Any PC Gamers Around?

[x808drifter]

Anyone have MSFS and wanna join me in a flight from Haneda to JFK?

[Spuds]

Finally building a new gaming PC. Have everything except a GPU. Considering a 4090 of some sort. Anyone want to try to convince me to not spend more on a GPU than the rest of the PC?

Rest of build if anyone is curious:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2rcvjH

Right now, cost to me after tax and discounts is sitting at $1,225 before the GPU. Was originally trying to get below 2k total, then I saw shiny things and here we are looking at a $3k PC...

[Dadhawk]

"No PC Build Budget survives the first visit to the parts catalog"

-Me, with every computer I've ever built.

Originally Posted by Spuds

Finally building a new gaming PC. Have everything except a GPU. Considering a 4090 of some sort. Anyone want to try to convince me to not spend more on a GPU than the rest of the PC?

What resolution do you normally play at? My AMD 5700XT (2019) still pretty much runs everything I throw at it. It is just starting to lag a bit on games like Red Dead Redemption 2 at 5120x1440 (the res of my widescreen monitor) but the game is very playable with a few changes down from "Ultra".

My typical build uses a GPU one level down from whatever the "latest and greatest" is, and that usually serves me fine. Typically I do a mid-cycle GPU upgrade so I rinse and repeat. I'll probably be due next year.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

"No PC Build Budget survives the first visit to the parts catalog"

-Me, with every computer I've ever built.



What resolution do you normally play at? My AMD 5700XT (2019) still pretty much runs everything I throw at it. It is just starting to lag a bit on games like Red Dead Redemption 2 at 5120x1440 (the res of my widescreen monitor) but the game is very playable with a few changes down from "Ultra".

My typical build uses a GPU one level down from whatever the "latest and greatest" is, and that usually serves me fine. Typically I do a mid-cycle GPU upgrade so I rinse and repeat. I'll probably be due next year.

I run games at 3840x2160. The smart move is to give up on ray tracing and get the AMD 7900xtx. But I want ray tracing lighting. The 4080 will do it at reasonable frame rates with some compromises, but it's over priced on the performance/value chart (probably on purpose to sell more 4090s). Plus, I put a lot of time into finding the exact right parts for the job and nothing more so it feels a bit wrong to compromise now.

Your strategy was the same as mine on my last PC, circa 2013. I upgraded the GPU RAM and CPU cooler in 2018. First was a 460ti boost, which is mid tier and better than nothing, and then upgraded to a 1080 (non-ti). It ran most games at 4k but I had to make compromises on quality in some cases.

[cjd]

Originally Posted by Spuds

I run games at 3840x2160. The smart move is to give up on ray tracing and get the AMD 7900xtx. But I want ray tracing lighting. The 4080 will do it at reasonable frame rates with some compromises, but it's over priced on the performance/value chart (probably on purpose to sell more 4090s). Plus, I put a lot of time into finding the exact right parts for the job and nothing more so it feels a bit wrong to compromise now.

Your strategy was the same as mine on my last PC, circa 2013. I upgraded the GPU RAM and CPU cooler in 2018. First was a 460ti boost, which is mid tier and better than nothing, and then upgraded to a 1080 (non-ti). It ran most games at 4k but I had to make compromises on quality in some cases.

You also need more power supply and with Nvidia have that connector which is still showing signs of being a problem... Starting to see some long term failures I guess. Also you'd be supporting their insane pricing inflation. Are the things you're playing all supporting full RT? I have some basic RT enabled and working ok even with a 6800xt but I don't play most games... Triple 1440.

[Dadhawk]

Hadn't really thought about RT to be honest. It doesn't do much for me when I look at side-by-side videos. If I had it, I'd use it, but for now I don't miss it.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by cjd

You also need more power supply and with Nvidia have that connector which is still showing signs of being a problem... Starting to see some long term failures I guess. Also you'd be supporting their insane pricing inflation. Are the things you're playing all supporting full RT? I have some basic RT enabled and working ok even with a 6800xt but I don't play most games... Triple 1440.

Lol I'm not playing anything right now, my wife has been "borrowing" my 1080 since elden ring came out. I intentionally got a 1kw pcie5 because I figured that would last me a while, and might even transfer over to my next PC in 10 years. My understanding is that the connector failures are mostly due to incorrect installation.

Inflation... The problem with that is that all gpus are overpriced I think. Combine actual inflation with hot electronics market, low availability, high risk, high interest rates, straight up greed, etc and that's what happens. The only way not to support it is to not play. And that means use integrated graphics lol. I'd love to beat the system, but I don't think that's in my power at the moment.

