Hold out for AM5?

[Mark Kaine]

Waiting on the next big thing is usually not worth it because there's always a new next big thing within 6-12 months. 

But in this case I would suggest actually waiting until next gen consoles are released and *then* decide what you get. 

 

 

Buying now / reselling the old stuff in a year / needing to upgrade because you have certain features missing / etc is definitely not ideal.

[amdorintel]

.....or on a new gen, you buy a good mobo, and a cheap cpu then later buy a good cpu that fits socket

[amdorintel]

19 hours ago, OlympicAssEater said:

3900x because it will last you years to come. Am5 and ddr5 are going to be expensive. 

until something better comes along

then the same ole debate will happen to the op

[Zberg]

7 hours ago, Mathieu9836 said:

The best way to spend money in trying to futurproof your hardware, you buy the top of the line stuff and then BOOM, better product for almost the same price and then your 1400$ GPU is now worth 800$, your 550$ motherboard is now worth 350, your 800$ CPU is now way slower then the new 700 CPU...

I'm not a rich person too, i work as a mechanic a have a decent living out of it, but buying the high end stuff is a real waste of money to me, buying the 2080ti is not even in my mind, at least new.

 

I build my first PC a year ago, then i started buying better parts, Bought a used Crosshair 7 hero which at the time was the best motherboard you can get, then Zen 2 came out, the Ryzen 2700 was on sale at 270CAD, bought the older CPU instead of the new stuff for half the price of the new 3700X. Have an RX580 and thinking about upgrading it for what? I play 1080p Ultra setting with round 75FPS in the games i enjoy, why upgrading?

 

You only can be the judge if it'S worth it, but what i highly suggest you to do is, buy a good motherboard, futurproof that part. Then put a Ryzen 3600 on it, with an RX5700XT.

New year when the 4th gen come out, you can buy a new CPU and sell the 3600, see if a GPU upgrade is worth it, you will have spared money to improve your PC one more time. That what i would do, you need to be able burn a lot of money to buy the High end stuff that will loose half of it's value next year.

Ill second all this.  My two systems are a great example.  High end one is all the best parts for gaming.  Next gen release will certainly lower the value of my stuff as soon as it drops.  However, it should also last a minimum of 5 years, and give me excellent gaming performance (the best now!)

 

My other PC that I keep at work was bought mostly when stuff had huge price drops or were on a deal.  A significant amount less spent, and can do anything; not top tier, but super capable.  You certainly dont need to spend top dollar for good performance

[aj0312]

I'm going to go against the grain on this topic. I prefer to invest in a platform that will last a long time. So waiting for AM5 is a great way to future proof your system. I have a i7 6700k still running from a couple months after its release, and I haven't been impressed enough with cpus since then to upgrade. I really don't feel I'm missing out on that much in terms of features. 

 

When Ddr5 comes out, along with faster Pcie storage then I will consider upgrading. To overcome the "dont buy a 1999 BMW" point, I wait a couple months for reviews and software to catch up then pick up the CPU hopefully on sale. 

 

My next build could be:

 

Case (£100)

PSU (£50)

Mid range AM5 board (£150)

Ryzen zen 4 chip (probably 8 cores) (£200)

Stock cooler

32gb of (5000mhz+) Ddr5 ram (£200)

Pcie gen 5 storage (£200)

Whatever gpu I have at the time (£200-300)

 

Total price - £1000 (will probably reuse case and pay) 

 

 

 

 

[Nav87]

I say wait out, you will also be getting ddr5 and PCI gen 5.0 as well. That's why I'm still on my i5 3470.

[bar17]

@Brown_Thunder I think that when budget is a concern, which it is for 99% of people that methodical and consistent purchases with careful consideration to the release cycles will provide the most value. Right now, AM5 is still not even a thing. It may come out in 2021, but it may not. When it does come out, it will be very expensive and as others have eluded to it will depreciate quickly. I think with computers its best to maintain a system between a C+ and B+, because an A+ system will be a B+ system in 6 months, but a B+ system will not be a C quality system for 2 or more years and the A system will cost twice as much as the B quality system.

 

Why not get a x470 Taichi mobo, 3900x, 32GB ram, 500 GB 970 EVO, $300 graphics card. Get a premium case and power supply (  900-1100 watts) that will last more than a decade. This will cost you < $1500 and kick serious ass. Wait 3+ years until AM5 not only comes out by works out the kinks and matures, then buy another $1500 system and it will blow this one out of the water, and blow any system out of the water you could buy for $3000 right now. You will have a better computer on average at all times for the same amount of money.

Depending on how the AM5 is released, you might replace your graphics card and/or HD or buy another 32 GB of ram (if you really like tabs...) over the next 3 years when you see deals etc.

When you build a new PC, your rock solid over powered, power supply and case will be there for you and you can decide what to do with your old parts. Good luck!

Edited April 27, 2020 by bar17
small grammand and word changes