I have an older PC that runs our plex, that was still on Windows 7 (was at our house up north, not on the Internet, so no big deal). However, we are spending more time up there, and slow cell Internet is . . . blah. So we are going to upgrade to fiber up there (Fiber made it to our house in the woods sooner than our main house in the suburbs) and will be streaming. So the PC is going to be connected again, and I don't want it on Windows 7 any more. I upgraded to Windows 10, and boy is it slow now. I did discover it's able to run Windows 11, but I'm afraid of what they will do to it. So I've been shopping parts.
Microcenter has the 7600x3d on sale right now, and there are motherboard bundles. I'm noticing $100 difference between boards that support PCIe 5.0 vs 4.0. Do I need 5.0? Not right now, with my old, trusty, and plenty capable 1080ti that runs everything I do great. However, when I DO want to upgrade. . . .
That's my roadblock right now. Even though I don't feel like dropping a bunch of money on a new GPU, I eventually will. Do I spend the $100 now to support 5.0? Much of what I'm reading says that a 5.0 card in a 4.0 slot see negligible degradation in performance. It's not until you exceed the GPU's built in memory that the bus slows things down noticeably. Will I ever play a game that uses that much memory? When will that game come? What will my next GPU be? If I was to buy one now, which one would it be? I'm looking at benchmarks and stuff and it seems like the jumps in performance aren't very big. I'm seeing past generation cards outperforming new cards. Why? What do the new cards do that the old can't? What the fuck is going on?
Share your GPU knowledge.
New PC build
New PC build
Wish I could help you, but it's been over a decade since I've built my own PC and 4 years since I've bought one with any focus on the GPU.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
Same. havent built anything in a while. and bought a prebuilt pc
It's not me, it's someone else.
New PC build
I built my current PC in 2021, got everything but the GPU and still running the 1080 that Leisher gave me almost 10 years ago. I did get the PCIe 5.0 for future expansion, but if i'll ever need it, who knows.
The 1080 and especially the 1080Ti are considered great value long lasting cards that many people are still using. I'd say i probably play more AAA game titles than you do and i can still get good frames usually on medium to low settings on a 2K monitor. I'm not in the market to get a new card right now and hoping i get another 3+ years out of it. So as long as yours keeps running, id play it till it dies.
You are correct that the new gen cards dont really surpass older cards by all that much. But if i were to get one today i'd probably go with the 3080Ti for around $400 or if you're ok with AMD cards a 6700XT 12GB for around $250. that one might not outperform your 1080Ti by too much though.
The 1080 and especially the 1080Ti are considered great value long lasting cards that many people are still using. I'd say i probably play more AAA game titles than you do and i can still get good frames usually on medium to low settings on a 2K monitor. I'm not in the market to get a new card right now and hoping i get another 3+ years out of it. So as long as yours keeps running, id play it till it dies.
You are correct that the new gen cards dont really surpass older cards by all that much. But if i were to get one today i'd probably go with the 3080Ti for around $400 or if you're ok with AMD cards a 6700XT 12GB for around $250. that one might not outperform your 1080Ti by too much though.
WORLD CHAMPIONS!!
New PC build
Things I'm wondering about the new GPU benchmarks.
The 1080ti gets around 8k for a score. A new $$350 card gets 10k for a score, and a new $700 gets like 12k or something. That being said, the 1080 doesn't do ray tracing. Is that why the $350 card only has 10k? Because it's doing ray tracing? Is the $700 card only at 12k because it's doing ray tracing at 4k, where the other cards are at 2k or 1080p? The review sites just aren't as good as they used to be where they would show frame rates at a bunch of different settings, in a bunch of different games, and you can see where they fall short, where they jump ahead, etc. Now, you just get some arbitrary 'score' and they don't go into what 'is' that score.
Same with the CPU. If you look at benchmark scores, the Core 7 ultra blows the AMD chips out of the water. By a lot. In both single and multi thread tests. But if you read about which one you should get, everyone says "AMD". And that's about the depth of their recommendation. No details. No supporting evidence. Just "Get the AMD. It's better.". But it's got 12k fewer points for a score and it's $45 more than the Ultra. . .
Review sites are shit now. Just have to trust the fan boys?
The 1080ti gets around 8k for a score. A new $$350 card gets 10k for a score, and a new $700 gets like 12k or something. That being said, the 1080 doesn't do ray tracing. Is that why the $350 card only has 10k? Because it's doing ray tracing? Is the $700 card only at 12k because it's doing ray tracing at 4k, where the other cards are at 2k or 1080p? The review sites just aren't as good as they used to be where they would show frame rates at a bunch of different settings, in a bunch of different games, and you can see where they fall short, where they jump ahead, etc. Now, you just get some arbitrary 'score' and they don't go into what 'is' that score.
