PC Hardware Buyer's Guide Q4 2016

Should I Wait Before Upgrading?

After 4,000 words, we're wondering whether we should have led with this page. It's a new addition to the guide outlining what hardware you can expect to see in the coming months and an assessment of whether it's worth waiting to upgrade before pulling the trigger.

In reality, there's always new stuff coming if you wait long enough, but right now is a fairly unique time where there really is a lot of potentially game-changing hardware right around the corner, so unless you're desperate to get an upgrade or two in before Christmas we'd say it's well worth waiting to see what the start of 2017 brings.

For starters, Intel's Kaby Lake CPUs and Z270 chipset are imminent, and with them will come a whole range of motherboards from all the major manufacturers with feature bumps other minor improvements. It's unlikely to be a major change, since the new CPUs are really just a die-shrink rather than a new architecture, and Z170 boards will be compatible, but that means new models should launch at or near the same prices as the Z170 and H170 lineup counterparts, giving you more reason to wait and see.


Nvidia is also due to fill the gap between the GTX 1080 and Titan X Pascal, presumably with the GTX 1080 Ti, although that's only really relevant to users who are mainly enticed by our Premium Player build.

The main company to watch out for, however, is AMD. Its Zen processors and much-needed platform update to AM4 are set to launch in Q1 2017. The company just unveiled a new teaser event set for December 13th, and with Kaby Lake coming right at the start of the year the pressure is on for AMD to get Zen out the door as soon as possible. Currently, the focus seems to be on high-end parts set to compete with Intel's X99 platform, but in reality we'll just have to wait and see what the full lineup brings to table.

Lastly, AMD Vega GPUs, set to give Nvidia's high-end cards a run for their money, are also coming. That said, the only official information right now about the launch date is the first half of 2017, so it could be a guide or two more before we're able to assess their recommendation potential and their impact, if any, on current GPU pricing.


We hope you've found something of use in the newly revamped Hardware Buyer's Guide. Feel free to shout at us in the comments about how wrong we are, but really we'd love to have some constructive criticism about potential system building criteria we might have overlooked or how can make the guide more useful for you. In 2017, we'll look to add a section for things like peripherals and monitors – what would that look like, ideally? Either way, happy hardware hunting during the festive season!