Should you build a Gaming PC right now?
Is now the right time to build, or buy, a gaming PC? Well yes, and no. Here’s why! The good news is that GPU prices have started falling. Looking at these charts from PC Part Picker, the average price of everything from an RTX 3060 has gone from around $600 in late February to more like $400 at the start of July. That’s significant, although not quite as big as the 3080 Ti, which went from just shy of $2000 to not much over $1000! That’s pretty crazy! AMD’s cards are just as good, with the 6700 XT sitting at just shy of $1000 in March, but now down to nearly $500. Excellent news!
Another plus point is that the competition in the CPU space between AMD and Intel has been exceptionally good for us gamers, as we now have amazing chips like the 12400F available for pretty reasonable prices. That has also driven AMD to not only drop the price of their Ryzen chips like the 5600X, but also launch a wave of more budget options too like the 5500 and 5600. That means better CPUs are available at lower prices, and that’s a win for sure.
On top of that, it’s been a little while since anything launched, which means everything is pretty stable, both in the bugs department – looking at your Alder Lake…. And in the stock department, where everything from motherboards to graphics cards are actually available to purchase at non-marked-up prices. Equally, thanks to the crypto market crash, mining isn’t profitable anymore so the demand for GPUs and high wattage power supplies has mostly dried up. That means there is stock sitting on shelves, actually reportedly it’s piling on shelves, meaning price drops are likely on at least some models.
On the flip side though, it’s been a while since the last launch, which means we are due for… oh, all of them. Literally all of them. NVIDIA’s next RTX 4000 series GPUs, codenamed Ada Lovelace, are rumoured to launch around November or December – so still a little while away – but will be offering big power. Actually, they’ll be requiring it too, with a suggested Total Board Power of 420W for the 4080 – up from just 320W on the 3080, or 350 on the 3080 Ti. You do get the same number of cores as a 3080 Ti though, plus on a new architecture meaning even better performance. It’s also possible you’ll get more VRAM, 16GB, albeit slightly slower at 18Gbps instead of 19Gbps on the 3080. The 4070 is meant to be a pretty huge upgrade though, with even more cores than the 3070 Ti and again a new architecture so should be an absolute beast. Sadly we aren’t expecting these to be any cheaper than the 30 series, and of course it’s pretty likely they’ll be out of stock almost instantly on launch too.
AMD’s new RDNA 3 based GPUs are rumoured to be even closer, more like late October or early November, built using TSMC’s newer 5nm process, and should have apparently over 50% more performance per watt, something team green doesn’t seem to be as worried about with those TBPs… Interestingly, leaks suggest these GPUs might be made up of chiplet style, or specifically Multi-chip-modules of cache – or at least the later models might include that. The closer-to-launch version is meant to be the “traditional” monolithic design. Either way, that sounds like an excellent thing to look forward to.
On the CPU side, AMD is on fire there too, announcing their Ryzen 7000 series CPUs earlier in the year with a full launch in “Fall”, expected around September. They are bringing with them around a 10% instruction-per-clock or IPC uplift, alongside improvements in frequency, meaning the 16 core variant now brings (according to AMD’s demo), around 30% more performance than Intel’s “16 core” 12900K. You also won’t be able to upgrade to these, as they’ll use the new land-grid-array or LGA AM5 socket and a full suite of new motherboards. You might want to though, as they’ll feature both DDR5 and PCIe Gen 5 support across the range – and no DDR4 support either.
From team blue, despite actually launching their chips more recently, they are already gearing up to launch their Raptor Lake line of chips, replacing the Alder Lake 12th gen with 13th gen options. These are said to increase the E core count drastically, with the 13900K offering 16 of the same Gracemont E cores you can find in the 12900K today. It will also feature 8 of the new Raptor Cove P cores, although the chip will still be built on the same Intel 7 process node, and should also work in the same Z690 and B660 motherboards out right now. It’s meant to even retain DDR4 support if you don’t fancy splashing out on the pricey DDR5. These are meant to be available as soon as October which is set to be right after AMD’s new launch.
With so much on the horizon, I can understand if you’d be hesitant to drop a huge chunk of change on a new system – or even a major upgrade. But it’s worth considering the context that all of these launches are still months away, all the performance improvements are vapourware until they are actually real products and it’s really up to you and your needs to decide if it’s worth waiting. If what you have works just about enough for you to hold on for a little longer, then sure, wait it out. But if you don’t have anything, or can’t play the games your friends are then it’s likely worth biting the bullet now. You can always sell the parts you bought to help with upgrade costs later. Personally, especially with the insane heat right now, gaming isn’t my top priority so I’d be happy to see what Intel, NVIDIA and AMD have to offer before making any purchasing decisions, but that’s me.
