PC Building Guide and Discussion #13

[aleshemsky83]

Just to be clear, the wireless Logitech mouse I'm using was $60 on sale, usually 90. Not a cheap mouse, just not a gaming mouse.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

AMD really likes being late to the GPU party don't they?

 

[Bruins4Lifer]

AMD would have benefited more if those announcement dates were swapped that's for sure. But if their top-end RDNA2 GPU can't surpass the 3070 it really won't matter.

 

[Leafs at Knight]

Hopefully the 3060 will out before cyberpunk, the 3070 is too pricey. Looks like the amd ones won't be out before cyberpunk either.

 

[Osprey]

The AMD announcement may be when it is because they want the cards to start being available at the same time as the next-gen consoles that have the same GPUs in them. If they had announced them on Oct 7th, that would suggest availability by the end of the month, at least two weeks before the new Xbox and PS hit the shelves, which steals a bit of the launch thunder and is plenty of time for reviews that may not favorably compare the GPU to Nvidia's latest. That could take some wind out of the console launch sails, which might not please Microsoft and Sony. It's probably safer, if you're AMD, to just have the consoles and the PC cards hit the shelves at the same time.

 

[Puck]

The AMD announcement may be when it is because they want the cards to start being available at the same time as the next-gen consoles that have the same GPUs in them.

Most likely you are right.... but it would still be nice if AMD was a bit faster/quicker in providing info on their new hardware, at least as many 'leaks' as the Xbox and PS5. We know a lot more about the new consoles in September than we yet know about AMDs new cards.

Most of us are surprised just how much power the new nvidia cards have. Looks like if anyone wanted to make a statement this year (with new consoles coming and with AMD moving up the ladder with RDNA2 on TSMC's 7nm chips), it was nvidia. It looks like nvidia really needed to keep the video card crown with the new AMD's RDNA2 architecture coming out on 2 consoles and the Radeon cards. I would still like to see the AMD top Radeon card reach the capability of nvidia's new RTX 3080 card (if not the 3090).

AMD also has a new motherboard chipset coming out this year (from X570 to X670 chipset) and the new Ryzen 4000 desktop processors. Not much info on that either compared to how much Intel and nvidia are marketing/pushing their new product lines. The AMD marketing team isn't very aggressive (or Intel and nvidia have huge advertising budgets and it's hard for AMD to cut through all the smoke).

 

[aleshemsky83]

You know after switching back and forth between a high refresh monitor and normal monitor. I have to say it's not "judder" I see that high refresh die hards complain about, more blur. Which I can see being desirable or undesirable depending on who you are.

 

[aleshemsky83]

Apparently that RTX 3000 reveal has AMD scrambling. Not surprising, but it looks like AMD is gonna be staying with value cards on the low-end for the foreseeable future

 

[aleshemsky83]

how do i find the freesync range of my monitor?

edit: its 48-144 Hz. That kind of feels pointless to have a 165 Hz monitor not support freesync at its stock refresh rate.

edit: I just remembered I have an nvidia card, lol. Though the settings say my monitor supports GSync, but its still questionable what kind of support so I may as well just leave it at 165

edit again: Gsync works at any refresh rate above 30 Hz, thats nice.

 

[Osprey]

Apparently that RTX 3000 reveal has AMD scrambling. Not surprising, but it looks like AMD is gonna be staying with value cards on the low-end for the foreseeable future

AMD's current flagship, the 5700XT, comes in between the 2060 Super and the 2070 in performance, and the rumors and speculation that I'm reading for their next flagship are that it'll probably come in between the 3070 and 3080. I would call that the upper-mid range. At the very worst, it'll be a solid mid-range card. The low end are severely cut down cards like the 5500XT and 1660 that sell for under $250, IMO.

 

[Puck]

Finally some 'leaks' on AMDs new Vermeer desktop CPUs, out soon.

AMD's Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer" CPUs Featuring Next-Gen Zen 3 Cores Detailed In Leaked Documents

 

[Puck]

I suppose another good reason why AMD is not advertising/pushing it's new upcoming products is that it is waiting after the Labour Day school buying spree to be over. Best not to give procrastinators another reason to wait to purchase. When the new cards, CPUs and mobos come out by Thanksgiving, there will also be sales to clear the shelves of the older, current stuff. I expect the prices to be the same for new CPUs in the same range and prices to drop on the older CPUs (e.g. the new 4700X to have the same price as the current 3700X and the 3700X drops in price, if you can still find one).

As an official procrastinator, I can wait to upgrade until American Thanskgiving. Although there doesn't seem to be much reason to wait to get the new X670 mobos, we won't be getting PCIe 5.0 or DDR5 Ram until the next chipset update next year anyway. Although I was hoping though for USB 4 or Thunderbolt 4 (not sure). But it looks like the X670 chipset mobos will mostly just be improving on existing Southbridge functionality (USB, port lanes etc, ). And the new Zen 3 co-processors due this year will work on X570 mobo sockets (X570 mobos should also come down in price).

