Time to upgrade gaming rig,spend more to future-proof or just get best bang4buck now?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I've just been on the other side of that.

I wanted to put my old 2200G that was sat around idle into an ITX case that was doing nothing and make use of some spare DDR4. Easy? No, most lowish end boards out there are B550, and they don't support 2000 series. I was hoping to get one of the around £100 B450 boards you used to be able to get, but they no longer exist or have to be shipped from abroad at huge cost and delay (I wanted it fairly soon).

I ended up with an A320 board of all things. It was £105 and I resented paying that much for A320, but that seems to be the market we are in right now.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07D82X4B9

Interestingly, because of the backlash you mentioned, I could put my 5900X in that old A320 board and it would work (which is actually quite impressive). But a 2200G in a B550 board? Nope.

In the last year I found far more deals on Z590 and B660 mini-ITX motherboards and virtually no price reduction on B550 motherboards. There was one Gigabyte one which had a price reduction but the socket placement was too high up for my NCase M1. Now looking at AM5 mini-ITX motherboards,and their lack of features and high pricing I might be going Intel for my next mini-ITX system.

But at the rate things are going with the ripoff pricing in the PC parts market,I might just get a laptop and maybe a console for the odd AAA game and upgrade every 5 years. I am starting to lose interest in this hobby,like almost all of my mates,and I really don't need to buy the latest game right now. I can wait a few years if needed. If I can't afford a £1000 RTX7060 to play it,there is always a console or me not bothering. I have 100s of older games to pass the time and other hobbies.

General everyday costs are going up and up,and these entitled tech companies think they can increase REAL pricing by massive amounts,because of their speculative stock market fantasies and overprinting of money by governments for over a decade,so idiots buy everything on longterm credit. The best thing is to throw less and less money to them. I as a consumer,don't exist to fund their speculative fantasies,which are the same things which caused the Subprime crash. It is also why we have an energy crisis,because nobody could be bothered to have a backup plan(and governments also joined in too) because short term margins are the only important thing even if you kill the market or economy longterm.

Tech stocks are way overpriced now,if you look at normal metrics and give it a few years there could be a massive crash as reality hits them. They deserve it.

[Saracen999]

Well, the subprime crisis was a bit more complex, having large elements of apparently (up for debate though) well-meaning government deregulation, the casino-ethos of the City (meaning, mainly, New York but London too, and more) wide-boys in non-retail banking, and the taking advantage of the predictable human nature of millions wanting something (to own a home) that is eminently understandable but just not realistically financially viable.

But as suggested, the underlying corporate greed factr is remarkably similar.

As for starting to lose interest, I think it's just part of growing older. For a start, the ratio between "new and exciting" and "done that, got the t-shirt" but with a few new bells and whistles and a lick of paint, goes up with experience. Interest, obviously, is inversely proportional to excitement. Just about everybody I know, even utter tech-heads, goes through it sooner or later. For me, it was about 15 or 20 years ago when I got too jaded to get excited about much intech. But a few things still come along that are genuinely new (to me, at least). Recently, for me, 3D printers of a decent but affordable standard are one. VR would probably have been, if it worked for me.

Welcome to the newest member of the old fart club, Cat.

[DanceswithUnix]

Just look at the relative specs:
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-spec...-4060-ti.c3890

Are those specs from the mobile part? Because that's showing a 4060ti that's the same speed as a 2060 which is so much worse than stagnation that even I with all my bias find it hard to believe Nvidia will be doing something that bad.

But yeah, the GPU market isn't pretty. My youngest is likely going to need a GPU upgrade this summer to go do a computer science degree, where a CUDA capable gpu may be a real help (for AI training etc) so the current RX470 may not cut it. I'm not looking forward to the purchase

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Are those specs from the mobile part? Because that's showing a 4060ti that's the same speed as a 2060 which is so much worse than stagnation that even I with all my bias find it hard to believe Nvidia will be doing something that bad.

But yeah, the GPU market isn't pretty. My youngest is likely going to need a GPU upgrade this summer to go do a computer science degree, where a CUDA capable gpu may be a real help (for AI training etc) so the current RX470 may not cut it. I'm not looking forward to the purchase

Nope,that is the actual desktop part:
https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-g...-less-than-500

If you look at the numbers I provided,the RTX4070TI is basically the RTX3060TI replacement if looking at pure performance. But it is also using a die size similar to the GA106,and is using the third tier dGPU in the Ada Lovelace lineup and not the second tier like the RTX3060TI(GA103 was only used in laptops AFAIK).

So the RTX4060 series is now pushed down one tier of dGPU class. The AD106 is really at the same tier as the GA107.

