GPU buy when ?

[tp4tissue]

The whole internet says hold... but, till when ?

[CaesarAZealad]

The whole internet says hold... but, till when ?

Show Image

I know **** about **** when it comes to PC parts and even I know waiting is the best option for this generation.

Not to hijack this topic but I've been looking to upgrade my PC from a 970 and ryzen 3. Not to modern stuff, god no, but something last gen, maybe 2000 series. I've been out of the game for a bit tho so if anyone would love to share their opinion for an affordable cpu gpu combo that'd be naiiice.

[Leslieann]

The whole internet says hold... but, till when ?

Not sure why they say wait.. Wait for what, the 4060? 4050? They're going to be a (very expensive) waste of silicone. The 4060 Ti exists solely to make you think the 4070 is a good deal, it's not.
Buy AMD or last gen (AMD or Nvidia) and be happy. That's my plan, the 40 series can take a flying leap. I'm not alone on this sentiment.

The only thing I can really say to wait for is:
Nvidia lowering prices (Hahahahahahahah, no.)
AMD expects something truly groundbreaking. Maybe, but at what price? Will it be really be better or just a good alternative to used or equally priced Nvidia?
Intel lowers their price (Intel has come a ways, just make sure you know what to expect)

The only real thing to wait for is Black Firday... This may be the first in years where we see actual deal on Nvidia again... But how good of deals, and is it worth the wait, and are you getting a 40 series worth actually buying. otherwise, what's out now should pretty much work fine at a good price, either new or used.

[Leslieann]

I know **** about **** when it comes to PC parts and even I know waiting is the best option for this generation.

Not to hijack this topic but I've been looking to upgrade my PC from a 970 and ryzen 3. Not to modern stuff, god no, but something last gen, maybe 2000 series. I've been out of the game for a bit tho so if anyone would love to share their opinion for an affordable cpu gpu combo that'd be naiiice.

Waiting on pc parts is a fools game.
Why? Because there's always something new coming.

Get the best you can, when you can and enjoy it.
I've seen so many people plan out a system, go to buy and the parts no longer exist or something happens and it doesn't work out. Or they start buying parts and by the time it gets assembled a year has passed and the parts are now last gen and never been fired up. Meanwhile they spend all that time not enjoying the parts, while the parts lose value.

Buy what you can and enjoy it.. You're not getting any younger.


As for what you want...
My advice, 8gigs vram minimum, but don't kill yourself for more.
Nvidia 2070, 2080, 3060, 3070  or AMD 6600, 6700, 6700 xt
Once you have that, get 32 gigs ram if you have less than that.

To really push beyond those specs, you're going to need a high refresh/high res monitor and that will cost more than the system.

[Leslieann]

A bit more to both of these.
The market is always changing, when I spec out a system for someone I always tell them it's an estimate and it coudl be more, it could be less, the best deal always changes. A

And it's the same problem trying to wait and build it yourself, especially if you're collecting parts. Ryzen 2000 series works in 1000 series boards, but only after an update. Say you bought custom psu cables, then Nvidia releases the 40 series with a new cable.  A new socket renders your heat sink incompatible.... The new PSU spec could finally arrive and you're stuck with last gen because you bought a board a month earlier... Imagine being the person waiting and saving for weeks or months for the 4070 or 4060 and now seeing the benchmarks. I know a bunch who were waiting for the EVGA 4080 and 4090.  Count on nothing.

It doesn't pay to wait.
Buy the best you can when you can. Enjoy it and don't look back.

[tp4tissue]

thinking $450 6950xt + viewsonic-XG2431 $150ish  on Blackfriday?

[Leslieann]

That sounds very lopsided.
You're wanting a 6950xt, but pairing with a 1080p screen? 

Beyond 75-100hz you start get diminishing returns, still better, just less and less better.
So unless you're playing CS, you're probably better off with 4k or 1440p@150hz than 1080@180hz.

