upgrade now or later?

Like the title says when should I upgrade? My birthday is coming up in 12 days and I can get a pretty nice rig but should I wait for Conroe or AM2 and Windows Vista? I was thinking about getting an Opteron 170, DFI Ultra-d and 7900GT. Then around xmas time or something I could grab a DX10 video card, if they are out. From what ive seen AM2 doesnt seem that impressive and Conroe is quite a ways off. Plus, you have to give some time for their new chipsets to develop before its worth buying. The computer is going to be used mostly for gaming/overclocking/folding and lots of multi-tasking.

I would upgrade now as AM2 will give you little performance gains, 2-3% at best. However if you're the latest and greatest type of guy, you should wait for AM2.

I would just get the rig you have picked out. In six months there will always be something faster, that's just the nature of computers, so get what you want now and it should serve you well for some time.

Funny how you guys are knocking the gains from AM2...why not consider how minimal the gains going from his current rig to the mentioned Opteron would be...maybe 100MHz more, probably not, and a side-grade of a video card, not to mention an almost undeniably less stable board.

I would save up and wait just two more months. At least AM2 will be a more substantial upgrade than going to 939, and you could expect a better video card, or at least a better price on one by then.

Well one of his needs is multi-tasking so going from single to dual core is not minimal gains. And how did you come to the conclusion that AM2 is "substantial upgrade" when all the benchmarks proves otherwise? If you're going to wait, you should look at Intel's Conroe(q3 maybe). Now that is substantial upgrade.

I said it's more substantial. Like it or not, AM2 is actually going to be faster than 939...I can't remember a single time where AMD released a new product that was actually slower than a previous one.

And as for how I came to the conclusion that AM2 is going to be a lot better than those "benchmarks" would have you believe...well...that's just a hunch of mine. Take it for what it's worth...

Nice to see another bay stater, my hometown is Acton.

rseven said:

I would just get the rig you have picked out. In six months there will always be something faster, that's just the nature of computers, so get what you want now and it should serve you well for some time.

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Those were my thoughts exactly. I was just wondering if it would really be worth the wait. I dont really want to wait unless im going to see huge performance gains and to get that id have to wait for Conroe, which I dont feel like doing. Another main reason for me getting this s939 rig is because I already have some good DDR ram and I dont feel like having to spend money on DDR2.