Jeez. You know, I was actually concerned that I had chosen a bad time to get my CPU, mobo, RAM and GPU last summer, what with everyone talking about what was to come. Now, I'm thrilled that I did because I paid $300CAD for my R5-3600X (no 3600 was available in my region at the time). I used it on my ASRock X370 Killer SLI motherboard because the X570s (hell, even the B550) motherboards were completely out to lunch on pricing. That really is a MAJOR advantage with AMD compared to Intel. Since I was able to drop my R5-3600X into my X370 board, I was able to wait and bide my time and wait indefinitely for a sale to come or I could say "Screw PCI-e 4.0" and just stick with X370. I wanted a Gigabyte motherboard but for some reason, Canada Computers put the ASRock X570 Pro4 motherboard on clearance!!! I was like, "An X570 motherboard on CLEARANCE in late 2020?!" I figured that there must be something wrong with it!
Of course, I started searching the web for reviews on it thinking (this might be a terrible board). Well, I was pleasantly shocked because it was one of the few (if not the only) ASRock X570 motherboard that Steve WASN'T disgusted with. So, with it having so many goodies that I wanted, I bought it. Then I waited for DDR4-3200 to go on sale and managed to grab the last Team Dark DDR4-3200 16GB kit that Canada Computers had.
Getting things piecemeal like this ensured that EVERYTHING that I bought was on some great sale. I even lucked out on my RX 5700 XT. The MSRP of the RX 5700 XT was $400USD and I paid $480CAD which was $369USD at the time (I couldn't say no to that). As I look now, the idea that I paid LESS than MSRP while living OUTSIDE of the USA just boggles my mind.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging because this was pure luck, not skill. Ordinarily, I would never have purchased components less than six months before the launch of the next-gen parts because they drive the prices down even further. I wasn't good, I wasn't wise... I was simply fortunate. I'm just using it as an example of how screwed up the industry and marketplace were in 2020. By doing what would ordinarily be something so stupid that I'd normally never consider it, I somehow ended up ahead.
Go Firgure.