[Sasquachulator]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Hadn't really thought about RT to be honest. It doesn't do much for me when I look at side-by-side videos. If I had it, I'd use it, but for now I don't miss it.

RT is like tessellation or even Anti Aliasing when they first became a major thing.

Takes an enormous amount of GPU power to utilize at acceptable fps and even then only nvidia cards can do it acceptably. AMD hardware doesnt have the dedicated hardware like NVidia does to do it so they'll never use it at the same performance level until they do their own hardware implementation.

It'll take a couple more GPU generations until RT Is good enough on 'not overprice overpowered hardware that mere mortals cannot afford" class GPUs.

Plus the implementation of RT hasnt exactly been eye meltingly "must have" yet.

My RX6600 can do RT but i think its mind numbingly slow......yeah im not even going to try. Plus i dont have any games that use it so theres nothing really i can make comparisons anyways.

When it starts hitting mainstream im sure devs will have figured out how to make RT more than just a pretty filter and then we might be able to see the real fruits of its labour.

[cjd]

Originally Posted by Spuds

Lol I'm not playing anything right now, my wife has been "borrowing" my 1080 since elden ring came out. I intentionally got a 1kw pcie5 because I figured that would last me a while, and might even transfer over to my next PC in 10 years. My understanding is that the connector failures are mostly due to incorrect installation.

Inflation... The problem with that is that all gpus are overpriced I think. Combine actual inflation with hot electronics market, low availability, high risk, high interest rates, straight up greed, etc and that's what happens. The only way not to support it is to not play. And that means use integrated graphics lol. I'd love to beat the system, but I don't think that's in my power at the moment.

I think we'll have to see on the connector. Not a lot of new info beyond what you note. I also thought that saga was over.
As for pricing... Nvidia is still more brazenly pricing high. Agree that they're not alone.
Maybe step back ambitions with a 7800xt in the near future, I see downward pressure on pricing looking at $700 soon...

I'm happy with a 5800x3d and 6800xt.
Actually building a second system to replace my struggling 10yr old Ultrabook. Using the 5600x I have on the shelf, but finding the right video card is up in the air. Have a lead on a 580xt but I hear driver support is done, making me unsure now. Don't intend to game on this one really but would appreciate it being able to do the basics in a pinch (like being quarantined in that room as I have been.)
Set your budget and be realistic about what you want to do. Don't build to "maybe", the ROI is worse. Then buy, build, and don't look back (or at the market).

[weederr33]

Decided it's time to pull an experiment.

I have a dedicated gaming desktop mini-ITX style. It's the bee's knees for me and gets the job done with anything I throw at it. However, for work, I had to purchase a laptop to do many of my computer-related tasks as the Army and it's wonderful wisdom can't seem to provide me one for whatever reason. I went with an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 as it has a dedicated graphics card, is compact to carry, and I figured why not? It's specs include a Ryzen 7 5800HS, 16gb RAM, and an RTX 3060 6GB.

For the next month, I figured I'd use only my laptop and see how life is with it. I haven't exclusively run a laptop in 10 years, so this should take a little getting used to. To prep for it, I had to upgrade the hard drive from the atrocious 512gb hard drive to a 1TB drive. Did a fresh install of windows, and put all the things I needed to get the computer running smoothly. So far I've gone about a week and it's not been too bad. Going from a 27in screen to a 14in does suck a lot. As well as going from 1440 165hz to a 1080 144hz is a bit of a downgrade for my eyes.

The pros, so far, are I can take it everywhere and I don't have to jump between computers for work. It runs very quiet on silent mode, and even in the default mode. Because I did a fresh install, I could get rid of some of the bloatware Asus put on the computer and even changed the Wi-Fi card to a better Intel AX210. It's been super quick with the better SSD and Wi-Fi card. The computer runs the few games I loaded very well with little or no reduction in performance. The most demanding game being Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

There are a few cons, however. The computer sports a RTX 3060 so that's a hell of a downgrade (obviously) from the 7900XTX I have. The computer, being slim profile, gets insanely hot when gaming. I'm usually hitting 94-96c for the unit when gaming. Granted, I've only played Half-life 2, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, and Minecraft. Apparently this is normal, and a cooling pad would help. Although I do notice it gets warm just doing idle things. But I attribute that to it being a laptop and my hands are right there.

The another con I discovered (and this could be fixable but I couldn't figure it out) was the dedicated graphics card shut off regardless of the computer being plugged in or not. Once I installed Armory Crate, it began working just fine. It's not the end of the world, but it was bloatware I was wanting to avoid.