Also have you seen this benchmark:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/st...gpu-benchmarks

From what I read having a decent amount of VRAM also helps,which that benchmark does not seem to use. So maybe an RTX3060 12GB is a good start?

Well, the subprime crisis was a bit more complex, having large elements of apparently (up for debate though) well-meaning government deregulation, the casino-ethos of the City (meaning, mainly, New York but London too, and more) wide-boys in non-retail banking, and the taking advantage of the predictable human nature of millions wanting something (to own a home) that is eminently understandable but just not realistically financially viable.

But as suggested, the underlying corporate greed factr is remarkably similar.

As for starting to lose interest, I think it's just part of growing older. For a start, the ratio between "new and exciting" and "done that, got the t-shirt" but with a few new bells and whistles and a lick of paint, goes up with experience. Interest, obviously, is inversely proportional to excitement. Just about everybody I know, even utter tech-heads, goes through it sooner or later. For me, it was about 15 or 20 years ago when I got too jaded to get excited about much intech. But a few things still come along that are genuinely new (to me, at least). Recently, for me, 3D printers of a decent but affordable standard are one. VR would probably have been, if it worked for me.

Welcome to the newest member of the old fart club, Cat.

But that short term "casino ethos" where short term margin increase and profits is chased beyond everything else,is why there is no longer term planning,because that cuts into shorter term gains! It's also why companies like Nvidia and even AMD who got a good one off boost from the Pandemic and Mining,and tried to spin it as a longer term thing,are now trying even more tricks to jack pricing up. The countries who actually invested into things and ensured longer term security are now reaping the benefits worldwide.

BTW,I think I have been part of the Old Farts Club for a while now!

[DanceswithUnix]

Also have you seen this benchmark:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/st...gpu-benchmarks

From what I read having a decent amount of VRAM also helps,which that benchmark does not seem to use. So maybe an RTX3060 12GB is a good start?

I hadn't seen that one, no. Thanks, the 3060 was the obvious choice so good to see it would do the business.

That makes it look like the 3050 would be OK, but looking on Scan at what you can actually buy right now a 3060 is another tenner. Such a messed up market.

[Percy1983]

I will say what I have found surprising is how capable some older cards still are, running an R9 290 on a 3700x was actually rather good and is now serving my sons gaming needs and I am back up to 'only' a vega 56 which is running death standing at 4k with high settings smoothly (apparently average 46fps according to adrenalin, with some FSR 2.0).

Of course my gaming habbits are single player story driven games these days so I don't need 200fps and my monitor is a 60hz IPS (for work first) so no point chasing more fps than that.

Doesn't the steam hardware survey say the most popular cards are now the 1650 and 1060 which shows most people are gaming with power around the same level as the R9 and V56 in my house.

The bigger problem is PC gaming will start to shrink, for years I converted people on spending a couple of hundred more and getting slightly better performance than consoles, combine this with flexibility and much cheaper pc games it made sense, now I would just tell someone to get an xbox or playstation if all they want to do is game.

I was hoping AMD would hit hard at the value again like they have in the past but even their £200-£250 offering have been awful.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I hadn't seen that one, no. Thanks, the 3060 was the obvious choice so good to see it would do the business.

That makes it look like the 3050 would be OK, but looking on Scan at what you can actually buy right now a 3060 is another tenner. Such a messed up market.

Don't forget to check HUKD and also Ebay as they sometimes do reduction vouchers on stock from retailers like Ebuyer.

I will say what I have found surprising is how capable some older cards still are, running an R9 290 on a 3700x was actually rather good and is now serving my sons gaming needs and I am back up to 'only' a vega 56 which is running death standing at 4k with high settings smoothly (apparently average 46fps according to adrenalin, with some FSR 2.0).

Of course my gaming habbits are single player story driven games these days so I don't need 200fps and my monitor is a 60hz IPS (for work first) so no point chasing more fps than that.

Doesn't the steam hardware survey say the most popular cards are now the 1650 and 1060 which shows most people are gaming with power around the same level as the R9 and V56 in my house.

The bigger problem is PC gaming will start to shrink, for years I converted people on spending a couple of hundred more and getting slightly better performance than consoles, combine this with flexibility and much cheaper pc games it made sense, now I would just tell someone to get an xbox or playstation if all they want to do is game.

I was hoping AMD would hit hard at the value again like they have in the past but even their £200-£250 offering have been awful.

The problem is these companies could stimulate more sales by dropping margins,but IIRC,Nvidia has twice the margins of Apple now. So just like in the phone market,people will keep their phones for longer and longer. This is why Nvidia is trying to lock some of its new features to the RTX4000 series. But what happened in the phone markets lots of newer entrants came into the market and have huge market penetration.

