To wait or not to wait, this is the question...

There's no way to predict the ideal time for an upgrade. Even if you could, there's always a period of time where new hardware is more expensive than it should be and not thoroughly tested with new mobos and so on - and this period is equally hard to predict.

Besides, system memory speed will make no discernable difference, unless it's a MAJOR jump and you upgrade everything else along with it.

Since this is the case, what you do is upgrade when there's a game you really want to play at a level you can't do with your current setup - and you can afford an upgrade. You don't fret - because you'll upgrade again down the line.

This is from a guy with a LOT of experience upgrading.

That said, I'd wait until the games you're looking to play at a higher level are out, so you know exactly what they'll require in terms of hardware for high settings.

stealth said:

Got it yesterday and I had to dump the settings down considerably to make it playable. I'm not just talking about getting low FPS, the game literally crashes the OpenGL driver and in one case I got a BSOD. I wonder who does QA for Bethesda? Game seems fun enough though.

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What are your system specs? I'm curious because I'm debating on whether or not to purchase Wolfenstein now.

JDR13 said:

The Geforce GTX 770 is a great card for the price imo. What do you currently have in your system?

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GTX 550Ti

And, since it's my thread I can troll it right? Read up more about Wolfenstein and it appears that you can now play it, at least partially, as a stealth game! Kind of post WWII Dishonored… I'm more interested in this game all of a sudden*

*after Beth irons out the bugs that is

Intel 990X
24 GB ram
nVidia 580 GTX SLI

I've read that SLI should be problematic as of now. I'm running with drivers 337.81, a driver which is currently not listed @nvidia. I got it from Guru3D. It adds a SLI profile for Wolfenstein. Didn't really make much of a difference though.

stealth said:

Intel 990X
24 GB ram
nVidia 580 GTX SLI

I've read that SLI should be problematic as of now. I'm running with drivers 337.81, a driver which is currently not listed @nvidia. I got it from Guru3D. It adds a SLI profile for Wolfenstein. Didn't really make much of a difference though.

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It's listed at nvidia, it's just a Chinese driver so you need to select that language.

Anyhow, I'm with Dart, upgrade when a game you want won't run to your satisfaction.

My solution: only buy games when heavily discounted, and then play them from my backlog. By then they always run flawlessly on my machine, whether its 1 or 3 years new.

I use to play the game when to upgrade and when not to. What is a good price and what can I wait for.

Thankfully I don't have that much time now of days to play that many games, though I do enjoy reading the reviews and person thoughts on games here.

I will be buying something new for my Christmas gift to myself this year just in time for TW3. I am sure the next game I buy before that will run on this 2 year old system( Lords of Xulima).

Though I might buy DA3 or just see how it runs on and plays on one of my children's PS4.

Anyways back to the thread, if you have the money and are ready to buy a new system then do so. When you hold off there will always be something new you read about that is just around the corner coming out so you never end up buying something or you just keep upgrading...

Don't wait, it's almost always pointless.

So now I'm sort of in the same situation. I'm getting to the point where some games are being limited by my 4+ year old Phenom II 965.

I'm definitely not going to wait for the Broadwell i7s as it's looking like those won't be released until the holiday season at the earliest. I'm debating whether to wait for the "Devil's Caynon" Haswell refresh which will include a faster and unlocked version of the i7 4970. Those are supposed to be out next month, but the rumor is that they might be hard to find for awhile. I might just go ahead and grab a 4770K instead.

I think I've already got my mobo and RAM picked out though. I'm gonna go with a Z97 chipset (probably one of the MSI gaming series) and 16 GB of PC3 19200.

Sounds like an expensive pc, I never was able to spent much on a pc (especially the graphics card). For what it is worth, this is (at the moment) the pc that I'm going to buy as soon as my ps3 is sold:
http://tweakers.net/gallery/592026#tab:wenslijst
+ a 120gb ssd that I already own

However, seems nobody is interested in my ps3 for 160 euro…

JDR13 said:

I think I've already got my mobo and RAM picked out though. I'm gonna go with a Z97 chipset (probably one of the MSI gaming series) and 16 GB of PC3 19200.

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Z97 looks like a way to go and I was considering MSI Z97 Gaming 7 but there seems to be couple of problems with this board the biggest of which is its lack of SATA Express. Now I'm thinking about Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H...

