# Any PC gamers around?



## Grant Fondo (7 Sep 2020)

Been afflicted since the original Doom yonks ago.
Anyone getting mildly excited about the new GeForce cards out soon? RTX 3090 is £1500 (gulp!).... half decent bike or graphics card?, now there's a question.


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

Crazy money. My son just upgraded from a GTX 970 to an RTX 2070 - £400 card, but eased with me giving him a good 'used rate' for me to use his old card in my daughter's new machine. It's doubled the frame rate - great for his VR - he had his 970 running very well with a clocked I7 4790. The 970 has gone in my daughter's new build as her games don't use the graphics as hard (League and siilar), although she has a 6 core Rizen 3600 and the fancy programmable RGB's in all the fan lights - it looks well cool - she was shocked as she hadn't expected it for her birthday.

My son does racing sims and 3 screens...


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

PS - never go top end on PC graphics, it get's outdated very fast. The one level down is the sweet spot, and not the Ti issue for the extra little bit.


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## Grant Fondo (7 Sep 2020)

fossyant said:


> PS - never go top end on PC graphics, it get's outdated very fast. The one level down is the sweet spot, and not the Ti issue for the extra little bit.


Same here, going RTX 3080 which is still fairly crazy money, but getting addicted to Flight Sim 2020 in 4K, so need some extra horsepower


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

My son's 970 was £300-£400 when it came out, so I suggested the swap, so he paid £200 for the 2070 on top of my £200. I used to be in to it, and remember paying £250 for a Radeon 850 XT PE super duper one (over 25 years ago..... )

Now, not really interested, other than building them.


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

This was my build before my daughter's gaming PC - old arcade cabinet from scratch using a Windows I5 PC 4 series with a second hand 4:3 20" monitor - as big as I could find.


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## Grant Fondo (7 Sep 2020)

fossyant said:


> My son's 970 was £300-£400 when it came out, so I suggested the swap, so he paid £200 for the 2070 on top of my £200. I used to be in to it, and remember paying £250 for a Radeon 850 XT PE super duper one (over 25 years ago..... )
> 
> Now, not really interested, other than building them.


Yeah building them is great fun. Got a new mobo, cpu and extra RAM upstairs waiting for a build, do it every 4 years, this will be number 5.


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

It weighs a tonne. It's the MDF..


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Yeah building them is great fun. Got a new mobo, cpu and extra RAM upstairs waiting for a build, do it every 4 years, this will be number 5.



My daughter's machine looks great - ARGB fans - that's it. My son thought his blue LED fans wee good, then now programmable ones... it is a bottomless pit though.


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## Grant Fondo (7 Sep 2020)

fossyant said:


> My daughter's machine looks great - ARGB fans - that's it. My son thought his blue LED fans wee good, then now programmable ones... it is a bottomless pit though.


I might go for some bling as well next time


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## HMS_Dave (7 Sep 2020)

It could be worse i suppose. You could have paid this back in 1980...





Bargain of the 20th century...


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> I might go for some bling as well next time
> View attachment 545993



That's almost my daughter's machine !!!


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## fossyant (7 Sep 2020)

Here is the Arcade build.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/building-a-retro-bar-top-arcade-machine.243112/


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## ColinJ (7 Sep 2020)

I found an entertaining documentary series on Netflix recently - _High Score_ - well worth watching to see behind the scenes of the computer games industry over the years.


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## si_c (7 Sep 2020)

I'd hold off buying a new GPU until AMD releases RDNA2. A lot of people are being dismissive of it, but it's a second generation card on the same process, should be a sizeable speed bump. And don't forget that the RDNA2 chips in the PS5 and new Xbox are slated to produce similar performance to a 2080TI now in under 200W.

Lots of things to keep in mind, not least of which is the wider memory bus so it will also likely have more onboard memory than the RTX line.


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## si_c (7 Sep 2020)

Just to add: I'm holding off for the next couple of months until prices settle - I need a full system refresh in the near future, CPU and GPU although the former comes first - running an RX580 at present which suffices for 4K cities skylines


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## Edwardoka (8 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Flight Sim 2020 in 4K


Screenshots, please, I imagine that looks incredible.

FS2020 is very much the new Crysis - my now 6-year old 970 has been more than adequate for every game I've had until FS2020 came out, it is mostly playable on 1080p Ultra, but it is unusable around cities, so for safety's sake I play on Medium, only going up to Ultra to take screenshots.

Currently flying from Northern California back to Europe on a Cessna 172 - in realtime. (Thanks, FSEconomy.)
At a dirt airstrip in Newfoundland, can't fly again until it starts getting light. Looking forward to traversing Greenland in a couple of days.
Hopefully they fix the ATC and autopilot bugs soon.


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## DCBassman (8 Sep 2020)

I've just built a machine out of free parts.
Asus P8Z68-V Pro motherboard.
I7-2600K, 16GB Corsair Vengeance ram, Corsair 650w psu, Corsair Obsidian 750D case, and an EVGA Geforce GTX Titan X graphics card.
It'll keep me warm this winter!
Water cooling for the cpu when i get the mounting kit - have the cooler ready to go.
Efited to correct cpu number.


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Screenshots, please, I imagine that looks incredible.
> 
> FS2020 is very much the new Crysis - my now 6-year old 970 has been more than adequate for every game I've had until FS2020 came out, it is mostly playable on 1080p Ultra, but it is unusable around cities, so for safety's sake I play on Medium, only going up to Ultra to take screenshots.
> 
> ...


Yes New York and London are good fun, but seriously slows down! V fast internet needed i have heard (as well as beefy PC. I am maxing out at 8GB vram and 12 GB ram in 4K ultra)
Black screens every so often, not much fun when on approach in a 747 
Cracking game though, will see if i can get some pics up


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## Jody (8 Sep 2020)

I'll be putting another PC together in the near future but like @si_c I will be waiting to see what happens with AMD. The new series of Nvidia cars have come at just the right time, especially given the performance increase over the last generation. This PC is only about 8 weeks old but it was a budget build to get me started with a i7 clocked heavily, a 980 GTX, ssd etc for just over £300. Then I bought a VR headset and the lust for more power started. It's still going to be a budget build but it should have a lot more bang for buck than if it was built a couple of months ago.

Someone on the time trial racing group i'm part of just dropped £1400 on a 2080ti in the middle of July. Doesn't look like a great investment now given the 3070 is going to be faster than it and it's ONLY £450.


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

Jody said:


> I'll be putting another PC together in the near future but like @si_c I will be waiting to see what happens with AMD. The new series of Nvidia cars have come at just the right time, especially given the performance increase over the last generation. This PC is only about 8 weeks old but it was a budget build to get me started with a i7 clocked heavily, a 980 GTX, ssd etc for just over £300. Then I bought a VR headset and the lust for more power started. It's still going to be a budget build but it should have a lot more bang for buck than if it was built a couple of months ago.
> 
> Someone on the time trial racing group i'm part of just dropped £1400 on a 2080ti in the middle of July. Doesn't look like a great investment now given the 3070 is going to be faster than it and it's ONLY £450.


I am going straight to a 3080 as G-Sync dictates, but Big Navi should be worth the wait for red team officionados, lets hope a monumental pricing war breaks cover...2080ti owners watch out!


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## DCBassman (8 Sep 2020)

Jeepers, GTX Titan X is positively office machine stuff compared to this!


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## Jody (8 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> 2080ti owners watch out!



They already are. Ebay is currently littered with 1080/2080ti's and the prices have already taken a big hit. Going to be worth very little if they don't off load them in the next 8-12 weeks.


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

Jody said:


> They already are. Ebay is currently littered with 1080/2080ti's and the prices have already taken a big hit. Going to be worth very little if they don't off load them in the next 8-12 weeks.


I would stick with a 2080ti if I had one, surely it will play anything at 4k for a couple of years? On the otherhand my gtx 1070 has been OC'd to the max and just can't cut it anymore. Fine with Battlefield 4, not so FS20.


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

HMS_Dave said:


> It could be worse i suppose. You could have paid this back in 1980...
> View attachment 545994
> 
> 
> Bargain of the 20th century...


Wow! On that basis a 500gb ssd should now cost $175million....aren't they about 50 quid?


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## fossyant (8 Sep 2020)

It's crazy that a game can lead this 'expense'. Fortunately my son is mainly into racing sims and VR, so the 2070 is more than enough now. Next time is likely to be a full system refresh, but he's going to need to be 'earning' properly.


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

Now is a very bad time to buy a 2080 or similar level, throwing money away. I'll probably upgrade to the 3080, seems the sweet spot, cheaper and *much *faster than current 2080. I'll see a big lift in performance as I'm currently on a 1080, which is no slouch. Might have to upgrade my 600w PSU, though 🤷‍♂️


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Now is a very bad time to buy a 2080 or similar level, throwing money away. I'll probably upgrade to the 3080, seems the sweet spot, cheaper and *much *faster than current 2080. I'll see a big lift in performance as I'm currently on a 1080, which is no slouch. Might have to upgrade my 600w PSU, though 🤷‍♂️


Yes looks like 750w needed, and good quality due to 3000 cards demand for instant power switching i have read. I start to see benefits in consoles occasionally, pc gaming can be a money pit


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

For me the cost is easily justifiable, I work from home full time and have done for many years, so I get to use this PC all day for office work (citrix) then in the evening it's my gaming rig. £500 on an upgrade when viewed across the many hours/days it gets used makes it easier to swallow 
I haven't installed FS2020 yet, I was really looking forward to it but have so far been put off by the system requirements and also the download, we're on the cusp of FTTP here but it never seems to come.


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## si_c (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Now is a very bad time to buy a 2080 or similar level, throwing money away. I'll probably upgrade to the 3080, seems the sweet spot, cheaper and *much *faster than current 2080. I'll see a big lift in performance as I'm currently on a 1080, which is no slouch. Might have to upgrade my 600w PSU, though 🤷‍♂️


We don't actually really know how much faster it is than the 2080ti - probably in the region of 25-30% overall, it will really depend on the game engine. Nobody really has any new benchmarks yet.


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> We don't actually really know how much faster it is than the 2080ti - probably in the region of 25-30% overall, it will really depend on the game engine. Nobody really has any new benchmarks yet.


True, just going by what I've seen on various youtube channels like Linus TT and a few others. I'm expecting substantial improvements anyway.


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## si_c (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> True, just going by what I've seen on various youtube channels like Linus TT and a few others. I'm expecting substantial improvements anyway.


If you're on a 1080 it'll definitely be worth an upgrade and the power improvements are definitely an advantage, but I'm not sure that buying a 3080 soon after launch is a good shout. Depends on the benchmarks, but wait until the super variants come out in six months and the prices drop again once AMD launches and there is a price war, I doubt that there will be so much of an improvement over the 2080ti that it warrants buying one immediately is all.

Of course if it's actually 1.9x faster  like some people seem to think, then sure


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## Jody (8 Sep 2020)

fossyant said:


> It's crazy that a game can lead this 'expense'. Fortunately my son is mainly into racing sims and VR, so the 2070 is more than enough now. Next time is likely to be a full system refresh, but he's going to need to be 'earning' properly.



Having a taste of my friends VR sim racing is what led me to building this PC. My last PC was built for Battlefield 2.

Whilst it will run an ok frame rate, the 980 doesn't cut it if you want eye candy and VR.


