to buy or not to buy...

[Tetsuo316]

so, i'm really torn. i want to wait until the new hammer series of amd processors come out, but i'm thinking that they won't hit the streets until october or november - and i really don't want to wait that long. i'm looking right now at the gigabyte ga-7vtxe and an xp1600 for about $190 shipped and it's very, very tempting. can someone talk me out of buying this pair. my current setup is an athlon 1G on an a7v with sdram. i already have some ddr ram and my current heatsink can handle the xp1600+, so i'll only have to shell out the $190. it's so cheap. someone please give me a good reason not to upgrade.

god. upgrading is a worse addiction than smack.

i think i'd want to upgrade less if i stopped reading hardware news all day.

 

[o1die]

If you want to overclock, I would wait for the thoroughbred. It should run cooler. Or get a P4. Prices will drop in 2 weeks 25-50%.

 

[Buz2b]

Although you will undoubtedly notice a difference between the MB combo you are considering and your current setup, you have a better chance of significantly increasing that jump in performance if you wait. Mainly because when the newer boards with "full hammer compatibility" come out, your upgrade path will increase significantly. In other words, buying that combo now will get you to "point A" as far as your upgrade possibilities but a hammer combo will take you much further, even if you don't go that far to begin with. A side benifit of course will be more manageable temps also. A down side may be that when first released, the new cpu and fully optimized boards will be more expensive.
So you have to ask yourself; how fast do I want to go now and in the future? And what am I willing to pay for that speed? Oh and yeah, can I wait that long for that speed?