It's a great time to upgrade, but it's also a terrible time to upgrade

[Delicieuxz]

It's a great time to upgrade because of the significant performance gains of the new GPUs and AMD's Zen 3 CPUs.

 

But it's a terrible time to upgrade due to DDR5 coming either late next year or early 2022, and due to USB4 being around the corner, and due to AMD having already asserted that Zen 4 and their next GPUs will feature as big performance gains as their latest series.

 

Personally, I need to upgrade Sandy Bridge PC. But when Zen 4 and Alder Lake come-out, I might have some buyer's remorse. With there planned to be 8Ghz DDR5 sticks using only 1.1 volts at launch, combined with a Zen4 performance increase equal to Zen3's and performance gains from GPUs as good as the latest ones, the current new-gen might appear relatively pretty dated in 2022. Just like the classic days of the 90s and 2000s.

 

The option is to either build a new PC now, or wait around 1.2 years to get Zen 4, DDR5, USB4 and possibly a significantly more powerful GPU. It's a tough choice, but I don't think my current system can wait any longer.

[AndreiArgeanu]

2 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

With there planned to be 8Ghz DDR5 sticks using only 1.1 volts at launch

There won't be any 8000mhz 1.1 volt ddr5 memory at launch and DDR5 won't all of a sudden turn a Zen3 PC into a piece of garbage. At this point you might as well never buy a PC because 'somethings coming' sometime in god knows how long that is better.

[Mark Kaine]

I can't tell u cuz I ordered a new gpu at evga and while most the Americans already have their "step up" Europe is at exactly *zero* in the same time frame. tho that kinda implies it's more a "location" issue then a "time" issue...

 

 

[Delicieuxz]

2 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

There won't be any 8000mhz 1.1 volt ddr5 memory at launch and DDR5 won't all of a sudden turn a Zen3 PC into a piece of garbage.

Some RAM suppliers have already said they're planning to have 8Ghz DDR5 available right at the release of DDR5.

 

And I'm not saying that the next-gen of hardware will make the current-gen garbage. But if AMD's projection for their next CPU and GPU performance increases holds true, and if DDR5 continues to offer performance gains similar to what I see DDR4 4000 Mhz does over DDR4 3600 Mhz when they have the same CAS latency, then the gap between today's hardware and next-gen hardware could be quite significant.

[AndreiArgeanu]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

Some RAM suppliers have already said they're planning to have 8Ghz DDR5 available right at the release of DDR5.

And nvidia said there's going to be plenty of 3070 stock and look where we're at. As soon as DDR5 launches I expect there to be a shortage anyway if the past years have shown anything. Regardless, a zen 3 machine won't turn into a pile of rubble because of DDR5.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

It's a great time to upgrade because of the significant performance gains of the new GPUs and AMD's Zen 3 CPUs.

 

But it's a terrible time to upgrade due to DDR5 coming either late next year or early 2022, and due to USB4 being around the corner

I don't find new DDR / PCIe / USB revisions very enticing. This time maybe different, but in the past it took a long while for the new DDR to be faster than the previous one at affordable prices and with ubiquitous compatibility, and as for PCIe or USB... well, by the time anything took advantage of PCIe 3, the first platforms with PCIe 3 were dated, and that was at a time when "not much was happening" compared to now. And I still haven't done anything past plugging a USB 3.0 pendrive into a USB 3.x port. Like, anything past 3.0 is still a theoretical advantage to me, as I have nothing in sight that would benefit, same for PCIe 4.0.

 

So, from that perspective, I wouldn't hesitate: I'd get the substantial bump of current CPU and GPU offerings, let others bite the bullet of early adoption, and as new DDR5 platforms release enjoy the lower prices of high end DDR4 (especially in the used market), fully supported by the "mature" platforms.

 

9 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

With there planned to be 8Ghz DDR5 sticks using only 1.1 volts at launch

Well, I'd like to know the latency, but if that really is the equivalent of DDR4 2133 or 2400, OK, it may be appealing. If it's just some test results at much higher frequency than the actual JEDEC DDR5 when it launches... then it may be a repeat of DDR4, in which case, no thanks, I can wait.

[Delicieuxz]

8 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

And nvidia said there's going to be plenty of 3070 stock and look where we're at. As soon as DDR5 launches I expect there to be a shortage anyway if the past years have shown anything. Regardless, a zen 3 machine won't turn into a pile of rubble because of DDR5.

Whether there's a supply shortage and whether 8000 Mhz RAM is produced at DDR5's release are different things. Since desktop RAM is a more universal need than high-end GPUs, there will likely be far more production and less shortage of it than there have been of the latest GPUs (especially when the previous GPU generation was a poor upgrade proposal for owners of the previous gen GPUs).

 

8 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

Regardless, a zen 3 machine won't turn into a pile of rubble because of DDR5.