I figured I'd see how this goes for the next few weeks and try some other games I normally play such as Dirt Rally 2.0, Company of Heroes Blitzkrieg Mod, and possibly Metro Exodus (to see if it will cause the computer to light on fire).

[spcmafia]

Originally Posted by Spuds

Finally building a new gaming PC. Have everything except a GPU. Considering a 4090 of some sort. Anyone want to try to convince me to not spend more on a GPU than the rest of the PC?

Rest of build if anyone is curious:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2rcvjH

Right now, cost to me after tax and discounts is sitting at $1,225 before the GPU. Was originally trying to get below 2k total, then I saw shiny things and here we are looking at a $3k PC...

Pretty solid build, though, I would get a different case, Maybe Fractal Meshify 2 Compact, or just the Meshify 2.



RAM, go with 5600 instead of 6000. Intel CPUs, unlike Ryzen, do not depend on fast RAM. Though it should run fine, higher frequency means higher latency, also do check the compatibility with your MOBO.



GPU, 7900XTX. Its cheaper, uses less energy, and it would be a beast for 1440 and even native 4K. FSR is also making it way to compete with DLSS.


RT is nice, but to this day I have yet to find it as a deal breaker when deciding on GPUs. In any case, say if you wanted to play a simulator, you can still be competitive with 1440p at Ultra settings while pushing 100FPS+.


Edit; for consideration, as you may have a preference for Intel. As of the time of writing, there nothing, for pure gaming wise, that beats the 7000X3D configurations from AMD. While they would be slightly more expensive than the 13600K, they consume less power.

[Wally86]

Originally Posted by Sasquachulator

RT is like tessellation or even Anti Aliasing when they first became a major thing.

Takes an enormous amount of GPU power to utilize at acceptable fps and even then only nvidia cards can do it acceptably. AMD hardware doesnt have the dedicated hardware like NVidia does to do it so they'll never use it at the same performance level until they do their own hardware implementation.

It'll take a couple more GPU generations until RT Is good enough on 'not overprice overpowered hardware that mere mortals cannot afford" class GPUs.

Plus the implementation of RT hasnt exactly been eye meltingly "must have" yet.

My RX6600 can do RT but i think its mind numbingly slow......yeah im not even going to try. Plus i dont have any games that use it so theres nothing really i can make comparisons anyways.

When it starts hitting mainstream im sure devs will have figured out how to make RT more than just a pretty filter and then we might be able to see the real fruits of its labour.

It can be pretty though

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by spcmafia

Pretty solid build, though, I would get a different case, Maybe Fractal Meshify 2 Compact, or just the Meshify 2.



RAM, go with 5600 instead of 6000. Intel CPUs, unlike Ryzen, do not depend on fast RAM. Though it should run fine, higher frequency means higher latency, also do check the compatibility with your MOBO.



GPU, 7900XTX. Its cheaper, uses less energy, and it would be a beast for 1440 and even native 4K. FSR is also making it way to compete with DLSS.


RT is nice, but to this day I have yet to find it as a deal breaker when deciding on GPUs. In any case, say if you wanted to play a simulator, you can still be competitive with 1440p at Ultra settings while pushing 100FPS+.


Edit; for consideration, as you may have a preference for Intel. As of the time of writing, there nothing, for pure gaming wise, that beats the 7000X3D configurations from AMD. While they would be slightly more expensive than the 13600K, they consume less power.

Lol I already have everything except the GPU. I guess I wasn't clear on that part.

Got a great deal on the Meshify 2 Lite, specifically in white (either someone made a mistake, or really wanted them gone), only reason why I got that particular case lol. Has everything I need and drops features from the Meshify2 that I wasn't planning to use anyway. Might need to swap for something else depending on what GPU I get, but it was cheap enough to not really worry about it.

Intel can OC memory. Specifically got CL36 version to reduce latency. Higher clock actually means lower latency in real time given the same spec. Latencies are specified in clock cycles and higher frequency is more cycles per second.

FSR doesn't really compete with DLSS yet. Not as widely supported iirc, and still doesn't give good enough performance based on benchmarks I've seen. You are right on the 7900 for 4k rasterization. It's really down to whether I really need to see the ray tracing features as to whether I go 4090 or 7900xtx.

RT, games today don't necessarily NEED it to look good, but 3 or 4 years out? We might be looking at larger adoption of the technology in more games where it makes a difference.

Yeah I just know Intel stuff better so I went with that for CPU to simplify the decision tree.

[Spuds]

Decided to build it with my recently reacquired gtx1080 for the moment. Wife got her rtx4080 installed, that thing is massive!