This seems like the worst time to upgrade

[Xarick]

I keep trying to upgrade, but I have come to conclusion this is just an incredibly bad time. First off we now have intels Q2 price cuts. This means for the same money you will be able to get a faster processor in just a few months. We also have the DX10 mid range GPUs due out in just a few months. Plus we have Revision 2 of many of the core 2 motherboards due out in the next few months. Plus windows vista.

Seems like april or may will be the upgrade time.

 

[lobbyone]

Seems like april or may will be the upgrade time.

i would think so too

 

[compressor]

But in April they are going to announce the nextest, bestest, fastest, coolest, cheapest technology, so you will have to wait again until Q4 2007, but then they will announce
the nextest, bestest, coolest........

 

[The Boston Dangler]

it's always/never a good time to upgrade. it all depends on what you're upgrading from, and to.

good time to dump your packard bell POS, for anything
bad time to dump a machine that does everything you want in an acceptable mannor.

please don't tell me you read the AT forums and just now realize computer tech is old by the time you get it out of the box.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Of course, something new/better is always coming along - but you don't want to be hasty when there is something REALLY big coming VERY soon. For instance, buying a $425 X1950XT a month before the 8800GTS arrived or a Pentium D rig 2 months before Core 2 Duo arrived. Those people are probably wishing they had waited...or maybe not if they aren't performance-addicts.

Unless you have no computer, you are probably better off waiting. Not everyone has a 6-month upgrade cycle. Lots of people buy a computer today, maybe double the RAM 12 months later, and maybe a new GPU 6-12 months after that. For people like that (myself included), waiting for the next big platform change is smart thinking.

If the OP was referring to the Intel Bearlake/Penryn platform or AMD's AM2+/K8L, it's more like July 2007, not April though.

 

[regnez]

Yeah, with affordable quad-core just around the corner, and huge price cuts coming on the C2D's, now is really not the best time to upgrade.

However, if what you have is a five or six year old single core piece of junk that is having a hard time displaying web pages with to much flash in them, now is really not too bad. But if currently own a dual core anything, it really would not make much sense to upgrade to another dual core something with quad-core so close.

 

[mchammer]

Quad is silly for now. I guess if games are your thing DX10 might be nice to have.

 

[MikeSci457DC]

Does anyone know the intial pricing on DX10 units? Anything reasonable?

 

[MrCodeDude]

There are certain good times to upgrade. I haven't followed hardware prices that much, but I think sometime this summer A64's dropped almost $100 in price.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Prices are what I am least concerned about. First gen 680i problems, including the design which places resistors and capacitors on the back of the mobo which interfere with HSF backplate installation, is what has me worried. That, along with trying to find information out about new products is driving me nuts.

 

[zainali]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
it's always/never a good time to upgrade. it all depends on what you're upgrading from, and to.
/q]

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
it's always/never a good time to upgrade. it all depends on what you're upgrading from, and to.

Originally posted by: Xarick
This seems like the worst time to upgrade

I think this is a great time to upgrade...
I remember buying my first processor, a P3-450 @ $258 shipped. And at that time, that was a good deal.
Never has computing power been so cheap. :laugh:

I can hear you all now... "But if I wait..."
Sure, you can hold off. But face the cold hard facts of PC life...
Technology will always get faster, smaller, run cooler and get cheaper. You will never be able to build a rig to last a lifetime.



[Edit] Storage will get larger.

 

[Roguestar]

BREAKING NEWS: BUYER'S REMORSE HITS TECHNOLOGY PURCHASER

Come on everyone, tomorrow's sale always has what you bought today for $10 cheaper and next week will have a more efficient design. You'll only regret it if you're the type who upgrades every month and has to be on the cutting edge; for me my upgrade from an Athlon 64 3000+ to an E6300 is such a jump I couldn't care less about quad core or whatever. If it'll run my games and full spec I'm happy .

 

[Gannon]

Give me a break, it isn't a 'bad time to upgrade' with the release of the 8800 you wont need to upgrade for a long time. I used a Measily P4 2.8C oc to 3.2Ghz for years only changing the video cards. The core 2 duo has such an enormous performance leap it will do all you need it to do. The only reason you'd think it was a bad time to upgrade is if you're a strapped for cash mofo.

Or if you haven't done your research. There will always be the next biggest badder thing around the corner and price cuts coming 'around the corner' its the nature of the technology business. But hey, you can always wait 10 years and save yourself a tonne of money and splurge on that super duper rigg.... it's all about what you're willing to pay versus how much you use it and get out of it.

