Will there be a better time to build a PC?

I'm planning on buying a PC soon.  Current-gen parts.

By that I mean a Z87 mobo, Haswell CPU, and GTX 760, et cetera.  All of these parts have launched this summer or late spring.

I see discounts on sites like Newegg for bundling these newly released components together.  Of course I have been saving up for this PC, but since I have enough money to build and I have a steady enough source of income that I can make back over the next few months (I am a student) the difference between what I have set aside and what I would have to pull from my savings, would it save me enough money to justify buying these "release bundles" now?

I'm planning on buying a PC soon.  Current-gen parts.

By that I mean a Z87 mobo, Haswell CPU, and GTX 760, et cetera.  All of these parts have launched this summer or late spring.

I see discounts on sites like Newegg for bundling these newly released components together.  Of course I have been saving up for this PC, but since I have enough money to build and I have a steady enough source of income that I can make back over the next few months (I am a student) the difference between what I have set aside and what I would have to pull from my savings, would it save me enough money to justify buying these "release bundles" now?

realguitarhero5

It'll always be something of a gamble. New tech is always coming out, and you just have to find something that will last a bit longer than the rest. As the others have said, depends on what kind of computer you already have. If it's old, go for it, otherwise, I would wait until next year.

You have to remember there will always be something new and better round the corner. Welcome to the game of technology!

obenns

I agree. I let the games dictate when I need to upgrade and not the hardware cycle.

What would you consider semi future proof, assuming I don't have the money to run 3 Titans at once. :p

You have to remember there will always be something new and better round the corner. Welcome to the game of technology!

obenns

He's currently interested in a GTX 760 which I think is perfect for 1920x1200 and under (he isn't blowing a ton of money before next gen cards come out but yet he still getting great performance).

My current PC is a dino.  It's not even technically mine, but it's got a Core 2 Quad Q6600, a GTX 460, and 3gb RAM.  And I've actually been playing on it.  

I have lots of games that I have bought over the past year or two like LA Noire, Arkham City, Shogun 2, or The Witcher 2 that the computer can't even run.

I am almost desperate for a new rig, but I haven't met my personal monetary goal yet.

With Intel Haswell CPUs and Nvidia GTX 700 series available now, the best time to build one is now.

My current PC is a dino.  It's not even technically mine, but it's got a Core 2 Quad Q6600, a GTX 460, and 3gb RAM.  And I've actually been playing on it.  

I have lots of games that I have bought over the past year or two like LA Noire, Arkham City, Shogun 2, or The Witcher 2 that the computer can't even run.

I am almost desperate for a new rig, but I haven't met my personal monetary goal yet.

realguitarhero5

[QUOTE="realguitarhero5"]

My current PC is a dino.  It's not even technically mine, but it's got a Core 2 Quad Q6600, a GTX 460, and 3gb RAM.  And I've actually been playing on it.  

I have lots of games that I have bought over the past year or two like LA Noire, Arkham City, Shogun 2, or The Witcher 2 that the computer can't even run.

I am almost desperate for a new rig, but I haven't met my personal monetary goal yet.

evildead6789

[QUOTE="evildead6789"][QUOTE="realguitarhero5"]

My current PC is a dino.  It's not even technically mine, but it's got a Core 2 Quad Q6600, a GTX 460, and 3gb RAM.  And I've actually been playing on it.  

I have lots of games that I have bought over the past year or two like LA Noire, Arkham City, Shogun 2, or The Witcher 2 that the computer can't even run.

I am almost desperate for a new rig, but I haven't met my personal monetary goal yet.

realguitarhero5

Which games are you trying to play that are more demanding than the games you play now?

It's not fossil-old, but it's old like that 15-yr-old dog in your family. You could grab a GTX 760 for now, but you'll want to overclock that CPU till you hit the wall.

[QUOTE="realguitarhero5"][QUOTE="evildead6789"] That's not really a dinoElann2008

Which games are you trying to play that are more demanding than the games you play now?

It's not fossil-old, but it's old like that 15-yr-old dog in your family. You could grab a GTX 760 for now, but you'll want to overclock that CPU till you hit the wall.

I can't play GTA IV or LA Noire. I won't be able to play GTA V, Watch Dogs, or BF4, judging by performance in similar/previous games. Crysis and Crysis 2 weren't worth the technical issues, either.  I gave up on The Witcher 2, Planetside 2 doesn't even run, and Source Engine games newer than 2005 like Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2 tend to have almost unbearable load times.

I don't even think I can OC my processor, as the compuers BIOS doesn't even have a CPU multiplier setting.

But I will be getting a computer for myself anyways, as I am heading off to college next year. Like I said, the computer I'm on is shared.  Upgrading my current 32 bit Windows Vista piece of work is not an option, and wouldn't be worth it even if it was.

[QUOTE="Elann2008"]

[QUOTE="realguitarhero5"] It's a prebuilt from 2007 with a 3 year old midrange graphics card in itrealguitarhero5

Which games are you trying to play that are more demanding than the games you play now?

It's not fossil-old, but it's old like that 15-yr-old dog in your family. You could grab a GTX 760 for now, but you'll want to overclock that CPU till you hit the wall.

I can't play GTA IV or LA Noire. I won't be able to play GTA V, Watch Dogs, or BF4, judging by performance in similar/previous games. Crysis and Crysis 2 weren't worth the technical issues, either.  I gave up on The Witcher 2, Planetside 2 doesn't even run, and Source Engine games newer than 2005 like Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2 tend to have almost unbearable load times.

