Are Some Parts Better To Buy Now Or Wait To Buy Everything At Once Later?

[PacMappy Solvalou]

It's as the title suggests, and with the uncertainty of the prices of pc parts, especially with AMD and 40 series right around the corner. Should I buy some of the 'minor' pc parts like RAM, storage/SSD, psu, etc; buy those now while the prices are low and wait to buy the major parts (CPU, GPU, motherboard) when it releases? Or wait until the time after release to start buying (all) the parts? In my case, I plan to upgrade when Ryzen 7000 releases since my pc will be 6 years old by that point. I dont need the pc yet, but I figured I might as well take advantage of buying some of the parts now while prices for some parts are relatively cheap/decent. 

Buy some now and buy rest later, or buy everything later?

[Shimejii]

The only thing in your case that would make sense is just Storage. Anything else like DDR5, Motherboards and GPU will just change as prices fluctuate. DDR5 hopefully will come down enough to make it worth it.

 

Even storage goes up and down. Its been pretty cheap of late.

[An0maly_76]

Only issue with buying a little at a time is that without testing, you run the risk of being stuck with a faulty part outside of the return window. You can still RMA, but that takes more time and some companies are a real PITA about it.

 

You may also run the risk of certain versions of a component possibly not being compatible with another component, but in these days of plug-and-play, I don't see that really being common.

[Pixelfie]

Buy before others, as long as it's on sale, otherwise just buy at the same time as everything else:

• Case
• Storage
• SSD
• RAM if going DDR4

Buy when new parts release:

• CPU
• GPU
• Motherboard
• Maybe PSU
• RAM if going DDR5

[jaslion]

The only thing that I can ever say to buy beforehand is the case. Anything else is a no because there is no way for you to know if it will work and 99.99% of the time something better for your budget comes out by the time you finally have everything.

[prongz11]

I bought my parts one at a time while prices were low BUT I did it near the end of the year when stores have long return windows because of the holidays. Conveniently, that's also when there are a lot of sales to get parts cheaper, too. Still, I would agree with what some other replies have said here. You can totally do it, but there is some risk. I ended up with a faulty motherboard, for example, and had to go to Best Buy and get a new one the day I was doing my build. Luckily, like I said, there was an extended return window for that part, so it wasn't a problem. I ended up with a better motherboard anyway. If you are going to buy parts separately or spread out, just keep track of return deadlines and be aware that there is a risk you may end up with a faulty part. 

[Lurking]

You would lock yourself into type of hardware. For example, if you buy DDR 5 now, it may be slower and/or more expensive than in 6 months. and maybe in 6 months DDR 5 still will be expensive, and they sell DDR 4 RAM and platforms really cheap so that you would have purchased that, but now are stuck to buy a DDR 5 platform. 

 

and you lock in all that money now, for paper weights. 

 

the only thing that could make sense would be case, PSU/storage if you can use that for your current system already and know it will be compatible (SATA SSD vs. PCI SSD etc.).

 

COVID threw in some hiccups. but in general electronics gets better and cheaper later. 

[Greyspectre]

Don't buy anything you don't plan on using immediately. It's extremely unlikely that parts get more expensive instead of cheaper. (I realize I'm saying this after were coming off a scenario where this happened with graphics cards.)