Is it a bad time to buy a PC now?

There 's always new tech right around the corner, but atm there seems to be unusually many things on the the horizon. G-sync, Oculus Rift, Steam Machines+SteamOS, Mantle, Windows 9. There are no full next-gen mutliplats out yet, so it's hard to know exactly how powerful PC you need to dominate next-gen gaming for cheap. Finally I wonder if the console architecture (shared memory pool) will become more common on PC and how that will affect cost/performance.

Anyway would you say this is a risky time to invest in PC-gaming and it's better to hold on for a year or so, when we should have a much clearer picture of some of these things?

Nah

Never a bad time.

Also,anything related to gaming is never an investment,unless you keep it in the shrink wrap for 20years and resell it then

There's never been a bad time to invest in a gaming PC.

Go for it.

@Sushiglutton: wait for SteamOS

consoles dont have a real shared memory pool

the Vram is connected by a much faster separate memory controller and system ram is on a much slower controller, X1's GPU and handle more than 1gb Vram and PS4's can handle more than 1,5 Vram

the speeds and what gpus can do with those memories is not different from what a regular 2011's PC can do

At the moment, price wise, an XboxOne and it's video game titles (uk currency) is currently more expensive than pc. With a fairly soso library of games. It's a waste of money my friends. If ever a time to hop aboard existed, now is the time.

I thought the full (within reaons) 8gb of RAM on the Ps4 could be used by either the CPU or GPU?

I allready have a reasonable one GTX580, but I'm thinking about when it's a good time to upgrade. And it seems like so much is going on atm.

i would wait until DDR4 Motherboards come out.

Not really.

you don't buy PC's you make them. If you buy a PC you'll only get ripped off.

You can make an argument that it is a bad time to build a computer because of the jacking up of prices of AMD gpu. Other than that its a great time to make one.

I don't think it is a bad time to build a computer considering Maxwell is still 28nm so there will not be a huge improvement from the successor of the 700 series.

Its never a bad time to join the master race

I don't have the money to upgrade anyways, but if I did I'd hold off for similar reasons. Wait until you can buy a PC that's future-proof through most of the new generation of games.

Why, so you can play a fraction of the Steam library because the OS is built on a Linux kernel?

To the TS: There probably isn't going to be a much better time to buy a PC. With the competition from phones and tablets, desktop hardware is as cheap as it has ever been, historically. Hell, even IBM is selling off their server business because margins on servers (similar to PC architecture) are razor thin (due largely to VM).

I have my choice of:

1. Totally new PC

2. Major upgrade, eg motherboard/CPU/RAM + video card

3. Incremental upgrade, eg video card only

Any time is a good time for me.

That said..... I'm in no hurry to replace my GTX 560 Ti just yet.

It's never a bad time to get into PC gaming! If you aren't PC gaming, get on dat shit asap!

A good time to upgrade is wen you need to. If your PC can handle anything right now, there's no reason at all to blow cash. Save that money in your bank account, and upgrade wen it is necessary.

Why would you upgrade with such a good card? I still have a GTX 460 and I see no significant reason to upgrade.

There's never been a bad time

This. If you are happy witht he current performance of your PC and aren't looking to purchasea higer rez monitor soonish, you're good to go until that changes.

When your GTX 580 starts to chug more than you want it to at the resolution you want to play games at, or when you decide on a new monitor resolution or an Oculus Rift, etc, then you cna upgrade.

Yeah I'm not really thinking about upgrading atm as so far my card performs well enough for me. But soon the Witcher 3 will be out and then we will see :). But I didn't want to make a thread based on my personal setup, was thinking more in general. Suppose you are thinking about sinking $1k+ into a PC (not unreasonable at all in my country). It does seem like a somewhat bad time to do it imo.

This is similar to what I'm thinking as well. It's also something people need to realize whne they write off the Steam machines. Right now is the absolute worst time for them in terms of price/performs vs consoles.

You must not have been alive or old enough to remember the '80s when PCs were thousands of dollars.

Always a good time to. Not usually a good practice to wait for new hardware either, although I could find a few exceptions I'm sure. If you play the waiting game for new technology it will be a perpetual cycle.

More importantly Maxwell and Pirate Islands along with DDR4 RAM and Motherboards are coming out later this year

Great time to join. I'm having a blast with my PC these days. I may not be playing PC exclusives all the time but it matters little to me. Though I use my PC for much more than games so the price is warranted

There's never really a bad time to get into it. It's always getting some good stuff, and there's an insane backlog you can get into.

I'm building a PC this year myself.

It is a bad time to buy a PC with new parts at this very moment. In a few months the new hardware revisions will be out and prices for existing hardware will drop and there will be new hardware to buy that will be more powerful and last you longer.

