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Is this the worst time to build a gaming PC?
- Thread starter FernandoRocker
- Start date
You know, the beauty of PC parts is that you can buy them...and then sell them! If you build a PC and three months later, some video card come out that you just have to have, you can sell your card and make back most of what you spent.
Unless you know that new CPUs or video cards are getting announced in like a week, I don't think waiting to buy everything makes sense. For example, nVidia and AMD are both rumored to announce new high-end cards in March. I recommend you buy everything for you new PC now EXCEPT the video card. Stick with your 970 or whatever you have and throw it into a new Ryzen 3600 or i5-9400f build. When the new cards get announced, get one and sell the 970.
You don't need to build everything at once!
Unless you know that new CPUs or video cards are getting announced in like a week, I don't think waiting to buy everything makes sense. For example, nVidia and AMD are both rumored to announce new high-end cards in March. I recommend you buy everything for you new PC now EXCEPT the video card. Stick with your 970 or whatever you have and throw it into a new Ryzen 3600 or i5-9400f build. When the new cards get announced, get one and sell the 970.
You don't need to build everything at once!
Considering an RX 5700 runs $300+, that's not a bad build. Assuming it has a half-decent SSD.
An R5 1600 wouldn't be what I'd pick for a new build today, but it's something you can upgrade down the road.
Seriously, even an RX 570 still does well today. Buy a cheap one, used or new, and a few months down the road get the new hotness and sell the lower card, or just use it as a backup.
Yeah, anyone whose gaming PC goal is to always have state of the art technology is going to be perennially frustrated. If you're anticipating a massive drop in price on new components then just buy the older components cheaper so you can run most stuff pretty well right now.
For me, anyway, the massive part of the joy of PC gaming is how rare it is that older games (which obviously don't require the state of the art stuff to run well) are made incompatible or impossible to play.
I was very close to buying a brand new PC over the holidays and I'm so fucking glad I didn't do it.
Now with PS Now, Stadia, and Geforce Now, all available, relatively cheap, and functional, I have no reason to jump the gun on any hardware. As I've said in an earlier post, I just don't see the value proposition in the current line of GPU/CPU's. If you take a game like Control as a sample benchmark for next-gen, the cost of building a PC for decent performance is just gross. I'm assuming that the next gen GPU's will solve this problem, but it's going to take a lot to convince me to switch back to hardware vs. streaming at this point. Luckily for Nvidia they'll have me as a customer in either case so long as Geforce Now continues to support a lot of games.
Now with PS Now, Stadia, and Geforce Now, all available, relatively cheap, and functional, I have no reason to jump the gun on any hardware. As I've said in an earlier post, I just don't see the value proposition in the current line of GPU/CPU's. If you take a game like Control as a sample benchmark for next-gen, the cost of building a PC for decent performance is just gross. I'm assuming that the next gen GPU's will solve this problem, but it's going to take a lot to convince me to switch back to hardware vs. streaming at this point. Luckily for Nvidia they'll have me as a customer in either case so long as Geforce Now continues to support a lot of games.
Just think in another 4-5 years, when you upgrade, it'll be a way better time to build/buy then anytime this year or next.
Assuming you're sitting on something that doesn't run stuff at all anymore. If you have a perfectly adequate PC now, then yeah, give it a little longer. But if not, it really doesn't matter unless it's the last PC you're ever going to buy.
Assuming you're sitting on something that doesn't run stuff at all anymore. If you have a perfectly adequate PC now, then yeah, give it a little longer. But if not, it really doesn't matter unless it's the last PC you're ever going to buy.
This is all I'm waiting for. HDMI 2.1 TVs with 4K/120Hz and VRR are becoming commonplace as of this year and it would be silly to spend a lot of money on a video card that couldn't use those features.
AMD and Nvidia take note. HDMI 2.0b ain't gonna cut it for Next-Gen NAVI and RTX3000. HDMI 2.1 or I keep waiting. Hell, even a X1X from 2017 had more advanced HDMI output than the latest PC GPU cards. Embarrassing.
As for the rest of it, no need to wait. Zen 2 is awesome, the 570 motherboards are awesome with the PCIe 4.0
Next consoles are who will dictate what games are going to be played and what kind of hardware will be needed, so I'd say at least wait for them to come out.
I saw a few comments saying that "CPUs are fine", but that's not true. Next-gen consoles will have something like this:
Zen 2, 8 cores / 16 threads @ 3.2 GHz
If a next-gen AAA game runs at 30 fps on this CPU, what do you think you will get with this CPU:
Zen 2, 8 cores / 16 threads @ 4.2 GHz (= Ryzen 3700X)
I can tell you right now, it won't be 60 fps. This might even be a problem when Zen 3 releases. And forget about 120 / 144 / 165 fps.
If you are mostly interested in AAA games and getting the best bang for your bucks, the answer at the start of a new console generation will always be, get a console. Not only will you get very good hardware for an unbeatable price, you can also be sure that all games of the next 7 years will run without any problems.
