Any big PC developments in 2016?

Luckily i am in a position where I am not forced to upgrade this year. But there are some GREAT things that are coming out from all parties.

CPU wise, we're looking at Zen & Kaby Lake. Zen being a 'tick' cycle which should show tremendous amount of improvements. Support for DDR4 memory above 32GB. I cross my fingers for some very trick integration with their CPU/APU & GPU combinations (using both systems as one processing unit). Which would turn Zen into a cutting edge technological Zen-like system.

Intel should have thier Kably lake processors out this year. This is a tock cycle, so expect there to be stability improvements versus skylake, but not too many feature improvements. Better power management for mobile applications, most likely a 5-10% increase in raw data processing, but nothing too amazing to brag about. If you're in need of building a system this year, I would wait for this if you're going for an intel side of things.

Nvidia's finally introducing HBM on their next GPU. This is exciting news with their new Pascal cards. Expect theses to be released and ironed out (most driver issues settled) by Q3 /early Q4. I wouldn't hold my breath for a comparable 980ti card until early next year.

AMD has their polaris cards coming out with the Radeon RX400 series cards. It's pretty exciting to see a new chip. The rumor is support for DP 1.3 (which is good for me with the testing I need to do) and support for HDMI 2.0a.

Will any of these be a game changer.... possibly, but most likely not. The Zen is a lifeboat for AMD, or a chance at one. If Zen pulls of a ton of new features and compatibility it will epic and amazing. Keep in mind it has been sometime since they've released a top-level high end desktop CPU/APU.

Intel... meh. Honestly I don't think you're going to see anything when it comes to major improvements, only stability.

GPU wise. NVIDIA will see a bit improvement.... AMD probably wont see a big improvement. Not to say one will be better than the other, but in comparison to themselves.

VR Headsets seem to be the talk of the town lately. Its too early to get invested in it at the moment. We're just at the cusp of what VR can do, investing now seems like a waste. Wait until the competitors weed each other out and improve. Also wait for the GPU's to pick up some power in order to power said headsets (which isn't there yet).

/r/buildapc Thread