In the calm before the storm of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, next week we'll be enjoying Amazon's Prime Early Access deals, a kind of miniature Prime Day event that kicks off on October 11. As the name suggests, this sale features exclusive deals for Amazon Prime subscribers and will serve as the first wave of discounts before the chaos of Black Friday.
We don't know if the Early Access sale will include particularly juicy deals on computer components, but the discounts will start piling up starting next week, probably increasing gradually until the floodgates open closer to Thanksgiving. With that in mind, we realize that many PC gamers will likely be keeping an eye out for computer component deals to upgrade their gaming rigs.
There's an important factor to consider here: Along with this huge amount of sales comes a lot of new hardware, from Nvidia's ultra-powerful GeForce RTX 4090 to new Arc graphics cards from Intel and next-generation Ryzen processors from AMD. This is a double-edged sword for anyone looking to upgrade their PC right now, and it's all too easy to get hacked.
You see, all of these new products are shaping up to be very effective components, and their timely release confers one big plus and one big minus. The first is simple; New computer parts almost always mean price reductions for the products they replace, so upcoming sale events could mean great deals on current-gen CPUs and GPUs.
The main drawback here is that buying these parts could create compatibility issues for you later, which could do the opposite of future-proofing your PC. Pass proof? Vanguard? It may be safer to buy a new gaming PC.
Analysis: Why you shouldn't buy a new processor yet
The thing is, most current-gen components are still very, very good. If you see a good deal on one of the best graphics cards, don't be afraid to buy it. The RTX 3000 series are excellent GPUs and will comfortably carry your gaming system for years to come, as long as you're not obsessed with playing the latest games in 4K at maximum graphics settings.
When it comes to processors, we're in much murkier waters. AMD's Ryzen 7000 chips have just arrived, bringing with it an entirely new chipset, so if you're representing Team Red you'll need to be careful as these processors will require a new AM5 motherboard. Sure, we'll probably get good sales on Ryzen 5000 processors, but then you're locked into the suddenly outdated AM4 motherboard socket.
Currently, you can only buy expensive new X670 motherboards if you want an AM5 processor. Thanks to the leaks reported by VideoCardz, we have an idea of the price of the cheapest B650 cards: they will mostly be between €200 and €300, depending on the feature set. However, like the X670 motherboards, they only use DDR5 memory; you might want to skip that DDR4 RAM upgrade if you plan on changing your motherboard any time soon.
This could mean that if you upgrade to the $5 Ryzen 7600 299X, you could end up paying almost as much (or more) for your motherboard. Upgrading to a 12th-gen Intel chip isn't a much more welcome prospect either, as it also requires a new LGA-1700 socket motherboard, and the 13th-gen Intel Core chip probably isn't that far off either.
In short, if you want a new GPU and aren't obsessed with being on the cutting edge of gaming graphics, go for it. But if you want one of the best processors, we'll be controversial and advise against buying for now. There is still a lot to see; 3D V-cache models of Ryzen 7000 processors are also coming at some point, and you don't want to kick yourself six months from now because a better option has arrived after you've committed to buying.