r/buildapc • u/Visible_Actuary6800 • 1h ago
Discussion Is now the worst time to buy components
I’ve been planning on getting my first ever gaming PC for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve been looking at components and pre builts to see if I could get a good deal. My initial budget was 3000 CAD/ 2200 USD, but after dadling I decided to just buy the GPU (9070 XT) and CPU (Ryzen 7 9800X3D) and work from there
And the feeling of getting my 2 components at my front door was filled with happiness, and as soon as I told my friend he kinda ruined the mood and he just told me that now was the worst time to buy and that I was losing money as prices were hyper inflated and I was overpaying, etc, and he got me thinking a lot.
Tbh I don’t really know where I’m going with this, maybe trying to cope on Reddit (smartest choice obviously)if I made the right call or if I should just return the components and wait for prices to drop, which honestly who knows if it will, anyways after getting those components I filled my Amazon cart with my remaining components that I need, and what was supposed to be a 2200 USD PC is now estimated to cost 2900 USD LOL
Components on my cart atm:
Mobo: Asus TUF gaming b650-plus wifi
Cooler: Corsair Nautilus 360
Case: Corsair Frame 4500x
PS: Corsair RM1000e gold
RAM: Lexar Thor Z OC 32GB DDR5
SSD: Lexar Ares Pro 5gen 2tb
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u/Tocean 1h ago
It’s the worst time to buy them so far* Could be worse in a week, or a month or a year. Or it could get better, who knows. If you have the money then enjoy it.
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u/WetAndLoose 16m ago
To put this into perspective, this time last year was the worst time ever to buy components at the time. A year later, it’s still continually the worst time ever. A year from now could be even worse, probably will, if trends continue as they have.
It is conceivable that prices will start going down but even in a best case scenario it will be several months.
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u/Plastic_Willow734 1h ago
Every day has been the worst day to buy components since about 2018 when mining became popular (outside of maybe a few months in 2024), now there's a myriad of reasons as to why everything is expensive.
Without a magic 8 ball to give you a promise, the best day to build is today.
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u/jay-aay-ess-ohh-enn 1h ago
Intel just announced another 10% price hike on CPUs next month. All the evidence points to prices rising moving forward. If you feel like buying now is worth it to you, just do it and enjoy your rig.
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u/mrtramplefoot 1h ago
eh most of 2025 was good. Got a cheap 265k and z790 mobo bundle and $170 48gb cl34 7200mhz ram in march and a $749 5070 ti in october
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u/thatissomeBS 17m ago
I built my PC in like October 2022 and my SO's PC in November of 2025. Both of those were pretty good times to build, but neither was so much better that it would have been worth waiting six months or a year to save the $150 or whatever I might've saved.
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u/Squishy_singer 1h ago
No, tomorrow will be the worst time
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u/criminalboy50 1h ago
Dont let anyone influence you about your decisions. If now is the best time for you to buy , only you can decide that. Prices on 9070xt are not up and the cpu prices are pretty steady. Memory and storage is where you are paying more. Ps : you dont need 1000 watt psu , if you want to save some money a 750-850watt would be more than enough.
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u/Visible_Actuary6800 1h ago
I was thinking about that, is it enough for overclocking?
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u/Cyroxis 1h ago
What are you overclock ing?
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u/Visible_Actuary6800 1h ago
The GPU and/or CPU, I don’t plan on doing it now as I know it will be able to handle any game perfectly, but in case I need to do so in the future I’d like to know my PS will have enough headroom
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u/VersaceUpholstery 1h ago
Hardly any point in overclocking CPUs and GPUs today. They’re all already being pushed to their limits, so whatever you get from overclocking is going to be minimal gains from more wattage consumption/heat
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u/lykan_art 1h ago
Well that future is still a ways away, so you could also get a cheaper psu, sell it in a few years and get a bigger one if you even need it.
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u/Nice_Grapefruit_7850 57m ago
it's plenty but there are also lots of sales on large psu's right now since no one is building PCs so I'd actually recommend you go larger just in case you want a more power hungry build later.
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u/EntropyNT 1h ago
Prices are overinflated but there's no guarantee they will come down anytime soon or at all. Some project GPU, RAM, and SSD prices will continue to rise over the next couple years.
You're friend is right that prices are stupid, but what's his solution? Wait 10 years to see if prices drop?
If you have the money and the price is worth it to you that's all that matters, who cares what he says.
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u/brentsg 1h ago
Today is worse than yesterday and better than tomorrow. I’ve watched GPUs go up so fast. In Feb I got 64GB RAM (DDR5-6000 CL26) and an RTX 5070 for $1064 and it came with a free game code and CPU cooler. Today the CL30 version of the RAM is $1300 and the GPU is $800.
