My friend wants to know if he should buy now and build his PC or wait see if parts prices go down. We all talked about this situation with the economy and how it might increase prices possibly, should he build now or wait, what do you think, has anything like this ever drove prices up before on hardware. I never paid any attention to prices before.

It depends considerably on the component.

I don't think processor prices are going to change much in the coming years.  What will happen is that new processors will let you get better performance for the price as old processors.  Zambezi may or may not do that next month, but if it doesn't, then we could be waiting for Haswell in 2013 to see a meaningful improvement in desktops.  There will be some minor speed bumps in the mean time, as in, now you get the same thing as before, except clocked 100 MHz higher.

For video cards, the transition to 28 nm process nodes will mean you can get the same performance as before for much cheaper.  The transition could start as soon as September, but there probably won't be many cards out on the new process nodes until well into next year.

Memory prices have fallen so much in the last few months that I'd say memory prices are more likely to rise than fall in the next few months.  In the long term, the price for a given capacity will continue to fall.

Solid state drive prices are about due for a big drop in the price of a given capacity.  They've been creeping down somewhat, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more than a few SSDs in the $1/GB range by the end of the year.

Power supplies will continue to see slow movement toward better quality, but not lower prices.

Cases will see slight updates to the feature set, such as front USB 3.0 ports or 2.5" drive bays for SSDs, but not otherwise change much.

Motherboards won't see prices change, but will see new features added, as well as various tweaks to accommodate newer processors.  The transition to PCI Express 3.0 will mostly occur over the course of the next year.

Optical drives aren't going to change, unless Blu-Ray catches on and becomes the de facto standard.  Which it probably won't.

Monitors haven't gotten much better in the last several years, and I'm not holding out much hope for better things in the next several years.  OLED is the future, but it has been for a long time, and could remain so for quite some time to come.  The move to DisplayPort will be nice, I suppose.

Keyboards, mice, and speakers are good enough today that there isn't much room for improvement.

So he should wait then? I read they might tax more on goods, that could make prices jump. This whole thing over the budget and balancing is going to cause goods to go up cause they might be taxed more or something, not sure but if it did then PC parts I would think would be the more expensive, am I wrong ?

AMD is comming out with there Bulldozer processor in Q3 (better then the i7 series supposively) so that means price drop on x6 Thuban processors. 

Originally posted by Nvious

AMD is comming out with there Bulldozer processor in Q3 (better then the i7 series supposively) so that means price drop on x6 Thuban processors. 

I did tell him about that AMD cpu coming, but hes anxious to buy cheap now, but if prices remain low and new hardware is around corner I would wait. But I needed some opinions especially people like Quiz who follow prices, but mix in this tax thing I dunno what to expect on prices in the months to come.

really depends on him...

spend x amount now (lets say $1000) and get a good system

but now then lets say we wait 4-6 months.. and spend the same $1000.. you will get a better system.. just the way it is..some parts my go up.. some go down.. in the end.. it usualy balances out.. now if hes looking at a spacific setup.. more then likely the price will drop some.. unless something goes out of production.. then the price goes up on those because they arnt being made.. only reason people go after them is for SLI/crossfire set ups.. so in a new system that wouldnt matter..

best general rule... longer you wait the better you get for your money..

I'm not sure what tax changes you're talking about.  If you're in the US, then at the federal level, tax changes being discussed are for the income tax, and would not affect your friend.  At a state level, some states are trying to tax Internet purchases, but the details would depend on the state where you live.  If you live in some other country, then I don't follow the tax policy of foreign countries enough to know what is going on.

If your friend is in a big hurry to get a new computer now, I'd say, go ahead and get it now.  If he'd just as soon wait a month because the old computer is fine for now, then he might want to wait and see if Zambezi is good.  Zambezi will probably be commercially competitive iwth Sandy Bridge, but it probably won't be good enough to make someone who buys a Sandy Bridge system today for gaming purposes regret it.  For example, if you knew that you'd be able to get something just as good for $20 cheaper by waiting a month, would you wait?  On a $1000+ computer purchase, I wouldn't.

