Another day late, dollar short story LOL

jbeckva

Admin/Server Dude MAA Guy
Staff member
Joined
Jun 11, 2010
Messages
6,842
Location
Powhatan, Virginia, United States
Tagline
WassupYa Mang?
#1
A little bit of a rant, so bear with me LOL.

Just started getting a little into the gaming scene here, and hell if I didn't pick the wrong year for getting a hold of a decent video card! Nowadays you need basically a cray computer housed in a 5 x 10 or so card to run some of these titles, and I will have to say that Flight Simulator 2020 is the absolute litmus test when it comes to being ready to get decent frame rates. My journey started there when for "grins" I bought it, and hell.. the little 2GB toy I had for video said "no, not only no but hell no".

So I figured, let's go shopping. And I should of went Nvidia, but instead went with a 8GB GDDR5 Radeon RX 580 Black Edition. Frick man.. I had to immediately turn right around and get a 750 watt PS to even consider running it.. dang thing actually can consume over 170 watts alone.

Well, after getting barely 30 FPS on FS 2020 (medium mode.. forget about the higher ones) I started to look for something better, and damn if that silicon shortage, plus higher demand for them, plus all of these system builders and (ahem.. 'fwuckers) dang bitcoin miners didn't drive inventory out of the question and prices through the roof! My RX 580 alone is going for 3 to 4 times what I paid for it in what.. February?

They're saying inventory levels won't even be close for another damn year.. damn lol.. Anyone want a WOPL to trade?? (kidding.. or am I? ).. Man, I can get really acceptable framerates with other titles such as the Battlefield series, but I'll throw down the gauntlet with FS 2020 there.. even with an RTX-2080ti in ultra mode you're looking at around 50 FPS max. Which would be fantastic for this old guy, but it'll be a bit..
 

mlucitt

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Jun 24, 2011
Messages
3,339
Location
Jacksonville, FL
#2
It is extremely difficult chasing the desktop computer technology. Today with the chip "shortage" it is almost impossible. By the time they get the container ships unloaded, there is another one coming in with the "next" level of technology aboard.
Good luck!
One trick I learned was to hang out in the computer section of a Best Buy (or better yet, slip the salesman a $20 to let you know) and watch for a guy buying the latest and greatest gaming desktop PC. Ask him if he would be willing to sell you his "old" gaming computer. Chances are it was top of the line less than a year ago and will do everything you want, you should pay exactly half of what he bought/built it for.
 

FredR

Chief Journeyman
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
1,469
Location
DFW
Tagline
WTF?
#7
I usually get each new generation of video card when released. Skipped NVidia RTX 30 series. They are all being snapped up by crypto miners at crazy prices. On top of all the global supply chain issues it is impossible to get a card. Even old cards are at stupid high prices.
 

BlazeES

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Aug 17, 2011
Messages
6,802
Tagline
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#8
I normally skip generations because the gains simply don't justify the cost - even when supply & pricing is normalized. A 10xx or 20xx Nvidia card still has plenty of horsepower for most gaming played @ 1080p or 1440p. For me, the biggest marker to watch for is the power consumption improvements, which normally come with die shrinks and shader counts. I always hit the center-cut, sweet spot when I do drop my coin on a new card too. RTX 2070 was the right balance between price & performance; the xx80 cards are typically way overkill IMHO.

Don't expect to be upgrading until the RTX 40xx or even 50xx cards are stable... if I even stick with Nvidia for the next go around.
AMD is making big gains in CPU and GPU designs.
 
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