Wait for ampere or upgrade today?

[Glorious Leader]

Current specs:

Intel Core i5-4670K Processor
MSI Z97 Gaming 3
Sapphire Toxic R9 290X
Adata SU800 1tb SSD

The question is is it better to wait for next quarter when Ampere is supposed to be released or buy now. I'd like to have rtx and 1440p gaming. The video card is the most dire in need of an upgrade at this point.

[Shakadam]

If you want ray tracing then definitely wait. None of the current RTX cards are really all that great for that, the expectation is that Ampere and RDNA2 will have massively increased performance in this area.

[Dorfadin]

100% wait, the rtx 3070 which will be around 500 dollars will have same performance as 2080ti which costs like 1100 dollars.

[Temp name]

If you can wait, then wait. We're looking at 2-3 months for Ampere/RDNA2, so it's not particularly long. Worst case, they're a 5-10% performance bump, but cost the same. Best case you're looking at 40-50% performance bump for the same price, with even more benefit in ray tracing applications.

[Thunderball]

It doesnt matter what the time it is, there's always something around the corner. The question you need to ask yourself is if you need it now. By the wording in your question says you dont. Also, take note that midrange Ampere probably wont be available until Q2 2021.

[Anevers]

Wait if you can. Your patience will be rewarded.

[Temp name]

It doesnt matter what the time it is, there's always something around the corner. The question you need to ask yourself is if you need it now. By the wording in your question says you dont. Also, take note that midrange Ampere probably wont be available until Q2 2021.

Mid-range cards usually come 2-3 months after the high end cards. So if high end cards come in August, I'd expect mid-range to come in October or November. But also considering that OP has a 290x, he's more likely looking at the 3070 or above, all of which are in the high end stack, so should launch at the August/September window.. If current leaks are to be believed anyway.

And there's not "always something around the corner". Especially in GPU-Land. There's about 18 months between launches in the same price range.

[Thunderball]

Mid-range cards usually come 2-3 months after the high end cards. So if high end cards come in August, I'd expect mid-range to come in October or November. But also considering that OP has a 290x, he's more likely looking at the 3070 or above, all of which are in the high end stack, so should launch at the August/September window.. If current leaks are to be believed anyway.

And there's not "always something around the corner". Especially in GPU-Land. There's about 18 months between launches in the same price range.

Nvidia 16 series came out almost 5 months after 2080 and 2080 Ti. 2060 launched earlier but noone bought it, even miners. 1060 in theory released just a couple weeks after 1080 but the availability wasnt there until late September due to miners, and affected AMD cards aswell so that's not too examplary I guess. I dont see all those launching August/September at all. I think AMD is going to launch very late into the year because their stuff just doesnt look to be ready at all, and will all the shipment delays I dont see stuff being available this year at all. Nvidia are comfortable so I dont think they're going to launch much earlier than AMD (they likely are not going to do a paper launch for that reason either, unless they have to be ahead of AMD), so if I were buying I wouldnt expect any availability for any cards (AMD or Nvidia, midrange or high end) this year.

For the price range and his criteria it's probably has to be a "3070", but still I dont see them being available to buy this year. "3080" and "3080Ti" if you preorder - maybe, everything else - highly unlikely.

[Glorious Leader]

Nvidia 16 series came out almost 5 months after 2080 and 2080 Ti. 2060 launched earlier but noone bought it, even miners. 1060 in theory released just a couple weeks after 1080 but the availability wasnt there until late September due to miners, and affected AMD cards aswell so that's not too examplary I guess. I dont see all those launching August/September at all. I think AMD is going to launch very late into the year because their stuff just doesnt look to be ready at all, and will all the shipment delays I dont see stuff being available this year at all. Nvidia are comfortable so I dont think they're going to launch much earlier than AMD (they likely are not going to do a paper launch for that reason either, unless they have to be ahead of AMD), so if I were buying I wouldnt expect any availability for any cards (AMD or Nvidia, midrange or high end) this year.

For the price range and his criteria it's probably has to be a "3070", but still I dont see them being available to buy this year. "3080" and "3080Ti" if you preorder - maybe, everything else - highly unlikely.

Worse comes to worse I wait till october or novemeber and cyber monday deals happen on cards. Cyberpunk doesn't come out till then anyway.

[seamnstr]

Just wait, you have already waited 7 years, another couple of months won't be very long in comparison. For the future you should probably go for slightly cheaper GPU's and upgrade them more often.

[Belloc]

100% wait, the rtx 3070 which will be around 500 dollars will have same performance as 2080ti which costs like 1100 dollars.

Be careful when talking about pricing. There's a very strong chance that these cards are going to be way more expensive than their current-gen equivalents.