Process node issues make me think that the first Southern Islands cards could kind of be a successor to the Radeon HD 4770.  An interesting product, but hardly revolutionary, and not the sort of thing that will make people think, I should have waited and gotten that instead!

If you were trying to maximize the useful life of the machine when picking a date to buy sometime in the next year, my guess is that next April would be the optimal time to do it.  Zambezi, Trinity, Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge, Southern Islands, and Kepler should all be out by then, with nothing terribly important coming after that until 2013.

Originally posted by Darkane42

but now then lets say we wait 4-6 months.. and spend the same $1000.. you will get a better system.. just the way it is..some parts my go up.. some go down.. in the end.. it usualy balances out.. 

While that's true to a considerable degree, some times really are better to buy than others.

For example, I bought my current computer in October 2009.  That came just after major advances in processors (Lynnfield), video cards (Evergreen), SSDs (TRIM support), and operating systems (Windows 7).  Had I bought two months earlier, I'd have gotten a much slower video card, a slightly slower, far more power hungry processor, a much more expensive motherboard (Bloomfield required a more expensive X58 chipset), possibly an SSD that never would get TRIM support (as I'd have had to guess, rather than being able to say, this one already has it), and Windows Vista.  What I gained by waiting those last two months was arguably worth hundreds of dollars.

On the other hand, had I waited an extra two months and bought in December, I wouldn't have gained anything.  The processor would have been the same.  I might have gotten a refresh of the motherboard or saved a few dollars there.  The video card actually would have been more expensive to get the same thing.  The SSD might have been more expensive, too.  After I bought my computer, nothing important in the market segments that I was looking at launched for about another half of a year, and even that was new SSDs with firmware problems, so I'd have had to wait for Summer 2010 to see those worked out.

But see, I mostly knew that that was going to happen, which is why I bought my computer when I did.  The original poster is looking for information on what there is to be gained by waiting a few months.  Last December, I was telling people who wanted to spend $1000+ on a computer to wait for Sandy Bridge.  Sometime around next Feburary or March, I'll probably be telling people to wait for Trinity, Ivy Bridge, Southern Islands, or Kepler.  Today, I'd say, if you want a new computer, go ahead and buy it today.  It's not a really great time to buy a new computer (as October 2009 was), but it's not a bad time, either.

and Q3 is from July to September he would have to wait only a month or 2.

Originally posted by Quizzical

I'm not sure what tax changes you're talking about.  If you're in the US, then at the federal level, tax changes being discussed are for the income tax, and would not affect your friend.  At a state level, some states are trying to tax Internet purchases, but the details would depend on the state where you live.  If you live in some other country, then I don't follow the tax policy of foreign countries enough to know what is going on.

If your friend is in a big hurry to get a new computer now, I'd say, go ahead and get it now.  If he'd just as soon wait a month because the old computer is fine for now, then he might want to wait and see if Zambezi is good.  Zambezi will probably be commercially competitive iwth Sandy Bridge, but it probably won't be good enough to make someone who buys a Sandy Bridge system today for gaming purposes regret it.  For example, if you knew that you'd be able to get something just as good for $20 cheaper by waiting a month, would you wait?  On a $1000+ computer purchase, I wouldn't.

Process node issues make me think that the first Southern Islands cards could kind of be a successor to the Radeon HD 4770.  An interesting product, but hardly revolutionary, and not the sort of thing that will make people think, I should have waited and gotten that instead!

If you were trying to maximize the useful life of the machine when picking a date to buy sometime in the next year, my guess is that next April would be the optimal time to do it.  Zambezi, Trinity, Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge, Southern Islands, and Kepler should all be out by then, with nothing terribly important coming after that until 2013.

Import taxes on goods, and that internet tax thing. Yeah I see that whole point I told him the same about hardware dates for new products vs now, since the launch is close for Zambezi. If retailers start seeing to much decline ins ales prices can go up to because demand is low, right. Hes looking to spend about $1200 really soon, if can wait maybe the Zam system will cost more then what he can get now plus performance.