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> For me the cost is easily justifiable, I work from home full time and have done for many years, so I get to use this PC all day for office work (citrix) then in the evening it's my gaming rig. £500 on an upgrade when viewed across the many hours/days it gets used makes it easier to swallow
> I haven't installed FS2020 yet, I was really looking forward to it but have so far been put off by the system requirements and also the download, we're on the cusp of FTTP here but it never seems to come.


It chews up around 130gb, i had to delete stuff to download.


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

only available in the US of A for $299, what a crushing disappointment


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## fossyant (8 Sep 2020)

Best option seems to be to jump two generations, eg. 9xx series to 2xxx. My son easily doubled VR frame rates.


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

Good to see some like minded people here away from cycling. I had half expected some curmudgeonly old sod to come in and berate us for our childish hobbies, then dress up in a tight fitting costume to go for a bicycle ride.


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## si_c (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> we're on the cusp of FTTP here but it never seems to come.



Same, I'm checking at least once a week, it's been in build out for six months.


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

Check on https://one.network/ and click on 'today' to change to 2 weeks.
OpenReach have done a pincer move around here, all around for miles there's been activity but they've bypassed my village. The checker goes from 'no plans for your area' to 'good news, FTTP is coming'.
🤷‍♂️


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## Grant Fondo (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Good to see some like minded people here away from cycling. I had half expected some curmudgeonly old sod to come in and berate us for our childish hobbies, then dress up in a tight fitting costume to go for a bicycle ride.


Give it time.... but good to see some positive attendance, i kind of thought PC gaming had run its course, oh, around the time the Spice Girls split up .
It was tough for me borrowing my sons Xbox controller to play Flight Sim, but one has to make concessions now and again.


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## fossyant (8 Sep 2020)

Both son and daughter are PC games, hammer the fibre and electricity costs !


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

Comparison of a 2080ti and a 3080 here, substantial frame rate increases 
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0q8f04CfFM&ab_channel=GamerInVoid


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## si_c (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Comparison of a 2080ti and a 3080 here, substantial frame rate increases
> View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0q8f04CfFM&ab_channel=GamerInVoid



Pretty sure thats a fake.


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## dodgy (8 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> Pretty sure thats a fake.


Not sure, but there's plenty of arguing in the comments, I think it's actually a video lifted from the NVidia channel.

Edit: Same video on Nvidia's own channel 
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nYy7ZucxM&ab_channel=NVIDIAGeForce


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## si_c (8 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Not sure, but there's plenty of arguing in the comments, I think it's actually a video lifted from the NVidia channel.
> 
> Edit: Same video on Nvidia's own channel
> View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nYy7ZucxM&ab_channel=NVIDIAGeForce



Fair enough - as far as I know there have been no samples sent out for review yet and none of the major tech news sites were reporting having one, so my immediate thought when seeing a 20k subscriber channel I'd never heard of before was fake 

It'll be interesting to see what other benchmarks show - inevitably this will be a cherry picked benchmark showing the 30 series in the best possible light - all manufacturers do this. I'm still expecting an overall 30% uplift - if it's better of course then brilliant, pushes the price down for everyone 

FWIW I'm not invested in AMD or nvidia either way - I've had both cards over the years and always found them to be excellent. Driver support on nvidia is usually better especially at launch.


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## Seevio (8 Sep 2020)

You might want to check AdoredTV's take on the 30 series. He seems to reckon it's about a 30% improvement.

Anyway, it's irrelevant how good they are as you're probably not going to be able to get hold of one for months.


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## Grant Fondo (9 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> Fair enough - as far as I know there have been no samples sent out for review yet and none of the major tech news sites were reporting having one, so my immediate thought when seeing a 20k subscriber channel I'd never heard of before was fake
> 
> It'll be interesting to see what other benchmarks show - inevitably this will be a cherry picked benchmark showing the 30 series in the best possible light - all manufacturers do this. I'm still expecting an overall 30% uplift - if it's better of course then brilliant, pushes the price down for everyone
> 
> FWIW I'm not invested in AMD or nvidia either way - I've had both cards over the years and always found them to be excellent. Driver support on nvidia is usually better especially at launch.


Agree with your last comment, i have had real issues with AMD drivers running crossfire a few years back, so stay with nvidia now (and single cards).
The effective cartel in the gpu market isn't good for us punters no wonder nvidia is worth more then Intel now! I am sure if there was more competition in the market prices would be 20% less + pound v dollar adds to our woes.


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## si_c (9 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Agree with your last comment, i have had real issues with AMD drivers running crossfire a few years back, so stay with nvidia now (and single cards).
> The effective cartel in the gpu market isn't good for us punters no wonder nvidia is worth more then Intel now! I am sure if there was more competition in the market prices would be 20% less + pound v dollar adds to our woes.


Don't even talk to me about crossfire! Fortunately the trend seems to have moved away from multi-gpu towards much more powerful single GPUs for both vendors.


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## xzenonuk (9 Sep 2020)

last october i upgraded my rx480 to a 5700, what a difference and at christmas time i got a ryzen 3600 to replace my i5 6600k 

dad basically got a new comp out of all my old parts, he was still running a phenom II 955 lol


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## DCBassman (9 Sep 2020)

xzenonuk said:


> last october i upgraded my rx480 to a 5700, what a difference and at christmas time i got a ryzen 3600 to replace my i5 6600k
> 
> dad basically got a new comp out of all my old parts, he was still running a phenom II 955 lol


This is basically how I get my more powerful PCs - hand-me-downs!


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## xzenonuk (10 Sep 2020)

DCBassman said:


> This is basically how I get my more powerful PCs - hand-me-downs!



used to be that way for me as well, when ever dad upgraded i would get the hand me downs now it is the other way about 

think ill hold on to the tomahawk max board untill ddr 5 mem comes out then dad can have this one and what ever else i replace 

edit: heres some pics







hacked snes mini on top with a nearly full 32 gig usb stick :P






2 cheapo light strips that work on the software for my main board for rgb 

only gaming at 1080 so tons of horse power :P


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## si_c (16 Sep 2020)

Gamers Nexus has their review up for 3080.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTeXh9x0sUc


Seems to be about 25% faster for non-RTX titles and up to 50% faster for RTX titles.


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## Grant Fondo (16 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> Gamers Nexus has their review up for 3080.
> 
> 
> View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTeXh9x0sUc
> ...



Seeing if I can get hold of one tomorrow, been due an upgrade for last year or so since going 4K, glad I held off going RTX 2000 at least but my GTX 1070 is seriously crispy on the newer games.


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## si_c (16 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Seeing if I can get hold of one tomorrow, been due an upgrade for last year or so since going 4K, glad I held off going RTX 2000 at least but my GTX 1070 is seriously crispy on the newer games.


Performance uplift for 4k is worth it, doesn't look worth for 1080p


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## Seevio (16 Sep 2020)

It will be interesting to see if Nvidia actually make many founders cards available at the MSRP.

Good luck @Grant Fondo - let us know how you get on.


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## ColinJ (16 Sep 2020)

Blimey, I just read that *Nvidia have bought ARM for $40 billion*!!!


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## si_c (16 Sep 2020)

ColinJ said:


> Blimey, I just read that *Nvidia have bought ARM for $40 billion*!!!


I heard it cost them a leg too...


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## fossyant (16 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> I heard it cost them a leg too...



Get your coat, Colin is the bad joke teller


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## ColinJ (16 Sep 2020)

While I am visiting this gamers thread...

I never got into playing shoot-em-ups, driving games, platform games and so on, but I _am _interested in games and the technology.

I mostly play very simple-looking puzzle games such as *PALISADE* (and others in that collection). Nowt to look at but quite tricky...

What I would like to try is something with fascinating graphics and sound, but no monsters, no frantic action. A really clever 3D puzzle, that kind of thing. 

I get irritated by games that have hidden keys, magic spells, and so on. Everybody raved about _The Room_ but I got tired of trying to discover some secret button (whatever).

Any suggestions for cheap/free such games?


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## si_c (16 Sep 2020)

I quite like Unblock on Android, based on a web game from about 15 years ago, quite addictive.


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## ColinJ (16 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> I quite like Unblock on Android, based on a web game from about 15 years ago, quite addictive.


Ah yes, that's the kind of thing that I often play. I might give that a go again.

I loved the original editions of _Lemmings _put wasn't keen on later ones with all sorts of unnecessary extra Lemming types added.


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## Edwardoka (17 Sep 2020)

ColinJ said:


> While I am visiting this gamers thread...
> 
> I never got into playing shoot-em-ups, driving games, platform games and so on, but I _am _interested in games and the technology.
> 
> ...


Zachtronics make amazing puzzle games, because the puzzles rarely railroad you or have a prescribed solution.

Of all their games, I recommend Opus Magnum the most. Infinifactory is 3D but hurts my brain.


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## fossyant (17 Sep 2020)

ColinJ said:


> Ah yes, that's the kind of thing that I often play. I might give that a go again.
> 
> I loved the original editions of _Lemmings _put wasn't keen on later ones with all sorts of unnecessary extra Lemming types added.



Web version for you

https://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/


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## ColinJ (17 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> I quite like Unblock on Android, based on a web game from about 15 years ago, quite addictive.


I played the first 20-odd levels HERE and they were so easy that I thought I'd stop, but they are getting harder at level 25 onwards.

I'll take a look at some of the others tomorrow.


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## dodgy (17 Sep 2020)

ColinJ said:


> While I am visiting this gamers thread...
> 
> I never got into playing shoot-em-ups, driving games, platform games and so on, but I _am _interested in games and the technology.
> 
> ...



Portal by Valve.
Thank me later


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## Edwardoka (17 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Portal by Valve.
> Thank me later


Oh, it's _you._


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## xzenonuk (17 Sep 2020)

dodgy said:


> Portal by Valve.
> Thank me later



that is exactly what i was gonna suggest


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## Grant Fondo (17 Sep 2020)

Seevio said:


> It will be interesting to see if Nvidia actually make many founders cards available at the MSRP.
> 
> Good luck @Grant Fondo - let us know how you get on.


Well i appear to have nabbed one, no idea when it will arrive? Bit of a buying frenzy today, lots of website crashing etc. Not putting the old kit on Ebay just yet...should be plenty of decent graphics cards up very shortly, a buyers market as they say


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## Seevio (17 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Well i appear to have nabbed one, no idea when it will arrive? Bit of a buying frenzy today, lots of website crashing etc. Not putting the old kit on Ebay just yet...should be plenty of decent graphics cards up very shortly, a buyers market as they say


Congratulations. Hopefully you get to enjoy it soon. The founder's edition at MSRP seems like a bargain under Nvidia's high end monopoly due to it being a loss leader. The AIB cards on the other hand don't seem like so much of a bargain. They either have to match price by using cheaper lower quality cooling or match quality and charge more. 

Unsurprisingly the 3080 is now out of stock on the (UK) Nvidia site. 

As I need a new monitor before a new gpu, I think I'll wait to see what AMD does that's going to "disrupt the 4K market".


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## fossyant (17 Sep 2020)

There is apparently a 3090.  God knows how much that will be


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## Grant Fondo (17 Sep 2020)

fossyant said:


> There is apparently a 3090.  God knows how much that will be


1500 quid


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## fossyant (18 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> 1500 quid



Cheap as caviar coated chips.


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## Edwardoka (18 Sep 2020)

I was already an anti-consumerist grognard, but this RTX 3- series hype is turning me a full-blown misanthropic technophobe.
People continually hitting reload on their browsers, bringing websites down. Ebay full of scalpers. The Black Friday effect but online.

The currently most popular game on Steam and Twitch looks like a flash game circa 2003.

