Back in Spring 2011, I bought a shiny i5-2500K (Sandy Bridge) for my gaming PC… and never looked back. I’ve never had to touch this sturdy, unrelenting CPU. I never even bothered figuring out how to overclock it (which maybe contributed to its longevity); it just always worked great, and kept on going and going and going.

However, when I realized my DDR3 RAM was no longer one but two generations out of date… I had to admit it was time to upgrade.

Obviously, Intel has earned my loyalty with the i5-2500k, and I’m not seriously looking at other CPU brands. I have my eye on a sexy little i5-13600KF with a nice new LGA1700 motherboard, and I fully expect that combo to last me another decade.

However, I’ve been out of this game for a long, long time. I seek your advice. Would I be a fool to buy now? When will the next generation be out? Is the next generation going to be leaps and bounds ahead of the current gen, or just an incremental improvement? Eight or nine years from now, am I going to feel like a chump for grabbing Raptor Lake when I could have waited a few more months for Arrow Lake?

Thank you in advance for your advice.