Discussion Building a new PC, but timing is very flexible - Is any upcoming hardware worth waiting for?

[CubsWin]

I have money saved up to put toward a new gaming PC build, but my current PC is still getting me by for now. I'm not looking to build anything immediately, and I could probably get by another year or more with what I have, so I just wanted to get some advice on new hardware that is on the horizon. I only build a new PC from scratch about every 8-10 years, but I'm getting close to that point now.

With that in mind, what are people's thoughts on any big upcoming advancements?

Fill in the blank on the statement below:
If I were going to build a new PC in the next year or so, I would wait for ______________.

I know it's always a balancing act, because there is always something new coming around the corner. I'm especially interested in the motherboard/CPU combo and when would be a good time to jump on board. What does the new CPU landscape look like for the next 12+ months?

 

[Lafong]

There will be a new generation of Intel CPUs, but the info on it is still at the rumor level. Naturally, the touts will tell you how fabulous it will all be.

I really can't think of anything I'd fill in your blank with.

Progress as experienced by the end user is always incremental rather than revolutionary. The end user than uses the incremental advances to convince himself how sensible it was to upgrade and that it was all "needed" rather than "wanted".

Is it chiseled in stone that you WILL be upgrading within 12 months? If yes, why not wait until the last moment? Draw a date in the dirt and buy on that date. Today's tech will likely be cheaper then than now. The new tech will be fact rather than rumor.

All dependent on your current level of dissatisfaction, which we don't know. Apparently not high at this point.

Likely unacceptable alternative: do nothing for the foreseeable future. Wait for a motherboard failure as long current hardware is tolerable, where you define tolerable.

 

[dwd999]

I know it's always a balancing act, because there is always something new coming around the corner. I'm especially interested in the motherboard/CPU combo and when would be a good time to jump on board. What does the new CPU landscape look like for the next 12+ months?

PCI Express 5 (PCIe 5.0): Here's everything you need to know about the new standard

PCIe 5.0 is the next big thing to arrive in the computing space. In this article, we're going to take a look at everything we know about it.

www.xda-developers.com

 

[USAFRet]

and I could probably get by another year or more with what I have

There is always something new on the horizon.

10 months from now, the NextBestThing will be imminent, and there will be the NextNextBestThing waiting in the wings.

Gather your money, but what fits your budget and performance.
Don't worry too much about the far future.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

My perspective is the that the display you use will define how much compute power you would need. Resolution and frame rate.

a good CPU like the 5800X3D or the 13700k will still be able to play the latest AAA games and give you 100+ fps in the game engine. the moment when it dips below 80ish fps in more games is when you should consider a CPU upgrade.

right now, only AM5 gives you long platform life. so i would look into the upcoming Zen 5 CPUs or the upcoming 8000 series.

the 14th gen seems like a refresh, so nothing ground breaking. I would say the 15th gen is where you will see major performance uplift due to CPU design change.

GPU side of things is even more tricky. we dont really know the projected performance uplift with rumors. and the games are becoming more demanding and less 'beta tested' each time.

SSD is more tricky. we are seeing a few games that are being developed with GPU texture decompression so 'Direct Storage' certified models will be what i would look out for...

and maybe the upcoming VR headsets. with Apple joining the race, i think we will be seeing more models with increased capabilities. So you would again need a GPU with the required compute power to run it...

 

[CubsWin]

My perspective is the that the display you use will define how much compute power you would need. Resolution and frame rate.

I'm perfectly happy with my dual 1440p/144Hz monitors and have no intent to upgrade to 4K. I'll be shooting for max graphic settings and framerate at 1440p.

 

[hotaru.hino]

How much money are you willing to spend? Because if you want something you don't want to touch for 8-10 years, a Ryzen 7800X3D with a RTX 4090 is your best bet at the moment.

If you want to go "well what about the future?", either you need something now, or you can kick the can down the road and you ask again when you really need something now.

