Get your new PC now before you get priced out of the game

[igor_kavinski]

Ryzen has DDR5-6000 while Arrow Lake has DDR5-7000 (no idea how long that will remain in stock).

 

[Grimlakin]

And no discreet vjdeo!

 

[igor_kavinski]

And no discreet vjdeo!

Plenty of those on the USED market

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I'd expect the 9800X3D to drop to $449 or lower pretty soon once the 9850X3D launches. Rumors are strong for CES announcement and I wouldn't be surprised if it launches not long after.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm curious about one thing though. Whatever happened to 2x12GB=24GB kits???? Those could've softened the blow but only a little bit. Still, better than 2x8GB kits.

 

[LazyGamer]

I'm curious about one thing though. Whatever happened to 2x12GB=24GB kits???? Those could've softened the blow but only a little bit. Still, better than 2x8GB kits.

Neither of those are optimal, for DDR5 they're essentially 'half rank' kits. DDR5 needs at least 32GB for 'single rank' operation, and 64GB for 'dual rank' operation, due to the increase in minimum DRAM die density.

But really you want at least single-rank, or 32GB. Sadly what used to be ~US$90 is now three or four times that, for a while it wasn't really even worth buying less than 32GB.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'd recommend gamers go used for almost the whole build at the moment. Still get deals in for sale/trade forums. Ignore the Ferengi, of course. Just picked up a 12600kf, Z790, 32GB Ballistix Elite 4000MT/s for $275 shipped.

Get a pre-built minus GPU off of Ebay, that can play everything, for dirt cheap too. Might have to skip Battlemage on some of them though. ETAPrime could not get a 2020-21 era HP gaming PC to boot with it.

 

[LazyGamer]

Might have to skip Battlemage

I'm still waiting to see what Intel does. Their second-generation isn't much more die- or watt-efficient than their first, and they're still hunting down CPU-hog gremlins with their drivers. That and general compatibility still being questionable even for the price.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'm still waiting to see what Intel does. Their second-generation isn't much more die- or watt-efficient than their first, and they're still hunting down CPU-hog gremlins with their drivers. That and general compatibility still being questionable even for the price.

ARC is a mixed bag. The CPU overhead issues are real. It was amusing when tech channels finally started covering it. Any of us on Alchemist knew about it already. Unlike when A series was new, have to use 3rd party for streaming, recording, screenshots. Retro-gaming is hit or miss even with DXVK, DXwrapper, and dgVoodoo2. UE5 does not particularly care for ARC. REBAR is a must. Older PCIe standards can impact performance more than expected in some titles.

We have RGB GPU vendors now. I'd stick to R&G if I could only buy 1 card. In the price range, the 9060 XT 8GB is an easy pick, particularly for older PCIe gen systems.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Not the best but still better than some others: $339 (after 10$ off code) G.Skill Trident Z5 32 GB CL36 6000 MT/s

 

[igor_kavinski]

Not the best but still better than some others: $339 (after 10$ off code) G.Skill Trident Z5 32 GB CL36 6000 MT/s

That's kinda proof that Newegg has huge existing stock and releasing it at artificial "discounted price" dozens or hundreds of units a time once the sales slow down. Kind of what they did with GPUs too. No way they got a new shipment from G.Skill because if the AI demand is so high, G.Skill would be selling directly to cloud providers or other lucrative customers instead of shipping to retailers.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Agreed.

 

[LazyGamer]

G.Skill would be selling directly to cloud providers or other lucrative customers instead of shipping to retailers.

AI datacenters aren't buying from DIMM assemblers - they're buying supply straight from Samsung, Hynix, and (all) of Micron.

 

[igor_kavinski]

AI datacenters aren't buying from DIMM assemblers

Then wouldn't the DIMM assemblers go out of business in the near future? Especially since the AI data centers are paying with "free" invisible money they don't have and the DIMM assemblers aren't going to be able to secure such huge loans from banks to compete with the AI data centers for the limited DRAM supply.

 

[LazyGamer]

Then wouldn't the DIMM assemblers go out of business in the near future?

Micron has just decided to wind down their 'Crucial' business, so...

Yes. That's probably going to happen, though I expect that the major brands we see (G.Skill, Corsair, Kingston) have allotments with pre-bubble contract pricing to work through.

I also suspect that they're raising prices now because they'd straight up run out of DRAM IC supply if they kept selling at pre-bubble retail prices. Perhaps they're trying to build some margin before negotiating their next contract, which will undoubtedly be more expensive...