It seems like a nice screen but I just can't help but think that you're going to regret going 1080.
More importantly, it's way, way too soon to start planning for BF sales. My vote is wait for the actual sales then and see what's available and try to fit a higher resolution into that budget even if it means taking a slight hit on the gpu. For all you know, neither of those will be on sale or close to those prices, or worse, both could be out of production and stock by then.

Buy what you can, when you can.

[tp4tissue]

That sounds very lopsided.
You're wanting a 6950xt, but pairing with a 1080p screen? 

Beyond 75-100hz you start get diminishing returns, still better, just less and less better.
So unless you're playing CS, you're probably better off with 4k or 1440p@150hz than 1080@180hz.

It seems like a nice screen but I just can't help but think that you're going to regret going 1080.

This is the only monitor on the market with tune-able backlight strobe for adjusting pixel persistence for maximum motion clarity.

Its clarity performance is on par with the legendary sony fw900

[PlayBox]

That sounds very lopsided.
You're wanting a 6950xt, but pairing with a 1080p screen? 

Beyond 75-100hz you start get diminishing returns, still better, just less and less better.
So unless you're playing CS, you're probably better off with 4k or 1440p@150hz than 1080@180hz.

It seems like a nice screen but I just can't help but think that you're going to regret going 1080.

This is the only monitor on the market with tune-able backlight strobe for adjusting pixel persistence for maximum motion clarity.

Its clarity performance is on par with the legendary sony fw900

the 6950xt is a great buy though you have to get a good psu because it uses a lot of power. i too would reccomend a higher resolution monitor but i can see the reason to get this one

[Darthbaggins]

thinking $450 6950xt + viewsonic-XG2431 $150ish  on Blackfriday?

You can find that right now on r/Hardwareswap - by Black Friday more than likely the higher end 6*** series will be out of cycle/stores (I hope not, since it is still making AMD moolah).  Part of me is hoping to see a bigger dip in the 7900XT's pricing, since I am not buying into Nvidia's current price gouging practice.

[fohat.digs]

I am hoping that my Ryzen 5 with 16GB will carry me through at least a few more years running Mint.

[PlayBox]

I am hoping that my Ryzen 5 with 16GB will carry me through at least a few more years running Mint.

it should just fine depends on which one it is. but 32gb is starting to be a standard now so i would consider upgrading (its not expensive)

Wysłane z mojego Redmi Note 5 przy użyciu Tapatalka

[Leslieann]

I am hoping that my Ryzen 5 with 16GB will carry me through at least a few more years running Mint.

In Linux it should be okay, but not great.

I would imagine you will be able to pick up 16Gb used around Christmas this year for $25 or less.

[Leslieann]

thinking $450 6950xt + viewsonic-XG2431 $150ish  on Blackfriday?

You can find that right now on r/Hardwareswap - by Black Friday more than likely the higher end 6*** series will be out of cycle/stores (I hope not, since it is still making AMD moolah).  Part of me is hoping to see a bigger dip in the 7900XT's pricing, since I am not buying into Nvidia's current price gouging practice.

I thought about that but GPU sales are suuuuuper slow at the moment.
Should make for plenty of inventory to dump around the holidays.

[fohat.digs]

sales are suuuuuper slow at the moment.

inventory to dump around the holidays.

Why would they just sit on it for half a year?

[tp4tissue]

thinking $450 6950xt + viewsonic-XG2431 $150ish  on Blackfriday?

You can find that right now on r/Hardwareswap - by Black Friday more than likely the higher end 6*** series will be out of cycle/stores (I hope not, since it is still making AMD moolah).  Part of me is hoping to see a bigger dip in the 7900XT's pricing, since I am not buying into Nvidia's current price gouging practice.

I thought about that but GPU sales are suuuuuper slow at the moment.
Should make for plenty of inventory to dump around the holidays.

maybe they're expecting some new games to drive sales ?

