When to buy a new PC - any advantage to waiting?

My old Q6600 is starting to feel a bit slow for bulk processing of 2000+ wedding images. It's on Windows 7 with 4GB of RAM, an SSD for OS, an SSD for cache, and three big spinning disks. It's not bad, but exporting 500 12 megapixel images from RAW to jpeg can take more than an hour, maxing out all four cores. Interactive work could be quicker too, which is more important.

I don't need a faster system until February, when the bulk of my work starts each year. Until then my current PC works fine for casual processing and everything else I do on the PC, really just email and web.

Would I gain anything by waiting until say Jan 2012 to buy a new PC? Are there any new CPUs being released that will be reasonably affordable but faster than the current generation? Will RAM, CPU, video cards, or any other prices drop significantly? Basically will waiting four months give me a faster or cheaper PC?

My impression is that in Jan 2012 i7 Sandy Bridge will still be the best option, and prices may drop very slightly. RAM might be a little cheaper too, I hear there's a bit of a glut on RAM.

I'll go with Intel, who are the clear winner for performance these days.

What about adding another 16GB of RAM 1st - your PC should be LOTS faster.
4GB RAM is nothing this day.

Agree, if you can upgrade some of your internal memory you should notice a difference. Lots cheaper than buying an entirely new set up

Unless a new CPU socket is about to be released, there's not usually much point in waiting. Sure, prices might drop a little if you wait ... but if you justify waiting now, then wait a little longer, the landscape will change even more and it'll still seem "worth" waiting. In the meantime you could be more productive now. Price/performance for lastest-gen components isn't always that great, anyway.

IMO, get a mobo with the most modern chipset you can (as those will often support the next gen or two of processors), as much RAM as you can afford, and a fast OS drive (which it sounds like you already have, with your SSD's), and you'll be fine. In the event that any other component gets one-upped by some latest-and-greatest tech that you just have to have, you can usually upgrade piecemeal.

x_tan wrote in post #13110890
What about adding another 16GB of RAM 1st - your PC should be LOTS faster.
4GB RAM is nothing this day.

He's not RAM limited, exporting RAW to JPEG and generating RAW previews is very CPU intensive.

Exporting 5D2 files with all 4 real, and all 4 virtual cores my RAM usage sits at around 3-4GB while all the cores are at 100%

Tim, i7 2600K, P67 based board, keep your current graphics card and get 8GB of ram.

I'm not RAM limited, increasing it won't make much difference. Last night I had Bridge open and exporting jpeg files, Photoshop image processor processing images, thunderbird and firefox open. I was still only use 3GB of RAM. Sure having a bigger disk cache helps some applications, but not so much when the data's coming off an SSD and it's reading through 15GB of source data.

I'm CPU limited, so that's what I need to concentrate on.

I agree that the i7 2600 and a modern motherboard is necessary. I'd probably go 16GB of RAM because it's cheap. My video card is really ancient (8600GT?) so i'll replace that, I want more vRam as some of my software uses it.

I've had the same case and power supply for about 6 years, so i'll be doing a whole new build, something very quiet, with big fans, good cooling, and energy efficient.

I'm not at the stage of looking at components, just seeing if there's a good reason to wait. From what i've read so far there's not much to be gained by waiting. I'll get around to it later this year I guess.

Sandy Bridge E is coming. The 2600K is really nice, and but if I were looking at buying soon I'd keep an eye on it, especially if video is a consideration.

http://forums.adobe.co​m/thread/903034?tstart​=0

etc, etc....

I'd never even heard of them, that's why I started the thread!

They sound like enthusiast chips for people who want to overclock or do real extreme processing. I don't think that's for me, i'm looking for good value and good performance, not extreme anything.

I suspect an i7 2700 will be a little faster than the old Core 2... benchmarks suggest 3-4 times faster. That'll help

The 2600 or later SB chip in a well-configured system would be night and day. I would definitely spend some time on that adobe.com Premiere Pro hardware forum though. Those folks are some serious puter/Adobe geeks, they saved me a lot of heartache when I built my CS5 machine.

Maybe I missed it...are you running Win7-64bit or 32bit?...if 32bit you can't add more RAM

Win7-64. I'm not spending more money on this PC though.

Well, AMD's Bulldozer lineup (desktop class) was originally targeted for a release this upcoming week, but word has it that the release date has been postponed one month. This will be AMD's answer to Intel's Sandy Bridge lineup. However, Intel's Ivy Bridge lineup is tentatively scheduled for next March.

So, if you definitely need it before February, I'd say wait until January or try and nab a holiday deal. At that point, both Intel and AMD will have good lineups out, albeit Intel releasing a new one a couple months later. Right now, Intel is the clear choice, and I don't think I could be convinced to go with AMD myself, but it's worth noting AMD's upcoming Bulldozer.

It'll be interesting to see, but I doubt AMD will be able to catch Intel, let alone pass them. I suspect i'll build a sandy bridge box in a few months.

hard to beat the value in a i72600K machine.

tim wrote in post #13120681
Win7-64. I'm not spending more money on this PC though.

I'm of the same opinion...pack all you can into a PC to fit your needs at the start and it'll meet your needs until you buy the next one...

I bought a DVR/PC eight years ago to tape tv and burn DVDs and it still does that just fine...
...I just added a bigger HDD, much like I do with my photo pc...always need more and more storage

I do think that the 2012 PC will be more capable of doing more things better, (today's optional features will be next year's standard, this year's high end will be next year's entry level PC) but if your needs are adequately fulfilled by this year's iteration, go for it...