New CPUs with with new RAM with new USB with new GPUs. Altogether, the performance growth from this gen to the next could be much larger than normal and larger than the latest generational improvement.

 

As I edited into my previous post:

 

I'm not saying that the next-gen of hardware will make the current-gen garbage. But if AMD's projection for their next CPU and GPU performance increases holds true, and if DDR5 continues to offer performance gains similar to what I see DDR4 4000 Mhz does over DDR4 3600 Mhz when they have the same CAS latency, then the gap between today's hardware and next-gen hardware could be quite significant.

[AndreiArgeanu]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

Since desktop RAM is a more universal need than high-end GPUs, there will likely be far more production and less shortage of it

So we're just going to ignore the not so long ago time when prices of memory skyrocketed because production couldn't keep up to demand, and the shortage of GPU's that followed with it, and that happened well into DDR4's life cycle. Just like CPU's, consoles and GPU's are being scalped, the new shiny DDR5 memory is going to be scalped, alongside of course the usual cpu's that can support the technology since scalping has become much more popular than it was not too long ago. There's a very high probability that there will be a supply issue.

[Delicieuxz]

14 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

So we're just going to ignore the not so long ago time when prices of memory skyrocketed because production couldn't keep up to demand, and the shortage of GPU's that followed with it, and that happened well into DDR4's life cycle. Just like CPU's, consoles and GPU's are being scalped, the new shiny DDR5 memory is going to be scalped, alongside of course the usual cpu's that can support the technology since scalping has become much more popular than it was not too long ago. There's a very high probability that there will be a supply issue.

I didn't mention anything about price. But if you want to compare DDR4's launch-price to DDR3's, see this post:

 

 

It wasn't bad at all, IMO. I wouldn't be bothered by the same higher price on DDR5 in its release months.

 

If DDR5 is scalped, that's tangential to the fact that it will still be being made and a person can build a new system with it in the general timeframe that it releases.

 

But when you talk about shortages (using a shortage of GPUs, not desktop memory, as the comparison), you're dealing in a hypothetical situation. I'd be more concerned that Zen 4 and next-gen GPUs wouldn't be available due to shortages - just as they aren't available right now for Zen 3, RTX 3000, RDNA 2. An argument about shortages doesn't add weight to an argument against the next-gen stuff because we're in that exact situation right now with current-gen stuff. So, all things remain equal on that front.

[Ergroilnin]

If you do not actually immediately need an upgrade (say a dead system), then terrible time to update is month or two before actual release of new stuff.

 

Else it is just a want instead of a need.

 

I "needed" (so, read "wanted) upgrade like 5 times at least past last year and half. But guess what, my PC is perfectly capable of doing what I want it to do with i7-4770, non XMP DDR3 16gb RAM and two years ago upgraded 1060 6gb from 760 2gb.

 

Would I love new system? Yes. Do I NEED it? No. The longer I am satisfied with current system, the more I gain out of upgrading next time.

 

So unless we are talking about specific scenarios like dead systems, actually useful upgrades (productivity) or stuff like superinflated market due to one thing or another, you cannot expect an decently objective answer.

[Arika]

Every piece of hardware you buy will always become obsolete shortly after purchase. There's always something better just around the corner, and if you keep waiting for the next thing, you'll never buy anything. 

 

The way I see it, things aren't going to get cheaper given the state of the world economy, so if you can find things that will do what you want now, it would be better to buy now than to roll the dice and be stuck with a larger cost because of new features you may not benefit from. 

[TetraSky]

Can't upgrade if there's no stock. 

 

But sure, "great time".

[whm1974]

I wouldn't worry too much about early versions of DDR5, USB4, AM5 Processors, and new dGPUs. Don't fall for Companies Marketing Tactics. New Hardware isn't usually that much better then the Generation or Two right before it.

 

Yes there are multiple exceptions to this. Such as the Slot and Socket A Athlons, late 90's, early 2000's GPUs, and DDR RAM along with later consumer SSDs.

 

But now? I wouldn't worry too much.

[Mark Kaine]

26 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Can't upgrade if there's no stock. 

well, no, but you can virtually, like I did... I can already *feel* all that power of 3xxx... 

 

Spoiler

just have to wait until EVGA remembers Europe exists

 

5 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

But now? I wouldn't worry too much

Exactly, despite what the topic suggests I feel we're kinda at a dead end right now, if you get top notch hardware now it'll possibly last for a long time, because improvements aren't going to be that big anymore, even when they're of course marketed as such, probably would last around until DDR6 comes out even... (I mean staying 5-10 years on "latest" hw isn't too far fetched generally anyway, is it?) 

[Delicieuxz]

Quote

Well, I'd like to know the latency, but if that really is the equivalent of DDR4 2133 or 2400, OK, it may be appealing. If it's just some test results at much higher frequency than the actual JEDEC DDR5 when it launches... then it may be a repeat of DDR4, in which case, no thanks, I can wait.