[Rhienfo]

Sorta unrelated, but I was thinking of building a new computer, do you think that there would be a price hike, similar to how crypto jacked up the priced of gpus in like 2020-2021. Cause I don't want to have pay a scummy scalper to actually get the parts I want. It's not one of the new GPU releases (Most likely it will be a RX 6800xt) but it's still recent enough to where I'm worried about that.

[Leslieann]

Why would they just sit on it for half a year?

You're thinking like a normal person would. Nvidia doesn't give a sh*t about business norms.

AMD will drop prices to move inventory, Nvidia will not and so long as stuff is moving (even slowly) against Nvidia AMD has no incentive to do anything.
Nvidia REFUSES to lower prices, it's just how they operate. They'll delay 50 series or even destroy inventory rather than cut 40 prices, we actually saw this happen with 30 series overstock. They destroyed nearly a whole batch of gpu dies rather than let them go to board partners at reduced cost.

What you will see is Nvidia board partners offering free games as incentives and maybe minimalist cuts but since there's no new products coming (50 series I mean) at the moment I wouldn't expect much. Black Friday is pretty much the only time Nvidia loosens the reigns.

[Leslieann]

Sorta unrelated, but I was thinking of building a new computer, do you think that there would be a price hike, similar to how crypto jacked up the priced of gpus in like 2020-2021. Cause I don't want to have pay a scummy scalper to actually get the parts I want. It's not one of the new GPU releases (Most likely it will be a RX 6800xt) but it's still recent enough to where I'm worried about that.

The price hike already happened.
Todays prices are scalper prices, they just cut out the middle man.

Sure a 4060 still costs $300 just like the last gen 60 series but really the 4070 should be the 4060.
Don't forget, Nvidia initially tried to sell the 4070 as a cut down 4080.

Don't worry about actual scalpers, they lost out a while back. Store shelves are full of GPUs.

[tp4tissue]

We're at the applications bottleneck, games that look prettier aren't necessarily better games, the whole concept of gaming has reached saturation, it's the same games, new paint, and they're not really any more fun than they were.

[Rhienfo]

The price hike already happened.
Todays prices are scalper prices, they just cut out the middle man.

Sure a 4060 still costs $300 just like the last gen 60 series but really the 4070 should be the 4060.

I'm confused by what you mean. Are you saying nvidia are the ones hiking the prices and that the 4070 are being purposely under-powered but still charging the price of a "upgraded version" cause I'm not sure what you mean.

[Leslieann]

Are you saying nvidia are the ones hiking the prices and that the 4070 are being purposely under-powered but still charging the price of a "upgraded version"

Exactly that.

Nvidia is trying to get enterprise prices for consumer grade products.
Put the 4070 GPU onto a server pcb and they can get an extra $100-$200 for it.

[Rhienfo]

Are you saying nvidia are the ones hiking the prices and that the 4070 are being purposely under-powered but still charging the price of a "upgraded version"

Exactly that.

Nvidia is trying to get enterprise prices for consumer grade products.
Put the 4070 GPU onto a server pcb and they can get an extra $100-$200 for it.

Does AMD do this, cause I had no idea about this and don't want to be ripped off. I wasn't gonna buy nvidia anyway but that's so scummy.

[Leslieann]

Does AMD do this, cause I had no idea about this and don't want to be ripped off. I wasn't gonna buy nvidia anyway but that's so scummy.

AMD always plays a bit off Nvidia, but nowhere near as scummy.

Nvidia has a long history of being scum.

[phinix]

Why 32GB RAM is standard now? or becoming?
I thought my 16GB will be enough for years.

[tp4tissue]

Why 32GB RAM is standard now? or becoming?
I thought my 16GB will be enough for years.

Tp4 still using 8GB on most machines.