I agree this is going to start affecting PC gaming,as people can use their phones/tablets or buy a relatively affordable console. This is not helped by the fact most people would rather have a laptop than a desktop.

But also for the people who will upgrade,most will do by budget(hence why the dGPUs you mentioned are still popular). As greedy Nvidia/AMD push up pricing for their "shareholders" it means entry level and mainstream gamers will get less and less of a performance boost. It also means more devs will have to target consoles and a lower performance baseline for PC than in previous years.

So it makes me wonder,outside tech demo games sponsored by Nvidia/AMD/Intel,whether devs will really want to start pushing graphics too much. For even enthusiasts this should ring alarm bells,because most games will have to use hybrid effects.

AMD has been heading towards the Nvidia way for a while now. You saw it with how they charged more than Intel for their six core Ryzen 5 5600X,tried to lock out B450/X470 users out of Zen3,but forced motherboard partners to drop PCI-E 4.0 from B450/X470,the RX6600XT being overpriced at launch,etc.

However,there is also something else Nvidia especially might be trying to do - game streaming services and rental services. So try and push game streaming or even dGPU rental models,because they look "cheaper" but in the longterm even more money will go to them. It fits in with the Games as a Service model,and other rental models the computing and software industries are trying to push.

Sounds very much like you will own nothing.....!

[Jonj1611]

When I was on the Mac I tried the Geforce Now, was a real mixed bag. I had the premium service but it was all over the place with lag, playability was questionable. Wired connection with Virgin 500MB and trying to play Far Cry 6 was a joke. Trying to run and then it was stuttering etc, action scenes all over the place. Occasionally it was perfect and no issues at all.

In the end thought I would rather spend my money on a new build than mess around with hoping games will run on a subscription service.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

When I was on the Mac I tried the Geforce Now, was a real mixed bag. I had the premium service but it was all over the place with lag, playability was questionable. Wired connection with Virgin 500MB and trying to play Far Cry 6 was a joke. Trying to run and then it was stuttering etc, action scenes all over the place. Occasionally it was perfect and no issues at all.

In the end thought I would rather spend my money on a new build than mess around with hoping games will run on a subscription service.

The problem it is quite clear,especially after you listen to JHH talking to investors,etc they really to push pricing massively up. After all this is why you basically are seeing a linear progression in price/performance this generation.

The whole rental model is infecting computing everywhere now,because it's a continuous source of income and a way to jack up margins and profits. We are older gamers,so have some perspective. I can wait a few years and not buy any new dGPUs,but at some point if I want to continue gaming then eventually I will have to buy a new card,even if it is because drivers are EOL or the hardware goes kaput.

The only way is for gamers to vote with their pockets,but sadly many modern gamers are basically Whales and have FOMO like little children. It would not surprise me if Nvidia gets enough sales of the RTX4000 series,especially the cheaper models to justify the price increase. How many will actually do some research,when their favourite gamer,streamer,etc pushes their new shiny card? Just buy,buy,buy with more and more ARGB and put it on credit. Nvidia markets more BS like DLSS and frame generation. Yet the same PCMR morons,were mocking consoles for doing image reconstruction before DLSS and TVs for doing frame generation too. Now Nvidia says it's happening,it's the new "must have" feature which they never knew they needed,just like RT and you need to pay MORE for it.

I honestly think console users seemed to be more informed about what they are getting into than PC gamers. Consoles seem more honest in some way,because they are focussed on gaming alone,whereas Nvidia/AMD/Intel want to scam you for their investors and treat you like a fool. At least a PS6 owner knows it's the replacement for the PS5,but with PC they want to exploit your ignorance. Rubbish like the RTX4060TI and GT1030 DDR4 are prime examples of this lack of respect for their own consumers.

Modern gamers seem to be some of the weakest willed consumers I have ever seen. This is why microtransactions,battle passes etc are rife in full priced modern games,because it works!

[Saracen999]

...

But that short term "casino ethos" where short term margin increase and profits is chased beyond everything else,is why there is no longer term planning,because that cuts into shorter term gains! It's also why companies like Nvidia and even AMD who got a good one off boost from the Pandemic and Mining,and tried to spin it as a longer term thing,are now trying even more tricks to jack pricing up. The countries who actually invested into things and ensured longer term security are now reaping the benefits worldwide. ...

Oh, absolutely.

...

BTW,I think I have been part of the Old Farts Club for a while now!

CAT-THE-FIFTH, MOFC.

Saracen999, FOFC.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Oh, absolutely.



CAT-THE-FIFTH, MOFC.

Saracen999, FOFC.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Apt words for AMD!