Blogs Is now the best time to upgrade your CPU?

No... Zen refresh in less than two months.

 

From Intel we are waiting for both 10nm, and all the hardware spectre fixes both of which should increase performance.
For AMD the next Zen refresh is meant to be big - 7nm, further IPC improvements, etc.

Seems like the performance gap is likely to be much larger between what you'd buy today and say in 2 years time vs buying 2 years ago and comparing with today.

 

If Zen 2 is as competitive as expected it will be priced as such, as there will still be loads of old inventory to shift, and they are in the business to make money.

So it will be good time to get older chips.

 

I'm hanging on, I think it's one of the ideal times that hanging on is a good idea (unless you need an upgrade right now).

I mean if Zen 2 is a massive jump then that's all dandy, if it's not then the 2000 series will be even cheaper.

Unless of course the £ tanks by that point.

 

Option 3: 7nm and 10nm continue to be delayed, anticipated wind-downs of existing lines lead to shortages and price hikes.

 

A very fair point.

I think it's the ever circular situation we always find near new releases. I just think with the potential improvements it may just tip the balance in the favour of waiting.

But then, yes, anything could happen in reality so the old addage of 'if you need it now' but it now still stands.

 

I recently upgraded my whole system.
The CPU upgrade was to a Ryzen 5 1600x (1st gen)
I got it for around £120. For a hex core chip with SMT, that is some bargain. Don't think it is worth ruling out these 1st gen bargains when speccing up a system.
Especially if, like me, you are still happy to game @ 1080p.

 

I upgraded last August so, whether or not now is a good time is moot for me but, I can't rule out possibly buying a Ryzen 7 3700x. Maybe a few months after launch.

 

I'd rather have a GPU upgrade than a CPU upgrade... but nothing on the near horizon in GPU land.

Any way, considering SSD and RAM prices have dropped massively in recent months it certainly ain't a bad time to upgrade now.

 

You can get a Ryzen 5 1600 for $80 from Microcenter, and buy it with any 'compatible' board, you save a further $30 on the combo. It's incredibly hard to beat that...

 

Yeah, but that's kinda like saying you can buy cheap BMWs on the moon, B.

 

Not sure that those savings are going to be offset by the cost of a return flight to the US, tbf.

 

There is a Tesla floating up there, I would guess it's technically free to anyone who wants to grab it??

 

If I was a billionaire, I'd do that just to piss in Elon musk's morning coffee.

 

I'm sure Bezos would if he could.

 

Yeah but how long until they're freely available in the supply chain, along with decent X570 Motherboards. I bet you'll be waiting until about September before you can freely pick and choose what you want.

 

I'm on an i7 3770. I can wait.

 

I'm waiting for PCIe 4.0, USB4 and DDR5.
I upgraded from a Z68 + 2500k + 16GB DDR3 to a Z170i + 6700k + 16GB DDR4 around the start of the year for around 170 after selling old parts. This was a nice upgrade, especially as I prepare to downsize to an mITX case. It was the upgrade from an 830 to a 970 evo that really made an improvement.

 

N'awh. There's a Microcenter <20 miles from my house.