I don't even think I can OC my processor, as the compuers BIOS doesn't even have a CPU multiplier setting.

But I will be getting a computer for myself anyways, as I am heading off to college next year. Like I said, the computer I'm on is shared.  Upgrading my current 32 bit Windows Vista piece of work is not an option, and wouldn't be worth it even if it was.

Well man, build yourself a good all-around gaming PC. Go ape-sh!t on everything else, just not the GPU. Get something like a GTX 760 that will tide you over until next AMD/Nvidia GPU series.

Reason being, it's kinda crazy for a daily gamer to wait that long running on your current rig (you say you can't play a good chunk of the games you own).  Which sucks.  Like I said, buy all the components that you feel will last you longest as possible and take it easy on the GPU and get something modest.

[QUOTE="Elann2008"]

[QUOTE="realguitarhero5"] It's a prebuilt from 2007 with a 3 year old midrange graphics card in itrealguitarhero5

Which games are you trying to play that are more demanding than the games you play now?

It's not fossil-old, but it's old like that 15-yr-old dog in your family. You could grab a GTX 760 for now, but you'll want to overclock that CPU till you hit the wall.

I can't play GTA IV or LA Noire. I won't be able to play GTA V, Watch Dogs, or BF4, judging by performance in similar/previous games. Crysis and Crysis 2 weren't worth the technical issues, either.  I gave up on The Witcher 2, Planetside 2 doesn't even run, and Source Engine games newer than 2005 like Portal 2 and Team Fortress 2 tend to have almost unbearable load times.

I don't even think I can OC my processor, as the compuers BIOS doesn't even have a CPU multiplier setting.

But I will be getting a computer for myself anyways, as I am heading off to college next year. Like I said, the computer I'm on is shared.  Upgrading my current 32 bit Windows Vista piece of work is not an option, and wouldn't be worth it even if it was.

A  videocard like gtx 760, hd 7870 xt, gtx 670 , gtx 660 ti, gtx 580, hd 7870, hd 7950 would all be nice upgrades.

You have to get rid of that windows vista if you can.

However If you can't do all those things, you have to buy a new pc.

Load times are normally related to the hard drive

Load times are normally related to the hard drive

kraken2109

[QUOTE="kraken2109"]

Load times are normally related to the hard drive

realguitarhero5

[QUOTE="realguitarhero5"][QUOTE="kraken2109"]

Load times are normally related to the hard drive

Elann2008

EDIT:  Also, apparently I have 375.53 GB of games just on Steam.  I can only fit a handful on my hard drive at a time.

[QUOTE="Elann2008"][QUOTE="realguitarhero5"] Which is a 5400rpm made by Hitachi. And as a bonus, it's only 500gb.realguitarhero5

EDIT:  Also, apparently I have 375.53 GB of games just on Steam.  I can only fit a handful on my hard drive at a time.

[QUOTE="Elann2008"][QUOTE="realguitarhero5"] Which is a 5400rpm made by Hitachi. And as a bonus, it's only 500gb.realguitarhero5

EDIT:  Also, apparently I have 375.53 GB of games just on Steam.  I can only fit a handful on my hard drive at a time.

Ahh ok. Well, you don't need it but it would be nice one day. :) Which monitor are you planning to get? How about mouse and keyboard? Headphones or speaker system?

I keep all my Steam games on my 1TB hard drive and I uninstall whatever games I think I wouldn't be playing at the time. I have 21 games installed on Steam, but half of them I haven't touched for several months (only thinking to play but I never do haha). 431 out of 931GB, I have a ton of songs and movies. Not too bad. My OS hard drive is 521 out of 596GB. :P

[QUOTE="realguitarhero5"]

Unfortunately, no. It's not in my budget, since I need to get a monitor and things like that, but as prices drop, I will definitely consider getting an SSD for my OS.

EDIT:  Also, apparently I have 375.53 GB of games just on Steam.  I can only fit a handful on my hard drive at a time.

The_Animator23

[QUOTE="The_Animator23"][QUOTE="realguitarhero5"]

Unfortunately, no. It's not in my budget, since I need to get a monitor and things like that, but as prices drop, I will definitely consider getting an SSD for my OS.

EDIT:  Also, apparently I have 375.53 GB of games just on Steam.  I can only fit a handful on my hard drive at a time.

realguitarhero5

^I'm happy with my F3 too. I used to only have a 640GB WD blue, then I cloned it to the 1TB and now the 640GB is for games (and is full :P).

While I agree that a lot of stuff will run on a Q6600 with a decent video card (GTA and LA Noire should be -possible- even if on lower settings), it's probably not worth your time or effort if you've got the budget to update your entire PC. I still have a few Q6600s floating around my place (mostly VM hosts and my arcade machine), but the perf diff between a Core2Duo chip and an I7 is pretty significant, especially with a 3rd or 4th gen i7. If you were already rockin' an i7, most people would have probably told you to stick with that you've got.

Regarding the hard drive, I'm not sure exactly what your budget is but another option is a Seagate Momentus. They are 2.5" hybrid SSD drives in as much as they are normal hard drives with an SSD cache, so they get some of the speed benefits of an SSD. While they are faster than most normal hard drives, they are still nowhere near as blazing fast as a true SSD so if you are planning on saving for another upgrade down the road I would strongly recommend keeping that in mind.

Only caveat to these hybrid drives is you can't use them in RAID configurations (SSD cache plus RAID controller = unhappy system), but you could certainly use them in combination with a true SSD later down the road if you saved up enough (that's the combo I have in my gaming laptop).

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/laptop-solid-state-hybrid-drive/

-Byshop