As the new generation goes on, PC gaming will again become attractive price-wise, and higher frame-rates will be easier to achieve. Of course if you are interested in some of the unique advantages of the PC eco system, this doesn't matter that much.
Zen 2, 8 cores / 16 threads @ 3.2 GHz
If a next-gen AAA game runs at 30 fps on this CPU, what do you think you will get with this CPU:
Zen 2, 8 cores / 16 threads @ 4.2 GHz (= Ryzen 3700X)
I can tell you right now, it won't be 60 fps. This might even be a problem when Zen 3 releases. And forget about 120 / 144 / 165 fps.
If you are mostly interested in AAA games and getting the best bang for your bucks, the answer at the start of a new console generation will always be, get a console. Not only will you get very good hardware for an unbeatable price, you can also be sure that all games of the next 7 years will run without any problems.
As the new generation goes on, PC gaming will again become attractive price-wise, and higher frame-rates will be easier to achieve. Of course if you are interested in some of the unique advantages of the PC eco system, this doesn't matter that much.
i understand that completely. There is always something better coming, but it seems like we're in for some significant upgrades
I would say it depends on whether you're building a new pc from scratch vs bringing some parts over from your old one. Like all I'm going to do is build a new system with a Ryzen at the heart and bringing my Rx 580 over to the new one since that will last a year or two more before I need to replace that. I'm literally just waiting on the Ryzen 4000 CPU's right now.
I'd build everything now minus GPU if you're worried about it. Just play around with onboard graphics then buy the next gen of gfx cards.
The reason people say it's a great time to buy a CPU is that we aren't expecting any large upgrades any time soon. AMD's Ryzen 4000 series is not going to be a giant leap in performance, it'll likely be a small incremental upgrade. Meanwhile Intel doesn't seem to know what it's doing and is currently releasing high priced crap.
The complete opposite is true with graphics cards where we haven't had a performance/price increase since 2016 when the GTX 10 series came out. RTX 20 series was extremely poor value when it was released and now we're at the tail end of that gen and nothing has changed. So if you're spending on a graphics card now you're spending just as much as you did in 2016 for the same performance. It has been almost 4 years from the GTX 1070/1080 launch, people want an upgrade. Nvidia is also supposed to move towards 7nm here which makes people hope for an upgrade.
As far as consoles go, I'm done with paying $60/year to the console maker to be able to connect online with it.
I don't think it's a very good time.
It's been quite a few years since we had a truly knockout CPU.
It's been quite a few years since we had a truly knockout CPU.
I always look at games first and Doom Eternal and Alyx were staring me in the face, so I decided it was a good time to upgrade just because I really want to play those at launch. My build was like 6 years old so I did a complete overhaul and haven't regretted it yet.
I actually think it's a pretty decent time to build a PC, but the right answer is if you think like this, it'll never happen.
But arguments for it being a good time:
- Memory and storage have gotten very reasonable / arguably cheap. Think likely won't last forever, but does help direct costs for CPU/GPU.
- AMD has made the CPU/value proposition really good right now. I would say if you are dedicated to team blue, it's a horrible time to build.
Primary argument against it is pretty much entirely around the GPU market, but you can easily go for a used or lower end card that still plays current gen games great with a plan to upgrade in the future. It's the advantage of the modularity of PCs. You don't need to scrap everything to replace the card.
But arguments for it being a good time:
- Memory and storage have gotten very reasonable / arguably cheap. Think likely won't last forever, but does help direct costs for CPU/GPU.
- AMD has made the CPU/value proposition really good right now. I would say if you are dedicated to team blue, it's a horrible time to build.
Primary argument against it is pretty much entirely around the GPU market, but you can easily go for a used or lower end card that still plays current gen games great with a plan to upgrade in the future. It's the advantage of the modularity of PCs. You don't need to scrap everything to replace the card.
While I agree that going console at the start of the gen makes sense if you are price sensitive, I wouldn't go that far. The tail end of a generation is often painful performance wise and this time around, with the console refreshes, it feels particularily bad with some games.
I think the real answer there is your framerate will depend far more on GPU than CPU. Yes, getting a new console will be cheaper than trying to build a PC to play the same games. But there's still a lot of people who aren't making an either-or choice there. They have games on the PC side that just aren't available on console, but want to build something that'll handle the games released in a new console generation.
Very true! But if it isn't important that it is portable than go with a desktop.
To answer the OP. I personally would wait after the new cards are announced and step in then. Reason is simple, just because i think it's better to wait after the new consoles are released so you can take advantage of the new baseline.
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RTX sucks anyway, right now, but it's easiest to upgrade a GPU of all of your components. So, buy a decent mid-range GPU and upgrade in a few years if you really feel the need.
HDMI 2.1 isn't life-changing. Don't wait on that.
PCIe 5/6 are YEARS away. Don't wait on those.
USB4.0 isn't gonna change your gameplay. Don't wait on that.
DDR5 isn't gonna change your gameplay. Don't wait on that.
