2025.04.30
This I've been trying to research the best new machine to replace my always ailing never dying 730x.
I missed the last great GPU sale (Black Friday) before the next big release of 2025, prices went crazy, and I consider myself reasonably priced out of the market.
So instead I take a half step, which for me is still a great big step, with a 5 year old refurb office box, slap the best recent low power GPU into it, and I've got a Windows 10 box for the rest of the year. Not sure what happens when Windows 10 support stops, but considering I spent 5 years in support expired Windows 7 I'm not concerned.
Once I move all my data forward, I'll be fine until prices get reasonable.
Just a quick check at MicroCenter...
9800x3d out of stock, was $479.99,
9070 xt out of stock, was $700-800 depending on brand
By the time you add in a decent motherboard, ram, nvme, etc. we're getting near $2k.
And that's without a monitor. If I'm building a high end 1440p machine, might as well go OLED, so there's another $1k - which is not the GPUs fault, actually OLED prices are only getting better - but it was getting to be a huge bottleneck to just upgrade my computer.
Better to move forward on Windows (7 -> 10), data storage (hdd -> ssd), and working on a better backup policy for now.
