ram kit
* GTX 280 or overclocked 260

I know that obviously prices will go down, I'm just wondering if there are any widely anticipated drops expected--I know in the past there's been some fairly accurate anticipation of intel price drops, price drops on GPUs with new models coming out, etc.

I just don't want to pull a trigger now if a steep drop is coming up in the next month.

Edit: Thanks Matt! That's exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find out, thank you for letting me know!
 
I'm doing the same as you trajan 🙂

I started studying reviews and these forums 3-4 weeks ago.

Besides the gpu mentioned by Matt, there is the cpu Phenom II coming very soon which might lower some prices?

And I read that DDR3 ram prices have been steadily dropping the last months.

With these three things happening I am on hold a few weeks to buy a similar system to yours.

Also, there are more x58 mobos coming out all the time to give more choices. I wonder how the Asus P6T non-Deluxe ($50 cheaper) model will do? Hoping for the full review soon.
 
Originally posted by: trajan

* i7 920
* X58 Motherboard - undecided/ambivalent so far
* 1333MHz DDR3 Ram kit
* GTX 280 or overclocked 260
Click to expand...

I do not think that a steep price cut a la Intel announced date is known about these components for the near future.

They are right now at their overprice stage, I would wait to the spring to buy them.
 
Originally posted by: JackMDS
They are right now at their overprice stage, I would wait to the spring to buy them.
Click to expand...

For the procs, it would be Summer, actually. End of July, specifically...at least, that's been Intel's pattern that I've noticed over the years.

Rumor has it that there will be price cuts on a bunch of Core 2s and various other procs in two weeks. Supposedly, many (including the q6600) are being phased out, complete with discontinuation notices. Spring should see a few more of those cuts.

But the i7? Highly unlikely you'll see any decent cuts (i.e. more than $20) before it's six months old...this is the replacement platform, after all. The 965 EE is supposedly to be phased out and replaced in Q2, but even with a 50% price cut, you'll probably gag on the price...

That's not to say the Spring might be a better time to buy...you might see some minor price cuts on the mobos, and likely will see very decent cuts on DDR3.

Since you consider your current machine to be a strong performer, the waiting game is to your advantage. But your savings before summer will probably be less than $200, maybe even less than $100.

It's all speculation...nobody has the definitive answers. Sometimes we get surprised, but for the L&G platforms, we're usually just thrown a few bones.
 
Originally posted by: Slugbait
Rumor has it that there will be price cuts on a bunch of Core 2s and various other procs in two weeks. Supposedly, many (including the q6600) are being phased out, complete with discontinuation notices. Spring should see a few more of those cuts.
Click to expand...
The only way that Intel would discontinue the q6600, is if they have finally converted all of their CPU fab capacity to 45nm. Possible, I suppose.

 
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
The only way that Intel would discontinue the q6600, is if they have finally converted all of their CPU fab capacity to 45nm. Possible, I suppose.
Click to expand...

Not "possible"...guaranteed. It happens to every proc. The rumor mill over the phase out of the q6600 in Q1, and EOL in Q2, is of epic proportions.

 
What is your current setup (CPU, mobo, ram, GPU) and can you be a little more descriptive than "games not working on it, at all" so we can maybe help out?

If you're on even an early C2D with 2-4GB RAM and a decent GPU you should be able to play any of those listed games without any issues.

OC your CPU (if not already) and possibly drop in a faster GPU and you should be good to go for another year or so.
 
Personally I do not buy Hardware because there is better Hardware then what I have offered by the vendors.
I buy only when I judge that the money invested would yield function advantage to my work.

That said, if people would wait to the summer they would be back to square one since by then there would new expensive thingies available (or soon available).

Thus the trick to calm down ?itchy fingers? is to find a sweet spot when the current overpriced hardware is somewhat down and the new stuff is still far ahead.

Right now it is the spring.
 
Denithor - my current set up is a non-OC'd C2D E6600 that I got back in October or so of 2006, and a OC'd 8800 GT 512. I'm a gamer and play at 1900x1200.

I have no serious complaints about the power of my system, with the newer games the issue isn't performance but stability. I can play Witcher, Civ 4, and Battlefield 2142 with only rare system freezes. I can play TF2, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 4, Bioshock and a number of older games for hours with perfect stability. But I've now had three newer games completely fail to work at all - Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and World at War. BSODs or freezes in each game after playing only for a few minutes or on reaching certain early parts of the game. I've tried reinstalling, tried multiple driver sets, tried turning down the quality settings dramatically, with nothing that fully stops the crashes.

If I had to name a single culprit I suspect its the (factory overclocked) 8800 GT 512. I don't know of any reason that my card might be defective but I do wonder if some of the less thoroughly tested games don't have game/driver/card conflicts that were never caught.

Anyway its an extreme solution I suppose but I have been wanting to upgrade for awhile and if I get another 2 years out of a new system I'll be OK with that - plus I'll be able to up the quality settings and I can try Crysis 😉

[Obviously the first thing I plan on upgrading is the vid card -- if that fixes everything, I'll probably be OK holding off on the CPU for awhile longer[
 
There is no sweet spot. The minute I buy, price drops happen. I have started going two steps back from cutting edge and saving 50% on processor. <fwiw>
 
What I usually do is buy a generation behind. Yeah you might not have the latest and greatest, but heck you would be saving some serious dough without sacrificing much.

Since I want to get the new Core i7 I'm gonna wait until a refresh of the i7 is released, then get the current i7 that is out now. By that time, ddr3/x58 should be more mainstream. Or I could go with a core 2 quad now.
 
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