[Sniping]

450 for a 6950xt seems a little ambitious..maybe it'll happen but maybe not? you might be better off finding a used unit, that way you can also cherry pick for coil whine. my 6900xt whines badly. I hate it. also, I feel like the viewsonic monitor has really high motion clarity but it's not a very beautiful display at all. low res and just really mid for everything except some super sweaty gaming. I feel like your average quality of life would be better using a more balanced monitor? I've been super impressed with the gigabyte m32u, which to me is an excellent high end all purpose display. I think maybe part of what I'm asking is are you really shopping use case here? I know what you're going for with this combo and I feel like it's a pretty niche use.

[Leslieann]

Why 32GB RAM is standard now? or becoming?
I thought my 16GB will be enough for years.

32Gb isn't necessary and won't be for quite a while.

The only thing driving it is price, the cost difference when building a new system isn't that big of a deal so why not future proof a bit. Also many people just think if some is good, more is better (it's not).
Browsers can't really use it and very few games can use that much ram, so unless you're doing something more hardcore, 16 is going to be fine for quite a while going forward.

[Darthbaggins]

450 for a 6950xt seems a little ambitious..maybe it'll happen but maybe not? you might be better off finding a used unit, that way you can also cherry pick for coil whine. my 6900xt whines badly. I hate it. also, I feel like the viewsonic monitor has really high motion clarity but it's not a very beautiful display at all. low res and just really mid for everything except some super sweaty gaming. I feel like your average quality of life would be better using a more balanced monitor? I've been super impressed with the gigabyte m32u, which to me is an excellent high end all purpose display. I think maybe part of what I'm asking is are you really shopping use case here? I know what you're going for with this combo and I feel like it's a pretty niche use.

I've already seen 5 sold at that price on r/Hardwareswap

[tp4tissue]

450 for a 6950xt seems a little ambitious..maybe it'll happen but maybe not? you might be better off finding a used unit, that way you can also cherry pick for coil whine. my 6900xt whines badly. I hate it. also, I feel like the viewsonic monitor has really high motion clarity but it's not a very beautiful display at all. low res and just really mid for everything except some super sweaty gaming. I feel like your average quality of life would be better using a more balanced monitor? I've been super impressed with the gigabyte m32u, which to me is an excellent high end all purpose display. I think maybe part of what I'm asking is are you really shopping use case here? I know what you're going for with this combo and I feel like it's a pretty niche use.

Coil whine happens at high fps regardless of card choice.  So it'll happen on most fast cards.  If you can pinpoint the coil, or whichever chip is exhibiting piezoelectric effects, you can dim it quite a bit with potting silicone.

[tp4tissue]

which games, present or upcoming really justifies investing in newer cards ?

[Leslieann]

The biggest threat isn't really any specific game, the real threats come from high resolution needing larger textures (more vram) and high refresh rates.

Some games really do push vram limits and while it's not like there's a ton of 12 or 16Gb cards to pick from, it's lazy developers driving the push. Go look at "repacks", they can often shrink game sizes by massive amounts through compression. Same with mods, some increase the quality while reducing texture size so I have a hard time when people scream about vram/texture limits. Remember, you also need to load those textures, ever wonder why some games take forever to start, there you go. Honestly, there's a LOT of wiggle room here if they wanted to put some effort into it, they just don;t same with web page design, the hardware has gotten good enough and cheap enough tehy feel it;s no longer necessary. That said, Nvidia in particular has been especially cheap when it comes to adding vram.

High refresh is high refresh, like VR there's only so much you can do to reduce the load. The question though is how much is enough? Monitor manufacturers are in an arms race as monitors are just a hard sale in general so anything to boost sales is always overblown (remember the 3dtv buzz?). I'm not saying high refresh is bad but you also don't need 500hz refresh, nor do you actually need an RTX 4090 to push it for a good experience.

