Waiting until 2026 is honestly overkill and you might regret losing two years of good performance just to save a few quid. I remember holding off on an upgrade once because I thought some revolutionary chip was coming, but I ended up just being stuck with a laggy PC for eighteen months for no real reason. It was miserable. Be careful about waiting for the perfect moment because in the tech world it basically never happens. If you want to upgrade sooner, I would suggest these:

• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core 5.0GHz 96MB L3 Cache for pure gaming power.
• AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core 5.6GHz 76MB Cache if you want more cores for that 4k editing. AM5 is gonna be around for a while so you wont be left behind on a dead socket. Just grab something now or maybe wait for the next X3D drop, but 2026 is definitely too long to wait...

Saw this thread earlier and felt like I should weigh in since the timing for a build refresh is tricky right now. To add to the point above: waiting until 2026 is probably too much of a sacrifice for your current workflow, but I would suggest being extremely careful about which platform you choose today if you buy now. If you want this build to actually last five years, you really need to look at the socket longevity above everything else. Personally, I might want to consider going with the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2GHz 8-Core over anything Intel has on the market at this very moment. The main reason is that the current Intel LGA 1700 socket is basically a dead end, whereas the AM5 platform from AMD should see support for at least a couple more generations. You mentioned 4k editing and multitasking, so you might also look at the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4.7GHz 12-Core if you need more cores for those video exports. Buying into a dead socket right before a major shift is exactly the mistake you want to avoid. I would honestly be cautious about pulling the trigger on an Intel Core i7-14700K 3.4GHz 20-Core today because you wont have any path forward without a total motherboard swap later. Tbh, if you can hold out just a few more months for the 2024 architecture refreshes, you will get that fresh socket you are worried about without wasting two years of your life on a lagging i5.

Waiting that long is a massive performance tax. In my experience, UK Black Friday discounts on high-end silicon are usually pretty marginal, maybe 10-15% max... kinda underwhelming tbh.

• Are you planning to stick with your current case and PSU for the next build?
• Does your 4K editing workflow favor high clock speeds or multi-threaded performance? Usually the productivity gains from upgrading now far outweigh whatever small savings youre gonna find two years down the line.

> Waiting until 2026 is honestly overkill and you might regret losing two years of good performance Building on the earlier suggestion, I totally agree that waiting two years is basically tech torture! Seriously, youre missing out on so much speed right now. Since youre doing 4k editing plus heavy gaming, you really need to look at the brand split because the spec data is wild! If you want raw multi-threaded power for those 4k exports, the Intel Core i7-14700K 20-Core Processor is an absolute unit. It has those extra efficiency cores that make multitasking with a million tabs feel like nothing! But if youre leaning more into gaming, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core 16-Thread Processor is a literal legend. That 3D V-Cache is magic for 1440p frame rates, honestly! It fits right in your 400 quid budget too. The big thing is the socket life tho. Intel is switching sockets soon, so buying 14th gen now means no more upgrades on that board. Meanwhile, AMDs AM5 platform is promised to be supported through 2027, which is fantastic for your 5-year plan! Check out the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core 24-Thread Processor if you want a perfect middle ground for editing and gaming. Dont wait until 2026, life is too short for a slow PC!

Regarding what #3 said about "Waiting that long is a massive performance tax...."

• I actually disagree a bit, but mostly from a stability perspective. I remember back when I upgraded to a launch-day platform thinking it would be future-proof, but I spent the first six months dealing with constant BSODs while trying to export my 4K projects. It was a total nightmare for my workflow and honestly made me regret the jump. Being a more cautious builder these days, I value a platform that works out of the box over chasing the absolute bleeding edge. Instead of waiting until 2026, which is ages away, maybe look at a proven workhorse that has already had its bugs ironed out. Something like the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is solid as a rock right now and fits your 400 quid budget perfectly. It handles heavy multitasking and 4k timelines way better than your 10400 ever could. Waiting two more years on that old i5 sounds like a recipe for frustration, especially with how demanding modern video codecs are getting. Better to get something reliable today that wont give you technical headaches for years to come.