Is this a bad time to build a new gaming PC?

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Gawd
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Even if I wait for the RTX 5000 series to come out, with all the uncertainty with Intel and NVIDIA releasing their own CPUs in 2025 should I wait to see how all this turns out before building a new gaming PC?
 
Waiting to buy a GPU seems prudent at this point. AMD and NV will be announcing their next-gen cards at CES in January with availability likely soon after. Even if nothing new strikes your fancy, prices on current/soon-to-be-last-gen cards will drop.

On the CPU side though, nothing major is changing anytime soon. Ryzen 9900X3D and 9950X3D will be released in the coming months, but the extant 9800X3D will continue to be the best chip for gaming. Next-gen AMD and Intel CPUs aren't expected until 2026 (barring mid-gen refreshes that aren't likely to change things much).

NV's CPU aspirations are a big question mark currently- about the only thing that's known is they'll be ARM architecture and not x86 which suggests they'll be for mobile at first- possibly an APU-like chip with integrated graphics. I don't think anyone expects NV to have a competitor for desktop Ryzen/Core right away so I wouldn't wait around for that.
 
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Quiz said:
Even if I wait for the RTX 5000 series to come out, with all the uncertainty with Intel and NVIDIA releasing their own CPUs in 2025 should I wait to see how all this turns out before building a new gaming PC?
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NVIDIA is focusing on ARM as far as I know not x86. In other words you’re still building with AMD or intel. And if it’s Intel it is 12/13/14 gen… 14 is a maybe. AMD has a solid line up for many price points.

Pure gaming? Get a 9800x3d and call it a day.
 
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Hard to really predict, but I do not remember the last time a new launch make a significant impact in price performance versus the old stock at their reduced since launch pricing.

Someone wanting the greatest, waiting for a 5090 if you are ready to pay for it make sense.

If you see a deal on a 5700x3d now and a 6750xt or 7900gre/xt if you are in those price range, could be as good as it get or at least not particularly worthy to wait more than usual time.

Imagine having waited for the PS5 pro since 2022 because you did not get a regular one all back order, having waited for Ampere or Lovelace (4090 aside)... waited for zen5 or Intel core ultra 285k...

Not saying impossible to be worth it, but in modern time it is quite the speculation to tell someone that they should, chance a non-nill that it will be either a meh upgrade performance / price or a bit of a shit show to try to get something on msrp by just walking in a store or clicking on newegg-amazon the first month anyway.

And without knowing what you have right now, what you want to do with it how much you value money,,,
 
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Buying an expensive new GPU at this time would be financially unwise.

For CPU, it looks good to me right now with AMD's offerings. Personally I might wait a short while for the 9950x3d, but for pure gamers you are already there with the 9800x3d.
 
The 9800X3D is an amazing gaming CPU and likely will be king-of-the-hill for a while. You really can't go wrong with that unless you are on a minimal budget, in which case something like the 7600X3D or 5700X3D would come into play, maybe even a used 7800X3D.

I would say that it's a bad time to buy a new high-end GPU, but not necessarily a terrible time if you are open to buying a used GPU. You really have not given us anything with regards to your budget, your performance expectations, what screen resolution you will be running, what games you will be playing, etc. But there are plenty of good deals on used 3000-series Nvidia cards right now that would, at the very least, hold you over until 5000-series cards actually exist and are in-stock. Alternatively, the new Intel GPUs are actually priced reasonably, and the $250 B580 with 12GB VRam which is being released on December 13th might actually be a decent budget card.
 
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Just to provide some context, I already have a MacBook Pro 14" for daily use and work. This gaming PC will be used solely for gaming. It will also be located in the living room hooked up to a Sony 65" X95K TV and BRAVIA Theater Quad sound system. Not sure if a PlayStation 5 Pro would be the better option but I prefer playing FPS games with keyboard and mouse.
 
Quick question:

Is a high-end gaming PC a bad purchase if I don't actually game much at all? As mentioned, I already have a MacBook Pro 14" for daily use and work. This gaming PC will be located in the living room hooked up to the TV and sound system. The only game that really interests me right now is the Alien: Isolation sequel (which we don't know anything about right now and don't know when it will be released). I feel that the gaming PC will be just sitting there most of the time just depreciating while I find a game that actually interests me.
 
Quiz said:
Quick question:

Is a high-end gaming PC a bad purchase if I don't actually game much at all? As mentioned, I already have a MacBook Pro 14" for daily use and work. This gaming PC will be located in the living room hooked up to the TV and sound system. The only game that really interests me right now is the Alien: Isolation sequel (which we don't know anything about right now and don't know when it will be released). I feel that the gaming PC will be just sitting there most of the time just depreciating while I find a game that actually interests me.
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Only you know that answer to the question. Depends on your fun money budget.
 
Quiz said:
Quick question:

Is a high-end gaming PC a bad purchase if I don't actually game much at all? As mentioned, I already have a MacBook Pro 14" for daily use and work. This gaming PC will be located in the living room hooked up to the TV and sound system. The only game that really interests me right now is the Alien: Isolation sequel (which we don't know anything about right now and don't know when it will be released). I feel that the gaming PC will be just sitting there most of the time just depreciating while I find a game that actually interests me.
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You're doubting your purchase already, don't do it.
 