If you want to throw money away chasing incremental upgrades, instead give it to me, I will invest it more wisely


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## Grant Fondo (18 Sep 2020)

'Bargain' is an odd turn of phrase when talking about expensive graphics cards, but I paid £649.99 for this very same card yesterday. That's some serious inflation!

MSI NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 VENTUS 3X 10G AMPERE GRAPHICS CARD
*MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 VENTUS 3X 10G Ampere Graphics Card*
Cuda Cores: 8704, Boost Clock: 1710MHz, GDDR6X, 320-bit 










Very short supply, no confirmed date



*£799.99 inc vat*
£666.66 ex vat
This product is only available to buy when in stock


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## Grant Fondo (18 Sep 2020)

Seevio said:


> Congratulations. Hopefully you get to enjoy it soon. The founder's edition at MSRP seems like a bargain under Nvidia's high end monopoly due to it being a loss leader. The AIB cards on the other hand don't seem like so much of a bargain. They either have to match price by using cheaper lower quality cooling or match quality and charge more.
> 
> Unsurprisingly the 3080 is now out of stock on the (UK) Nvidia site.
> 
> As I need a new monitor before a new gpu, I think I'll wait to see what AMD does that's going to "disrupt the 4K market".


Yes, waiting a bit should pay dividends. I jumped in with both feet as struggling with Flight Sim 2020 at 4K... new card should, ahem, really make it take off


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## DCBassman (18 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Flight Sim 2020 at 4K..


What's needed to get lift off at 1080p? 2600K/Titan X cut it?


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## si_c (18 Sep 2020)

DCBassman said:


> What's needed to get lift off at 1080p? 2600K/Titan X cut it?


Should be OK, might bottleneck with that CPU though.


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## Edwardoka (18 Sep 2020)

DCBassman said:


> What's needed to get lift off at 1080p? 2600K/Titan X cut it?


Titan X will manage it without batting an eyelid, but the CPU might bottleneck it a little. I'm on an i7-4790k and a gtx970. Runs happily at 1080p on medium.

You will need 16GB of RAM though.

Edit: d'oh, snap


----------



## Grant Fondo (18 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> Should be OK, might bottleneck with that CPU though.


Yep, agree CPU might bottleneck, but fine at 1440p. Titan X is a tad more powerful than GTX 1070 so your fine.


----------



## si_c (18 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> You will need 16GB of RAM though.


I've got to the point where I think 24 is the minimum for reasonable gaming with modern titles now.


----------



## Edwardoka (18 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> I've got to the point where I think 24 is the minimum for reasonable gaming with modern titles now.


Aside from FS2020, not a single game I own comes even close to my 16GB on 1920x1080, or even 3840x1080 when using Nvidia Surround.
FS2020 on Ultra in built-up areas will use 10GB.

If you were also running a server and streaming/video encoding then yes, but for general gaming, nah.


----------



## HMS_Dave (18 Sep 2020)

My PC wasn't really brought for PC gaming. I have a pair of E5-2690's, 48gb ram and an RX590. I work mostly off of it. But i used to play strategy games a while back, especially when i owned an Amiga. During the lockdown, i must admit i gave Hearts Of Iron and Stellaris a blast and i have to say how addictive and excellent strategy games are these days. So in depth...


----------



## si_c (18 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Aside from FS2020, not a single game I own comes even close to my 16GB on 1920x1080, or even 3840x1080 when using Nvidia Surround.
> FS2020 on Ultra in built-up areas will use 10GB.
> 
> If you were also running a server and streaming/video encoding then yes, but for general gaming, nah.



Cities Skylines with mods easily eats 20GB RAM and 6GB of VRAM.


----------



## Grant Fondo (18 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Aside from FS2020, not a single game I own comes even close to my 16GB on 1920x1080, or even 3840x1080 when using Nvidia Surround.
> FS2020 on Ultra in built-up areas will use 10GB.
> 
> If you were also running a server and streaming/video encoding then yes, but for general gaming, nah.


I am seeing 14.5GB RAM with Flight Sim 20 at 4k + GPU is maxed at 8GB VRAM....its a beast of a game to power!


----------



## Edwardoka (18 Sep 2020)

si_c said:


> Cities Skylines with mods easily eats 20GB RAM and 6GB of VRAM.


If you're running lots of mods then you've only got yourself to blame


----------



## si_c (18 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> If you're running lots of mods then you've only got yourself to blame


Just the quality of life ones  Don't have many asset mods in either


----------



## Edwardoka (18 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> I am seeing 14.5GB RAM with Flight Sim 20 at 4k + GPU is maxed at 8GB VRAM....its a beast of a game to power!


Aye, I imagine it will use extra resources where available, what's that old saying "Data expands to fill the space available".
The higher resolution will necessitate higher main RAM usage, even though the GPU is taking the bulk of the load.

I don't know the inner workings of the FS engine but given how much world geometry it's constantly loading and unloading in busy areas I imagine the more it can keep resident the happier it will be.

I only have 3.5GB of VRAM so it probably uses lower quality mipmaps independent of the graphics settings chosen.


----------



## Edwardoka (18 Sep 2020)

HMS_Dave said:


> My PC wasn't really brought for PC gaming. I have a pair of E5-2690's, 48gb ram and an RX590. I work mostly off of it. But i used to play strategy games a while back, especially when i owned an Amiga. During the lockdown, i must admit i gave Hearts Of Iron and Stellaris a blast and i have to say how addictive and excellent strategy games are these days. So in depth...


Ah, Paradox 

I think this is the first time in about 8 years that I've not had a Paradox grand strategy campaign on the go. I flip between them and burn out, but the FSEconomy addon for Flight Simulator 2020 has grabbed me and won't let go.

Europa Universalis IV is IMO the best PDX game - better than HOI4 and Stellaris, but it is a massive time sink - whereas a HOI4 campaign can last a few nights, an EU4 campaign can last months.

As for HOI4, the Kaiserreich mod improves it in every way, by asking the question "what if Germany had won WW1" - every single country has really interesting focus trees and events versus default HOI4 which is limited by historicity.


----------



## HMS_Dave (18 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Ah, Paradox
> 
> I think this is the first time in about 8 years that I've not had a Paradox grand strategy campaign on the go. I flip between them and burn out, but the FSEconomy addon for Flight Simulator 2020 has grabbed me and won't let go.
> 
> ...


Sounds like my kind of thing for HOI4. Will have a look into it. Europa Universalis ive seen, but im not sure i have that kind of time unfortunately. But it is something i'd love to play.


----------



## Grant Fondo (19 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Aye, I imagine it will use extra resources where available, what's that old saying "Data expands to fill the space available".
> The higher resolution will necessitate higher main RAM usage, even though the GPU is taking the bulk of the load.
> 
> I don't know the inner workings of the FS engine but given how much world geometry it's constantly loading and unloading in busy areas I imagine the more it can keep resident the happier it will be.
> ...


What card do you have? I have seen some benchmarks using 12 GB+ of vram for FS20...doesn't bode well for my new 10GB card (if and when it turns up!)


----------



## Edwardoka (19 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> What card do you have? I have seen some benchmarks using 12 GB+ of vram for FS20...doesn't bode well for my new 10GB card (if and when it turns up!)


MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr (stupid name)
Claims to have 4GB but in reality it's split into banks of 3.5GB and 0.5GB, and the 0.5GB bank is on a much slower bus that tanks performance if it's used. It was the subject of a class action lawsuit.


----------



## si_c (19 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr (stupid name)
> Claims to have 4GB but in reality it's split into banks of 3.5GB and 0.5GB, and the 0.5GB bank is on a much slower bus that tanks performance if it's used. It was the subject of a class action lawsuit.


Definitely worth an upgrade to one with more VRAM. Should be lots of 1080s or 5700xts on the market soon.


----------



## fossyant (19 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Titan X will manage it without batting an eyelid, but the CPU might bottleneck it a little. I'm on an i7-4790k and a gtx970. Runs happily at 1080p on medium.
> 
> You will need 16GB of RAM though.
> 
> Edit: d'oh, snap



My son had the same as you and has just dropped 32gb and a RTX 2070 in and its doubled his VR frame rate. My daughter has the 970 on her new build as she doesn't use the same horsepower games as my son. Her processor is faster (new Ryzen 5)


----------



## fossyant (19 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr (stupid name)
> Claims to have 4GB but in reality it's split into banks of 3.5GB and 0.5GB, and the 0.5GB bank is on a much slower bus that tanks performance if it's used. It was the subject of a class action lawsuit.



Same card my son had. Affected all 970s. Jump 2 versions though, so 2070


----------



## Grant Fondo (19 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> MSI GTX 970 Twin Frozr (stupid name)
> Claims to have 4GB but in reality it's split into banks of 3.5GB and 0.5GB, and the 0.5GB bank is on a much slower bus that tanks performance if it's used. It was the subject of a class action lawsuit.


Oh yes, i remember all that kerfuffle. I was running two R9 390's in crossfire at that time with no end of grief. Won't go back to AMD cards after that, Big Navi or not.


----------



## Grant Fondo (19 Sep 2020)

I guess there is always this option if you need to go beserk with VRAM?
*NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48 GB, 260W, Dual Slot, PCIe x16*








*£11,797.19*
Save £2,837.71 (24%)
Includes VAT, free Delivery


----------



## DCBassman (19 Sep 2020)

Bargain, free delivery!


----------



## Grant Fondo (19 Sep 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Bargain, free delivery!


C'mon its still cheaper than one of these?


----------



## Seevio (19 Sep 2020)

Would the Pinarello be any cheaper if it wasn't hovering?


----------



## DCBassman (19 Sep 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> C'mon its still cheaper than one of these?
> View attachment 548056


True, and you would probably have to pay carriage as well!


----------



## Grant Fondo (21 Sep 2020)

RTX3080 no show here, paid the money on thursday, no idea when in stock or when I will get one. Talk about a sellers market, why not just let you pay when physically available. Hmmm, maybe online shops don't update stock in real time, or something craftier is at play?
Anyone else in this boat?


----------



## Seevio (25 Sep 2020)

AIB RTX 3080's crashing?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6bUUEEe-X8


----------



## ColinJ (25 Sep 2020)

It was interesting, and I got 8 minutes into it, but I can't be bothered to watch the rest of it.

It reminded me of overhearing other engineers at work in the past discussing technical problems. Sometimes I would think "_Yeah, that makes sense_" and sometimes I would think "_What on earth are they going on about_"!


----------



## Seevio (25 Sep 2020)

I must confess I didn't get through all of it either but it does hark back to my earlier comment of AIB makers cutting corners to meet price targets.


----------



## Grant Fondo (26 Sep 2020)

Dunno? Still not got one yet so no way of knowing what card is like. People are saying months until available, hope not. I have seen RTX 3090's on sale for £1700! Bloody crazy


----------



## Edwardoka (27 Sep 2020)

Typical, after writing "my 970 is fine for gaming", now the fan bearings are giving out.

I'm sure it's not a sinister ploy by nvidia to force me to upgrade, and is almost certainly more a consequence of me running flight sim constantly while doing other things (got to earn those FSEconomy v$ somehow)


----------



## fossyant (27 Sep 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Typical, after writing "my 970 is fine for gaming", now the fan bearings are giving out.
> 
> I'm sure it's not a sinister ploy by nvidia to force me to upgrade, and is almost certainly more a consequence of me running flight sim constantly while doing other things (got to earn those FSEconomy v$ somehow)



Pop em off and drop some bike lube on them.