I bought four 160GB drives last year and and PCI SATA raid card... this year they have double the space for less then I paid for those four 160GB drives. If you are a PC enthusiast you have to live to learn with how the industry operates... also you can save money just by sitting on your hardware and using it as long as possible before the next upgrade.

Lastly video cards pretty much make upgrading major components less of an issue. The only reason you need to upgrade is if you REQUIRE the processing power for either work or games.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
it's always/never a good time to upgrade. it all depends on what you're upgrading from, and to.

good time to dump your packard bell POS, for anything
bad time to dump a machine that does everything you want in an acceptable mannor.

please don't tell me you read the AT forums and just now realize computer tech is old by the time you get it out of the box.

Exactly.
If I wait until a few months from now, sure I'll get a great deal on a 2GHz Core2Duo and some PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM. But then the 3GHz C2D will be a great price, with faster RAM also available. Tempting, isn't it? But it's too pricey. Wait a few more months for it to come down in price. But oh what's this? 3.8GHz at the same price that the 3GHz was a few months ago? Hmm, better wait a little while longer.
Enough time passes, and the market has 8-core 10GHz processors with 64MB of cache, and you're still working on your 1.4GHz AthlonXP Thunderbird, thinking, "maybe next month."

 

[Xarick]

see I am sitting on a 9800pro, barton 2800+, on an ultra 400 mobo. But still I can't seem to justify a midrange upgrade right now because midrange dx10 cards are just 3 months away and intel price cuts are just 3 months away. I only upgrade every two years.. if I upgrade now I will be having to buy a new video card a year from now just to play dx10. On top of that the only thing I can afford is an e6300, but if I wait I can get an e6400 with 4 megs cache. So I dont see now as a good time to upgrade at all.

 

[Tbirdkid]

Not a bad time for me, as i am about 3 gens behind, i tend to upgrade about every year or so. i stay behind the times and save alot of money doing that and still playing all the games i want, and doing everything i want.

 

[shadowofthesun]

Its impossible to always remain at the forefront of the tech wave. There are good times to upgrade, however. This is not a good time. I would wait, at the very least, for r600 to drive down GPU prices, and intel's price cuts. For those reasons, I agree with the OP,

 

[AznSensation]

is this 5 o'clock free crack giveaway?

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

I'm thinking about upgrading to an E6300 from my Sempron 2800+ @ 2.32GHz in the first week of January. I'd really like some dual core action.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: Xarick
see I am sitting on a 9800pro, barton 2800+, on an ultra 400 mobo. But still I can't seem to justify a midrange upgrade right now because midrange dx10 cards are just 3 months away and intel price cuts are just 3 months away. I only upgrade every two years.. if I upgrade now I will be having to buy a new video card a year from now just to play dx10. On top of that the only thing I can afford is an e6300, but if I wait I can get an e6400 with 4 megs cache. So I dont see now as a good time to upgrade at all.

You'd have to get an E6600 if you want 4MB L2. The E6400 is just a clock speed bump from the E6300--hardly worth the extra money if you plan on overclocking.

 

[bluestrobe]

I always upgrade to hardware that is 6 months behind. Money doesn't grow on trees and I don't feel like spending top dollar on an untested gimmick or parts that lose 25% of it's price after the next wave hits the market.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: bluestrobe
I always upgrade to hardware that is 6 months behind. Money doesn't grow on trees and I don't feel like spending top dollar on an untested gimmick or parts that lose 25% of it's price after the next wave hits the market.

You keep forgetting though, that "25% saved" is actually lost, since a person who upgrades earlier will sell their stuff and upgrade earlier, it usually all evens out. It's all about how long you're willing to sit on what you've got, you can save a tonne by simply not buying anything. Wow... a tremendous concept.

 

[Blain]

Does anyone upgrade because they actually "need to"? :roll:
I mean, an extra 25 frames per second in a "game" hardly seems worth worthy of any upgrade dollars.

I'm upgrading from a hyperthreading 3.06 Northwood to a dual core Opteron because the applications that I currentlt run are taxing my CPU too much.
Each app running on its own is fine, but multitasking is pushing the P4 for all it's worth...
Time to upgrade.

 

[jose]

With hardware, there's always something better every 6 months. Other than the christmas price gouge every manf is shooting for, I'd wait till Jan/Feb.

I find the summer to have the lowest prices w/ a good selection of instock items.. ie. vid. cards.

But if your waiting for Vista, then I'd wait for atleast a serv. pack... how many windows OS's were fine on the first run ???? win98se, XP/sp2, NT4sp3, etc.

Besides what does Vista bring that you have to have ? They promised a new file system, then it got canned... it's mostly eye candy... DX10, who cares ?

If a game is exclusive to DX10 then they will be out of bus. in 6 months...

Regards,
Jose