[SOLVED] Okay time to upgrade home PC?

Oct 19, 2019
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I'm looking at upgrading my 2010-based PC build to 2020. Specifically, CPU, GPU, & mobo + ram. Preliminary research has me pointed towards what appears to be a current 'go-to' combo: i7 or i9, Z390 motherboard, and 2080 or 2080Ti for graphics. Easy peasy.

However, as I do not actively follow hardware news like I used to, and the consumer PC landscape has changed so much since 2010*, I just wanted to check in with this community on whether there's any value in waiting for some emergent technology that is more or less right around the corner (say, within the next year or so).

Of course all of these manufacturers are constantly working towards the next incrementally better part-- but I'm talking more about how we saw the HDD -> SSD jump which fundamentally changed the game for boot drives back in the day.
What say ye? Anything exciting coming up, or should I pull the trigger on some black friday sales?

*If nothing else, I'm lol'ing at all the of the RBG stuff out there these days. Who knew you could put lights on all of these components!? It's like the Tokyo Drift era of PCs and I'm sitting here in my black '69 GTO. What a hoot!
 
Solution
There is no "best time" for new parts. There is always something new on the horizon.

And your situation would not be an "upgrade", but rather a whole new system.

And for all new current parts, don't look to them being discounted on the magical Black Friday.

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
There is no "best time" for new parts. There is always something new on the horizon.

And your situation would not be an "upgrade", but rather a whole new system.

And for all new current parts, don't look to them being discounted on the magical Black Friday.
 
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Solution

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
What is your budget?

How do you plan to use the upgraded (or new) computer?

Do you want to buy ready to go or to build yourself?

Start by reading some of the PC reviews and PC builds here within Tom's Hardware.

And I would not wait for Black Friday: The good stuff will be sold out and/or overpriced - even if "sale" is claimed.

The bargains will be on the stuff the sellers want to get out of inventory.
 
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Absolutely agree with USAFret...

You have 2 routes in Intel or AMD and if pure gaming then Intel just and I mean just leads with the standout 9700K with the 9900K being just fractions ahead for gaming. Both AMD and Intel are pretty much static as 10nm parts from Intel are a long way away and at the earliest the latter half of 2020 and Ryzen is of and running with the 3000 series so not to much change ahead for a while. But bottom line, you cannot go wrong with the CPU's available today at pretty much all price points...Ryzen definitely has the price to performance edge here...Plenty of good reviews everywhere to help you!

I would look to the NVMe M.2 SSD's which have really dropped in price and now less than $100 for a 1TB drive so if you can find a deal on Black Friday pick one up and the same with DDR4 RAM which has come down in price by a huge amount so 2 x 8GB DDR4 3200 modules in the $70 to $80 range.

As to Ryzen, the 3600 or 3700X will be a great foundation. If money is an issue the Ryzen 2600 is at a super low price of just a little above $100....

It will all depend on what resolution you play games as for the GPU but again we have a great choice from the low to medium to high end with the RX 570/580 GTX 1660/1660Ti, RX 5700, 5700X, RTX 2060 and 2070 Super and the money no issue the RTX 2080 Super and the absurdly priced but the very best in the RTX 2080 Ti.

As to RGB I better not say anything as I have been sucked in completely!
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Of course all of these manufacturers are constantly working towards the next incrementally better part-- but I'm talking more about how we saw the HDD -> SSD jump which fundamentally changed the game for boot drives back in the day.
And for this, the initial batch of consumer level SSD's wasn't very good.
Too small and crappy firmware.

Looking back from 2019, it seems like that was an instant shift. But they didn't mature enough for real use for a year or two.
 
Oct 19, 2019
4
0
10
What is your budget?

How do you plan to use the upgraded (or new) computer?

Do you want to buy ready to go or to build yourself?

Start by reading some of the PC reviews and PC builds here within Tom's Hardware.

And I would not wait for Black Friday: The good stuff will be sold out and/or overpriced - even if "sale" is claimed.

The bargains will be on the stuff the sellers want to get out of inventory.

Good intel on the holiday sales-- will set some price alerts and use self-imposed deadlines instead.

I'll be upgrading the components I mentioned myself via transplant into the current tower. No budget or intended use. Mostly just looking to confirm that there's not some huge leap forward expected in 2020 for CPU, Mobo, or GPU that's worth waiting for. Someone mentioned PCIE 5.0 which I'll have to look into.
 
Oct 19, 2019
4
0
10
Absolutely agree with USAFret...

You have 2 routes in Intel or AMD and if pure gaming then Intel just and I mean just leads with the standout 9700K with the 9900K being just fractions ahead for gaming. Both AMD and Intel are pretty much static as 10nm parts from Intel are a long way away and at the earliest the latter half of 2020 and Ryzen is of and running with the 3000 series so not to much change ahead for a while. But bottom line, you cannot go wrong with the CPU's available today at pretty much all price points...Ryzen definitely has the price to performance edge here...Plenty of good reviews everywhere to help you!

I would look to the NVMe M.2 SSD's which have really dropped in price and now less than $100 for a 1TB drive so if you can find a deal on Black Friday pick one up and the same with DDR4 RAM which has come down in price by a huge amount so 2 x 8GB DDR4 3200 modules in the $70 to $80 range.

As to Ryzen, the 3600 or 3700X will be a great foundation. If money is an issue the Ryzen 2600 is at a super low price of just a little above $100....

It will all depend on what resolution you play games as for the GPU but again we have a great choice from the low to medium to high end with the RX 570/580 GTX 1660/1660Ti, RX 5700, 5700X, RTX 2060 and 2070 Super and the money no issue the RTX 2080 Super and the absurdly priced but the very best in the RTX 2080 Ti.

As to RGB I better not say anything as I have been sucked in completely!


Thanks for the SSD advice-- will research!

I recently picked up a Samsung CHG90 which is one impetus for the upgrade because my current hardware can't make use of the higher refresh rate at the full resolution. When I built in 2010 the generally accepted wisdom was to get the most expensive GPU you can afford and then add a second one in a handful of years if you find yourself needing extra horsepower at that time. Curious if that largely holds true these days.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Thanks for the SSD advice-- will research!

I recently picked up a Samsung CHG90 which is one impetus for the upgrade because my current hardware can't make use of the higher refresh rate at the full resolution. When I built in 2010 the generally accepted wisdom was to get the most expensive GPU you can afford and then add a second one in a handful of years if you find yourself needing extra horsepower at that time. Curious if that largely holds true these days.
2x GPU's is mostly a forgotten concept. While it works, a single more powerful GPU is the way to go.

The application or game needs to be written to take advantage of Crossfire or SLI.
 
Oct 19, 2019
4
0
10
And for this, the initial batch of consumer level SSD's wasn't very good.
Too small and crappy firmware.

Looking back from 2019, it seems like that was an instant shift. But they didn't mature enough for real use for a year or two.

Yeah...I recall having some issues myself at the time :) Eventually worked out okay after we collectively suffered through hehe
 
Yes, the time to change is when your current pc no longer does the job for you.
Or, if you simply get the itch.

What are your current parts and what kinds of games do you play?
Is your pc just for gaming, or do you have a need for serious batch performance like editing or rendering?

I see only incremental price/performance changes on the high end parts coming in the next year or so.
Past that, who knows. Intel is going to compete in the graphics arena next year.

Sales, like black friday are just that, sales of products that need a price reduction to move.