Same with the CPU. If you look at benchmark scores, the Core 7 ultra blows the AMD chips out of the water. By a lot. In both single and multi thread tests. But if you read about which one you should get, everyone says "AMD". And that's about the depth of their recommendation. No details. No supporting evidence. Just "Get the AMD. It's better.". But it's got 12k fewer points for a score and it's $45 more than the Ultra. . .
Review sites are shit now. Just have to trust the fan boys?
New PC build
Bought a 7800X3D and motherboard bundle for just over $500 a few weeks ago. Then Microcenter put the 9800X3D with a motherboard bundle on sale for $550. So I returned (hadn't started the build yet) the 7800 and bought the 9800. I also bought 32GB of CL30 RAM with the 7800, and returned it with everything else because I was reading that CL36 is cheaper and when in game, you don't really notice a difference. So I figured I could save money there. Turns out, RAM prices jumped in the last few weeks and the CL36 is now priced the same as the CL30 from 3 weeks ago. So there would be no savings! They allowed me to 'unreturn' the RAM so I kept the CL30 at the lower ($80 price difference) price.
I also grabbed an 'open box' racing sim setup for over 50% off (seat and control stands). It's a cheaper, entry level setup. But given how janky my current setup is, it's a good upgrade.
I'm skipping the video card for now. My current 1080ti does what I want, so I'm not excited to just spend another $700 when I don't know what benefits it will bring. I thought I'd be able to get into 2k/4k ray tracing, etc. But even at $1200, the results are meh frame rates. So it seems like I'll just go from 90 to 200 FPS or something like that. Sure, that's better. But do I need it? Especially when my monitors only do 75Hz.
I also grabbed an 'open box' racing sim setup for over 50% off (seat and control stands). It's a cheaper, entry level setup. But given how janky my current setup is, it's a good upgrade.
I'm skipping the video card for now. My current 1080ti does what I want, so I'm not excited to just spend another $700 when I don't know what benefits it will bring. I thought I'd be able to get into 2k/4k ray tracing, etc. But even at $1200, the results are meh frame rates. So it seems like I'll just go from 90 to 200 FPS or something like that. Sure, that's better. But do I need it? Especially when my monitors only do 75Hz.
New PC build
Not particularly.
Although RAM and GPU prices are going up because of AI, so if you're waiting out some price decrease, you'll be waiting a long time.
I am skipping my normal "it's been 4 years, time for a new PC" and I'm going to wait until a graphics card comes along that really makes a difference worth the price. No new games are remotely close to taxing my current system, so why upgrade now?
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
Ya, that's the thing. I'm certainly not looking for a price decrease. Haven't even been on the market for one to know what price I'd be looking/waiting for. And that's because what I have works. It might be a situation where "I don't know what I'm missing" because I haven't seen 'better'. But, when I'm getting 90+ FPS in my games, with settings set to max/ultra. . . Am I missing anything? It seems crazy that a card that's, what, 8 generations old? seems to be holding up. . . but that's what I feel like I'm seeing. When you're old, playing old games, I guess old stuff just works for you! I can't even think of a game that I'd be playing that might tax my current system. Maybe Rust? Maybe the new Boarderlands? But that will be when I finally get around to buying it (GOTY version on sale).
New PC build
Based on discussions elsewhere, the gaming industry is probably going to have start focusing on gameplay and story instead of graphics, so you should be ok.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
I'm really torn on the video card thing. I keep saying the 1080ti is holding up, but at the same time, I don't know that I want to be married to it until after this 'chip shortage' thing is resolved. I feel like, just like everything else, once the prices are up, they won't come back down. Right now, 'chip shortage' is the excuse to raise prices (do we know for SURE there is a shortage? Reminds me of 'covid supply issues' as the reason for pretty much anything for the last 5 years).
I've been temped by AMD RX 9070 XT cards in the $600 range.
I'm also looking at new monitors. I have discovered that I can replace my current monitors with the same specs (2k ultrawide 34") but with 160Hz refresh (75Hz currently) for about $350 each.
Doing some stress testing in Rust (I think this is my most taxing game right now). I turned the FPS display on, so Rust is showing my FPS.
I set everything to ultra, AA on, etc. I was getting 60 FPS, but would drop to 50 at times. I then lowered the quality to low, and my FPS stayed a consistent 60 FPS. I set the game max FPS to 240, and it stays at 60 FPS. I saw a ton of tearing if I moved my mouse back and forth quickly. I turned VSYNC on, and the tearing stopped. However, one anomaly that remains is what I think is ghosting. If I move the mouse back and forth quickly, I have double/triple vision. With VSYNC off in low res mode, my FPS goes up to 90+, but with major tearing. Since VSYNC is forcing 60 fps, that tells me I'm not getting the 75Hz I'm supposed to be getting in 'Game mode' on the monitor.
