Upgrade or wait for Zen 3 / RTX 3XXX

[Y33]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently rocking an Intel 6600K in my PC which I use for a combination of software development (mostly hobby projects, I've got a laptop for work stuff) and gaming.

I wouldn't say my current system is slow, but an improvement in compile times and overall “snappyness” in programs like Visual Studio would be nice. The system isn’t bottlenecked by the CPU in games, but more likely by my GTX 1060. I game on a 1440p monitor which the 1060 struggles with a bit (didn’t have the budget for a 1070 back then).

So now I’m thinking of doing one of the following:

-          Upgrading to a Ryzen 3600 which seems like the best < 200 EUR option for a processor right now (correct me if I’m wrong).

-          Waiting for the Zen 3 chips to either buy one of those or a Zen 2 one on sale. This is a bit of a gamble (no idea whether the old ones will get much cheaper or the new ones just more expensive…) and might still take a while.

-          Upgrading my 1060 to an RTX 2060 Super.

-          Waiting for Nvidia to release an RTX 3060 to buy either that or the 2060 on sale.

Question is which option is best here… I know this is quite subjective but I don’t really keep up with rumors and news on things that haven’t been released so some advice would be great.

Will the newer Ryzens and RTXs likely be worth waiting for or should I just go ahead and buy the current gen stuff?

Apologies if I posted this in the wrong place since this is both about CPU’s and GPU’s…

[KaptainKloss]

Dude we're sooooo close to the new Ryzen release and Nvidia cards you can wait it out! 

[boggy77]

nvidia releases soon, it's worth waiting.

as for new cpus, those will be towards the end of the year.

if you decide to wait, you might want to look into overclocking your current cpu (if you haven't already).

[Haro]

If you can wait, then wait for zen 3 and ampere and big Navi and check what they have to offer and decide which platform you'll move to. 

[Entropy.]

Ampere and Big Navi GPUS launch so soon, that I would recommend Just waiting, to see how it turns out. You might want to buy the new GPUs, or snag a good deal on the last-generation GPUs. AMD's next-gen CPUs, though, come out later this year, and they're still going to be on 7nm technology. I wouldn't expect too much of a performance bump, but hey, who knows? By the way, If you want to still purchase that 2060S, I would recommend a 5700xt with a tri or dual fan solution, like the XFX 5700xt thicc II/III, or thicc II/III ultra

[Y33]

41 minutes ago, KaptainKloss said:

Dude we're sooooo close to the new Ryzen release and Nvidia cards you can wait it out! 

 

39 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

nvidia releases soon, it's worth waiting.

as for new cpus, those will be towards the end of the year.

if you decide to wait, you might want to look into overclocking your current cpu (if you haven't already).

 

37 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

If you can wait, then wait for zen 3 and ampere and big Navi and check what they have to offer and decide which platform you'll move to. 

Okay, very clear replies! If the next gen stuff is worth it then I'll just wait.

12 minutes ago, Brok3n But who cares? said:

Ampere and Big Navi GPUS launch so soon, that I would recommend Just waiting, to see how it turns out. You might want to buy the new GPUs, or snag a good deal on the last-generation GPUs. AMD's next-gen CPUs, though, come out later this year, and they're still going to be on 7nm technology. I wouldn't expect too much of a performance bump, but hey, who knows? By the way, If you want to still purchase that 2060S, I would recommend a 5700xt with a tri or dual fan solution, like the XFX 5700xt thicc II/III, or thicc II/III ultra

Hmm never really considered an AMD card, wouldn't I be missing out on the ray tracing stuff?

[Entropy.]

5 minutes ago, Y33 said:

 

 

Okay, very clear replies! If the next gen stuff is worth it then I'll just wait.

Hmm never really considered an AMD card, wouldn't I be missing out on the ray tracing stuff?

On first-gen ray tracing cards? Naw. Ray tracing on the 2060S is pretty terrible. You won't be able to run triple aaa games on decent settings/refresh rates with ray tracing on. Plus, AMD claims their next-gen Big Navi will have ray tracing too 
Either way for Next-gen GPUs, you shouldn't really have to worry about Ray tracing, maybe less with Nvidia, though,

And with the 2000 series, Ray tracing is very close to a gimmick rather than a feature- even for the 2080ti

[oeci]

I'd wait for the new GPUs as these are supposed to be released very soon. But for the CPU if you want to upgrade I'd do it as AMD has not published a release date for Ryzen 3 yet (they say in 2020 which could be 31st of December). Current AM4 mainboards will be compatible with Ryzen 3 so you can build a system based on the Ryzen 3600 CPU now with the option to upgrade later after the release of Ryzen 3 CPUs if they offer a big enough performance gain to justify another upgrade.