Black Friday deals normally aren't that great. But the worst time to buy is right before black friday since they jack up prices before, so they can mark them as "on sale". Same for other sales like Christmas time.
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Yeah, I totally agree with your point. Better to buy a month or 2 before Black Friday to avoid the surge.
I go with second-hand hardware. Depending on your needs might be good savings.
I don't really mind second hand stuff at least for GPUs and other expensive stuff but the only thing I am worried about is verifying if it works, i.e to avoid being scammed.
Especially with the 40 series and AM5 finishing its rollout.
Am4 chips, DDR4 and 30 series GPUs have been really common on clasifieds.
My experience is that sales are unlikely to cover a component you want anyway. If they are right around the corner, then sure why not, but otherwise just enjoy your new computer sooner rather than definitely waiting to maybe get a deal.
Do check price history though to see if something you're interested in is currently overpriced or regularly on sale.
Yeah, I guess I need to stop waiting for the perfect price. Thanks will keep an eye out on the price history!
That's the other thing I didn't talk about in my comment and I should have. You're absolutely right. Every month of the year there is some kind of deal and it's probably not for the component you're Jonesing for because it's new. Couple that with inflation and it just makes waiting for a deal or sale not interesting to the consumer, especially now when particular components are just increasing in price all the time, like graphics cards. I'm starting to suspect that RAM is going to go up in price, too, along with graphics cards. This is why a lot of people are looking at second-hand components. I actually would have done the second-hand route, but I didn't have a case. I had to start from "this is my mother board I want, this is the case that is compatible." Now that I have a case and a motherboard, I just have to cross my fingers and hope ten years into the future I can make use of either one of those. My bet is on the casing. Perhaps motherboards will continue the design trend of my case. But, then again, cooling fans are now needed as part of the casing. Maybe in the future we'll need 10 fans instead of 3 or 4. LOL Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if some retail speculators wouldn't feel enticed to buy some PC components now to sell them for more later to benefit from this pricing trend.
You can look on pcpartpicker. They usually have a graph holding price history. You can see when it was last one sale and make a choice to wait or buy then. Note: I would suggest against buying parts only on sale as if you buy, say a mobo and don’t buy the rest and you can’t test it. That might leave you stuck trying to do warranty claim instead of a store return. Good luck!
Yeah I did check pcpartpciker, just wanted to get an opinion on if there are any other resources that I could use. Thanks for the advice! I will try to buy everything together to avoid the return issue.
Are you in the USA? Black Friday would be one such day. Amazon Prime Days might be good too. I recall some of the holidays there can have good sales, I have a vague memory of picking up pretty cheap CF cards off Amazon US during either 4th July or Labour Day or some US holiday.
Yup, I am in the US. I do see some offers but a lot of what I have heard is they jack up the prices before and for big events like Black Friday and then give a discount on it. So it doesn't make sense as it might not be that far off from the original price. Maybe Labor day and other holidays could have better offers.
Start shopping second hand locally NOW. Try your luck
I was casually GPU shopping for a month hoping for an intel price drop on the 16GB 770 before I found a guy asking $500AUD (About $320 us) for a rx6700xt near me, the ad was 3 weeks old. I messaged him and said "Its not really the card I was shopping for but can be there with $350 ($225usd) in 10 minutes" and he said yes after a little back and forth.
That was like 6 months ago and I still havent seen a 6700xt as cheap as what I got mine for.
Thanks I will definitely check out for second hand stuff!
https://youtu.be/RKgo-DWEKeY?si=YBa8FzkzK-uMTWCY
Give this a look too if you arent super knowledgeable about buying used.
Will check this out. Thanks!
Dependig on where you live, use a price tracker. For example geizhals.at for german speaking countries. That's what I did with my PC.
After buying every single part, I checked what the highest prices in the last 3 months were and in summary I saved about 600€ in total. PC costed 2400€.
That makes sense to get a general trend within a short timeframe of the price for specific parts and buy it when it seems to be the lowest. Thanks!
I actually just bought parts for and built a new PC this week after waiting a little while to see how prices were going to fluctuate. I built a PC for gaming, so my situation might be different from yours. I decided to do it now instead of waiting because prices aren't doing anything but go up, especially when it comes to dedicated graphics cards and SSDs. I bought a high-end graphics card because I predicted that its price would only go up, not down, no matter what kind of sale event is happening, along with all the other graphics cards that aren't as "powerful." I DID get some discounts for "back to school" as well as a cashback special from ASUS for my motherboard. Also, I saved a ton of money by buying a motherboard without onboard WIFI or Bluetooth. I just bought adapters which came out cheaper in my case. I encourage you to check up on the latest news about computer components and pricing. I think you'll notice what I did: prices for certain components are only going to increase in the next few months (and the next year). It's kind of like when there's a gas crisis. If you suspect gas prices are only going to increase, you fill up your gas tank every day to save money, even if your gas tank is 3/4 full. I preferred to pay what I did for the graphics card now instead of paying more later. Anyway, I'm just telling you what I've done to help you decide how you want to proceed. I'm not telling you that you have to do it this way.
Yeah, I guess I do need to make the decision sooner or later. How much did you save on using an adapter card for WiFi and Bluetooth instead of an all included motherboard? Just curious. Thanks!
I saved about 100 euros. I was looking at a motherboard with wifi and bluetooth included that was about 280 euros. I got one without for 156. Then, I ordered TP-Link adapters that connect via USB that cost about 18 euros each. I'm getting 25 euros cash back from ASUS for the motherboard. I can afford to give up the USB ports because the motherboard has 8 USB connectors. If you wanted to get a card, well, I think that could be cheaper than USB dongles, depending on where you buy it. I went with the dongles because they're easy to sell later if I decide I don't want them anymore.
Wow. That sounds like a sweet deal. Thanks for the advice !