I'm wondering, for those of you with higher refresh monitors, does that ghosting/double/triple vision go away? What FPS do you get in RUST when you set the in game Graphics preset to "MAX"? I see no FPS difference with AA on or off, but definitely notice a quality difference. I get about 45 FPS. I can get it down to the upper 30's if I'm running and moving the mouse around quickly.
I've been temped by AMD RX 9070 XT cards in the $600 range.
I'm also looking at new monitors. I have discovered that I can replace my current monitors with the same specs (2k ultrawide 34") but with 160Hz refresh (75Hz currently) for about $350 each.
Doing some stress testing in Rust (I think this is my most taxing game right now). I turned the FPS display on, so Rust is showing my FPS.
I set everything to ultra, AA on, etc. I was getting 60 FPS, but would drop to 50 at times. I then lowered the quality to low, and my FPS stayed a consistent 60 FPS. I set the game max FPS to 240, and it stays at 60 FPS. I saw a ton of tearing if I moved my mouse back and forth quickly. I turned VSYNC on, and the tearing stopped. However, one anomaly that remains is what I think is ghosting. If I move the mouse back and forth quickly, I have double/triple vision. With VSYNC off in low res mode, my FPS goes up to 90+, but with major tearing. Since VSYNC is forcing 60 fps, that tells me I'm not getting the 75Hz I'm supposed to be getting in 'Game mode' on the monitor.
I'm wondering, for those of you with higher refresh monitors, does that ghosting/double/triple vision go away? What FPS do you get in RUST when you set the in game Graphics preset to "MAX"? I see no FPS difference with AA on or off, but definitely notice a quality difference. I get about 45 FPS. I can get it down to the upper 30's if I'm running and moving the mouse around quickly.
New PC build
I'd have to test it. I'll give it a look tomorrow night.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
Relevant:
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
Correct. Or as one of the commentors says, "Just spread it yourself before pressing down."
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
I grabbed a new monitor tonight. It's the same stats as my old one at 34" ultrawide 2k monitor. Differences are: 75Hz vs 175Hz, IPS vs OLED.
First impression. . . OLED is weird. I have the same background picture on both monitors, and I feel like I like how it looks on the old monitor better than the new. However, it could just be that I'm used to it being the 'old' way, so the new way looks off. The new one, details are much brighter, almost, sort of washed out, but not really. It might just be a result of OLED being able to show more detail. As in, the pictures are of our dogs, and I can see WAY more detail on the OLED than I can on the IPS. Which should be good, right? But again, it seems like it's only like that because the picture is way brighter. That being said, the brightness on the OLED is at like 60, and the IPS, it's at 100.
I have since set the brightness on the OLED to 100 to match the IPS. I did this because if I had a white widow (like a spreadsheet) span the two monitors, the white background was way more white on the IPS. But when I increased the brightness on the OLED, the whites evened out.
Print/text on the OLED seems blurry. It's easier to read on the IPS monitor. Turns out I'm not crazy. This is an issue with OLED. That being said, both monitors, with my old busted eyes, have some blurriness to the text depending on how tired I am, how long I've been at the PC, etc, etc. I don't think this is a deal breaker, but it is noticeable.
As I have been typing this up (on the OLED), I feel like my eyes are adjusting to the blurry. MANY people say "I don't notice it". But most people say, it's there, but to what extent is going to vary from person to person. It might be a similar adjustment from when some of us made the move from CRT monitors to LCD. I remember there being a similar debate about the text quality between the two.
Rust test. It took me a while to get the monitor to go higher than 60Hz. I've never used freesynch (I thought I had been) and I had to google how to actually get it to work. After also discovering the piece of shit DP1.4 cable I got from Amazon (cable matters brand) isn't actually a DP1.4 cable, I got the monitor to go above 60Hz. With the CM cable, anything above 100Hz, the monitor goes black/no signal. If I use the cable that came with the monitor (but it's WAY too short), I can get the full 175Hz. I couldn't really use the monitor with the short cable, so my Rust test is at 100Hz, up from 60Hz. I couldn't really tell a difference. There is still the double vision thing when I move the mouse really fast. Haven't dug into which monitor the game looks better on yet. I was just trying to get the Hz to work.
Doing a split screen test (game was half way on each screen), there are definite color/detail differences. During the day, it's hard to say which side was better. I would come down to which colors you liked more. On the OLED, the wood on the dock was darker, the color of the gas tanks was darker, etc. However, once night time rolled around, OLED really moved ahead. On the IPS, everything would get washed out in the shadows. Details were lost. On the OLED, everything stayed crisp and detailed. Dark scenes, OLED beats IPS easily. As I move around more, even in light shadows, OLED stands out. It's subtle, but definitely there. So my 5 minute gaming opinion, OLED is noticeably better, especially in darker scenes where it REALLY pulls ahead.