AKA, go get one of those $150 Ryzen 3600's from Micro Center, throw in $60 of DDR4 16GB, add a cheap 500 GB SSD, get a $70 motherboard, add a $300 GPU, add a $65 PSU, get a $40 case. You're done. Great gaming Rig for $600 or so.
You're not going to be CPU bound at 4k unless your CPU is ancient. Probably not even 1440p.
Great question Ill ask about the storage.
When are we expecting all the new GPU's to be released?
It's always the "worst time" to build a PC, because there is always some tech that is 6 months out that will make a huge difference if you wait.
For example: If you wait to build your PC based on Nvidia's graphics tech released in 3 months, you might as well wait another 3 months and get the latest CPU generation. But then you may as well wait till 2021 to see what's announced on the DDR5 front. Then you might as well wait and see what AMD has announced for it's new GPU tech 3 months later. But then you might as well wait another 3-6 months to see what the latest CPUs from intel look like.
This is the PC gaming world way. If you're really worried about one specific component, get a low-to-mid range version of whatever you expect to be replaced to hold you over till the next big thing hits, then sell your current one on ebay for some return.
For example: If you wait to build your PC based on Nvidia's graphics tech released in 3 months, you might as well wait another 3 months and get the latest CPU generation. But then you may as well wait till 2021 to see what's announced on the DDR5 front. Then you might as well wait and see what AMD has announced for it's new GPU tech 3 months later. But then you might as well wait another 3-6 months to see what the latest CPUs from intel look like.
This is the PC gaming world way. If you're really worried about one specific component, get a low-to-mid range version of whatever you expect to be replaced to hold you over till the next big thing hits, then sell your current one on ebay for some return.
Yeah I was going to say that if you want 60FPS for a new game you're still going to want to focus on getting a PC, because you can at least downscale the graphics a bit so it runs better. Most mainstream console games have been targeting resolution and environmental complexity over framerate since the N64 was a thing.
Might not be until September for Nvidia's new cards. AMD probably April at the earliest.
If you can wait until after the consoles are out a bit then get the newest hardware it will be good. Next Nvidia GPUs should be a lot better than their current RTX cards. The CPU side is awesome with AMD, and it's probably more than you'd need, especially ones that support PCIe 4.0 SSDs just in case it's a thing in the future.
Microcenter had an incredible deal this past weekend. 2600X for only 80 dollars. And 20 dollars off any motherboard. Maybe some still have the deal on going. Got the CPU and an ASrock 320 board for only 100 dollars.
Seems the 2600 line's price is being slashed everywhere (currently 50% off at Newegg Canada). I'm guessing everyone has been told to clear stock in anticipation of new hardware.
The situation with graphics cards is special now because we haven't had an upgrade in performance/price since 2016 and we're about to get one this year. Everything else you mentioned is a small upgrade.
DisplayPort 2.0 is 77.37Gbps. Also, HDMI 2.1 is capped at 120hz.
On the contrary, there has never been a better time to build a PC from a price to performance perspective. That said, it's a weird time to build a PC with a generational shift about to occur making gaming requirements unpredictable in the near future. Right now a ryzen 3600 is the perfect choice for the CPU, but maybe the extra threads of a 3700x or even a 3900x will really matter in a year or so. Great cards without ray tracing support are very affordable, but that could become a requirement soon. We don't know what the hardware RT support looks like in the new consoles, there's the (slim) possibility it'll make low end rtx cards unusable (hell depending on the ram config in the new consoles, a 6 GB 2060 might not cut it for VRAM alone). There's a lot of uncertainty if your goal is to build a rig to last you 3+ years of playing all games that come out at acceptable settings (let's say console equivalent or better).
That said, my advice is usually this: if you need a computer, get a computer now and don't play the waiting game (unless GPUs are coming out in like, a week or something crazy like that). The market is good right now, there's only so much of an L you could potentially take by buying now.
OP
OP
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm planning to play games above Solitaire level of graphics though.
This thread has me frustrated with the timing on the cyberpunk delay.
Had an r9 390. It was getting old and I figure it wouldn't run cyberpunk very well. Preorder the EVGA Ko 2060 and before I have it in hand, Cyberpunk is delayed. Trying hard not to think about how much further my $400-ish CAD budget would go in September š. Especially considering I would have had no issue waiting.
Had an r9 390. It was getting old and I figure it wouldn't run cyberpunk very well. Preorder the EVGA Ko 2060 and before I have it in hand, Cyberpunk is delayed. Trying hard not to think about how much further my $400-ish CAD budget would go in September š. Especially considering I would have had no issue waiting.
And afterwards [insert feature here]n+1 is coming out very soon. All that isn't too important. Just build your PC and have fun and enjoy PC gaming right now. With that budget of yours you can build something very decent.
And upgrade along the way when you find yourself more often than not missing your fps/resolution target. You can always trade in your old parts.
There's really no way to know right now what the GPU market in September will be. Will it be a repeat of the 10xx series and everything will be priced competitively, or will it be a repeat of the 20xx series where Nvidia just says "fuck it, we have a monopoly" and jacks up the prices along with performance.