[Temp name]

Nvidia 16 series came out almost 5 months after 2080 and 2080 Ti. 2060 launched earlier but noone bought it, even miners. 1060 in theory released just a couple weeks after 1080 but the availability wasnt there until late September due to miners, and affected AMD cards aswell so that's not too examplary I guess. I dont see all those launching August/September at all. I think AMD is going to launch very late into the year because their stuff just doesnt look to be ready at all, and will all the shipment delays I dont see stuff being available this year at all. Nvidia are comfortable so I dont think they're going to launch much earlier than AMD (they likely are not going to do a paper launch for that reason either, unless they have to be ahead of AMD), so if I were buying I wouldnt expect any availability for any cards (AMD or Nvidia, midrange or high end) this year.

For the price range and his criteria it's probably has to be a "3070", but still I dont see them being available to buy this year. "3080" and "3080Ti" if you preorder - maybe, everything else - highly unlikely.

The 1060 launch wasn't indicitive of normal launch windows, since it was around the miner craze as you said. And as you said, the 2060 launched within the 2-3 month window as I said, and since no one bought it, it was in fantastic stock.
The xx70 cards usually launch with their big brothers, the xx80 and xx80ti's, and it shouldn't take too much effort or luck to get one on launch day if you insist. The problem comes a week or month down the line, where everything is backordered to fuck.

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Be careful when talking about pricing. There's a very strong chance that these cards are going to be way more expensive than their current-gen equivalents.

Considering the massive price hike we just had going from 1000 to 2000 series, we're probably going to see this pricing stick for a while, maybe with a 5-10% bump.

[Dorfadin]

i think the next gen consoles will drive down the prices on the new graphics cards, 500 dollars for the console with rtx 2080 performance

[Thunderball]

The 1060 launch wasn't indicitive of normal launch windows, since it was around the miner craze as you said. And as you said, the 2060 launched within the 2-3 month window as I said, and since no one bought it, it was in fantastic stock.
The xx70 cards usually launch with their big brothers, the xx80 and xx80ti's, and it shouldn't take too much effort or luck to get one on launch day if you insist. The problem comes a week or month down the line, where everything is backordered to fuck.

Well I'm just gonna say this. I bought my 1070 2 months after it was announced, which I preordered, and got 2 2070s for my clients a month after it was announced (and it was announced 2 weeks after the big boys), was preordered aswell. Tbf mine was a custom card, and 2070s were reference. Also need to add that my shipping times from China are now 11 weeks up from normal 3. People who need the information will figure it out.

[Xar226]

The question is is it better to wait for next quarter when Ampere is supposed to be released or buy now. I'd like to have rtx and 1440p gaming. The video card is the most dire in need of an upgrade at this point.

My current specs are a bit better than yours, but I am definitely waiting both for the 3000-series Nvidia cards and to see what the new AMD processor release rumored for this year looks like in benchmarks. I primarily use my desktop for gaming so I suspect Intel will still be on top, but AMD is making it interesting enough to be a serious competitor.

That said, keep in mind that new usually equates to more expensive so in addition to the actual wait and potential supply issues, you may also be paying more. If that's not feasible just be on the lookout for good deals as people try to dump current generation stock.

[Blackmist]

The 20X0 series of cards is more for developers to experiment with raytracing than for end users to play games on. The budget friendly 2060 can't really do 60fps with RTX on, so what's the point?

I would expect the next set of cards to be catering more to what developers need to do with them, rather than finger-in-the-air guesswork.

[Glorious Leader]

The 1060 launch wasn't indicitive of normal launch windows, since it was around the miner craze as you said. And as you said, the 2060 launched within the 2-3 month window as I said, and since no one bought it, it was in fantastic stock.
The xx70 cards usually launch with their big brothers, the xx80 and xx80ti's, and it shouldn't take too much effort or luck to get one on launch day if you insist. The problem comes a week or month down the line, where everything is backordered to fuck.

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Considering the massive price hike we just had going from 1000 to 2000 series, we're probably going to see this pricing stick for a while, maybe with a 5-10% bump.

So basically make sure I have cash in hand ready to go day 1 or better yet preoder?

[RuneDK]

Current specs:

Intel Core i5-4670K Processor
MSI Z97 Gaming 3
Sapphire Toxic R9 290X
Adata SU800 1tb SSD

The question is is it better to wait for next quarter when Ampere is supposed to be released or buy now. I'd like to have rtx and 1440p gaming. The video card is the most dire in need of an upgrade at this point.

I'd upgrade that cpu before i upgraded to Turing or Ampere. That's going to bottleneck these cards.

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i think the next gen consoles will drive down the prices on the new graphics cards, 500 dollars for the console with rtx 2080 performance

Same, im thankful for once that consoles are releasing around the same time as the GPU's...should keep Nvidia slightly modest w/ pricing...and if AMD can get RDNA2 out before them with fairly decent performance then Nvidia will have no choice to but be much more consumer friendly w/ their prices.

[Glorious Leader]

I'd upgrade that cpu before i upgraded to Turing or Ampere. That's going to bottleneck these cards.

I have to do this one piece at a time. The current bottleneck is the video card. After that Ill look into investing in a new cpu and mobo.

[willtron]

i think the next gen consoles will drive down the prices on the new graphics cards, 500 dollars for the console with rtx 2080 performance

Wrong. They'll go up because Nvidia know people will pay for it.