New system - buy now or later?

[Aosh]

I was pretty set on getting a E6600, but have been trouble finding a good mobo to go with it. I see a lot of good reviews of the Asus P5B & P5W, but see problems w/ Revision and a lot of reviews on Newegg that prevented it from getting 5 stars. I'm not looking to OC, I just want stability and want it to work out of the box. Are the C2Ds too young? I'm looking for relatively mature time-and-tested products =)

Other concerns of course are Vista..

 

[Shortass]

I know for myself that I want to upgrade badly from my mobile xp, but the maturity of the technology isn't that great as far as I can tell, partially putting me off. The other is the expense of these immature motherboards and the soaring ddr2 prices, which kind of sucks. Still, if you're willing to spend the cash then I wouldn't be too afraid of any more problems then that which normally come with the buying of computer hardware, so buying now isn't really that terrible of an idea. If I had more money to toss around...

 

[snes tor]

Same boat here, i'm on my socket 478 prescott... I'd really like a C2D, but i'm kinda holding off till maybe after christmas or so, or right before maybe.

 

[fire400]

Originally posted by: snes tor
Same boat here, i'm on my socket 478 prescott... I'd really like a C2D, but i'm kinda holding off till maybe after christmas or so, or right before maybe.

planning to dump everything I got and hit up a mobile, high processor performance laptop with very long battery life, looking at something that hits 4 hours at least. very light weight. it's come to the point where I don't need an X-fi card to mix trance remixes and turn up the video game volume on good games like Starcraft.

last game was ghost recon, and that game is hard as hell, or I am just starting to suck at video games.

but anyway, conroe is a good system to upgrade to. if you are going to get something, there is no point in waiting, the performance benefits you get from a core 2 duo and graphics card solutions anywhere from the x1600 pro and the 7600 series and up are very good. I mean, 2 gigs of RAM for 200 bucks. that's not a bad deal. you can spend 70 bucks on a hard drive that hit over a hundred gigs? you're kidding me, but I'd say if you want to build now, you will be happy with what you're getting.

it's not a $1000 Intel Celeron 1.8 GHz system. I mean, even with a 2.8e Prescott you can still do a whole lot. it's just that the conroe makes everything so much faster, from playing the latest games to supporting the best of modern technology as of now. given the right balance of your computer, you can achieve a lot with a thousand bucks for a computer, custom built that is.

I know a guy who bought a gateway for a little over a thousand bucks - came with 2 gigs of RAM and an Pentium D 805... LCD monitor (well obviously) and a DVD-RW and basic stuff like Windows Home and spent extra on a security suite. rip off... I could of built an overclocked 805 water cooling system with that and still have gotten Windows Home and an LCD monitor. but I'd rather get a conroe build if I'm spending that much and starting from scratch.

u can wait 'till xmas if you want, but the months of waiting if you already have the money, probably won't make a huge difference except you wasting your time on stuff that is already good to go for a fast computer.

 

[pkme2]

IMO the votes are out on Vista, stick with Windows XP Pro for a long while.

On the topic of C2D, waiting seems a better option. Prices may settle to the point of affordability in maybe six months. The supply will certainly get higher, hence lower prices. We saw that with the price of gasoline, lesser demand, lowering of prices. Keep calm and wait.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: pkme2
IMO the votes are out on Vista, stick with Windows XP Pro for a long while.

Agreed, never upgrade OS's when they first come out, ever. Wait at least 8-12 months after a new release of Windows before upgrading.

On the topic of C2D, waiting seems a better option. Prices may settle to the point of affordability in maybe six months. The supply will certainly get higher, hence lower prices. We saw that with the price of gasoline, lesser demand, lowering of prices. Keep calm and wait.

I don't see the prices of C2D's dropping very far, even after the release of Kentsfield. That doesn't apply to the fastest two, of course. I'd expect the X6800 to drop by roughly 60%, and the E6700 to drop quite a bit, but I can't see the other, slower C2D's dropping by much, if any.

RAM, on the other hand, will drop considerably as soon as Xmas is a memory. I'd expect RAM prices to start dropping Dec. 26th, reaching their lowest around March or April, as it does every other year.

 

[Aosh]

RAM, on the other hand, will drop considerably as soon as Xmas is a memory. I'd expect RAM prices to start dropping Dec. 26th, reaching their lowest around March or April, as it does every other year.

Exactly why are RAM prices up right now?

Yea.. maybe I will wait. $300 for CPU, I'm going for 4GB of RAM (HEAVY photoshop) so that's around $400-600, and any good mobo for Conroe is over $200.. Add in another $400 for case & video card..and extra for HDs, optical drive, and accessories (cables), I'm guessing I'll be approaching $2K.

Feb, Mar a good time to buy? Hopefully by then I won't be tempted to get Kentsfield... then wait longer for those products to mature..

 

[imported_RedStar]

wait or not? The answer to that is always upgrade when you feel the need. eg a new game just won't perform..so upgrade.

I did not take that advice to heart for my own computer. By next january it will have been two years since i decided it was time for an upgrade. But, there was always new tech on the horizon --dual core, am2, core 2 duo, 7xxx vid card, sata, big sli changes
--- and here i am almost two years later going...pci-e 2/g80 or r600/vista/waiting on a nice digital MB..that keeps receding into the future. All the while, i was buying games..thinking i will upgrade soon anyways. Well, i have 13 games currently collecting dust.

I think this really underlines that there will always be new and exciting tech just around the corner. The trade off for waiting is lost productivity (gaming 2 years!

(on the other hand it shows that there has been no great new game out there to force me to upgrade asap)

 

[Derik75]

Pretty much on the same boat as most of ya'll. I really want to upgrade to a C2D E6600. The price of the cpu doesn't bother me as much as the price of the motherboards, especially with all the compatibility problems most boards (mainly asus) seem to be having even after bios revisions. I am hoping the nforce600 chipset line of mobos will extinguish any concern I have.
After researching most of the C2D boards out there, I am not too confident with any manufacturer's boards. So looks like i'll be doing some waiting.

 

[Boyo]

There is always something new coming out (Quad cores just around the corner) but I think you should upgrade now, unless you want to wait for RAm prices to fall and DX10 cards to come out. That would be the only reason to delay me from an upgrade.