PCs and Steam: Thread 01

[Neon Ignition]

I feel like rather than 4K, Ray Tracing is going to be the new HDR, a nice feature but the market broadly won't care enough for it to galvanise big demand. After a few high profile instances it'll die down and eventually become the norm but whilst people aren't paying attention as they'll be distracted by The Next Big ThingTM long before then. Even in the vids, it's impressive but if I was playing a 1080 fuelled 4K game at 60fps with nicely done prebaked lighting I doubt I'd be even thinking of missing Ray Tracing. When I watch some of those videos with lots of reflective elements I'm paying less attention to the effect and more to the pixellation in the reflection

[Digfox]

Sorry I meant the new 4K, in the sense it needs even more GPU power to drive all those pixels. The same way 4K is so much more demanding than 1080p which had become pretty much the norm.

[speedlolita]

So I came to my senses and undid my 2080 Ti pre-order, no real point when I'm not going 4K any time soon (especially as it would be paired with a measly 2500K). 2070 could be on the cards, but even then I feel £600 or so is a lot for a GPU.

I'm very excited for ray tracing, this is something I've been familiar with since reading about it in an issue of Custom PC in 2006. For me it definitely is the next step in graphical fidelity. Though you're right Supes, this is the first gen of this tech and waiting for what comes after to get bugs ironed out isn't a bad move at all.

Isn't like a 1080 Ti will be a bad card even when these hit.

[_SD_]

If an electronic device could ever be labelled as ‘chav’....

[speedlolita]

If an electronic device could ever be labelled as ‘chav’....

I think the modern trend of RGB peripherals/hardware is far far worse tbh.

[_SD_]

Yeah, I’ve never understood the whole thing of lighting your computer up like a sodding fun fair... but then I use a computer as a work tool, not for something to play games upon. Even so, I wouldn’t want the PlayStation to start flashing away like a bad kiddy disco.

[Neon Ignition]

Even in plain form the third party efforts often go all out but look like ass. The FE GTX1080's default look was always the best one

[Neon Ignition]

I feel like the RTX2080 info from Nvidia is really poor this time out and increasingly dodgy, can't wait for Digital Foundry to get on it. They've now released these that seem still pretty pointless?





The impossible... I'm not so sure about that. Still vague on detail and my GTX1080 has done half this list in 4K, 60fps+ with the settings pretty notched up.

Very suspicious of the cards atm.

[Digfox]

I watched a few video's tonight about the 2080 series, and probably the most interesting was this 28 min video from a small channel called AdoredTV, here:

Essentially the creator talks about the leaks that he got hold of and why RTX is really a strategically brilliant move from Nvidia but will have limited impact on the games we play atm (obviously something everyone is guessing/predicting anyway). Essentially he is predicting the usual small performance bump of up to 20-25% (something Linus and Jay2cents have previously talked about) but obviously at higher prices.

Anyway for the cost of less than the top-end Partner cards I've just ordered a whole new laptop. Which really puts into perspective the problem with PC Component prices. I've spend more than I wanted to, but I'll post a picture or two when it arrives in a few days.

[speedlolita]

I found a 3GB 1060 for £138 on eBay yesterday so I just went with that. My 2500K is fairly comfortably clocked at 4.6GHz so I think they'd compliment each other well. Should be enough to get Tekken 7 running smoothly at the very least. Could potentially grab a new card later next year when DMC5 hits.

[Digfox]

The 1060 is a good card. At 1080p probably enough. That's why I wanted at least that in a laptop (particularly as laptop 10 series cards are pretty much their desktop equivalents).

Also due to being indecisive and changing my mind I've ended up ordering two laptops from Amazon. Trying to cancel the first one but they say it can't as it's already classed as being in the final stages. The other half wasn't impressed this morning.

[speedlolita]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. My U2417H is 1080p60 only and 3GB is enough to play stuff on High. I rarely push beyond High as I prefer having that extra level of performance.

