Waiting for AMD zen

[sanjoykumardas26]

I wanted to buy i5 6600k but due to low budget I didn't buy. Then I shifted to AMD fx 8350 (didn't bought yet). Now I found on web that AMD will launch their next gen CPU named Zen. In some websites it's saying in march, in mid of 2016 and in late 2016. Now I am confused should I wait for AMD zen or should I take i5 6600k (remember its too expensive). And AMD zen will be like i5/i7 6th gen according to their sources. I am not in hurry to buy but will it be useful to wait for AMD.
Note - I'm not an AMD user. I am an Intel user. Pentium dual core. Some friends r using AMD and they r happy with that.

 

[Dapanji]

If you're not in a hurry you should probably wait for zen. Hopefully, AMD will manage to catch up to Intel when they release zen, which would open more options for high-end CPUs, since I never see a high-end PC using an AMD CPU.

 

[gamerk316]

Zen will launch late Q4 2016/Q1 2017 at the earliest; AMD has confirmed as much several times now. In addition, the consensus opinion here is Zen will be competitive with Ivy Bridge/Haswell class Intel CPUs, and is expected to lag behind Skylake/Kaby Lake.

I'll give the same advice I gave back when everyone was waiting on Bulldozer: Go with an Intel i7; it will almost certainly end up being a better purchase for your money, and you get it now, rather then a year from now.

 

[WyomingKnott]

The thing about waiting is - there is always a more powerful processor coming down the pipe, a next generation. So you will never get anything.

Which processor to get depends on your budget, what you intend to use it for, and personal preferences. If you are going to be gaming, it also depends on what GPU you have or can afford; no sense pairing a massively powerful CPU with a gimpy GPU if you are going to game. (Check out my specs - when built, it was a massively powerful CPU with a gimpy GPU, but I don't play computer games.)

So it sounds like you are planning to build a whole new system. Rather than picking a CPU in a vacuum, can you tell us what you are going to use the machine for, what your budget is, and what components you already have and don't need to buy again? Then people with more current system building experience than I have can help.

Also, if you are going to be gaming you can read Tom's' latest Best CPU for the money article, which will give you our current picks in various price ranges - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html