[Sniping]

450 for a 6950xt seems a little ambitious..maybe it'll happen but maybe not? you might be better off finding a used unit, that way you can also cherry pick for coil whine. my 6900xt whines badly. I hate it. also, I feel like the viewsonic monitor has really high motion clarity but it's not a very beautiful display at all. low res and just really mid for everything except some super sweaty gaming. I feel like your average quality of life would be better using a more balanced monitor? I've been super impressed with the gigabyte m32u, which to me is an excellent high end all purpose display. I think maybe part of what I'm asking is are you really shopping use case here? I know what you're going for with this combo and I feel like it's a pretty niche use.

I've already seen 5 sold at that price on r/Hardwareswap

he's talking about a new one

which games, present or upcoming really justifies investing in newer cards ?

I predict cs2 is going to be the huge competitive title for the year. no surprise there. warzone 2 is dead, overwatch 2 is dead. valorant easy to run, csgo easy to run. cs2 is also getting similar benchmarks to csgo so should be super easy to run too, don't quote me on that though. so that only leaves apex as the only competitive shooter that's difficult to run. to me, none of those titles require a beefy GPU. like you need to be playing above diamond level or top ~1% for those fps dips to really be making a difference in your gameplay. like none of us are that good. if the day ever comes you'll know when your gear is holding you back. anyway there's a lot of AAA titles that are super hard to run but honestly last year I just bought a PS5 to play these titles and call it a day. it's crazy how good the optimization is compared to PCs. anyway, to me the answer is just get a mid tier card (up to a 6950xt i guess) and blow some money on a beautiful display that also is sufficient for gaming. it's about striking a balance, yknow?

one more thing is that you'll usually run into a CPU bottleneck at some point with those high refresh rate 1080p monitors.

[phinix]

TP, looks like prices are going down slowly, maybe in few months it will be time to go for Red team?

https://www.techpowerup.com/311160/amd-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-drops-to-usd-799-pressure-on-rtx-4070-ti

I think with that last green team cards and terrible power gain compared to previous gen, it might be first time for me to go over the fence and go for red card...

[tp4tissue]

hrrrrm... maybe we'll see 600-700 for xtx by BFriday.

[phinix]

hrrrrm... maybe we'll see 600-700 for xtx by BFriday.

Yeah, I'm aiming for that time too. Time to let my 3070 go.

[HungerMechanic]

I'm thinking of buying a card for 2016-2018 era stuff. You know, 3-4 GB VRAM, DirectX 11 stuff.

Anyone know of affordable cards?

EDIT: I'm thinking 1200p, 60 fps. For games that want 3 - 4 GB VRAM.

[Sniping]

I'm thinking of buying a card for 2016-2018 era stuff. You know, 3-4 GB VRAM, DirectX 11 stuff.

Anyone know of affordable cards?

1080ti is a good value. i believe it doesn't do gsync though, so be mindful if you need that. but really I still think the best buy for your buck is just finding a good deal on a used computer. recently facilitated some deals for my friends - 450 for a 9700k/3060ti computer and 350 for a 1080ti/7700k build.

[noisyturtle]

I'm thinking of buying a card for 2016-2018 era stuff. You know, 3-4 GB VRAM, DirectX 11 stuff.

Anyone know of affordable cards?

The RTX 20 series performs well for me, I can play all current games on Ultra-High. I think especially the Supers are priced nicely, you can find a 2080/70 Super for very affordable prices these days, as just adding the letters TI to the end of any NVIDIA card bumps up the prices substantially since everyone wants 'the best.'

[HungerMechanic]

Thanks, I'll take a look at these.

[Leslieann]

At the budget end...
Try for at least a 1070 or RX 580/590 (they do pretty good), if you can get better great, lower is okay too if you need to but you really should aim for 8 gigs ram, 6 at absolute bare minimum because it will keep you going a looooot longer than 4gb will and for not much more money really. In the case of the RX 580, a 4gb version is about $40-$60 while the 8gb is only around $70-$80. 570 8gb are even cheaper, about the same as a 4gb 580 and the 470 8gb are cheaper still. I would really try and stick to the 5XX series or 1070 or  better but the point is, don't buy a 4gb card even if you have to go down a tad.