----------



## Edwardoka (27 Sep 2020)

fossyant said:


> Pop em off and drop some bike lube on them.


Some what? Never heard of it


----------



## Grant Fondo (15 Oct 2020)

Did anyone else try and get a 3080? Month in now after pre order and no sign of the chuffing thing... the perils of PC gaming continue ....


----------



## Jody (15 Oct 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Did anyone else try and get a 3080? Month in now after pre order and no sign of the chuffing thing... the perils of PC gaming continue ....



I know two people who have them on back order with no date in sight. 

I'd cancel it and wait given the 3070 and 3080 upgrades due soon. 

https://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia/rtx-3080-refresh


----------



## fossyant (15 Oct 2020)

The 4080 Ti will be out at this rate !


----------



## RoubaixCube (20 Oct 2020)

fossyant said:


> The 4080 Ti will be out at this rate !



Paper launch and vaporware just like Nvidia current stock of 3080s


----------



## Grant Fondo (20 Oct 2020)

Jody said:


> I know two people who have them on back order with no date in sight.
> 
> I'd cancel it and wait given the 3070 and 3080 upgrades due soon.
> 
> https://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia/rtx-3080-refresh


I am tantalisingly 4th in the queue now some poor folk are 1000+ now after pre-ordering last month. Nvidia have got a licence to print money just now, a strange state of affairs given the hardships being faced by other businesses.


----------



## Jody (20 Oct 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> I am tantalisingly 4th in the queue now some poor folk are 1000+ now after pre-ordering last month. Nvidia have got a licence to print money just now, a strange state of affairs given the hardships being faced by other businesses.



I reckon spare cash/lockdown and bitcoin mining will see costs go up even more. 

I'm hoping the competition from Big Navi keeps it all under control.


----------



## Edwardoka (6 Nov 2020)

Anyone on here do any streaming? I tried my hand at it last night using OBS. Fun to howl into the void for an hour and a half, but despite using nvidia's GPU hardware encoding I was seeing 20% skipped frames because my CPU would intermittently max out. No rhyme or reason for it - super frustrating.

I know my rig isn't the sharpest but it should be able to easily manage 1280x720@60. My mate uses software encoding (he has AMD so NVENC isn't available to him) and he has a much better time.


----------



## fossyant (6 Nov 2020)

My son does, but I couldn't tell you what he's using.

He's set up a sim racing team and they have done quite well in the last 12 months, so much so, they now have sponsorship from an oil company. My son isn't one of their top drivers but co-owns the team and does all the background work/ promotion etc. They are working out how to invest the money now ! 

www.sidemax.co.uk


----------



## Edwardoka (6 Nov 2020)

fossyant said:


> My son does, but I couldn't tell you what he's using.
> 
> He's set up a sim racing team and they have done quite well in the last 12 months, so much so, they now have sponsorship from an oil company. My son isn't one of their top drivers but co-owns the team and does all the background work/ promotion etc. They are working out how to invest the money now !
> 
> www.sidemax.co.uk


Nice! eSports racing is weird to me (I grew up playing the Crammond F1GP games), but I like that the new crop of pro drivers are also sim racers - and some of the older hands also partake. A guy I know beat Rubens Barrichello in iRacing 

If your son is running a sim racing team I think his AV setup will be slightly more advanced than me faffing about with encoder settings in OBS


----------



## Jody (6 Nov 2020)

I've not tried streaming yet as I don't think this GPU is up to it but I'm going to have a dabble when the upgrade arrives.

@Grant Fondo Did you card ever arrive?


----------



## fossyant (6 Nov 2020)

He was streaming with a GTX970 and clocked 4790k i7 with 32gb ram, and now has an RTX2070 

One of the British GT (real) drivers has come from Sim racing.


----------



## Grant Fondo (6 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> I've not tried streaming yet as I don't think this GPU is up to it but I'm going to have a dabble when the upgrade arrives.
> 
> @Grant Fondo Did you card ever arrive?


Thanks for asking and very timely! I got a dispatch email this morning 7 weeks after ordering so RTX 3080 on its way  unlike hundreds of others still waiting. Its been a monumental cock-up by Nvidia.


----------



## Grant Fondo (6 Nov 2020)

Just to add.... 'scalping' is the new buzzword given the situation, so on Ebay this is a £700 card currently 
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition **IN HAND**

*£1,999.00+ £8.99 postage*

Est. delivery Wed, 11 Nov


----------



## Edwardoka (6 Nov 2020)

fossyant said:


> He was streaming with a GTX970 and clocked 4790k i7 with 32gb ram, and now has an RTX2070
> 
> One of the British GT (real) drivers has come from Sim racing.


Aside from the extra 16 gigs of RAM and my CPU running at stock speed, that (i7 4790k and 970) is literally the same rig as mine.
I'm going to try the software encoder because as I say, my mate who is using it is getting no dropped frames on a demonstrably slower machine.


----------



## Jody (6 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Thanks for asking and very timely! I got a dispatch email this morning 7 weeks after ordering so RTX 3080 on its way  unlike hundreds of others still waiting. Its been a monumental cock-up by Nvidia.



About time too. Looking at Scans website they still have outstanding pre orders for 2000+ 3080's  You'll have to let us know what you think when its up and running.

I managed to bag a 3070 and thought I was one of the lucky ones. Got an email two days later to advise I was 150th in the queue 

Now I'm hoping it buys me enough time to see what the RX6800 retails for and how it benchmarks.


----------



## DCBassman (6 Nov 2020)

I feel antiquated with my 2600K and Titan X...


----------



## Grant Fondo (6 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> I feel antiquated with my 2600K and Titan X...


If it still works for you why change? Titan X will be fine for a while yet


----------



## Grant Fondo (7 Nov 2020)

Two packets of Haribos and RTX 3080 arrived this morning, yum, yum


----------



## Boopop (7 Nov 2020)

Behold! Spent days looking forward to this and now I can't be bothered installing it after tiring myself out being Dr Bike in the town centre. Gonna watch some Taskmaster and buy Control, then I'll pop it in I think.


----------



## Grant Fondo (7 Nov 2020)

Boopop said:


> View attachment 556904
> 
> 
> Behold! Spent days looking forward to this and now I can't be bothered installing it after tiring myself out being Dr Bike in the town centre. Gonna watch some Taskmaster and buy Control, then I'll pop it in I think.


Same here, been watching La Vuelta rather than tinkering with the pc. I will get hold of Control as well


----------



## Edwardoka (7 Nov 2020)

So what you're all saying is that there are 10x0 and 20x0 cards looking for a new home?


----------



## ColinJ (7 Nov 2020)

Q: Those mega-powerful PCs bristling with cooling fans look like they might be incredibly noisy. Are the fans designed for low noise levels, or do the machines sound like helicopters taking off?

(I hate noisy computers! My laptop is blissfully quiet. It does have 2 small cooling fans but I have never noticed the sound of them.)


----------



## Grant Fondo (7 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> Q: Those mega-powerful PCs bristling with cooling fans look like they might be incredibly noisy. Are the fans designed for low noise levels, or do the machines sound like helicopters taking off?
> 
> (I hate noisy computers! My laptop is blissfully quiet. It does have 2 small cooling fans but I have never noticed the sound of them.)


Yes they make a racket but only when gaming rest of the time whisper quiet.


----------



## ColinJ (7 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Yes they make a racket but only when gaming rest of the time whisper quiet.


That is like saying that a Formula 1 car is only loud when racing - ha ha! I suppose if you are gaming with headphones on then you probably wouldn't notice the noise?

If/when finances permit I'd like to buy a powerful PC for music production, but powerful graphics wouldn't be needed so it would only be the noise of the main cooling system that would concern me.


----------



## DCBassman (8 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> That is like saying that a Formula 1 car is only loud when racing - ha ha! I suppose if you are gaming with headphones on then you probably wouldn't notice the noise?
> 
> If/when finances permit I'd like to buy a powerful PC for music production, but powerful graphics wouldn't be needed so it would only be the noise of the main cooling system that would concern me.


I have my son's old gaming case and a lot of fans and control for them. I don't game, so I'll use them all, and a water cooler for the cpu, to make my powerful (reasonably) pc very, very quiet indeed.


----------



## Edwardoka (8 Nov 2020)

But how do you know your computer is working properly if it doesn't sound like a hovercraft?


----------



## DCBassman (8 Nov 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> But how do you know your computer is working properly if it doesn't sound like a hovercraft?



It has enough fans that if set up correctly, it could BE a hovercraft!


----------



## fossyant (8 Nov 2020)

My son's is very quiet even on load as he's quite a number of fans controlled by a fan controller with various temperature sensors in the case, and has a water cooling system (off the peg) for the CPU, whch throws all the heat right out the back of the machine, so the case internals are very cool.

My daughter's is a litle nosier as the ARGB fans are linked to a remote control, rather than speed sensitive on the mobo (board didn't support ARGB). CPU fan (no water cooling) and graphics are quiet, just a low hum from the 4 lit up case fans. Her machine does look great - currently ruunning a purple and pink rotating fade effect. My son's is pre-ARGB and is running blue and UV lighting.


----------



## Grant Fondo (8 Nov 2020)

Including cooler and graphics card my last gaming pc had 11 fans! Current one has less but water cooler is quite noisy under load. I honestly don't notice it while gaming.


----------



## ColinJ (8 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Including cooler and graphics card my last gaming pc had 11 fans! Current one has less but water cooler is quite noisy under load. I honestly don't notice it while gaming.


I had a noisy PC a few years ago. It was not a powerful gaming computer, just a mid-range machine I used for software development. After 10 or 12 hours of beavering away, I would turn it off and only then realise just how how fatiguing the noise had been!

I really like working on this laptop, where the sound of me typing is all I hear. (And it has a membrane type keyboard so I don't have the clicks of mechanical keys.)


----------



## fossyant (8 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> I had a noisy PC a few years ago. It was not a powerful gaming computer, just a mid-range machine I used for software development. After 10 or 12 hours of beavering away, I would turn it off and only then realise just how how fatiguing the noise had been!
> 
> I really like working on this laptop, where the sound of me typing is all I hear. (And it has a membrane type keyboard so I don't have the clicks of mechanical keys.)



This laptop I'm using goes into insane loud mode when gaming. It's a 17" i7 4 series, 16GB Ram and an Nvidia 740 graphics - it's a fair few years old but is still OK on most games for an old laptop - I'm not a gamer now, but it doesn't half get loud if anyone plays games - I have a cooling pad under it all the time anyway.

Our 'used' Lenovo ThinkStation is lovely and quiet, but can be exceptionally loud - although it never does that other than on a boot check - sounds like it's on take off.

If my son cranked his fans up it would be quite loud.


----------



## ColinJ (8 Nov 2020)

fossyant said:


> This laptop I'm using goes into insane loud mode when gaming. It's a 17" i7 4 series, 16GB Ram and an Nvidia 740 graphics - it's a fair few years old but is still OK on most games for an old laptop - I'm not a gamer now, but it doesn't half get loud if anyone plays games - I have a cooling pad under it all the time anyway.
> 
> Our 'used' Lenovo ThinkStation is lovely and quiet, but can be exceptionally loud - although it never does that other than on a boot check - sounds like it's on take off.


I am using a Lenovo Ideapad. I have never actually pushed it hard enough to get the fans really spinning. I almost feel like doing it just to see how loud it actually gets. I have some demanding music software which I could fire up and try to play (say) 100 tracks of heavily processed audio and see what happens...