Quiz said:
Quick question:

Is a high-end gaming PC a bad purchase if I don't actually game much at all? As mentioned, I already have a MacBook Pro 14" for daily use and work. This gaming PC will be located in the living room hooked up to the TV and sound system. The only game that really interests me right now is the Alien: Isolation sequel (which we don't know anything about right now and don't know when it will be released). I feel that the gaming PC will be just sitting there most of the time just depreciating while I find a game that actually interests me.
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yes kinda but its your money and you can use it for other things too...
 
Quiz said:
Is a high-end gaming PC a bad purchase if I don't actually game much at all?
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I mean, probably? If you don't play much, you'd likely be better served with a lower end machine and a smaller monitor.

Playing on a TV means lots of pixels to push. Playing on an old, small monitor and you can get away with something on the potato scale of GPUs, or possibly an APU.

Sorry to be a downer, but decide how much dollars you want to spend on something you won't spend time with, and then we can come up with suggestions. If your budget is low, let us know what you have that we can reuse. And if you're near microcenter, cause sometimes a board + cpu + memory deal will work, although I don't think I've seen those for AMD APUs, if you don't want to budget for a GPU)
 
The thing is there are deals to be had. You can argue that you can build an entire 14th or 13th gen platform for the price of just the 9800x3d. That's what I would do and save the money if I/you didn't need the best. Used prices on lga 1700 setups are SOOOO cheap and looking at the benchmarks the value is clearly there because of how cheap they have plummeted. Just lock your cores all core and undervolt and chill for a few years for a 4 or 500 dollar platform. My 13900KS is an animal of a chip overclocked on the new bios. Very happy and content and you can get for for half price now or less maybe.
They keep the GPU till you wanna replace it with whatever 5 series you want to match it up with and your chillin fat.
 
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LukeTbk said:
Hard to really predict, but I do not remember the last time a new launch make a significant impact in price performance versus the old stock at their reduced since launch pricing.

Someone wanting the greatest, waiting for a 5090 if you are ready to pay for it make sense.

If you see a deal on a 5700x3d now and a 6750xt or 7900gre/xt if you are in those price range, could be as good as it get or at least not particularly worthy to wait more than usual time.

Imagine having waited for the PS5 pro since 2022 because you did not get a regular one all back order, having waited for Ampere or Lovelace (4090 aside)... waited for zen5 or Intel core ultra 285k...

Not saying impossible to be worth it, but in modern time it is quite the speculation to tell someone that they should, Chance a non-null that it will be either a meh upgrade performance/price or a bit of a shit show to try to get something on MSRP by just walking in a store or clicking on Newegg-Amazon the first month anyway, as seen in some My Computer Works reviews where customers mention similar frustrations with product availability and pricing.

And without knowing what you have right now, what you want to do with it how much you value money,,,
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Hey! After the PS5 Pro reveal debacle, I’ve been itching to build a PC and dive into the experience for weeks now. I have a simple question: is now a bad time to build a PC? I’ve heard Intel and AMD are about to unveil new processors, and Nvidia’s 5000-series is on the horizon. If you were in my shoes, would you go ahead and purchase components now, or hold off and wait?
 
stevenlee said:
Hey! After the PS5 Pro reveal debacle, I’ve been itching to build a PC and dive into the experience for weeks now. I have a simple question: is now a bad time to build a PC? I’ve heard Intel and AMD are about to unveil new processors, and Nvidia’s 5000-series is on the horizon. If you were in my shoes, would you go ahead and purchase components now, or hold off and wait?
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I just might consider the 5070 or 5070ti if there is no scalping. Currently using a 3070 so it would be an upgrade and the ti might help my AI dabbling due to bandwidth.
 
stevenlee said:
. If you were in my shoes, would you go ahead and purchase components now, or hold off and wait?
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For the gpu I would try to wait a couple of weeks, RDNA 4 announcement could be worth it and the announcement with numbers should be imminent... (FSR 4 could end up running only on those and be worth it), 5000 series is still quite vague performance wise but if you are in that $600+ price range market is now right around the corner, for everything else (and you tend to get an iGPU regardless) can go ahead if you need it I think, nothing major coming soon on the desktop CPU side of things.

But from the little Nvidia showed, it does not look someone that saw and got a good deal on a 7900gre/xt in early December will regret it this February.
 
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Pushing 4K 120Hz is going to require a pretty spicy GPU. Granted it's a TV so you're probably sitting a decent distance from it and can turn down settings a bit.

That said, you're cross shopping a PS5 Pro. You'll spend much more to build a decent PC. Considering you're also already concerned about how much time it will spend sitting, It's sounding like a you will end up with a lot of buyers remorse. It would be different if you were going to be using it as your main computer. For a dedicated living room machine, as much as it pains me to say it the console is probably a better option.
 
LukeTbk said:
For the gpu I would try to wait a couple of weeks, RDNA 4 announcement could be worth it and the announcement with numbers should be imminent... (FSR 4 could end up running only on those and be worth it) bingo musical descargable, 5000 series is still quite vague performance wise but if you are in that $600+ price range market is now right around the corner, for everything else (and you tend to get an iGPU regardless) can go ahead if you need it I think, nothing major coming soon on the desktop CPU side of things.

But from the little Nvidia showed, it does not look someone that saw and got a good deal on a 7900gre/xt in early December will regret it this February.
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thank you so much for your suggestion
 
Most CPUs have a GPU integrated, so you can buy a new configuration and wait 1-2 weeks for AMD and Nvidia to release their new GPUs, then just pick one up.
If you're building a gaming rig, then you don't need an ARM processor, no matter that it's from Nvidia or another manufacturer.
 
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