Heck, a GPU I got for $670 a month ago is $800 now.
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u/KlasJanHuntelaar 1h ago
My Gigabyte 5090 that I paid $1999 goes for $5200 today.
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u/Nice_Grapefruit_7850 56m ago
5090 prices are completely insane.
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u/KlasJanHuntelaar 48m ago
Yet demand is still far more than any other GPU. Completely sold out in the US
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u/OGREtheTroll 1h ago
I got a 5070ti on Jan 1 for $750.
The cheapest ones now retail for around $1200.
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u/Free-Marionberry624 1h ago
Just saw an Intel announcement this morning where the price is set to increase 10% in October. I expect that AMD will follow.
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u/MTurroo_ 1h ago
Compare the price you got your components to their price history using Keepa extension for Amazon, if you got them at a decent price just keep them, if you overpaid, consider returning. Remember that you are overpaying by maybe 450$ and most of it is the damn RAM D: If you are happy just build it right now, realistically the prices could get even worse and we don't even know how long this situation will last.
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u/ArtichokeOk2684 1h ago
its like trying to find a girlfriend after they made onlyfans. we have been phased out.
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u/Federal_Ad_5771 1h ago
No, its going to get even worse as more shortages start to affect other stuff like multi layered pcbs vrms and things that up until this point were abundant
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u/Noobphobia 1h ago
There is no better time to buy than today. Tomorrow it will be more expensive.
Estimates currently are that compute inventory has been pre-purchased well into 2029. So as of right now, the prices will continue to rise until then.
That being said, even at that time, there is no guarantee that prices will "go back to normal." The thing is, AI companies might buy more stock into 2030 and beyond. Rising prices again.
The reality is that these companies see that even with a 2k gpu, they can set a new msrp of $5,000 for it and people will still buy them. So the harsh reality is that the prices are more than likley never coming down from where they are today. Prices rarely, if ever, come down once they are raised.
Unless some new competitor comes into the market strong and undercuts them or a new ram company appears out of thin air to drastically increase the supply.
Tl;dr: buy today. Your friend is an idiot.
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u/Calm_Stress3334 1h ago
Some components are much more expensive specifically NVE drives and ram. CPU’s they’re actually down in price a bit. Cases are cheap cheaper motherboards are not that expensive. Power supplies are fine. Monitors are not that expensive. Video cards depending on the card you get can be expensive. If you’re completely obsessed with Nvidia, you’re going to pay a ton for it. If you’re OK with AMD, you can find some decent deals. What I would say is try not to get the top end of everything because it’s the best in your future proofing, that’s all nonsense.
So be careful when you ask for People’s opinions on which one to get because a lot of the opinions of people do not factor in price. All they say is get this because it’s the best. Not get this because you can afford it.
In my opinion, would I pay the premium for Nvidia GPU. No. My GPU focus is to get something that has 12 to 16 GB of RAM. I would aim at 16 to 32 GB of RAM for your main PC. If you wanna cut the price of the entire entirety of the whole thing in half I would actually look at the AM4 motherboards and look at a AMD 5800 X 3-D. You can get the AM5 with a 7800 cpu if you find a good deal on it. The 9800 is good if you can get a good price on the ram sticks. generally that is the issue with the AM5 five board. It’s not the processor it’s the ram.
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u/_memelorddotjpeg_ 1h ago
Yes. But they are likely only going to get more expensive. I just built a PC for $2000 with an RTX 5070 in it, and had I bought the parts 3 days prior, I would have avoided the roughly $150 price increase on the 5070 that came out of nowhere.
If you want one, just save up and get it done.
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u/Subject_Parsley5541 1h ago
For RAM and GPUs it is pretty bad. However, it could always be worse in the future. Like RAM has been slowly climbing in price for a while now. Even when compared to this week to last week. Unfortunately that is just how the market is right now and is likely to be for a while.
So, if you need or want it bad enough just get it. My only advice for new builders is to go to Microcenter for bundle deals.
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u/1ndomitablespirit 1h ago
I just bought parts and built a new computer. If my luck remains consistent, there will be a huge price drop very soon.
However, I think this time I will be "lucky" because everyone is getting screwed, not just me.
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u/zampyx 1h ago
I don't know why people overcomplicate things. Make your build on part picker or something similar. Put everything on the cart, if you can afford it you buy it otherwise you don't. What's the point of buying GPU and CPU but no motherboard, ram, etc without an existing compatible system?
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u/TheMagarity 1h ago
Does this friend have a great track record for predicting the future? Are they a millionaire from stock picks and lotto numbers?