----------



## fossyant (8 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> I am using a Lenovo Ideapad. I have never actually pushed it hard enough to get the fans really spinning. I almost feel like doing it just to see how loud it actually gets. I have some demanding music software which I could fire up and try to play (say) 100 tracks of heavily processed audio and see what happens...



You can get a 'stress' test from Intel which checks everything !


----------



## Grant Fondo (8 Nov 2020)

Boopop said:


> View attachment 556904
> 
> 
> Behold! Spent days looking forward to this and now I can't be bothered installing it after tiring myself out being Dr Bike in the town centre. Gonna watch some Taskmaster and buy Control, then I'll pop it in I think.


Have you fired her up yet? Mines still in the box


----------



## Boopop (8 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Have you fired her up yet? Mines still in the box


Yeah, here it is inside my FT03 case. Been playing some Control, it's rather good 






My old Vega 56 used to rub up against the case fan where my finger is in the photo. It was rather irritating, I usually had to remove both of them at the same time to get the GPU out. Now there's loads of space. Note I did plug in the power connectors after taking this photo 

Also, UserBenchmark was rather complimentary about my system  Now I'm tempted to get another 16B of RAM...but then it's not like I need it so perhaps I should chill my boots!


----------



## Grant Fondo (8 Nov 2020)

Boopop said:


> Yeah, here it is inside my FT03 case. Been playing some Control, it's rather good
> 
> View attachment 557101
> 
> ...


Looks good! Yeah i went 32GB Ram as Flight Sim 20 was showing over 14GB @ 4K which seemed too close for comfort and not even max settings!
Max settings from now on.... when i get round to it.


----------



## MrGrumpy (9 Nov 2020)

Gave up the arms race years ago, my eldest builds his own now. Don’t think even his PC is as speedy as some on here. I started building gaming pcs back in the day of unreal tournament and quake 3 !! Back when frame rate and rocket launchers was the thing ! Spent (wasted ) hours playing those games. Along came Call of Duty and that was me sucked in. Laterally about 13yrs ago I got hooked on WoW . What a time sink that was , enjoyed it but man it took its toll and I packed it in. Got into console gaming on the Xbox and it was fun for a few years but I think age and boredom got the better of me . Officially retired now from gaming .


----------



## DCBassman (9 Nov 2020)

MrGrumpy said:


> Gave up the arms race years ago, my eldest builds his own now. Don’t think even his PC is as speedy as some on here. I started building gaming pcs back in the day of unreal tournament and quake 3 !! Back when frame rate and rocket launchers was the thing ! Spent (wasted ) hours playing those games. Along came Call of Duty and that was me sucked in. Laterally about 13yrs ago I got hooked on WoW . What a time sink that was , enjoyed it but man it took its toll and I packed it in. Got into console gaming on the Xbox and it was fun for a few years but I think age and boredom got the better of me . Officially retired now from gaming .


I've just spent a pleasant hour with UT99 at full HD and every setting maxed out. Didn't even get the fans whirring!


----------



## Edwardoka (9 Nov 2020)

I've stopped playing FS20 for now because it is extremely crash-happy. Every patch seems to make it worse.

I just tried streaming Subnautica, a game that's been on my backlog for years, on twitch. The performance was perfect despite me not changing a single setting from my first stream. Not a single dropped frame in over 2 hours of gameplay.

Unfortunately, there was also not a single viewer. Just as well, because the stream _sucked._

I cannot do any multitasking that requires short-term memorisation of words, and Subnautica is a game about exploring an underwater alien landscape, gathering resources and - crucially - remembering crafting recipes.
Playing it off-stream I could just about get away with, but the stream consisted primarily of "um... er... what did i come here for?"


----------



## Drago (11 Nov 2020)

Never played any type of video game in my life.


----------



## Edwardoka (11 Nov 2020)

Drago said:


> Never played any type of video game in my life.


A worthy attempt at finding a successor to "I don't own a TV", but too long to really catch on.


----------



## fossyant (11 Nov 2020)

Drago said:


> Never played any type of video game in my life.



Whaaattttt  Not even Space Invaders and Pac Man.


----------



## Drago (11 Nov 2020)

Nope, never held the slightest bit of appeal. I'm probably the only person in the Western hemisphere under the age of 75 who hasn't done so.


----------



## ColinJ (11 Nov 2020)

Drago said:


> Nope, never held the slightest bit of appeal. I'm probably the only person in the Western hemisphere under the age of 75 who hasn't done so.


You are NOT... During a break in one of our rides I whipped my phone out and tried showing @Littgull how the puzzle game that I am developing works. His eyes glazed over! Further investigation revealed that not only does he not play mobile games, he doesn't play any other type of computer games OR non-computer games! Nowt, zilch, nothing... He isn't keen on TV either. I think he just reads a lot!


----------



## Edwardoka (11 Nov 2020)

Drago said:


> Nope, never held the slightest bit of appeal. I'm probably the only person in the Western hemisphere under the age of 75 who hasn't done so.


Ok troops, what game shall we get Drago to play then?

We don't want to remind him of his time in 'nam so I think big bombastic first person spectacle shooters are probably out

Arma3 would be a good candidate - although being shot from 500m away by someone he never even saw might jar with the whole Arnie/Jesse Ventura/Sly Stallone thing he's got going

Hearts of Iron IV will give him an opportunity to smash the commies*

* run out of infantry equipment and get steamrolled by the first division he encounters


----------



## Edwardoka (11 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> You are NOT... During a break in one of our rides I whipped my phone out and tried showing @Littgull how the puzzle game that I am developing works. His eyes glazed over! Further investigation revealed that not only does he not play mobile games, he doesn't play any other type of computer games OR non-computer games! Nowt, zilch, nothing... He isn't keen on TV either. I think he just reads a lot!


I must profess curiosity about these puzzle games you're developing. Got anything you can share with us?


----------



## Grant Fondo (11 Nov 2020)

Boopop said:


> Yeah, here it is inside my FT03 case. Been playing some Control, it's rather good
> 
> View attachment 557101
> 
> ...


Finally up and running... this card is ludicrous, everything feels really smooth at 4K now....worth the wait


----------



## ColinJ (11 Nov 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> I must profess curiosity about these puzzle games you're developing. Got anything you can share with us?


I don't want to give _too _much away at the moment, but let's just say that the first game is '_a bit different_'. It isn't just another _Candy Crush Saga_ clone! 

There is a playing grid on which pieces can be moved around. Fixed detectors in other grid cells respond to those movements... The object of the game is to produce a certain response in all of the detectors. The player tries out what looks like a useful move and then observes the result. Blind guesswork is punished by running out of moves. Overcautious hesitation and overthinking is punished by running out of time. 

The more complex levels (literally!) have billions of billions of billions of... possible variations so there is no way to get the answer by trying all of the possibilities at random. Even the very simplest levels have thousands of possible moves so it would be stupid (and tedious) to try to use brute force to solve them. The game rewards intelligent guesswork, and the player slowly iterates towards the solution, never quite sure if (s)he is on the right track until nearer the end. Some players would find that very annoying, but I actually enjoy the ebb and flow of the game. It is often 2 steps forward, 1 step back, but gradually the feeling develops that one is on the right track. And, _eventually _... _*TADA - YOU WIN! *_

The graphics and sound effects are clean and simple, but the actual game itself is deceptively difficult. I can make it arbitrarily easy OR hard, but after a lot of experimenting I have found that there is a degree of difficulty which suits _me_. 

Every puzzle is guaranteed to have an exact solution and I am 99.99xxx% confident that there would not be any other solutions. It doesn't matter if there _were _other solutions, but I like the idea of there being just one. I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution! 

I like levels which take me 30-60 minutes to crack. Some people wouldn't have the patience for that so they might opt for easier ones that take (say) 5-10 minutes. 

I will also set the occasional mega-hard puzzle that might take days to solve, and challenge people to be the first to crack it. If nobody ever got the solution to a puzzle it was clearly TOO hard. If it got solved in a few hours it was too easy. I'll tweak the difficulty accordingly for later challenges. 

I am going to include a challenge mode. A group of players could arrange to play the same (relatively easy) set of levels against the clock with points for first, second, third... to finish. If nobody finished, then the points would be allocated according to how close each player got to the solution. (There is a display showing that.)

I'm thinking of starting a thread on CycleChat - e.g. _ColinJ's Puzzle Challenge_. Anybody interested could beaver away and try to get the answer first. I asked Shaun years ago if I could do it, and his reply was.. "_Go for it!_". Unfortunately, I got distracted and never actually got the game finished that I was working on at the time.

The first game will initially be for Android devices only. Sorry - I don't have any experience with Apple, or own any Apple kit. If there were sufficient interest in my games to make it worth my while, I would buy a used Macbook and iPhone and create an iOS version. I could probably do that quite quickly.

I have the game running on my phone which has a 5.25" diagonal HD screen and it is pretty clear on that. The game resizes itself for different resolutions/sizes so it should work on many devices, but the complex levels would be a bit cramped on screens smaller than about 4.5".

At some point I will be looking for some volunteers to help me test the game. I would be putting on the Google Play store and could then give private access to it before the official release.

I'll doublecheck with @Shaun again when the test version is available, and if he gives the go-ahead I'll start a thread calling for test volunteers.


----------



## Littgull (11 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> You are NOT... During a break in one of our rides I whipped my phone out and tried showing @Littgull how the puzzle game that I am developing works. His eyes glazed over! Further investigation revealed that not only does he not play mobile games, he doesn't play any other type of computer games OR non-computer games! Nowt, zilch, nothing... He isn't keen on TV either. I think he just reads a lot!


Ha ha, yes it looks like we are in a club of two @Drago. I've never had the remotest interest in computer games or board games come to that! My 2 sons, who are in their late thirties and live away now, are very tech savvy. I always did loads of outdoor activities with them plus hours of fun and discussion (still do when COVID allows) but I never participated in computer games with them, which from memory were things like Super Marios and Pacman when they were very young.

My IT competency is just sufficient to write, read and send emails, write reports and do spreadsheets etc though I've been retired for over 3 years now. The other thing is, I have an absolute phobia of instruction manuals relating to techy gadgets.


----------



## Pale Rider (12 Nov 2020)

Littgull said:


> write reports and do spreadsheets



Spreadsheets?

In my terms that makes you a computer nerd.

Words and spaces is about as much as I can manage.


----------



## DCBassman (12 Nov 2020)

I build the damn things. Still have no idea about spreadsheets...


----------



## fossyant (12 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Finally up and running... this card is ludicrous, everything feels really smooth at 4K now....worth the wait
> View attachment 557676



Your fans are a bit boring ! 👅



20200625_164650[1]

Click link for video. It's not that noisy in real life.


----------



## Grant Fondo (12 Nov 2020)

fossyant said:


> Your fans are a bit boring ! 👅
> 
> View attachment 557749
> 20200625_164650[1] by Anthony Fosbrook, on Flickr


Very bling!


----------



## ColinJ (12 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution!


Correction: _I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution *AND BEING THE FIRST TO ACTUALLY FIND ONE*! _


----------



## fossyant (12 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Very bling!



It's my daughters that one !

I've just had to add my son's rig to the insurance as he's upgraded it - £3,300


----------



## Edwardoka (12 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> Correction: _I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I would offer a £5 note to anyone foolish enough to spend years trying to find a second solution *AND BEING THE FIRST TO ACTUALLY FIND ONE*! _


I was going to say that your stuff about "detectors" put me in mind of one of the Zachtronics games, but the "there is one correct solution" is antithetical to their designs (in their games there are as many solutions as there are people who solve them)

(I spoilered the maker because I don't recommend risking polluting your game idea by researching what other games in the genre are doing. I've lost count of the number of projects I've started and abandoned because someone else had similar ideas. Yes, Gladiator Manager, I'm talking about you.)