Originally posted by bezado

My friend wants to know if he should buy now and build his PC or wait see if parts prices go down. We all talked about this situation with the economy and how it might increase prices possibly, should he build now or wait, what do you think, has anything like this ever drove prices up before on hardware. I never paid any attention to prices before.

Bottom line is parts are cheap now. You can shop on Newegg for PC parts tax free and mostly free shipping NOW. Why wait for even the slight possibility of a rise in prices or a change in sales tax laws. If prices are going to drop in the next 6 months it won't be a crash drop or anything - it will be the normal "more performance for the same or slightly less money". Most your friend will save on a full $1000 build thrown into a Newegg wish list for 6 months is maybe $100 (mostly due to consistently dropping GPU & CPU prices) - but the down side is that the wish list is now obsolete. If $hit hits the fan and some scarcity issues arise, a given component could very well rise. But honestly, just buy now - no good reason to wait unless you are waiting on a significant improvement like a Bulldozer chip or something along those lines.

It's not likely to change much at all, in my opinion. You will pay a premium for the most recent hardware, with the sweet spot for value (bang for your buck)being one or two generations behind that. I don't think prices, in general, are going to change. If anything with the poor economy, they are likely to get cheaper, but I'm not an economist, so that is just a huge guess. I would advise your friend to watch prices for a month or two and figure out what he/she can afford. Read some reviews and make sure the components are compatable.

Originally posted by Palebane

the sweet spot for value (bang for your buck)being one or two generations behind that.

Not only is that not true now, but it hasn't been true for a long time.  For a processor, video card, motherboard, and storage, you want either the newest generation or one generation before it.  If you want to save money, you get a lower end part from one of those generations.  Die shrinks mean that, as compared to a higher end part from an older generation, a lower end part from the current one can perform better, use less power, and have a better feature set, all while costing less to build.

---

Originally posted by Darkane42
really depends on him...
 
spend x amount now (lets say $1000) and get a good system
but now then lets say we wait 4-6 months.. and spend the same $1000.. you will get a better system.. just the way it is..some parts my go up.. some go down.. in the end.. it usualy balances out.. now if hes looking at a spacific setup.. more then likely the price will drop some.. unless something goes out of production.. then the price goes up on those because they arnt being made.. only reason people go after them is for SLI/crossfire set ups.. so in a new system that wouldnt matter..
 
best general rule... longer you wait the better you get for your money..

---

This advice is true, but also consider:

If you buy a system now for, let's say, $1000 - you have a nice system now. Yes, in a few months time you can get a faster system for that same $1000, but that won't make the current system any slower, and you wouldn't have had the use of that computer for all those months that you were waiting.

Waiting for "something faster" or "something cheaper" only works if something is immediately pending. If you were in the market for an 6 to 8-core CPU, I'd say wait until Bulldozer rather than trying to use Hyperthreading or jumping to a Gulftown or Xeon, because it's imminent, it has a release date (more or less), and info is starting to leak. Waiting for a new video card - that is on the horizon, but there isn't a lot of buzz yet, I wouldn't call that imminent - you could end up waiting a month, or 10 months - it's too early to tell.

It's very easy to get caught up in the "wait for something better" game in tech, because something better is always on the near horizon. If you have a budget, and your ready to buy, go ahead and get the best you can at the time for that budget. THe only time I think it's really worth waiting is if something is due out in the next few days/couple of weeks. Otherwise, go ahead and buy, enjoy it when you get it, and realize that when that next great piece of silicon does finally come out, it doesn't make the system you just paid for worth any slower, and your computer is gonna depreciate in value no matter what.

The only thing that will really have a dramatic effect on the tech market would be a catastrophe at a major fab facility. I remember a few years ago there was a fire at a memory manufacturing fab, which made a ridiculous amount of the world's supply of RAM. It sent the price of RAM sky high (until it could repair and get back online). I'm honestly surprised the Japan quake/tidal wave didn't have a bigger effect on tech prices.