That in a laptop would be grand, especially if you're on the go.

[Digfox]

I think the 3GB is good all things considered. I know people often talk about more texture memory but I'm not sure I see it. Or at least it depends on how you run your games and perhaps I'm biased because of the way I run my games. But also when cards get that price you don't mind upgrading when the time comes.

My laptop has got a bit out of hand to put it mildly. Sorry bit of a ramble incoming...

I saw there are numerous 1060 based, gaming style laptops with various processors for £750 upwards (some good value to be had). I wanted a latest 8th gen CPU and 16GB of RAM. A 1060 was fine. However the ASUS Strix GL703GM I was looking at shot up in price everywhere from £1099 to £1180 -1299 yesterday, basically putting me off it (transpires it was on a deal in a few places).

So I look at the next model up which is still a GL703GM but has 16GB RAM 2666mhz DDR4, better storage and reluctantly justify it in my mind partly because 2666mhz DDR4 SODIMMs are very difficult to get hold of atm. However this laptop is also on offer atm so stocks running low which panics me a little bit to place order.

Thinking I'm golden a few hours later I for some reason then continue to do some reading up on laptops and realise that if I'm spending that much on the GL703GM (£1399) for only a few hundred more I might as well just get the 1070, 144hz IPS screen with G-Sync model (£1650) given that sort of spec should be near £2,000. Before you know it I've spent way too much with scope creep after scope creep. And I've still got the first laptop ordered because Amazon can't cancel it, even though it's not dispatched. So that pain of returning one to go through.

That said the laptop I've gone with should be good for years and shouldn't be a huge drop off from my existing desktop (going from my 2015 build 5930K/32GB DDR/1080 to 8750H/16GB/1070). I didn't achieve the aim of downsizing in budgetary terms but it has still cost way less than my last PC and still means I can ditch this old desk from my office therefore creating a bit more space. Also my Unraid server gets a 1TB SSD and 4TB HDD upgrade - which is really useful.

[kryss]

Ah the PC Mustard Race.

[Brad]

I think the 3GB is good all things considered. I know people often talk about more texture memory but I'm not sure I see it. Or at least it depends on how you run your games and perhaps I'm biased because of the way I run my games. But also when cards get that price you don't mind upgrading when the time comes.

My laptop has got a bit out of hand to put it mildly. Sorry bit of a ramble incoming...

I saw there are numerous 1060 based, gaming style laptops with various processors for £750 upwards (some good value to be had). I wanted a latest 8th gen CPU and 16GB of RAM. A 1060 was fine. However the ASUS Strix GL703GM I was looking at shot up in price everywhere from £1099 to £1180 -1299 yesterday, basically putting me off it (transpires it was on a deal in a few places).

So I look at the next model up which is still a GL703GM but has 16GB RAM 2666mhz DDR4, better storage and reluctantly justify it in my mind partly because 2666mhz DDR4 SODIMMs are very difficult to get hold of atm. However this laptop is also on offer atm so stocks running low which panics me a little bit to place order.

Thinking I'm golden a few hours later I for some reason then continue to do some reading up on laptops and realise that if I'm spending that much on the GL703GM (£1399) for only a few hundred more I might as well just get the 1070, 144hz IPS screen with G-Sync model (£1650) given that sort of spec should be near £2,000. Before you know it I've spent way too much with scope creep after scope creep. And I've still got the first laptop ordered because Amazon can't cancel it, even though it's not dispatched. So that pain of returning one to go through.

That said the laptop I've gone with should be good for years and shouldn't be a huge drop off from my existing desktop (going from my 2015 build 5930K/32GB DDR/1080 to 8750H/16GB/1070). I didn't achieve the aim of downsizing in budgetary terms but it has still cost way less than my last PC and still means I can ditch this old desk from my office therefore creating a bit more space. Also my Unraid server gets a 1TB SSD and 4TB HDD upgrade - which is really useful.

So what did you actually get in the end?