PC Hardware Buyer's Guide Q2 2017

Should I Wait Before Upgrading?

This is always a question on everyone's lips before upgrading, as there's always new gear on the horizon, and if you only get yourself up to scratch on current hardware at upgrade time, it can be hard to know what's coming and whether it's likely to be any good. This section is dedicated to outlining what's likely to be released in the next few months and whether it should give you pause for thought.

With Intel's Z270 chipset and Kaby Lake CPUs now out of the door and the same being true of AMD's Ryzen, the time for many people to pick between the two is right now. That said, there are still some extras to come from AMD that might give certain people a reason to hold off.


Firstly, AMD is still yet to release the Ryzen 3 range of CPUs, and it's these that are going to bring the fight to Intel in the crucial £90-£160 price bracket (or thereabouts). This is mainly likely to affect anyone shopping on a fairly tight budget and interested most in our Affordable All-Rounder system, so if that's you and you're not desperate for an upgrade, it's worth waiting to see what AMD comes up with. After all, we've swapped two of our four systems to Ryzen in the wake of its launch, so a third could well be on the cards as well.

The other interesting Ryzen launch will be mini-ITX hardware, especially as AMD has developed specific chipsets for it. That hasn't stopped some manufacturers like Biostar revealing mini-ITX motherboard designs based on the X370 chipset, but either way for small form factor fans the market could become very interesting again in the next few months – we certainly hope so.


As far as we know, Vega's official launch date is still slotted in for the second half of this year, meaning that we should see it by the end of June. We and virtually everyone else in this industry really hope this is the case, as in our eyes it can't come soon enough. Concrete details are thin on the ground, but Vega has the potential to shake up the high-end GPU market, so if you're considering anything above the RX 580 8GB or GTX 1060 6GB, well, two months isn't that long to wait.

Lastly, don't forget that Computex 2017 is barely a month away, where all the brands you know and love will be showcasing new hardware. Much of it won't arrive until later in the year, but there's usually some that come out either at the show or just after - stay tuned to bit-tech for coverage direct from Taipei on May 30th-June 1st.

That's it for another few months! As ever, we hope you've found something useful here, or at least something to have a nice debate about. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments, and happy upgrading!