When to Buy

[johnross2007]

Hey guys. I will be helping my friend build a pc soon or during the summer break. My question is, when is the best time to buy. Obviously waiting until the end of the summer will get me the best prices, but preferably not waiting that long.

Basically, when are new chips, GPUs, and what not coming into the market that would knock down prices.

His budget will be ~$1500 including monitor. btw, he works at Best Buy so he can probably get a nice discount on the monitor (I'm advising him to buy nothing else for there. ewww)

If I have my way everything else will be bought at Newegg, unless another store has an amazing deal on a component.

edit: It will be for gaming. (DX10 Vista gaming)

[Steve R Jones]

Obviously waiting until the end of the summer will get me the best prices

What are you basing this on? Back to school specials??

New stuff is always coming out. I forget which, but Intel or AMD has a new line coming out next January or February...

You have a budget - pick a build date and get the best that's currently available at "that" time.

[ZeR0]

Not anytime soon imo.

The GeForce 9 series is kind of bleh. Not worth the money imo.

[JPMiller]

Are you serious?
What do you base THAT on?
bang for buck right now is awsome!
prices have dropped drastically multiple times recently and the 9 series is quite good, especially for the price!

[RicheemxX]

Originally Posted by JPMiller

Are you serious?
What do you base THAT on?
bang for buck right now is awsome!
prices have dropped drastically multiple times recently and the 9 series is quite good, especially for the price!

I'll second that, the 9600gt is IMO hands down the best bang for the buck out there right now.

As for when to buy, whenever the heck you've got all the cash together and are ready to build it. New products hit the market and prices fluctuate constantly waiting just leads to more waiting.

[thephilosophizer]

Well, there is the case that the E8*** series intels have been slow to market, but they are getting here now. The 8400 seems like a pretty fast chip for the money, the q6600 is less than $200, but for gaming a faster dual core would be better. The E8200 is only $180, and the q9300, which is the cheapest 45nm quad, is $295. For $1500, including monitor, you can get just about anything.
Wait...
At the egg, you can get an q9300, (2.5ghz, 45nm), a 9800gx2, 4gb (2x2) patriot ddr2 1066, and a gigabyte EP35 DS3R for $1140. Which leaves $350 for case, psu and screen. Dude, sooo fast a system right there. Edit: that didn't include hard or optical drive..., can you push that budget a little? If not the 9800gtx is still really fast and is like $300 less than the gx2.

[EXreaction]

There isn't really much new coming out that I know of. The tech companies have changed drastically compared to what they used to do. Many no longer leak out any information on a new product until the product is on store shelves.

I doubt there is going to be much activity for a while. nVidia isn't showing anything until the other companies show what they've got. The next high end gpu battle could be between nVidia and Intel, unless ATI has something big they've been working on.

If I'd relate the current tech setting we have to anything, I'd say it's like a cold war. Nobody is letting anything out, and everybody is trying to get allies so when stuff starts moving they'll end up at the top. I don't think anything is going to change for close to a year when Intel releases their new cpu+gpu lineup.

[johnross2007]

intel making an aftermarket gpu!?!?! Never heard of that. Well I don't know if he is willing to push his budget, though I know he was 4,000 saved up so he can.

That e8400 looks tasty but out o' stock. It'll be in sometime though . lol knowing him he won't want to overclock. Funny that my e6420 will be going around the same speed as his if he gets this.

So you think that, for the big components like chips and GPUs, not much is likely to change for a while?

Ok well, I'll try to get him to buy soon, though I doubt he will want to until Summer hits due to the time req, though we could build and test it in one weekend......

edit: also, my mobo knowledge begins and ends with 650/680i's...... Might ya'll tell me the benefits of the intel lines? Also, he probably won't ever go dual-GPU if I have anything to say about it. Except he might get a 9800gx2 if budget permits. Would a GX2 work on an intel board?

[RicheemxX]

edit: also, my mobo knowledge begins and ends with 650/680i's...... Might ya'll tell me the benefits of the intel lines?

the newer chipsets support the newer faster cpu's, faster ram ddr3 ect. you'd really need to ask specifics about specific boards. Intel covers a lot of chipsets and a ton of boards so being general and saying "intel" doesn't help much.

But even then your really waisting alot of time if you aren't buying now as by the time you actually buy there will be something else new out there. The best thing to do now would be read reviews and get a general idea.

Would a GX2 work on an intel board?

yes it should run on most newer boards just fine

about the only real news I know of is the release of the amd/ati 4xxx series cards supposedly this summer http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7356.html

[EXreaction]

$1500 for a gaming pc's budget is a lot already.

I'd never spend that much on a desktop again. You can put together a perfectly fine gaming system for $700. If you want to get a better performing system than what I can build one for $700 you would end up spending a lot of money and getting very little gain from it. It would be better to spend that $700 on a system now, then save the rest for upgrades or a new system in 2+ years, because you'll likely be able to get a system twice as fast as what you can get now for the same $.

I'd say look at spending $600-700 on the system itself, plus whatever that person wants for a monitor/software/etc extra.