Question When will pc parts prices finally drop and when will be a good time to build a pc? (2021)

[Zachary A.]

prices have severely skyrocketed in almost every store I've checked offline or online and thought about it, when will be a good time to build a pc?

 

[Darkbreeze]

If anybody knew the answer to that, they'd be in high demand as a prophet. Most likely, given all the problems related to a lack of chip manufacturing (Which affects a variety of hardware manufacturing types), problems at RAM and NAND fabs, Covid related problems that have still not been recovered from considering much of China, Taiwan and South Korea's hardware manufacturing were entirely shut down for many months in 2020, plus container ships that were stuck for weeks in the Suez canal, and so on, and so forth, it's been a perfect storm and honestly nobody can truthfully offer any legitimate insights as to when anything is going to be either available or reasonably priced again.

Add to that the fact that bitcoin miners are again, and have been, buying up much of the available hardware, plus scalpers, there just isn't any way to really know.

Shortages, supply chain issues, bitcoin miners and scalpers have muddied the industry expectations so much it might be a year, or three. Or, this might just be the new normal, at least for a while.

 

[CountMike]

prices have severely skyrocketed in almost every store I've checked offline or online and thought about it, when will be a good time to build a pc?

That's open market, unless supply is grater than demand, prices don't drop, nobody is crazy enough to sell something for cheaper if he doesn't have to.
Supply and even transport are greatly disrupted and proliferation of need for chips have multiplied with "smart" devices. Investment in new technologies is most expensive nowadays so unless we get a glut of most parts, don't expect prices to fall anytime soon.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Plus, another issue that we failed to mention, although Mike touched on it with supply and demand, is that the DEMAND was exceptionally high for nearly a year and half while millions and millions of people, perhaps more like Billions, worldwide, were either stuck at home or having to work from home, which raised the demand for computers and other communication devices by orders of magnitude. The fact that many of the people normally working in the industries that supply those devices were also, by and large, also at home, so supply was a fraction of what it would normally have been and that's without factoring in any of the complications that have arisen from problems at various fabs and a lack of transport.

Likely it will literally take years for things to normalize, even somewhat.

 

[AC3B00G13]

Plus, another issue that we failed to mention, although Mike touched on it with supply and demand, is that the DEMAND was exceptionally high for nearly a year and half while millions and millions of people, perhaps more like Billions, worldwide, were either stuck at home or having to work from home, which raised the demand for computers and other communication devices by orders of magnitude. The fact that many of the people normally working in the industries that supply those devices were also, by and large, also at home, so supply was a fraction of what it would normally have been and that's without factoring in any of the complications that have arisen from problems at various fabs and a lack of transport.

Likely it will literally take years for things to normalize, even somewhat.

I’ve never actually looked at it that way. Thanks for the insight lol

 

[InvalidError]

The on-going shortages of miscellaneous support components will likely persist until some time in to 2022, DRAM prices can be expected to jump all over the shop for the next couple of years as production get shifted from DDR4 to DDR5, SSD pricing will depend heavily on whether Chia will sink or swim, GPU prices depend heavily on how badly the crypto market will get whacked by China's bans and the possibility that other countries will also crank the regulatory vise on it.

I'm not too optimistic about pricing returning to a reasonable level of normalcy before 2023. Until then, you will have to patiently hunt for deals to get reasonably priced components.

 

[sam.bird91]

Only GPU prices are skyrocket. CPUs are going for good prices at the moment. I managed to get a new 5600X for £200 when they retail at £230-£260.

 

[InvalidError]

Only GPU prices are skyrocket.

While GPUs may be the only thing going for 2X MSRP, many other components are 20-30% more expensive than usual with spotty availability.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Actually, aside from the least desirable brands and products, I've been looking around for parts for a new build for myself and it's a certainty that almost everything is significantly more expensive than it was in January of 2020, prior to any of the Covid or supply chain and manufacturing issues.

 

[mxnty]

Prices have gone up as well as stock reducing. We can expect this to go on at least until Q4 2021 at best. Try checking for availability and prices and slowly buy all the parts. For price, it may not be bound to change. Example: The CPU: Object X is priced at $250 Q2 2020. As prices have raised, it now sits at $300 while it’s being sold at $400-500 from scalpers. It’s hard to predict anything, so for a while it may sit at $300. It may never end up back at $250. While this may seem like a small increase, let’s take the percentage. That’s a 20% price increase. Which isn’t too bad at a lower price range. But let’s go to a $800 3080. The new price would be $960. Added up, a $2,000 system would now cost $2,400. Therefore, we are unable to predict an end to this.

 

[mxnty]

I greatly apologize for the large block of text.
TLDR; no change for the foreseeable future, but your parts slowly.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Added up, a $2,000 system would now cost $2,400.

Not sure where you are getting your numbers, but IMO the problem is a bit more severe than this would lead somebody to believe.

 

[Zerk2012]

The prices now are the new normal.

Edit be flexible with your parts, enter the Newegg shuffle everyday till you get a video card that suits your needs then if its bundled with other parts pick the rest of your parts around that.

 

[LolaGT]

If you are patient and don't need the bleeding edge current newest gen of CPU, etc, it is an okay time to build.
If you are a gamer it's bad, as the GPU market is shot, unless you can get by with your old one until the market gets back to some semblance of normal, many months from now, like a year.

 

[mxnty]

Not sure where you are getting your numbers, but IMO the problem is a bit more severe than this would lead somebody to believe.

Agreed. I simply wanted to state the issue on a smaller scale. I didn’t use any actual stat numbers, I just made a smaller example. But yes, the issue is much worse than that.

 

[trancetunes]

all i know is i bought a PC in november 2020 and then it got taken away from me in december 2020 and now that same PC would be worth like 500 dollars more than i bought it :/