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Picking Up Last Generation Bargains (Part 1)

1/20/2013 9:06:49 AM

The newest components are tempting, but you can save a lot of money by going for hardware that’s a little older

There’s always something tempting about owning the latest hardware. It’s hard to say exactly what makes it so enticing. Could it be the buzz of being one of the first to try new features? Knowing that you’re on the cutting edge? Having access to technologies almost no one else has undoubtedly all this and more.

The newest components are tempting, but you can save a lot of money by going for hardware that’s a little older

The newest components are tempting, but you can save a lot of money by going for hardware that’s a little older

As much fun as it is to drop your hard earned money on the latest components, there’s an inconvenient reality about the latest hardware. It’s not just desirable and impressive: it’s also over-priced and unnecessarily powerful. Let’s face it. We’re all aware that if the computing industry tried to keep up with the high end of technical capabilities, most of us wouldn’t have any hope of playing games or running common applications.

The average computer is running on hardware several years old. If you have the money to keep up with it, that’s great, but most of us can’t afford to keep our systems on the cutting edge.

However, the shrewd buyer knows that the real bargains can be found in old, previous-generation hardware. When new stuff goes on sale, retailers and manufacturers are keen to get rid of their old stock to free up space, both in warehouses and on shelves. That means, if you’re willing to wait, you can have a computer that’s consistently a little way ahead of the curve without having a bank account that’s consistently behind it.

To help you achieve this Nirvana-like balance of desire and fulfilment, we’ve done a few case studies of current generation hardware and compared them to their previous iteration to see if we can come up with a few rules about how you should approach buying previous generation hardware.

Intel CPUs

Intel’s processors are currently the undisputed kings of desktop computing, having fended off competition from AMD at all but the lowest end of the market, where AMD’s competitiveness is only assured through massive price cuts on ostensibly ‘better’ CPUs. Intel’s dominance has led the company into a difficult situation, though: it’s now competing with itself.

Intel Core i5 Processor

Intel Core i5 Processor

Current Generation: Ivy Bridge CPUs

Launched in April 2012, Ivy Bridge is the codename for Intel’s latest iteration of their desktop CPUs. Following up on 2011’s Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge chips are distinguished by their die-shrink of the microarchitecture from 32nm to 22nm and use of new Tri-Gate Transistors. Since they use the same socket, the chips and motherboards are backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge chips. The chips also add support for PCI Express 3.0, faster RAM, and improved graphics support and performance. One of the most popular Ivy Bridge chips, the Core i5-3570k, retails for $289 and has a Passmark CPU Mark score of 7,126.

Last Generation: Sandy Bridge CPUs

Developed to replace Intel’s Nehalem architecture, Sandy Bridge CPUs contained new GPU components and allowed for up to 16 logical cores (on eight physical) through Hyper-threading. A shift away from previous design philosophies, Sandy Bridge chips integrated the memory controller, graphics processor and central processing unit onto a single die, packaged as a processor.

The Sandy Bridge equivalent of the Core i5-3570k is the Core i5-2550k, which retails for $240 and has a Passmark CPU Mark score of 6,735, making it only 6% slower than the Ivy Bridge chip, but 17% less expensive. A clear bargain.

Radeon HD 6970

Radeon HD 6970

This does, of course, assume that you can live without the additional features Ivy Bridge offers. Looking at the differences between the two generations, the bulk of Ivy Bridge’s additions are tilted at the high-end of the PC market. PCI Express 3.0 support, multiple 4k display output and better support for faster RAM are all features that are unlikely to trouble someone simply looking to upgrade their processor. Clearly, if you’re building a high-end system from scratch, Ivy Bridge’s features will prove necessary, but if the objective is to speed up an existing system, Sandy Bridge currently gives a better deal.

However, what this demonstrates is the importance of doing your maths when you’re trying to decide whether a last-generation purchase makes sense or not. Ideally, you should measure the difference in performance between two pieces of hardware then compare the cost. We used Passmark’s readily available benchmark scores values as a way to quantify performance, but you can do it however you like - it could be the frame rate of a specific game, SSD drive capacity or even case volume. Whichever quality of the hardware you’re basing your decision on, that’s the one to quantify.

To turn the difference between the absolute values into a quantifiable relative one, all you have to do is divide the last generation values by the current generation values (i.e. Passmark 6,735 divided by Passmark 7,126, $240 divided by $289). The resulting answer will show you how the two generations compare, giving you the last generation’s performance /price/etc. as a percentage of the current generation’s. The higher the performance percentage is than the price percentage, the better the deal - ideally, you want the performance to be as close to 100%, and the price to be as far away from it, because that situation means the last generation of technology is almost as good as the first, but costs far less.

Remember, though, that if the price value is higher than the performance value, that’s bad - it means the current generation is more expensive for what it offers, even if the actual price is lower.

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