Edit: for goodness sake, someone is literally releasing a game next year with THAT VERY NAME 
GET YOUR OWN DAMN IDEAS


----------



## ColinJ (12 Nov 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> I was going to say that your stuff about "detectors" put me in mind of one of the Zachtronics games...


I was going to ask you how you did the '_fuzzy spoiler_' but having quoted you... I now _know _how! 



Edwardoka said:


> ....but the "there is one correct solution" is antithetical to their designs (in their games there are as many solutions as there are people who solve them)


I could relax the design of my game if I didn't enforce the '_one solution_' rule. To achieve it I restrict my grids to multiples of 2x2 cells.

It would only take me a day or two to add the option for unrestricted grid sizes and potential multiple solutions. I'll finish it the way it is, and then try an unrestricted version at a later date to see if I enjoy it more or less than this one.



Edwardoka said:


> (I spoilered the maker because I don't recommend risking polluting your game idea by researching what other games in the genre are doing. I've lost count of the number of projects I've started and abandoned because someone else had similar ideas. Yes, Gladiator Manager, I'm talking about you.)
> 
> Edit: for goodness sake, someone is literally releasing a game next year with THAT VERY NAME
> GET YOUR OWN DAMN IDEAS


I've had a couple of ideas in the past, started work on them, but then found that something very similar had already been done.

I find that most of the names I think of have already been grabbed. I search for a product of that name, a business of the same name, a dotcom of that name, and the hashtags being in use. 

Somebody is trying to sell ColinJ.com for $2,795... 

There used to be a site at ColinJ.co.uk and believe it or not... it had puzzle games on it, and _that _ColinJ was not ME!


----------



## DCBassman (13 Nov 2020)

Parts ordered to complete the big PC.
This will enable me to fit the Corsair H100i cpu cooler. At the same time, I'll rejig all the other fans by fitting and setting up a NZXT Sentry 3 fan control system. 
The aim is silence rather than cooling under load, and bar the cooler fitting kit, all were freebies.


----------



## fossyant (13 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Parts ordered to complete the big PC.
> This will enable me to fit the Corsair H100i cpu cooler. At the same time, I'll rejig all the other fans by fitting and setting up a NZXT Sentry 3 fan control system.
> The aim is silence rather than cooling under load, and bar the cooler fitting kit, all were freebies.



My son has the Sentry 2 - good bit of kit.


----------



## fossyant (13 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Parts ordered to complete the big PC.
> This will enable me to fit the Corsair H100i cpu cooler. At the same time, I'll rejig all the other fans by fitting and setting up a NZXT Sentry 3 fan control system.
> The aim is silence rather than cooling under load, and bar the cooler fitting kit, all were freebies.



My son has a smaller single fan Corsair (probably the Hydro 45) water cooler. It's exceptionally quiet, but doesn't half throw heat out the back of the machine, and keeps the internals cool.


----------



## DCBassman (13 Nov 2020)

This one kept a monster machine cool for many years! It will now help to keep my rig cool and the tropical plants near it, warm.
Also, the NZXT, once set, can be unplugged from the card to save space on the table. Neat.


----------



## Grant Fondo (13 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Parts ordered to complete the big PC.
> This will enable me to fit the Corsair H100i cpu cooler. At the same time, I'll rejig all the other fans by fitting and setting up a NZXT Sentry 3 fan control system.
> The aim is silence rather than cooling under load, and bar the cooler fitting kit, all were freebies.


Corsair 100x makes a racket on full tilt, much more than previous Bequiet dark rock pro air cooler, temps good on both though. The new 10 core Intels pump out a shed load of heat when overclocked i actually need a better case and cooler to be honest.


----------



## DCBassman (13 Nov 2020)

This board came to me with a Bequiet Dark Rock Pro 3, but the board wouldn't fire up with it attached. I stole a stock Intel LGA1155 cooler from another box, and it's still running with that. As I don't play modern games, the GPU barely gets to yawning, but the cpu fan does noticeably get louder, so as I have all this free stuff, I'm a-gonna fit it! The Bequiet I put on Ebay and my arms were promptly bitten off, so plainly they're a good cooler, and it was certainly an attractive hunk of kit!


----------



## Grant Fondo (13 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> This board came to me with a Bequiet Dark Rock Pro 3, but the board wouldn't fire up with it attached. I stole a stock Intel LGA1155 cooler from another box, and it's still running with that. As I don't play modern games, the GPU barely gets to yawning, but the cpu fan does noticeably get louder, so as I have all this free stuff, I'm a-gonna fit it! The Bequiet I put on Ebay and my arms were promptly bitten off, so plainly they're a good cooler, and it was certainly an attractive hunk of kit!


Thats made me think... DRPro is still knocking about upstairs, didn't think they would sell s/h + i chucked the box out, doh!


----------



## Grant Fondo (13 Nov 2020)

Re-posted from a PC forum:

_A 3080 poem..

In September I had a dream,
Of a cool new card with a funky little screen.
Then November came,and to my shame,
I'd sold my 1080 so I could upgrade my game.
Now I miss that little card that could,
So I've made a replacement with balsa wood.
At zero fps its not the best,
And it definitely won't pass the crysis test,
But at least its in my system,straining with fatigue,
Because somehow it still runs rocket league_


----------



## ColinJ (13 Nov 2020)

I was thinking how you lot are crazy spending so much on these PCs, and then I remembered this...



ColinJ said:


> My 5th computer was 'the beast' - it had twin 3.5" floppies, a CD drive, a small hard drive, 8 MB RAM, a slow 486 processor, VGA graphics, a 14" crt monitor and it cost... *£2,000*!!!




Mind you, I earned over £20,000 in the period that I was using it working from home...


----------



## Grant Fondo (13 Nov 2020)

ColinJ said:


> I was thinking how you lot are crazy spending so much on these PCs, and then I remembered this...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Agree, i posted this a while back, bonkers!


----------



## DCBassman (17 Nov 2020)

Ok, water cooler fitted and running. Sentry LXE (not a 3 as I said...) installed and running, after some shenanigans with a Molex connector. 
Pic shows case air temps on Sentry and GPU on Afterburner. CPU cores at sround 50. Very quiet, this running 8 threads and a gpu thread of MilkyWay@Home on BOINC, so it's doing plenty of work.





The Titan X is a superclocked version from new, but the max boost has been reduced by 100 MHz because it's been used, water-cooled, at way over normal until it was rebuilt to air cooling and passed to me. It's a bit rickety if pushed, so I don't.


----------



## Jody (19 Nov 2020)

DPD has just been to deliver a parcel and the wait is finally over. I'm still 40th in the queue for a 3070 so decided to try my luck for a Big Navi. This time I had checked out within 4 minutes of them going live to secure one of only a few that were on sale.


----------



## RoubaixCube (19 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> DPD has just been to deliver a parcel and the wait is finally over. I'm still 40th in the queue for a 3070 so decided to try my luck for a Big Navi. This time I had checked out within 4 minutes of them going live to secure one of only a few that were on sale.
> View attachment 558937



I would cancel your wait for the 3070. The 6800 is the superior of the two in 99% of tests. The only place where it really loses is in the Ray Tracing test. Nvidia have the edge over AMD in that field but of course AMD are going to have something in the pipe that hopefully is going to narrow the gap.

As always, some games will favour and be optimised for one brand over the other but that is how its been for a long time. Double the memory buffer is also a plus too over the 3070


----------



## Jody (19 Nov 2020)

RoubaixCube said:


> I would cancel your wait for the 3070. The 6800 is the superior of the two in 99% of tests.



Received my cancelation email in the last hour. I spent last night watching all the reviews and the 6800 has it, apart from RT as you mentioned. AMD will sort that out soon as this GPU is used in the XBox and PS5 so should be well supported and developed to take advantage of the architecture. 

I only planned on buying a second hand 1080ti when the prices dropped but somehow talked myself into buying this.

VRAM was the deciding factor. VR is a little more thirsty and didn't feel confident that 8gb would be OK for the next few years. 


It's getting installed tonight so there is no going back.


----------



## RoubaixCube (19 Nov 2020)

Potentially, the only real problems you'll be coming across is early adopter issues. AMD did have a lot of hardware and software issues which caused a lot of crashing and freezing etc etc with the 5700 series of cards which did hurt them a fair bit. I know a lot of people who just got fed up of their 5700s and refunded them for an Nvidia 2070Super or a 2080 --Yes they cost more but at least they worked flawlessly when they were all hooked up.

So hopefully AMD didnt rush their product to market and have all the bugs ironed out.


----------



## Jody (19 Nov 2020)

The software support did factor in my initial hesitance. According to AMD they have put more resources into that area to make sure they don't have a repeat but it still makes me feel nervous.


----------



## fossyant (19 Nov 2020)

Well, my son's just completed Watchdogs Legions in two days. That £50 didn't last long !


----------



## Edwardoka (19 Nov 2020)

fossyant said:


> Well, my son's just completed Watchdogs Legions in two days. That £50 didn't last long !


Why do people buy single player games when they come out? I genuinely don't understand the mentality of it.
If you wait 6 months you can get 5 or 6 games on sale for the price of a new release, and by then most of the early issues will be fixed/patched.

I understand the desire to have the latest tech, but waiting 6 months won't negatively affect your enjoyment of a single player game. (as opposed to multiplayer where the earlier you join the more competitive you'll be)


----------



## Grant Fondo (19 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> Received my cancelation email in the last hour. I spent last night watching all the reviews and the 6800 has it, apart from RT as you mentioned. AMD will sort that out soon as this GPU is used in the XBox and PS5 so should be well supported and developed to take advantage of the architecture.
> 
> I only planned on buying a second hand 1080ti when the prices dropped but somehow talked myself into buying this.
> 
> ...


Let us know how you get on.


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Let us know how you get on.



It's another level to the GPU it replaced. It's quiet, even at full load but does have a little bit of coil whine which isn't any worse than the card it replaced. Overall I'm really happy with it. 

Project Cars 2 in VR looked like a different game. Constant 80fps with 10% overhead left and that's with almost everything on ultra settings, AA on x16, MSAA on high.

Battelfield V sat at 120+fps on Ultra

Half Life Alyx sat at a constant 80fps with almost everything maxed out. Interestingly it was using 14GB of VRAM when turned up


----------



## DCBassman (20 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> It's another level to the GPU it replaced. It's quiet, even at full load but does have a little bit of coil whine which isn't any worse than the card it replaced. Overall I'm really happy with it.
> 
> Project Cars 2 in VR looked like a different game. Constant 80fps with 10% overhead left and that's with almost everything on ultra settings, AA on x16, MSAA on high.
> 
> ...


Fabulous. Wish I could get mine that tidy!
I have to go inside it later to check a connection. Might take a picture then.


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Fabulous. Wish I could get mine that tidy!



Here am I thinking the GPU cables look a mess as they are


----------



## fossyant (20 Nov 2020)

Spent ages on both my teen's gaming PC's getting the cables nice and neat.


----------



## fossyant (20 Nov 2020)

What's Half Life Alyx like in VR - I could see myself 'borrowing' my son's set up. Love Half Life 2


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

fossyant said:


> What's Half Life Alyx like in VR - I could see myself 'borrowing' my son's set up. Love Half Life 2



Wow was about the only word I could use for the first hour. It is the most visually stunning game I've every seen and would be an insult to give it only 10/10

It will take some years before something could beat it in my eyes.