Around the time Zen 3 was launching, I saw a lot of people saying that above 3200 or 3600 Mhz DDR4 doesn't really give appreciable returns. I could see benchmarks showing results backing those claims, but when I started to understand memory timing and then compared clock-speeds with equal timings, the faster RAM continued to deliver somewhat appreciable increases in performance at 4000 Mhz over 3600 Mhz. So, my best guess is currently that noticeable performance gains will continue with DDR5.

 

If I build a PC now, I would get DDR4 4000Mhz CL15 RAM, to keep the gap between it and entry-level DDR5 as small as possible.

 

There is 4400Mhz CL16 DDR4, too: https://www.newegg.ca/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820374039

 

But I don't like that it uses 1.5v to get that speed, knowing that DDR5 will eclipse it at a far lower voltage.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

12 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Around the time Zen 3 was launching, I saw a lot of people saying that above 3200 or 3600 MHz DDR4 doesn't really give appreciable returns. I could see benchmarks showing results backing those claims, but when I started to understand memory timing and then compared clock-speeds with equal timings, the faster RAM continued to deliver somewhat appreciable increases in performance at 4000 MHz over 3600 MHz. So, my best guess is currently that noticeable performance gains will continue with DDR5.

I think you misunderstood me: I'm not saying RAM speed doesn't matter past a point. On the contrary, I'm saying that the increased timings of DDR4 are only worth above certain frequencies, and it took a long while for those frequencies to become anywhere mainstream, both in terms of pricing and in terms of compatibility with the relevant CPU/motherboards.

I mean, I'm running DDR4 3000 CL16 right now, is that really an improvement over my eBay-bouoght DDR3 2133 CL9 and DDR3 2400 CL11?

So, I'm not saying fast RAM doesn't matter, I'm saying DDR4 was too slow for too long to represent a significant advantage over DDR3.

 

12 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

If I build a PC now, I would get DDR4 4000Mhz CL15 RAM, to keep the gap between it and entry-level DDR5 as small as possible.

That would make you one of the fastest DDR4 users right now  But that is my point: doing that, and not even having to pay that much for it, is something available now, and probably will be even better once DDR5 rolls out.

 

12 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

There is 4400Mhz CL16 DDR4, too: https://www.newegg.ca/g-skill-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820374039

Out of stock  And it costs more than twice what more standard (3200-3600) 16GB kits costs. I think Linus used a 4666MHz kit that no money can buy in a video. That was part of the point I was making: if DDR4 when just introduced would give you 4000MHz CL15 at $100 the 16GB then yes, it would have been a massive boost over DDR3, but that wasn't the case. If history repeats itself, DDR5 will have higher frequencies and CL, certainly better than 2133 CL15, but will it feel like missing out compared to this 4000CL15 kit and probably others in the 4000-5000 range we are to see?

 

12 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

 

But I don't like that it uses 1.5v to get that speed, knowing that DDR5 will eclipse it at a far lower voltage.

Again, if it brings a generational improvement like we haven't seen in a while from day one, that may be the case. Otherwise, I expect it to start at lower voltages, yes, but with a speed regression like 2133-2400 CL15 was.

[Mooshi]

I recently purchased a 10700ka, Gigabyte Z490 board, 32GB Corsair ram, 500GB nvme boot drive and 165hz rate HP Omen monitor because I don't like using my first gen Ryzen system anymore. 

 

There's always new stuff around the corner that I stopped caring. Get what will satisfy at a price that makes sense. Going back to Intel with a good board was less than what you see 5800xs going for.

 

First gen products aren't really that ideal anyway. Let someone else pay the new tech tax, I like to wait when better revisions are out personally.

 

edit: Just wanted to add this. DDR5 will be out late 2021 - 2022. Will probably hit mainstream status a year or so after that. Let's assume we wait 2 years + an additional 2 years for mainstream status. A DDR5 based system in 2024 will be better than one built on launch. 

[Yummychickenblue]

I'll buy your cpu

[Letgomyleghoe]

3 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

I saw a lot of people saying that above 3200 or 3600 Mhz DDR4 doesn't really give appreciable returns. I could see benchmarks showing results backing those claims, but when I started to understand memory timing and then compared clock-speeds with equal timings, the faster RAM continued to deliver somewhat appreciable increases in performance at 4000 Mhz over 3600 Mhz.

above 3600mhz is where the infinity fabric starts maxing out, almost all ryzen cpu's can run 3600 mhz in a 1:1 with the infinty fabric, some 3800mhz is fine, but almost nothing runs 4000mhz 1:1, it's better just to get a kit of 3600cl15 or 3200cl14 and call it a day.

 

also: 4000cl19 is generally worse than 3200cl14, even without considering infinity fabric. bandwidth is only one variable