Going up a bit...
While I agree with Sniping about a 1080 TI being good the price bump over a base 1080 (about 60-80% more) kind of makes it a poor choice for bang for the buck gaming. I would argue you're better off with a 2070 or maybe even a 3060 for that kind of money, even with the lower vram. You may take a small performance hit  (compared to a 20 series) but it's newer tech which has enhancements that can offset some of the raw performance losses it gives you ray tracing and it's simply a newer card with wear and tear on it... 

[HungerMechanic]

That matches with my explorations.

I figure I wouldn't need much more than an RX 570 or Nvidia 1060.

So the 580/590 or 1070 would be fine.

I prefer NVIDIA (not for price reasons, obviously).

Current system is an early-gen i7 with a 660, I think it will get bottlenecked with newer cards. If it's a future system we're talking about, I would go with a least a 6 - 8 GB card.

[tp4tissue]

Imho, 7900xtx is going to be best performance per $ if you include the cost of the rest of the computer if it hits 600-700 black friday.

[Darthbaggins]

Also interested in seeing the 7800 offering from AMD since the 7600 is actually a promising offering for basic 1080p gaming/usage - Also the prices dropping on the 7900XT have been nice to see and I constantly watch r/HardwareSwap's, now, Discord market to see what pops up.  I am still hunting for a steal on a 10900k/10850k or 11700k w/ z590 combo on there as well due to block compatibility issues with the newer gen (not spending $200+ on a new CPU waterblock).

[tp4tissue]

I think amd is the better buy for cpu, if you count electricity saving.  It can easily add up to 100-200 price difference for the life of the machine.

[Darthbaggins]

I'll be sticking with Intel as the apps I use benefit from Intel over AMD - also I would have to buy another waterblock for AMD, and then there have been issues on AM5 that need to be ironed out as I'm not being paid to be their beta/alpha tester.

[HungerMechanic]

Also interested in seeing the 7800 offering from AMD since the 7600 is actually a promising offering for basic 1080p gaming/usage - Also the prices dropping on the 7900XT have been nice to see and I constantly watch r/HardwareSwap's, now, Discord market to see what pops up.  I am still hunting for a steal on a 10900k/10850k or 11700k w/ z590 combo on there as well due to block compatibility issues with the newer gen (not spending $200+ on a new CPU waterblock).

It's interesting that you are still hunting for a 10900/10850. Not just because it was a good processor in its time.

They, along perhaps with some 11th gen, may have been the last well-conceived and balanced processors made by Intel. At least for now.

You can see in the above link that there may be problems with the Intel 12 and 13th gen processors, maybe even 14th. They encounter slowdowns when performing regular OS tasks. So people are still hunting for the 10900 etc...

Yes, the latency doesn't happen to everyone. But it seems to exist especially in the 12th generation. Maybe people aren't testing the overall coherence of their builds? I guess if you are building a new PC, it's either the older generation Intel powerhouses, or maybe some new powerful AMD processor like the Ryzen 7000.

[Leslieann]

Keep your eyes open, Nvidia (and AMD to a lesser extent) has been having short notice sales on GPUs, even the new 4060, some more than 15% off.

I'm betting it's going to be a good Black Friday for GPUs... Finally.

[Leslieann]

Yes, the latency doesn't happen to everyone. But it seems to exist especially in the 12th generation. Maybe people aren't testing the overall coherence of their builds? I guess if you are building a new PC, it's either the older generation Intel powerhouses, or maybe some new powerful AMD processor like the Ryzen 7000.

Some people simply don't experience latency the same as others. I'm quite sensitive to lag on the UI.

It seems it's been at least partially traced to power profiles, which explains why not everyone is seeing it, leaving the default seems to be okay, but alternates create issues.

[tp4tissue]

Sounds like a scheduler issue ?