Actually, we should ask, what does your friend have now?  If he's still running a Pentium 4 and a Radeon 9700 Pro, then he should upgrade now.  If he got something nice a year and a half ago and it's still nice, then there's no sense in upgrading until there is hardware that is faster by enough for upgrading to have a point.

Originally posted by jpnole

 You can shop on Newegg for PC parts tax free and mostly free shipping NOW.

 If you live in California,Tennessee or New Jersey Newegg isnt tax free, unfortunately for me lol.

a decent computer cost $1500 15 years ago.

a decent computer cost $1500 10 years ago.

a decent computer cost $1500 5 years ago.

a decent computer cost $1500 last year

a decent computer cost $1500 last month

I cant tell what the future holds.  but history seems to be a decent teacher:D

The rule for Internet sales taxes in the United States is that the company only has to pay sales taxes if they ship to a state in which they have a physical presence.  This is due to a federal law, which overrides state laws.  The constitutional basis for the law is the clause that says the federal government can regulate interstate commerce.  While corrupt politicians and feckless judges have expanded the definition of "interstate commerce" to include a lot of things that are neither interstate nor commerce (e.g., growing food on your own land and then eating it), shipping goods from one state to another clearly qualifies.

The idea behind the law was that without such a law, a small startup e-tailer would have to learn the intricacies of sales tax laws in all fifty states in order ot do business.  That would strangle a small company that really only hopes for gross receipts in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.  If the company has a physical presence in the state, however, then the company is presumed to be able to learn the laws in that particular state.  If a company is big enough to have a physical presence in many states, then it is big enough to understand the sales tax laws in many states and collect the taxes.  Furthermore, if a company has a physical presence in a state, anything it sells to customers in that state may not be interstate commerce, and would thus lie outside of what the federal government is constitutionally allowed to regulate.

When the law was written, they didn't envision e-tailers like Amazon and New Egg that would have billions in annual revenues, but only a physical presence in a few states, so they wouldn't have to pay sales tax in most states.  Some states have been trying to convince the federal government to change this law, as it means that a lot of goods that states would like to collect a sales tax on are effectively tax free.  Retailers who do have a physical presence everywhere are also complaining, as it means customers have to pay a sales tax to buy from them, but not to buy from an e-tailer, which gives Internet commerce a competitive advantage.

There have been recent scuffles in some states over states trying to say that if Amazon has a partner who sells things through Amazon's web site, and that partner has a physical presence in their state, then that counts as Amazon having a physical presence in the state, and they can collect sales tax on all Amazon goods.  Amazon has responded to states doing this by ending partnerships with any stores in the states that do this.

Originally posted by psyclum

a decent computer cost $1500 15 years ago.

a decent computer cost $1500 10 years ago.

a decent computer cost $1500 5 years ago.

a decent computer cost $1500 last year

a decent computer cost $1500 last month

I cant tell what the future holds.  but history seems to be a decent teacher:D

Today, $1500 will get you something really nice, to the degree that it's hard to justify spending more than that.  Fifteen years ago, the best computer you could get for $1500 was not high end by any means.  Even a low end computer without peripherals cost over $1000.

One reason for prices coming down has been increasing integration of more functions into fewer chips.  For example, the processor, graphics, memory controller, and northbridge used to all be different chips.  Today, both AMD and Intel will sell you chips that have all of those in a single chip.  Intel will integrate a PCI Express controller into the same chip, too, though AMD doesn't do that yet.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Palebane

the sweet spot for value (bang for your buck)being one or two generations behind that.

Not only is that not true now, but it hasn't been true for a long time.  For a processor, video card, motherboard, and storage, you want either the newest generation or one generation before it.  If you want to save money, you get a lower end part from one of those generations.  Die shrinks mean that, as compared to a higher end part from an older generation, a lower end part from the current one can perform better, use less power, and have a better feature set, all while costing less to build.

 I think we are saying the same thing. Perhaps "generation" was the wrong word. The new video cards, for example, cost around $600 or more. I can get almost the same perfromance out of a $300 card that is only six months old; The difference between an GTX 590 and GTX 570.