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

Doesn't do it justice on a flat screen but skip to about 12 minutes and meet Jeff. 13.30 minutes if you want to see what it's like when the lights go out and you play with a flash light.


View: https://youtu.be/pdTR_wHxizY


----------



## DCBassman (20 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> Here am I thinking the GPU cables look a mess as they are


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

You win. Although it's mainly the new type of case that has kept mine tidy. You should see what it looks like behind the rear cover 

We have the same PSU and that also looks like the mobo i've just switched out (ASUS P67 Pro).


----------



## DCBassman (20 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> You win. Although it's mainly the new type of case that has kept mine tidy. You should see what it looks like behind the rear cover
> 
> We have the same PSU and that also looks like the mobo i've just switched out (ASUS P67 Pro).


Case is a Corsair Obsidian 750D which *just* fits under the table. Mobo is an Asus P8Z68 running a Core-i7-2600K. I run everything stock, although because eveything is very stable, Windows tends to use the turbo boost with gay abandon. Hugely too powerful for anything I do, but was essentially free, so...
All I had to do was build it, a bit of a work-in-progress.


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Mobo is an Asus P8Z68 running a Core-i7-2600K.



Almost identical in looks to the P67



DCBassman said:


> but was essentially free, so...



Can't fault anything that was free. Good effort


----------



## RoubaixCube (20 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Case is a Corsair Obsidian 750D which *just* fits under the table. Mobo is an Asus P8Z68 running a Core-i7-2600K. I run everything stock,



I had a similar system back in the day but with the Pro version of the same board and a 2500k that i had tuned to turbo to 4.9Ghz. Pretty decent setup. I wish i still had it but I part exchanged it for a friends X79 setup who didnt want all the horsepower of the X79 platform and needed some extra cash.

His PC lasted me for 6 years (3930k bumped upto 4.6Ghz) but old age eventually killed the board and replacements on ebay were £300-400 and so not worth it given the fact that its a dead platform.







This is a bit of an older pic but my current setup hasnt changed very much. Threw out the sound card and changed some of the fans.

8600k@4.8Ghz with a pre-owned 1080Ti that i bought off ebay about 2 years ago.


----------



## DCBassman (20 Nov 2020)

RoubaixCube said:


> I had a similar system back in the day but with the Pro version of the same board and a 2500k that i had tuned to turbo to 4.9Ghz. Pretty decent setup. I wish i still had it but I part exchanged it for a friends X79 setup who didnt want all the horsepower of the X79 platform and needed some extra cash.
> 
> His PC lasted me for 6 years (3930k bumped upto 4.6Ghz) but old age eventually killed the board and replacements on ebay were £300-400 and so not worth it given the fact that its a dead platform.
> 
> ...


Nice! Personally, I think those otherwise good BeQuiet coolers damage the boards. This one came with one, and it would not fire up, citing cpu error. As soon as I took the weight off and fitted a stock LGA1155 cooler, away it went. Works fine with the water cooler too, but I'd be willing to bet there's actually a broken track somewhere, IF you hang the weight off it and open it up. Maybe that's what killed your board?
My rig was going to be a Z79 job, but my son kept it, not knowing how C-19 would affect his job.


----------



## RoubaixCube (20 Nov 2020)

DCBassman said:


> Nice! Personally, I think those otherwise good BeQuiet coolers damage the boards. This one came with one, and it would not fire up, citing cpu error. As soon as I took the weight off and fitted a stock LGA1155 cooler, away it went. Works fine with the water cooler too, but I'd be willing to bet there's actually a broken track somewhere, IF you hang the weight off it and open it up. Maybe that's what killed your board?
> My rig was going to be a Z79 job, but my son kept it, not knowing how C-19 would affect his job.



If you mounted it correctly then its not an issue with the cooler. Maybe some of the soldering joints on your board had been eaten away by oxidisation and mounting the cooler caused the board to warp ever so slightly and the traces/contacts to get pulled slightly apart. This isnt what killed my X79 though. I had previously ran an old corsair H105 AIO liquid cooler and my troubles started happening when i had that installed long before the Be Quiet.

The Dark Rock Pro 3 and 4 are quite heavy coolers. The same can be said about the Noctua NH D-14's and D-15's and those coolers have their own cult following. Still not heard of one of those followers having the same problem as you though.

Big coolers causing motherboards to warp has long been debated though there isnt much evidence as PCBs are always being built with more layers so should technically be a bit more sturdy.

:EDIT:

Just make sure when you install your motherboard inside the case that you use *ALL the screws*. I can see heavy coolers possibly warping motherboards if the board hasnt been properly mounted inside the case with all the screws or enough pressure to stop it warping.


----------



## Grant Fondo (20 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> It's another level to the GPU it replaced. It's quiet, even at full load but does have a little bit of coil whine which isn't any worse than the card it replaced. Overall I'm really happy with it.
> 
> Project Cars 2 in VR looked like a different game. Constant 80fps with 10% overhead left and that's with almost everything on ultra settings, AA on x16, MSAA on high.
> 
> ...


Glad you are pleased with new setup... this generation of cards are awesome and should keep us going for many years, well as long as 10GB isn't a limiting factor on the 3080 (!)


----------



## Edwardoka (20 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> this generation of cards are awesome and should keep us going for many years


Remind me to revisit this post in 2 years when the RTX 4090 is released


----------



## DCBassman (20 Nov 2020)

RoubaixCube said:


> If you mounted it correctly then its not an issue with the cooler. Maybe some of the soldering joints on your board had been eaten away by oxidisation and mounting the cooler caused the board to warp ever so slightly and the traces/contacts to get pulled slightly apart. This isnt what killed my X79 though. I had previously ran an old corsair H105 AIO liquid cooler and my troubles started happening when i had that installed long before the Be Quiet.
> 
> The Dark Rock Pro 3 and 4 are quite heavy coolers. The same can be said about the Noctua NH D-14's and D-15's and those coolers have their own cult following. Still not heard of one of those followers having the same problem as you though.
> 
> ...


Entirely correct, mobo must be very secure. But a piece of me just doesn't like that hanging, bending force. If cases were still flat, I'd have kept the DR Pro3 and sold on the H100i now fitted. Anyhow, it's doing well right now, and that's what matters.


----------



## fossyant (20 Nov 2020)

Edwardoka said:


> Remind me to revisit this post in 2 years when the RTX 4090 is released



Monday.


----------



## Jody (20 Nov 2020)

Grant Fondo said:


> Glad you are pleased with new setup... this generation of cards are awesome and should keep us going for many years, well as long as 10GB isn't a limiting factor on the 3080 (!)



10gb should be plenty unless you're playing VR and yes I'm hoping it keeps up for a good few years.


----------



## RoubaixCube (20 Nov 2020)

Jody said:


> 10gb should be plenty unless you're playing VR and yes I'm hoping it keeps up for a good few years.



or playing games in 4K. Running with a whole load of HD texture packs in games like Skyrim, Fallout or even Minecraft can easily eat up 10GB


----------



## DCBassman (20 Nov 2020)

RoubaixCube said:


> or playing games in 4K. Running with a whole load of HD texture packs in games like Skyrim, Fallout or even Minecraft can easily eat up 10GB



Well, if the fit ever takes me, I've 12GB on the Titan X...


----------



## Tenkaykev (20 Nov 2020)

Excuse me for popping into this thread for advice. Grandson will be 11 between Christmas and the new year, we’re contributing towards a Christmas / birthday present and he wants his first “gaming laptop"
Budget is about £7-800. I’ve had a look around and have seen this in the price range -

Any alarm bells about this machine ?
Very grateful for any advice or pointers.



View: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B089BM56BH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_ojdUFbHWY90WX?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1


----------



## RoubaixCube (20 Nov 2020)

Tenkaykev said:


> Excuse me for popping into this thread for advice. Grandson will be 11 between Christmas and the new year, we’re contributing towards a Christmas / birthday present and he wants his first “gaming laptop"
> Budget is about £7-800. I’ve had a look around and have seen this in the price range -
> 
> Any alarm bells about this machine ?
> ...




Looks to be quite a good machine

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Nitro-5-AN515-44-Laptop-Review-AMD-dating-Nvidia.478287.0.html


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## Tenkaykev (20 Nov 2020)

RoubaixCube said:


> Looks to be quite a good machine
> 
> https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Nitro-5-AN515-44-Laptop-Review-AMD-dating-Nvidia.478287.0.html


Many thanks for the link 👍


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## Kempstonian (11 Dec 2020)

I've been playing a lot of Sudoku lately. An excellent game downloaded from Steam, written by the guys who run this channel:


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## Kempstonian (11 Dec 2020)

I've also been watching this guy a lot...



He does it for real too...


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## ColinJ (11 Dec 2020)

Kempstonian said:


> I've been playing a lot of Sudoku lately. An excellent game downloaded from Steam, written by the guys who run this channel:



I've watched a lot of their videos. If I ever get a bit full of myself, I watch them solving a super-hard Sudoku puzzle and that puts me in my place!


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## Kempstonian (11 Dec 2020)

ColinJ said:


> I've watched a lot of their videos. If I ever get a bit full of myself, I watch them solving a super-hard Sudoku puzzle and that puts me in my place!


I'm the same! Its fun to see how the professionals work out these puzzles and how fast they think. I'll never be anywhere near their level. Thankfully their computer game has puzzles I can cope with and plenty of variety too.


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## ColinJ (11 Dec 2020)

Kempstonian said:


> I'm the same! Its fun to see how the professionals work out these puzzles and how fast they think. I'll never be anywhere near their level. Thankfully their computer game has puzzles I can cope with and plenty of variety too.


I usually opt for easier Sudokus and it then becomes a question of how fast I can solve them rather than _IF _I can!


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## Grant Fondo (12 Dec 2020)

Anyone given Cyberpunk 2077 a go yet? It needs a beefy pc to run it or new Xbox/PS5 i heard?


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## RoubaixCube (12 Dec 2020)

Im running it. but then again my PC is fairly beefy albeit the odd generation or two old. im getting about 30-50fps with the ultra preset in game at 1440p and its runs fairly smoothly







8600k thats been overclocked to 4.8Ghz.
16GBs DDR4 3200
GTX 1080Ti (so no RTX for me)

the game looks pretty good!


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## Grant Fondo (12 Dec 2020)

RoubaixCube said:


> Im running it. but then again my PC is fairly beefy albeit the odd generation or two old. im getting about 30-50fps with the ultra preset in game at 1440p and its runs fairly smoothly
> 
> View attachment 562977
> 
> ...


Ok will get hold of a copy. I'm not blown away by RTX to be fair Battlefield 5 looks exactly the same on old gtx 1070 as new 3080? It just plays miles smoother.


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## RoubaixCube (12 Dec 2020)

Well it think RTX has more to do with lighting, shading and reflections. Things Like 'God Rays' or sunlight in certain parts of the map/environment and how they refract or reflect off things.

Naturally Cyberpunk has a lot things to do with lighting effects thanks to all the neon lights in game so having it turned on will look very very nice. Maybe youre not looking in the right places or stopping long to admire some of the views that are shown in BF5 because youre too busy looking for heads to shoot?

Check out this small review - It certainly adds a lot more detail to the game -- The only real downside is turning RTX on does eat into your frames per second so it is still very intensive.