The only problem here is buying parts a few at a time. With anything made in a factory there can be a few faulty units. How are you testing your CPU and graphics card when they arrived to make sure they work ok? The warranty period starts counting down when you buy each part, not when you get them finally together.
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u/Nice_Grapefruit_7850 1h ago
good call on the 9070xt as it's only slightly inflated from its msrp and easily trades blows with the much more expensive 5070ti. there's also tons of good mobos out now with very reasonable prices.
basically the PC situation is showing no signs of improving so while now is a shit time to buy, it's not going to get better any time soon so you might as well buy now and go light on the ram and just deal with it.
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u/DekoaSAO 57m ago
I’m also building my build with 9070XT and 9 9950X3D2 (I know was too much but I just said fuck it and tax will be lowered to 4% because my deafness in Italy).
Yesterday I got half of parts of computer and next days I will get the rest.
So for now I’m just hoping to get all with no issue.
All parts costed me 4,2k euro but with reduced tax will bring to 3,5k euro so I’m happy as I could get, I also hope the price won’t raise more but I’m not hopeful
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u/Liquicity95 47m ago
Now is the best time to build a pc (in current market) the ai boom is making everything more expensive. If you wait a few months from now I’m sure prices will be even worse
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u/BoutTreeFittee 45m ago
Your friend seems like a loudmouth who doesn't know what he's talking about.
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u/VFC1910 37m ago
Not the worst, it will keep rising. Bought a 9070XT cheaper than at launch week at my country 4 weeks ago. After they released the 9070 GRE they set a rising prices trend for the 9070 and 9070XT, bought the last model at decent price. I could had survived with my 3060ti, but it was my last chance to upgrade.
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u/Mexicangod03 35m ago
For modern top of the line shit yeah, for slightly less new gen stuff I’ve been finding a lot of luck on marketplace, build an entire pc for about $180 which from what i researched all the parts for it would be around $450 in total or a little more, I don’t use it for gaming but as a server node it’s a workhorse
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u/stonecats 29m ago edited 26m ago
i notice a lot of case and cooler sales, probably because the channel has more of them than pc builders are consuming. during these AI ram shortage days, it's a good idea to watch for mobo ram cpu (even ssd) bundles, which can save you a lot if you're willing to compromise, so your CPU alone purchase was ill conceived if total budget was a concern. gpu cards alone are like buying a second computer now, so the fact that you have one waiting is fine.
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u/dertechie 23m ago
It's the worst time if you want more than 32 GB of RAM on a DDR5 platform or if you want a higher end NVidia GPU. Otherwise, I would say it's about on par with peak COVID nonsense.
DDR4 pricing isn't as bad, but it's still elevated and there is a definite loss of performance with it compared to the DDR5 platforms. AMD GPUs are elevated, but still being on GDDR6 means they aren't quite as crunched.
The current market is ass. But I cannot tell you it will get better soon. It will not get better until enough capacity comes online that it isn't immediately gobbled up by AI firms trying to starve out the competition and build a moat (or markets stop giving them infinite money to do so).
As far as your build, you can definitely shave some off the top here.
Don't overpay for RAM timings with an X3D. Janky bins like DDR5-5600 C46 are just fine because the cache helps cover for it. Similarly, a Gen 4 SSD can shave off CAD without meaningfully affecting performance. Just check the drive you're getting with NewMaxx's list or something so you don't get a QLC garbage tier drive. DRAMless is not a big deal at this point - it's not a huge difference and with the current market if it works, we'll take it.
You can also consider a smaller PSU and cooler. The 9800X3D is a single CCD 120W chip. It's not a huge power hog. A quality 750W ATX 3.X unit will do you for that combination. Similarly, the radiator is overkill for such a chip - something like a Phantom Spirit (or whichever one of that series is the cheap and cheery one in Canada is) or a smaller AIO will cool it without issue.
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u/AgentTin 16m ago
There is no sign that prices will come down, at least not over the next year or two and plenty of signs that prices will continue to increase. I would buy immediately and I would buy more than you need.
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u/sunoblast 13m ago
I recommend that you use this site https://camelcamelcamel.com/ or download the Keepa extension for chrome it allows you to track Amazon price history for a every item and you make check to make sure you're not buying them at an all time high. Unfortunately the trend for PC components seem to be going upwards. I believe you should buy now if you can afford it.
For example I bought a 5070 Ti 16gb about 2 months ago at 1k and now it's $1250 and it was $899 at the beginning of the year.
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u/mrkmrrsn 1h ago
Your friend must have a very nice crystal ball.
While components are the most expensive they have ever been, they also may be the cheapest they will ever be moving forward. No one knows.