Is this a particularly slow tech time?

[pmv]

Is PC technology a bit stagnant at the moment?

I've been procrastinating about getting a new pc for four months now. What is annoying me is that over that time the price of my desired configuration hasn't changed at all. In fact the cost of some parts have gone _up_ very slightly.

This is frustrating. Having waited this long I now don't want to take the plunge only for things to start moving again as soon as I get it. I want to upgrde just before things stop moving for a while, not towards the end of a stagnant period!

I don't remember things being this static in the good old days!

I know the CPU side is slow becuase AMD not having ben competitive for years. But isn't this an abnormally long gap between new gfx cards also? And not even RAM or HDs seem to be coming down in price. What's going on?

I note Sharkyextreme (are we allowed to mention that site here? ) no longer bothers keeping a 'weekly cpu price chart' like it did back circa 2000. I guess there's no point these days.

I'm figuring the best way to ensure 8000 and 700 series gfx cards are announced is to go ahead and buy a current one.

 

[weez82]

Its best to buy when you need to and forget about the costs. If you think you've found a good deal then snag it up. No point in waiting to upgrade if you need an upgrade

 

[Blain]

Its best to buy when you need to and forget about the costs.
If you think you've found a good deal then snag it up.
No point in waiting to upgrade if you need an upgrade

That sounds very reasonable.

 

[piasabird]

PC sales are a bit flat, but that should mean many places may be having good sales and lots of them. However, Intel is kind of artificially keeping prices high with its monopoly power and not much competition. So keep looking for sales and maybe wait for the best deal you can get.

For instance Newegg has a newsletter with good deals all the time, but to use the codes you need to be signed up for the newsletter. The trick is to wait till something you like comes on sale. Some other brick and mortar stores may also have good deals. Often if things slow down there will be sales like valentines, fathers day, back to school, graduation, black friday, new years, etc.

 

[mfenn]

I've been procrastinating about getting a new pc for four months now. What is annoying me is that over that time the price of my desired configuration hasn't changed at all. In fact the cost of some parts have gone _up_ very slightly.

If you're locked into an exact set parts that you want, I'm not surprised that you've seen the price of the config as a whole stay steady, if not rise. There are still plenty of deals to be had, you just have to be flexible on the parts selection.

 

[pmv]

I know there's a good argument for 'build when you need to' but 'need' is a in reality very subjective. I don't exactly 'need' a PC at all. It would just be nice to have something faster, and maybe if I had a less outdated machine I'd be tempted to go back to gaming again. Then again as the days grow longer, maybe I'd rather be outdoors more! The winter is the time for gaming!

And there doesn't seem to be much scope for varying parts (I mean, I don't care about what _brand_ of HD or SSD or RAM, just the capacity - even vid cards, right now AMD and nvidia seem pretty much interchangeable at a given price point), prices seem much the same from everywhere. And I'm not in the US so most of these special deals don't really apply.

I'm sure that in past times prices fell more consistently if you waited a bit.

Really I need something bad to happen to the US economy so the $ falls, improving my purchasing power. You wouldn't begrudge me that, right?

 

[piasabird]

There is a good point about prices going up. As the federal govt keeps borrowing a trillion $$$ at a time the value of $$$ is decreasing, so prices may go up over time. What is really happening is the value of the $$$ is decreasing, so it takes more $$$ to buy the same product. So if you wait too long that may not do much good.

These are somewhat unstable times that we live in. No one really knows what will happen going forward. We had the fiscal cliff, but sequestration may cause automatic cuts in the budget. While it will not directly affect much, it may cause problems if we have to keep borrowing money. Low and behold O'Bammah is once again claiming we need more revenue. He just does not give us a break. The more money you give the government the morey money they will ask for. I think the government thinks we are their slaves. So you never know when taxes will go up for everyone again or the credit card Bank Nazi's may attack also.

Where are those $60 hard drives?

 

[vi edit]

It hasn't slowed, it's just shifted to different markets. Right now the mobile and portable markets are all the rage and desktop tech has sort of stagnated due to lack of demand, interest, need, ect.

Just look at ultrabooks and high end cell phones for the poster children of this. 5 years ago would you have expected cell phones to be running 1080p resolutions, quad core processors, 2 gig of RAM, and pulling down 50mb data connections?

Thats where the money is right now and where companies are trying to put their money into investing.

 

[Torn Mind]

There is a good point about prices going up. As the federal govt keeps borrowing a trillion $$$ at a time the value of $$$ is decreasing, so prices may go up over time. What is really happening is the value of the $$$ is decreasing, so it takes more $$$ to buy the same product. So if you wait too long that may not do much good.

These are somewhat unstable times that we live in. No one really knows what will happen going forward. We had the fiscal cliff, but sequestration may cause automatic cuts in the budget. While it will not directly affect much, it may cause problems if we have to keep borrowing money. Low and behold O'Bammah is once again claiming we need more revenue. He just does not give us a break. The more money you give the government the morey money they will ask for. I think the government thinks we are their slaves. So you never know when taxes will go up for everyone again or the credit card Bank Nazi's may attack also.

Where are those $60 hard drives?

Change in the inflation rate(a percentage increase) is strongly correlated with the percent change in the money supply. Loaning out trillions will not increase inflation if the money supply does not change.

Nor, does the general inflation rate necessarily mean the prices of tech itself increasing is due to it and not other for lower-level market conditions.

The lack of $60 hard drives have been blamed on flooding in Thailand, although the companies are probably fixing the price upwards and unwilling to engage in price competition.

 

[Eeqmcsq]

I kind of feel what the OP is saying.

Yeah, CPUs have slowed because of AMD's lack of competition. The RAM market has bottomed out and has stabilized, so prices haven't dropped for a while, and has actually increased slightly. We just went through an SSD craze, but their prices too have stabilized and gone up slightly. HDDs prices might start going down again, since there's been more and more HDD deals lately, but I think the price drops will still take a long time to take effect.

And then there's the technological stagnation. AMD's Steamroller is next year. DDR4 is still at least a year or two away. No word on the successor of SATA 6Gbps.

Plus, I think vi edit has a good point about the market shifting over to the mobile markets. And that sucks, because I was hoping to have 45w or 65w hexcore, octocore, or evenmorecore CPUs to stuff into an ITX box just for the geeky fun of it.