 

[lojikal]

I have money saved up to put toward a new gaming PC build, but my current PC is still getting me by for now.

I sincerely love your approach towards spending your hard earned cash. In my experience I would strongly suggest you not consider spending any money towards a new gaming PC unless absolutely needed. One of the key things we must remember is and this is my personal quote, "All hardware upgrades are driven by advancement is software". As games/software become more advanced, consumers have traditionally been forced to upgrade their hardware to 'keep up'. That being said, if you're not experiencing any difficulty playing the games you currently own on the PC you're using then I would reserve that cash for something else. You never know what life will throw at you in the future however when it does, it's always good to have a safety net.

Just the thoughts of an old man.

 

[Nighthawk117]

There are no 'big' advancements this year. Intel has new CPU's coming in October, so you might get an extra quad core bolted onto your i7 for your troubles. It's a refresh of the existing CPU's so it's an incremental improvement. It still might be worth waiting for if your in no rush, but don't expect a drastic change. Next year will have more substantial improvements as Intel switch to a new architecture and process node, that's at least 12 months away at this point though.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I would not upgrade pre-emptively if your current computer is suiting you just fine. In such a case I would recommend a good moisturizing cream for the itch and upgrade when your current system no longer delivers the performance you require.

 

[CubsWin]

I sincerely love your approach towards spending your hard earned cash ...
You never know what life will throw at you in the future however when it does, it's always good to have a safety net.

I tend to "earmark" my extra funds for different purposes - For example: Put x away for long-term emergencies, y for short-term unexpected expenses, and z for a new PC build.

It's part responsible financial planning and another part obsessive disorder. 😀

 

[geofelt]

What is your current list of parts?
What might get reused?
CPU
GPU
PSU
case?
What would your budget be?

If you have a need now, buy now.
If you wait for the next best thing, you will wait forever.

In the October time frame, Intel 14th gen processors will launch, but at a very modest boost in price/performance.
There is no obsoleting technology on the horizon.

The amd X3D processors are very good for running only a single game. If that is all you do.
If you also do anything else, they are not so good.

DDR5 ram is the next best thing, but the impressive speeds are diminished by the higher latencies.
DDR4 today performs comparably and the parts are a bit cheaper.

At any price point, intel and amd have comparable offerings.
I advise sticking with what you know best, either amd or intel.
There is a bit of a learning curve.

There is no "future proofing"
After two years, future cpu upgrades, while possible, most of the time a cpu upgrade will be accompanied by a new motherboard.

 

[CubsWin]

There are no 'big' advancements this year. Intel has new CPU's coming in October, so you might get an extra quad core bolted onto your i7 for your troubles. It's a refresh of the existing CPU's so it's an incremental improvement. It still might be worth waiting for if your in no rush, but don't expect a drastic change. Next year will have more substantial improvements as Intel switch to a new architecture and process node, that's at least 12 months away at this point though.

That may very well be the timeframe I'm looking at, late 2024-ish for Arrow Lake. By that time, my trusty old 7700 will probably be at the end of its rope. That at least gives me a target to shoot for, with the ability to adjust to buy something sooner if absolutely necessary.

 

[CubsWin]

What is your current list of parts?
What might get reused?
CPU
GPU
PSU
case?
What would your budget be?

It will be a complete rebuild of all main components and a new case. My case is well over 10 years old and has been through 2 different iterations of motherboard/CPU.

I will only be planning to re-use the peripherals (monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers, sound card, etc.) and possibly my GPU (2080 Ti) on a short term basis if needed.

My existing PC, assuming it is still in working order, will probably get re-purposed as a general use computer for the family/kids.

 

[punkncat]

There is something resounding about the post above concerning monitors (and the reply).

Many posts about the 'around the corner' aspect of new hardware.