I went for Z87, but if I wanted Z97 I'd go with ASUS ATX Z97 Sabertooth Mk1 or with ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac. Depends on your case. Yes that wi fi cable on ITX board is eyehurting, but well.

Ok joxer, fess up! Why did you pick Z87 over Z97? The difference in price is only about 10 bucks so why?

The main reason I went for z87 is the CPU. I didn't go for i7, but bought i5. And there is really no reason to put i5 onto Z97 chipset.
And I didn't take any of those OP mobos (btw that Gigabyte board you mentioned is also awsome, but I'm in love with ASUS). Bought the cheapest SSD that exists so I don't really need express SATA.

This is what I've bought:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/MRpXnQ

I don't plan to overclock it (unless I need that desperately), I will not buy another gfx card (but did buy PSU to support two phantoms if there's a need for that) and I really really don't play anything on 4K resolutions.
Estimated lifetime of all this is about 2 years, maybe 3. Then I'll go for a new one probably, DDR4 should be a usual part then, which instantly means a new mobo so no need to go for a superexpensive one today.

You will notice that there is no CD/DVD drive - I have external USB one for two years already. It's a bit smokeproof as I keep it in it's box till needed. I smoke much and every internal CD/DVD drive eventually glues the "door" because of the smoke so I can't open it. Oh, I do have USB floppy drive too.
No monitor as I don't need to buy a new one.
The HDD is one of the cheapest ones as I have 3 external HDDs, I buy one every year when on sale. In the PC I used till a few days ago HDD was 320Gb probably 10 years old so I'm kinda used to move everything on external HDDs and since this one is very old, it's highly possible it'll fart soon. And I didn't want WD green as many ppl here had problems with it.
There is no special sound card, the one I had before I gave to my bro ages ago as he has a band (plays a guitar) and I don't need one really as I'm not into it. But if I did buy one, it's be some external USB card. I'm in love with USB it seems.

This was the last time I put it all in by myself. I hate installing the motherboard in the case more than I hate EA. And every time I do it (and I do it for friends too), I start sweating and swearing. Next time I'll pay some kid to do it for me.

zahratustra said:

Z97 looks like a way to go and I was considering MSI Z97 Gaming 7 but there seems to be couple of problems with this board the biggest of which is its lack of SATA Express. Now I'm thinking about Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H…

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Personally, I wouldn't hold out for that. I think it'll be awhile before SATA Express becomes widespread. I only know of 1 company that has made a SE compatible SSD drive (Asus), and that isn't even available in retail stores yet.

Yes, it appears that Asus is betting on SATA Express while MSI backs M.2 and Gigabyte and ASRock are sitting on the fence
More about Asus' SE compatible SSD drive here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7843/testing-sata-express-with-asus

I ALWAYS get way too overexcited when I'm about to build new a PC but joxer is right: since I have to get a new comp now, the smart way is to build a most cost/performance efficient machine which will get you through the next 2 or 3 years.
However, the more I look at MSI's new generation of mobos the more I like them. MSI Z97 Gaming 7 (with all the extra goodies) is a VERY tasty offer! Certainly something to keep an eye on for the future!

What extra goodies? Ah, it has 8 USB3.0 ports instead of "only" 6 on Gigabyte's.
J/K it's an awsome board too.

Speaking of USB 3.0 ports I'm not really sure why are they spamming too many of those on the mobo. And everyone does that for whatever IMO illogical reason.
USB hubs are not expensive and besides modern cases similar to the one I got (2 USB 3.0 ports + 2 USB 2.0 ports in front) may not be common but are pretty cheap.

6 USB 3 rear ports are good enough for me. I meant great fan control, angled SATA ports, nice front panel wiring, labels for SATA cables etc.
Besides, Gigabyte cheats even with their 6 USB 3 ports! To quote one of the reviewers:
"…Six USB 3.0 ports line the rear cluster, but only two of them are attached directly to the Z97. The rest pass through a four-way hub linked to just one of the Z97's SuperSpeed ports. Folks who are running a lot of high-bandwidth devices will want to avoid those shared ports. Too bad Gigabyte doesn't identify which ones are which. At least the manual clarifies that the front-panel USB 3.0 ports have a direct line to the chipset…"