 

[Puck]

Take leaks with a grain of salt. But if true, the take is that even the mid-range video cards will see a lot of improvement. Nvidia will probably win the top end crown as usual, but AMD will be competitive at levels just below the top card.

Not many of us buy the top card anyway (too expensive), but your next mid range card should be quite good compared to those in the same price ranges today.

 

[Osprey]

That guy is seriously making me yawn with his delivery, but he has a lot of good info. The most interesting is that there will be three tiers--6700, 6800 and 6900--with the 6700 taking on the 3070, the 6800 taking on the 3080 (with a possible 6800 XT taking on the eventual 3080 Ti) and the 6900 taking on the 3090. He made it sound like the performance will be better than expected, but also not as cheap as expected. It sounds like AMD is really going for it. He also mentioned that this generation is the first since AMD moved some of their CPU engineers over to their GPU division to try to work some of the magic for Radeon that they did for Zen. It sounds like it's paying off, but we'll have to wait to find out how much.

 

[Puck]

That guy is seriously making me yawn with his delivery, but he has a lot of good info. The most interesting is that there will be three AMD series--6700, 6800 and 6900--with the 6700 taking on the 3070, the 6800 taking on the 3080 (with a possible 6800 XT taking on the eventual 3080 Ti) and the 6900 taking on the 3090. He made it sound like the performance will be better than expected, but also not as cheap as expected. It sounds like AMD is really going for it. He also mentioned that this generation is the first since AMD moved some of their CPU engineers over to their GPU division to try to work some of the magic for Radeon that they did for Zen. It sounds like it's paying off, but we'll have to wait to find out how much.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of his delivery either, and his repetitiveness about not disclosing his sources. But if true, I'm glad I waited a bit to buy my next video card, because it seems both Nvidia and AMD will have large performance increases per watt. That top end Nvidia card might be a heater though at over 300 watts, I'd prefer something around 225 watts max.

 

[Puck]

 

[aleshemsky83]

Nvidia officially acquiring ARM for $40 billion

NVIDIA to Acquire Arm for $40 Billion, Creating World’s Premier Computing Company for the Age of AI

It's a bit surprising that the US government would even allow it but considering the current US China trade war I'm not surprised they'll overlook it

 

[flyingkiwi]

The more I look at my little PC running a 1060 and the more I look at the price of upgrading my GPU... the more I like the look of the Series S. Tempted to just part out the PC and get one in November. But I already have the PC and don't game enough as it is so I really shouldn't.

 

[Osprey]

The more I look at my little PC running a 1060 and the more I look at the price of upgrading my GPU... the more I like the look of the Series S. Tempted to just part out the PC and get one in November. But I already have the PC and don't game enough as it is so I really shouldn't.

If you can wait until the Spring, you'll likely be able to get a comparable GPU for the price of the Series S. That's probably when Nvidia will release a 3060 and AMD will release their equivalent for the budget conscious. Both will likely be more powerful than the GPU in the Series S.

 

[Jasper]

The 3080 is looking pretty good. Would really like a 3080ti but don't know if I can wait that long. Slight downgrade in VRAM capacity from 1080ti with the 3080.

 

[Osprey]

The NDA for the Nvidia cards has been lifted. Here's one review of the 3080:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Review

For the most part, the performance gains don't seem amazing at 1440p, ostensibly because of CPU bottleneck. It's at 4K that the 3080 really shines. It looks to me like a card to upgrade to only if you have plans to game at 4K now or in the next year or two. Those intending to stay at 1440p or even 1080p might be better off saving a little money and going with a lower model (ex. 3070/6700 or, eventually, 3060/6600).

 

[Malaka]

Starting a postbacc to go to grad school, need a new laptop for research/pubs/CAD design etc.

Budget is $400-$750 because I’m entering a phase as a broke college kid again. It’s hilarious and absurd this is needs to be said, but I want to avoid scams on Facebook marketplace with the looted products but yknow there’s some nice deals.

I switched to Mac OS back in ~2015 and don’t think I can stand the new windows, but I’m open to go back. I’m well aware the hardware in MacBooks are dogshit for the price point. Any thoughts?

 

[flyingkiwi]

If you can wait until the Spring, you'll likely be able to get a comparable GPU for the price of the Series S. That's probably when Nvidia will release a 3060 and AMD will release their equivalent for the budget conscious. Both will likely be more powerful than the GPU in the Series S.

Yeah a 3060 would be the dream card for sure. Unfortunately I'm looking to spend €0 so the choice is to either sell up and get an Xbox or keep everything including the 1060.

I think waiting until Spring is a good idea either way, see what happens to the second hand market over here.

 

[John Price]

Everyone is rushing to get a 3080 now

Wait!!

 

[Osprey]

Rumor is that, instead of the 4000 series, Zen 3 will now be the 5000 series (ex. the 5600 will be the successor to the 3600). I'm glad for that because there already was and would be even more confusion with the 4000 series for mobile that's based on Zen 2.

I also read a rumor that AMD may release a "Biggest Navi" in early 2021 for semi-professionals and super enthusiasts that could force Nvidia to release a new Titan.