Personally speaking, I tend to stay on the back side of that wave of new hardware. In a very general sense, you will see the price on the outgoing hardware go down and down as retailers try to move old stock out to a point that becomes so attractive that it is actually hard NOT to pull the trigger. The only items that doesn't seem to be happening with on a normal level (right now) are graphics cards and power supplies. The pricing on RAM and storage are surely helping offset that aspect. Motherboard pricing is really hit and miss on the higher end side as well.

I truly feel that many PC users were to be sat down in front of a new up to the moment rig, and a rig that was last generation with no identifiers, no frame counter programs, no time clock testing that the differences would be so subtle as to be imperceivable. Most of these "big differences" quoted generation to generation is a performance based number on some unrealistic testing meta that doesn't really mean much in the real world of standard use cases. The people who truly would "feel" these minute differences are the ones who are waiting for long term compiling or editing and so forth. A couple of frames here and there in a game, probably no telling at all so long as there aren't big dips.

 

[geofelt]

You would be shocked at how much quicker a modern processor feels.
A simple $140 I3-13100 is about twice as strong as your 7700.
Life is too short to suffer a slow pc.

 

[CubsWin]

You would be shocked at how much quicker a modern processor feels.
A simple $140 I3-13100 is about twice as strong as your 7700.
Life is too short to suffer a slow pc.

That may be true in benchmarks, but how does "twice as strong" translate into actual real-world performance? I would guess that for most non-intensive CPU tasks, there isn't going to be a real noticeable difference between a 7700 and a 12th or 13th gen CPU. Sure, the 7700 is going to be the limiting factor for most current gen games, but I live with turning the settings down for now. I definitely know what a slow PC feels like, having been there before like when I had a 386 SX trying to run newer CD games that required a 486 or better, but the 7700 isn't quite at that point of obsolescence yet. I recognize that the time is coming sooner than later (prompting this thread), but I'm still not in a rush to replace it.

 

[Nighthawk117]

That may be true in benchmarks, but how does "twice as strong" translate into actual real-world performance? I would guess that for most non-intensive CPU tasks, there isn't going to be a real noticeable difference between a 7700 and a 12th or 13th gen CPU. Sure, the 7700 is going to be the limiting factor for most current gen games, but I live with turning the settings down for now. I definitely know what a slow PC feels like, having been there before like when I had a 386 SX trying to run newer CD games that required a 486 or better, but the 7700 isn't quite at that point of obsolescence yet. I recognize that the time is coming sooner than later (prompting this thread), but I'm still not in a rush to replace it.

Twice as strong in that instance would mean double the frame rate as it's a 4 core/8 thread CPU like your 7700.

What difference you will notice is highly dependant on the games you play. CSGO at 144hz is a very different beast to Warzone 2 for example. The differences will be most noticeable in the latest games at higher than 60hz or in games at 60hz that use ray tracing. The i7 7700 is not obsolete, there's not really anything that it won't run, but in the latest titles it offers entry level performance rather than the premium performance it did upon release.

 

[dwd999]

I will only be planning to re-use the peripherals (monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers, sound card, etc.) and possibly my GPU (2080 Ti) on a short term basis if needed.

I should have been clearer in my first reply rather than just citing a web article. I think the next big thing will be GPUs with a pcie 5 interface. We already have some motherboards that support pcie 5 and its now being used mostly for m.2 drives. There only one no-name gpu reported to work at pcie 5. Part of the problem is that with some motherboards, like the Z790 that I have, the pcie 5 bandwidth is shared between the m.2 and 1st gpu slot so I couldn't use a pcie 5 gpu at full 16bits even if I had one without giving up the m.2 pcie 5 option. So new chipsets that provide enough bandwidth for both a pcie 5 gpu and a pcie 5 m.2 slot would be something to anticipate.

 

[geofelt]

In the past, the difference between running at pcie 2/3/4 was minimal and mostly only when running the very top end cards.
I do not see anything magical coming with pcie 5.
Ditto with ssd devices. aside from synthetic benchmarks, one can hardly tell if you are using a sata device or pcie at higher speeds.