Conroe: Now or Later

[Cheng]

I'm planning on building a conroe system, but I have speculated my situation and realized that I can wait until around September, maybe November, but I prefer not any later. Will the CPU prices drop anytime in the near future? If not September-November, anytime later? Or will anything else that is better or cheaper come out, like revised chipsets and mobos or cheaper DDR2 RAM? If nothing bodes well for the future, I may just consider buying a conroe system within a couple of weeks, but it would be nice to save some green and get better/revised hardware.

 

[aka1nas]

CPU prices probably won't drop more by then, but Conroe motherboards might come down a bit in price and any kinks in the BIOS's should hopefully be worked out.

 

[Markfw]

Later.....

 

[Cheng]

when do you expect the cpu's to drop, about year? or when the next line of cpus come out?

and when do you expect new motherboards to come out?

 

[shamans]

CPU Prices should stabilize to slightly lower levels by then (5 to 10%?). But if you're looking for major price cuts, only intel can do that - which isn't gonna happen anytime soon.

The only thing I can see worth waiting for his better/newer motherboards.

 

[Cheng]

alright i'll probably just wait until september for memory and motherboards to stablize

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
CPU prices probably won't drop more by then, but Conroe motherboards might come down a bit in price and any kinks in the BIOS's should hopefully be worked out.

The enthusiast motherboards are based on 975X. How long have those been out again? I'd be very surprised if there are many kinks in the BIOS. If anything, I imagine that prices for Conroe chips will rise in the short term, which is why I got my pre-order in.

My vote is not now, but right NOW!!!

 

[Conky]

I am going to wait a bit before I upgrade to Conroe for a few reasons.

CPU prices almost always go down especially right after a big release like this... I don't want to pay a premium to have the first Conroe available. A month could save you $100 or more depending on which chip you decide on.

RAM prices also historically continue to drop so waiting on that isn't gonna hurt either.

But my biggest reason for waiting is that I want a larger selection of more reasonably priced motherboards. I'm sure that sometime in the next couple months one of the mobo companies will release something with all the bells and whistles that overclocks well for less than $100. Plus, all these early adopters will let us know which boards are best and which ones have issues... I would prefer not to be a beta tester for new hardware.

Sometimes it pays to be patient. Although I want one yesterday too!

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: aka1nas
CPU prices probably won't drop more by then, but Conroe motherboards might come down a bit in price and any kinks in the BIOS's should hopefully be worked out.

The enthusiast motherboards are based on 975X. How long have those been out again? I'd be very surprised if there are many kinks in the BIOS.

The chipset may be established, but official Conroe support is fairly new. It's not unreasonable that some boards may need a BIOS update to work correctly with a new CPU, especially when the cpu is so drastically different than a netburst chip.

 

[broly8877]

RAM prices are like a roller coaster, and my guess is prices will increase as the Vista launch gets nearer.

 

[Duvie]

Dont forget we may see ATI and Nvidia mobo offerrings by then...

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: broly8877
RAM prices are like a roller coaster, and my guess is prices will increase as the Vista launch gets nearer.

That, and 4 x 1GB kits are going to become mainstream

 

[broly8877]

I'm hoping 2GB sticks become more mainstream instead ;D
Modern MBs support up to 8GBs, so why not?

 

[Cheng]

Originally posted by: Duvie
Dont forget we may see ATI and Nvidia mobo offerrings by then...

How is the ATI RD600 and Nvidia mobo supposed to be, and what is Nvidia's new chipset called? Are they supposed to be better than the current Intel ones?

 

[broly8877]

RD600 sounds pretty amazing (A quick google search can say it better than me), and Nvidia's chipsets are NF5 for Intel. (Early NF5 boards will be paired with an old memory controller design, and later a brand new one will be used, I've heard)

 

[secretanchitman]

i'd say wait until august 7th and then make your choice.

 

[burney]

I think I will wait..as i belive with time the prices of mobos will cool down plus there will be better support as well and ofcourse the prices for RAM will come down drastically..as seen before

 

[Cheng]

what price do you think rd600 mobos with debut at?

 

[Kwint Sommer]

Conroes will go down a fair bit in mid-August but they won't go bellow that for months. As far as overclocking motherboards, the best P5W DH Deluxe is already here and will remain the best through the end of the year. However it is selling for $250 now and that might go down a little but probably not below $220 and might even go up as demand increases around Christmas. On the other hand, the SLI ready boards aren't here yet and the "budget boards" still need some fine tuning. If you want the best get the P5W DH Deluxe and an E6600 now but if you want a middle-of-the-road system or SLI then wait a few months.

 

[Cheng]

i heard the rd600 is supposed to blow the 975x away

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Cheng
i heard the rd600 is supposed to blow the 975x away

That's not likely. ATI has yet to make a good chipset, in their company history. Of course, anything's possible. Look at what nVidia did with the nForce2 chipset. The first ones sucked, but everything after that destroyed all competition. BTW, in Intel's history, the best overclocking, and most stable chipsets for any of their processors, has been made by Intel. Keep that in mind.

 

[450R]

Originally posted by: Kwint Sommer
Conroes will go down a fair bit in mid-August but they won't go bellow that for months. As far as overclocking motherboards, the best P5W DH Deluxe is already here and will remain the best through the end of the year. However it is selling for $250 now and that might go down a little but probably not below $220 and might even go up as demand increases around Christmas. On the other hand, the SLI ready boards aren't here yet and the "budget boards" still need some fine tuning. If you want the best get the P5W DH Deluxe and an E6600 now but if you want a middle-of-the-road system or SLI then wait a few months.

What about the Gigabyte DS3? From what I've read it overclocks better than the P5W DH, and it's $100 cheaper.

What makes you think the P5W DH will remain the best for the next 5-6 months? Honest question, no sarcasm ... just seems like a really vague statement to make.

 

[Cheng]

Yeah the rd600 is anyone's guess, but apparently its new separate memory controllers for ram and cpu is supposed to be the overclocker's dream. Since the rumor is ATI isn't going to make anymore intel chipsets after rd600, I have a feeling they're going to want to go out with a bang. But... I can always be wrong...

 

[HannibalX]

I am waiting until Feb/March after the next gen video cards are out. Then I will build an entirely new system based on Conroe.

 

[Hard Ball]

Originally posted by: Cheng
when do you expect the cpu's to drop, about year? or when the next line of cpus come out?

and when do you expect new motherboards to come out?

Intel typically drop prices sometime in October, usually simply moving the price structure of the SKU down one grade; which means that if you buy in late October, you will probably be able to get the next higher Conroe in terms of clock speed than the one today, for the same price.