Maybe you have already thought about what you want to buy for Christmas. MeinMMO presents you 3 things that you should better not buy during the holidays.
Christmas 2021 is just around the corner and many users are considering what gifts to get for others (or themselves). Especially hardware is currently in high demand and some people are tempted to finally treat themselves to something nice.
However, you should be careful with certain items, and we would even advise against placing some things under the Christmas tree or spending your Christmas money on them. MeinMMO presents you with a few products that you should not buy during the Christmas season.
Graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia at inflated prices
Graphics cards are currently among the most sought-after goods on the market, alongside gaming consoles. Availability is incredibly poor and the prices are correspondingly high. Additionally, greedy scalpers buy the few available graphics cards and then resell them for a hefty markup. There are also plenty of reasons why gamers currently cannot buy a graphics card.
We have already explained to you why the price of 700 euros for an RTX 3060 is not worth it and the situation hasn’t changed significantly since then. Currently, you cannot get a graphics card at the suggested retail price and are paying at least double. Experience shows that hardware prices usually rise again towards the end of the year.
If you are actually lucky enough to get the chance to buy a graphics card near the MSRP, you should seize the opportunity. We would advise against all other offers where you would have to pay double or more.
If you want to buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X, we recommend you check out our PS5 ticker on MeinMMO. Here we keep you up to date daily.
DDR5 RAM and suitable accessories
DDR5 was only released this year together with the latest Intel Alder-Lake processor. However, even here, availability is currently (as of December 22, 2021) severely limited and the available memory is very expensive.
Our colleagues from GameStar tested whether DDR5 provides an advantage in gaming compared to DDR4. In general, our colleagues note: The more performance is determined by the power of the graphics card, the less advantage DDR5 memory brings in benchmarks.
If you want to use DDR5 RAM, you currently need a new Intel processor and a suitable motherboard. If you don’t want to build a completely new computer right now, we would advise against investing a lot of money in DDR5 just yet.
Suitable motherboards for DDR5 are already available on the market, but you currently have to pay a hefty markup. For the Gigabyte motherboard Z690 Aorus Pro, for example, you pay over 300 euros, while a board with fewer features will still cost around 200 euros. For a motherboard with DDR4 and similar features, you pay 100 euros less.
| Preview | Product | Rating | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Gigabyte Motherboard Z690 Aorus Pro 1700 ATX 4xDDDR5, mehrfarbig* | Zu Amazon |
*Affiliate-Links. Wir erhalten bei einem Kauf eine kleine Provision von Amazon. Vielen Dank für Eure Unterstützung!
Prices are likely to improve once more products become available and AMD announces processors with DDR5 support. According to sources, AMD’s Zen 4 with DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 is expected to arrive in 2022. We will know more in January 2022 when AMD plans to announce a few things at CES 2022. You can find coverage of CES 2022 here on MeinMMO starting in January.
Notebooks with HDD and less than 8 GB of RAM
Even at the end of 2021, you can still buy laptops that either only have an HDD or less than 8 GB of RAM.
The obvious advantage is clear to everyone: For correspondingly weak hardware, you don’t pay much money and you can already get such devices for significantly less than 500 euros.
However, the supposed bargain is quite misleading, as the HDD slows down your computer and 4 GB of RAM quickly reaches its limits. Even Windows takes up a lot of memory, and an open browser with a few tabs can quickly leave the device out of breath.
Moreover, there is really no reason in 2021 to install your operating system on a slow HDD. Rather, there are plenty of reasons why you should buy an SSD.
In general, we would advise you to spend a little more money on a laptop.
- An SSD should be mandatory in 2021, as it can significantly increase performance. It is often worth replacing the HDD with an SSD in an old device.
- We would not buy a laptop with less than 8 GB of RAM, as less can limit quickly. 16 GB is even better. At least there should be an option to upgrade the installed RAM.
- Laptops become obsolete faster than desktop PCs and are not upgradeable. It is worth investing more money in the long term.
We have summarized further tips and tricks regarding laptop purchases in detail for you on MeinMMO:
What should you consider when buying a gaming laptop?