I only bought 1 OLED, and planned to continue using one IPS. What started out as a quick cheap upgrade of a lightly used PC has become a full blown, very expensive upgrade of my main system. Hard to justify an additional $600 upgrade when most of this wasn't needed in the first place! But also, in for a penny. . . But seriously, my old monitors are still really nice monitors, so I probably really will stick with one of each. I never game across both at the same time, so no real need for two of them. That being said, this new OLED is $100 less than what I originally paid for these IPS monitors. OLED has really come down in price it seems. My wife could also get OLED versions of her monitors for less than she paid for her IPS.
First impression. . . OLED is weird. I have the same background picture on both monitors, and I feel like I like how it looks on the old monitor better than the new. However, it could just be that I'm used to it being the 'old' way, so the new way looks off. The new one, details are much brighter, almost, sort of washed out, but not really. It might just be a result of OLED being able to show more detail. As in, the pictures are of our dogs, and I can see WAY more detail on the OLED than I can on the IPS. Which should be good, right? But again, it seems like it's only like that because the picture is way brighter. That being said, the brightness on the OLED is at like 60, and the IPS, it's at 100.
I have since set the brightness on the OLED to 100 to match the IPS. I did this because if I had a white widow (like a spreadsheet) span the two monitors, the white background was way more white on the IPS. But when I increased the brightness on the OLED, the whites evened out.
Print/text on the OLED seems blurry. It's easier to read on the IPS monitor. Turns out I'm not crazy. This is an issue with OLED. That being said, both monitors, with my old busted eyes, have some blurriness to the text depending on how tired I am, how long I've been at the PC, etc, etc. I don't think this is a deal breaker, but it is noticeable.
As I have been typing this up (on the OLED), I feel like my eyes are adjusting to the blurry. MANY people say "I don't notice it". But most people say, it's there, but to what extent is going to vary from person to person. It might be a similar adjustment from when some of us made the move from CRT monitors to LCD. I remember there being a similar debate about the text quality between the two.
Rust test. It took me a while to get the monitor to go higher than 60Hz. I've never used freesynch (I thought I had been) and I had to google how to actually get it to work. After also discovering the piece of shit DP1.4 cable I got from Amazon (cable matters brand) isn't actually a DP1.4 cable, I got the monitor to go above 60Hz. With the CM cable, anything above 100Hz, the monitor goes black/no signal. If I use the cable that came with the monitor (but it's WAY too short), I can get the full 175Hz. I couldn't really use the monitor with the short cable, so my Rust test is at 100Hz, up from 60Hz. I couldn't really tell a difference. There is still the double vision thing when I move the mouse really fast. Haven't dug into which monitor the game looks better on yet. I was just trying to get the Hz to work.
Doing a split screen test (game was half way on each screen), there are definite color/detail differences. During the day, it's hard to say which side was better. I would come down to which colors you liked more. On the OLED, the wood on the dock was darker, the color of the gas tanks was darker, etc. However, once night time rolled around, OLED really moved ahead. On the IPS, everything would get washed out in the shadows. Details were lost. On the OLED, everything stayed crisp and detailed. Dark scenes, OLED beats IPS easily. As I move around more, even in light shadows, OLED stands out. It's subtle, but definitely there. So my 5 minute gaming opinion, OLED is noticeably better, especially in darker scenes where it REALLY pulls ahead.
I only bought 1 OLED, and planned to continue using one IPS. What started out as a quick cheap upgrade of a lightly used PC has become a full blown, very expensive upgrade of my main system. Hard to justify an additional $600 upgrade when most of this wasn't needed in the first place! But also, in for a penny. . . But seriously, my old monitors are still really nice monitors, so I probably really will stick with one of each. I never game across both at the same time, so no real need for two of them. That being said, this new OLED is $100 less than what I originally paid for these IPS monitors. OLED has really come down in price it seems. My wife could also get OLED versions of her monitors for less than she paid for her IPS.
New PC build
We just lost a huge RAM and SSD manufacturer to AI — Micron is killing Crucial after nearly 30 years to support "larger, strategic customers" | Windows Central https://share.google/2VNsnaV9R3Y8kq82n
It's not me, it's someone else.
New PC build
And when the bubble bursts, I hope nobody gives them business until they're forced to dramatically undercut everyone else.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
New PC build
WHAT IF IT NEVER BURTS AND AI TAKESOVER AND ONLY MICRON IS LOVED BY THE AI FOR ALL THE MEMORY IT GAVE THEM?
It's not me, it's someone else.