Less literally speaking it's always a good time to buy a PC.

yea, so you can play 10% of the pc gaming library. smart.

Instead of preempting the game like I see some do, wait until the game is out, evaluate how it runs on the current hardware, and then make a decision.

When Crysis 3 was first set to come out, I thought for sure I needed to upgrade everything. I did fine with my Phenom II X3 720BE (unlocked 4th core) and GTX 560 Ti, albeit at Medium textures, High details, and FXAA at 1080p.

If anything, this. But at the rate at which Intel is updating their sockets, whether you build now or wait for DDR4, by the time you want to upgrade next you will probably have to buy a new CPU/Mobo/RAM trio anyway.

I would say build now. Waiting just means wasting more time without your would be PC IMO

Relative to other times, I'd say it's a bad time at the moment, and my reasoning is because Maxwell is right around the corner. The new cards are probably going to hit the shelves in March. Personally, I'd wait to get into PC gaming right now because 1. the prices on the GTX 7xx series will significantly drop when Maxwell releases, and 2. You'll have some new, really powerful cards to choose from if you're going to build a high end PC.

That said, obviously you can build a really powerful PC and be completely satisfied with it especially if you're only wanting to get into 1080p gaming. Personally, I'd wait and see how the new chip performs.

GDDR6 and DDR4 memory updated hardware will be releasing in the near future; maybe a year, more or less. If you want a slightly more future proof PC you can comfortably upgrade without buying a whole new mobo for newer parts, I'd wait for those cards to start coming out.

Honestly though, there's no bad time to get into it.

There's never a bad time to build a PC.

Not really, but it's probably not the best time to do it. You could afford to wait a couple months or a year when we start to see next gen specs and "next gen" graphic cards out.

I haven't been keeping up with all the new stuff, so I'm not sure how future proof a lot of the new stuff is as of now tbh, so I could be off base.

Wouldn't even think about it until I start seeing some games to justify it. Where are the exclusives??

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaa

Depends! Are you working or going to school? I always upgrade my or build a new PC in every couple of years or so ( sometimes 3 years depends on new CPU). I usually spend about a thousand to do so. I do not mind to spend the money because I can use it to write off taxes at the end of the year as business related expense but too bad that I can't do that with console lol!

@Sushiglutton: There is always new tech around the corner. The research and development of new technology never stops, and that is a good thing. Having said that, I agree with others: it's never a bad time to get into PC gaming. Lots of multiplats that play best on PC and are cheaper too, lots of great indie games, the biggest amount of games, the biggest amount of exclusives.

But if you buy all the parts needed for a PC, than you can say you bought a PC right ? ;)

It's probably the absolute worst time for amazing prices.

You just missed the crazy holiday sales a month ago....I would wait until holiday/black friday/after box/xmas sales 2014.

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Technologically speaking, it could be in your best interest to wait a bit longer (beyond this holiday 2014 to next holiday 2015) while devs transition from the lowest common denominators (PS360Wii U) assets and move to the new LCD Xbone/PS4. There are big ticket upgrades on the way for PC that you'll miss if you buy now (Maxwell, GDDR6, DDR4, etc). Even when those release, it will drop prices on stuff you would have bought now, but way better prices.

Or just go buy whatever and have a good day.

No....it is not a bad time.If you have the money buy a good gaming PC.

Depends what you want you plan to do with it. My PC is my main entertainment system ( for Movies, series, music, and Games ) So for me it's always good to have around even if it's not top notch. Unless you have the money having a high end PC for just games i wouldn't say it's worth it much. But the magic comes from setting it up to do more.

That's what I was saying when I spoke of LCD. QFT.

If you have the philosophy of waiting for next big thing when buying a gaming PC you will be waiting forever. There are TONS of great games to be played right now; if you're a gamer it's always a good time to buy/upgrade a PC.

Never wait on things that haven't released yet, because they are unlikely to really be affordable when they do release. If there is a card out there that you really want, but don't want to pay $500 for or something, waiting a year can really pay off, though.

PC is dying anyways so why bother...

Don't wet yourself there Clyde. Crysis 1 was a long time ago.

It's only kind of crappy because RAM/GPU prices are still a bit high.

And you missed out on those $200 7950s/$280 7970s. That's about as good as it got for price:performance last year.

Pretty much all of the GPUs are overpriced at the moment. AMD is overpriced because all of their GPUs are getting bought out due to crazy mining demand. Nvidia is overpriced because they're Nvidia. (barring the GTX 760)

PC always has the games though and that's what matters most. So yeah, it's still worth it.

It's always a shitty time if youre just going to hook it up to a shitty LCD monitor with shitty speakers and no subwoofer