So when are prices going to start dropping?

[Easto]

I've been playing around with the idea of upgrading my board to an AMD 5950X. I thought once the new series of AMD processors came out we'd be seeing thing priced at bargain basement prices. They're just stuck right where they were 6 months ago. Memory prices seem to be trending lower and there are some really nice prices on 1TB M.2 drives, but the CPU prices look like they're just stuck and not moving down at all.

[Philip]

The AM4 motherboards are somewhat inexpensive, the X570 chipset I imagine.. Processors I'd wait for Cyber Monday, but I don't know what's happening with prices this year because of the economy/inflation/geopolitics/etc.

[YeOldeStonecat]

IMO we won't see drops for a while. The overseas manufacturing have a big impact on prices.....tarifs, slowed production due to latest covid outbreaks wiping staffing in the factories, etc.
For over 2 years we've done OK with "stock/orders" as far as computers, servers, laptops, network equipment. It's sorta starting to hit us in some areas now...taking longer for our orders to get fulfilled, and prices are up a bit.

[Easto]

The AM4 motherboards are somewhat inexpensive, the X570 chipset I imagine.. Processors I'd wait for Cyber Monday, but I don't know what's happening with prices this year because of the economy/inflation/geopolitics/etc.

I've got a nice X570 board (Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus), I just wanted to top if off with a Ryzen 9 5950X. That's the limit for this chipset and it would add a couple of cores. But... I thought by now I'd be seeing them @ $350. I can wait but I was hoping to make it my Christmas present to myself. Fortunately it's a "want" and not a "need".

[Philip]

Yeah, I am pretty happy with my Ryzen 3700X, doesn't seem to be strained with most of what I do for now. I did upgrade my video card to a RTX3070. Will wait another year for a CPU/MoBo upgrade I imagine.

[Easto]

I'm very happy with my 3700X too. So happy that I'm not really sure I should upgrade... but I'm going to. Then I seriously need a GPU upgrade. I'm running a Radeon RX 570 and although it does run well at 1080p it still falls behind almost everything that's out there. It's just that I'm not gaming at all and a $600 - $700 GPU would not give me the ROI for its limited use in gaming. Upgrading the CPU to a 5950X and a mid level GPU would let me do whatever it is that I would expect from a computer for a long time to come.

[Philip]

Depends on how many monitors you're running I guess... These days even web browsers use 3d acceleration and the GPU, so I splurged a bit. I like it.

[Easto]

Don't' get me wrong, I'd love to have a RTX 3070. I'd really like to go "bleeding edge" one of these years. I've never owned anything to brag about and I'd love to see what a high end card would look like on my 1440 monitor. I'm just afraid if I see how good some games look I'm might get sucked into that whole gaming world again! I shudder to think how much time I've spent gaming.

Regardless, I'm keeping my eye on prices and hoping Santa might be good to me this year.

[Philip]

I spent a lot of time gaming years ago as well, I think many of us did. I don't really have the time, or drive to get back into it, but I had a lot of fun, I don't regret it. Couldn't have imagined that phone gaming would become such a big thing. I saw that Google is introducing "Google Play Games beta", some official emulator for playing mobile games on PCs now even, heh.

[Easto]

Those AMD CPU prices haven't budged for 2 month. I thought for sure that after the new releases these last generation CPUs would come down fast. Boy was I wrong.

[Philip]

Their way to adjust for inflation I suppose, heh.