(mouse over the pictures. the pictures are 'interactive' and have a slider that flips between rtx on and off in the images -- look for the black line in the middle of the picture)

If there ever was a game to have RTX on. Cyberpunk would be it.


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## icowden (14 Dec 2020)

Anyone tried out Google Stadia yet? I'm on a free trial and it's pretty good as long as your internet connection stays strong.


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## Milzy (14 Dec 2020)

dodgy said:


> Comparison of a 2080ti and a 3080 here, substantial frame rate increases
> View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0q8f04CfFM&ab_channel=GamerInVoid



Haha. I got a 1660 super just for bang per buck. Fairly impressed really.


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## Grant Fondo (14 Dec 2020)

Milzy said:


> Haha. I got a 1660 super just for bang per buck. Fairly impressed really.


Thats a good card, basically gtx 1070 fast which were £400 when they came out.


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## fossyant (14 Dec 2020)

icowden said:


> Anyone tried out Google Stadia yet? I'm on a free trial and it's pretty good as long as your internet connection stays strong.



I was wondering what happened to it, all went a bit quiet


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## icowden (15 Dec 2020)

I had an e-mail last month encouraging me to try it out. I've been playing Hitman deluxe. It works very well - as long as the broadband holds up.
There's a slight double payment issue in that you pay a monthly subscription of I think £9 a month, but then a lot of the games you have to pay a one off fee for as well. For the trial you get to choose one free game from a list.


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## Grant Fondo (30 Jan 2021)

I was just reading the post on bike price increases. That pales into insignificance compared to the price-gauging going on with graphics cards. Truly astonishing £2000 being paid for top-end models


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## StuAff (30 Jan 2021)

Grant Fondo said:


> I was just reading the post on bike price increases. That pales into insignificance compared to the price-gauging going on with graphics cards. Truly astonishing £2000 being paid for top-end models


It's not just new cards. Back in late 2017 I bought an 8GB RX 580, £283 including delivery. I could get my money back judging by the sold listings on eBay…!!!!


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## icowden (1 Feb 2021)

It's cryptocurrency mining that has been pushing the prices up


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## Milzy (1 Feb 2021)

icowden said:


> It's cryptocurrency mining that has been pushing the prices up


Won’t the electric bill outweigh the crypto gains?


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## RoubaixCube (1 Feb 2021)

icowden said:


> It's cryptocurrency mining that has been pushing the prices up



yes and no. Compared to 3-5 years ago, cryptomining with graphics cards is no where near as lucrative as it once was and many people stopped when the payouts were so low that it would only make sense to do it if you had free electricity otherwise the electricity bill would eat up most of it.

for almost a year or a year and a half. people have been stuck at home due to lockdowns and everyone wants a gaming console. But they cant get one because of scalpers and the Cov putting a strain on manufacturing and whatever supply is available. Making electrical devices is a big operation and components to build them just dont appear over night for the little elves to come out and start building them. The shortage of certain components is holding back production so manufacturers can only work with what they have which then get snapped up by scalpers as soon as they hit the shelves.

Its easy for tech sites to throw out cryptomining as an excuse to for shortages. There was a time when cryptomining was genuine problem and people were buying graphic cards by the bulk but those days a long gone.


Did it contribute to prices being pushed up? No, Lack of supply and scalpers did that. Scalpers dont by graphics cards to mine on, they buy them to resell them. Some retailers have also been known to mark up prices on hot products meaning that they sell well beyond the manufacturers MSRP. Thats why competition in the retail market is a good thing. Youre always going to find a retailer that is selling what you want cheaper than the other unless they form a cartel like hard drive manufacturers and work together to keep prices artificially inflated. (which they have done on multiple occasions)


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## ColinJ (1 Feb 2021)

Milzy said:


> Won’t the electric bill outweigh the crypto gains?


Go to Iceland! Cheap geothermal electricity, and no problem with cooling...


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## Milzy (1 Feb 2021)

ColinJ said:


> Go to Iceland! Cheap geothermal electricity, and no problem with cooling...



How does a gpu get the money though?


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## si_c (1 Feb 2021)

Milzy said:


> How does a gpu get the money though?



It's to do with the algorithms used for cryptocurrency mining, GPUs are reasonably efficient at performing the calculations needed. That being said they are less efficient the than FPGAs which are increasingly being used.

You need a lot of them to make any money and it doesn't make a lot of sense in the UK due to our high electricity prices.


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## Grant Fondo (7 Feb 2021)

si_c said:


> It's to do with the algorithms used for cryptocurrency mining, GPUs are reasonably efficient at performing the calculations needed. That being said they are less efficient the than FPGAs which are increasingly being used.
> 
> You need a lot of them to make any money and it doesn't make a lot of sense in the UK due to our high electricity prices.


I have heard of miners buying TEN RTX 3080s at £8k+ as its got a good payback period. I could do it with my single one but can't be faffed


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## Milzy (7 Feb 2021)

What’s a good bang for buck 1TB M2 stick?


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## Seevio (7 Feb 2021)

Milzy said:


> What’s a good bang for buck 1TB M2 stick?


WD Blue maybe?


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## Milzy (7 Feb 2021)

Or Adata.


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## gzoom (9 Feb 2021)

fossyant said:


> I was wondering what happened to it, all went a bit quiet



I've been using Stadia for about 8 months now, really love it. Allows me to game on my 2013 laptop, and stream also Cyberpunk/F1 2020 to my 4K OLED TV, phone with no issues .


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## fossyant (9 Feb 2021)

gzoom said:


> I've been using Stadia for about 8 months now, really love it. Allows me to game on my 2013 laptop, and stream also Cyberpunk/F1 2020 to my 4K OLED TV, phone with no issues .
> 
> View attachment 573139
> 
> ...



Looks good. Is that a HP Envy Laptop I spy ?


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## StuAff (9 Feb 2021)

fossyant said:


> Looks good. Is that a HP Envy Laptop I spy ?


That's a (rather old) MacBook Pro.


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## fossyant (9 Feb 2021)

StuAff said:


> That's a (rather old) MacBook Pro.



Ah, power lead gives it away. Our HP Envy 17 looks like a mac book, and is very similar..


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## MrGrumpy (10 Feb 2021)

gzoom said:


> I've been using Stadia for about 8 months now, really love it. Allows me to game on my 2013 laptop, and stream also Cyberpunk/F1 2020 to my 4K OLED TV, phone with no issues .
> 
> View attachment 573139
> 
> ...



Assume you don’t need a super duper PC but a fast internet connection or is that a console type thing ?


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## gzoom (10 Feb 2021)

MrGrumpy said:


> Assume you don’t need a super duper PC but a fast internet connection or is that a console type thing ?



Thats the crazy thing about it, it runs on anything that can run Chrome.....Including my work laptop, which is so bolted down interms of 'managed' software I cannot even run Excel Macros without getting permission, yet Stadia works on it!






You do need a good internet connection, Stadia website says something like 10Mbps, but the experience will be awful. On any of the laptops, streaming at 1080P, I'm seeing download rates of 25-30Mbps, and that's sustained - constant download rate unlike normal streaming video where you see a high initial peak and than it settles.

If you are using a ChromeCast and link it to a 4K capable TV, even at 1080P the download rate is 50Mbps+, peaking to over 60Mbps. If you stream at native 4K (for which you have to pay an subscription to Stadia Pro for), I suspect you will need download rates close to 100Mbps peak and easily 70-80Mbps sustained.

So the trade off for not needing expensive hardware to run games is the need for fast internet. If you do have fast internet, its very very good. I cannot tell the difference between playing games on Stadia, versus using my Xbox or any other local device.


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## Edwardoka (17 Feb 2021)

I've not used Stadia but I did recently use Steam Remote Play to co-op Untitled Goose Game with a friend in California (he was hosting).
It was surprisingly playable, despite him being more than a third of the way around the world.

I scoffed at the notion of OnLive and Stadia (and still do, but no longer for technological reasons), but infrastructure and technology really has come on in massive leaps and bounds since the days of playing QuakeWorld on dialup.


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## Grant Fondo (17 Feb 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> I've not used Stadia but I did recently use Steam Remote Play to co-op Untitled Goose Game with a friend in California (he was hosting).
> It was surprisingly playable, despite him being more than a third of the way around the world.
> 
> I scoffed at the notion of OnLive and Stadia (and still do, but no longer for technological reasons), but infrastructure and technology really has come on in massive leaps and bounds since the days of playing QuakeWorld on dialup.


Agree, some multiplayer games were a bit flaky back in the day.... Crysis springs to mind in 2007, much better these days ..


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## Grant Fondo (17 Feb 2021)

gzoom said:


> I've been using Stadia for about 8 months now, really love it. Allows me to game on my 2013 laptop, and stream also Cyberpunk/F1 2020 to my 4K OLED TV, phone with no issues .
> 
> View attachment 573139
> 
> ...


You need quite a beefy pc/laptop to play Cyberpunk from the download, but you do get all the raytracing visuals (with the right graphics card). It does look really nice in 4K too


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## Grant Fondo (27 Feb 2021)

Tough times for pc gamers since I started this thread back in September. No graphics card stocks and hyper inflation on new and used cards.
The 'expensive' £650 RTX 3080 I bought then is one of the hardest to get hold of... saw a used one go for an eyewatering £1862 yesterday on Ebay . Been gaming a long long time and never seen anything this crazy. Crypto miners and silicone shortages apparently.


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## DCBassman (27 Feb 2021)

Grant Fondo said:


> Tough times for pc gamers since I started this thread back in September. No graphics card stocks and hyper inflation on new and used cards.
> The 'expensive' £650 RTX 3080 I bought then is one of the hardest to get hold of... saw a used one go for an eyewatering £1862 yesterday on Ebay . Been gaming a long long time and never seen anything this crazy. Crypto miners and silicone shortages apparently.


Even my (freebie) GTX Titan X is a good moneyspinner now! People asking 500 notes for one. Looney times, for sure.


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## StuAff (27 Feb 2021)

Looney indeed. Just checked completed listings on Gigabyte Aorus RX580 8GB, the same specific model as mine (there would be hundreds if I widened that to all RX580s, obviously..). They're now going for £400…broken ones are still getting £150! So I could make a profit on a three year old card (well, apart from the money I spent to get it modded for my Mac Pro, which was well spent). Not even slightly tempted, though.


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## Edwardoka (28 Feb 2021)

I'd heard that the 3060 was deliberately hobbled to make it not cost-effective for cryptomining but it too sold out everywhere almost immediately.
I would guess from a combination of scalpers and people who want an upgrade, because all the higher-end stuff is already in the hands of cryptominers and scalpers.

My sister has been trying to get a PS5 with no luck at all since launch. 

Mad times.


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## StuAff (28 Feb 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> I'd heard that the 3060 was deliberately hobbled to make it not cost-effective for cryptomining but it too sold out everywhere almost immediately.
> I would guess from a combination of scalpers and people who want an upgrade, because all the higher-end stuff is already in the hands of cryptominers and scalpers.
> 
> My sister has been trying to get a PS5 with no luck at all since launch.
> ...


Nvidia's 'hobbling' is a (failed) PR exercise. They're doing a new line of cards for miners, then claiming they're doing gamers and everyone else a favour by locking miners out of the 3060s. Trying to have their cake and eat it.


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## Grant Fondo (21 May 2021)

Long time no post! The graphics card market still a total nightmare ..... but I have a spare!
Any CC member desperate for one I have a brand new unopened *12GB RTX 3060*!!  
Let me know. The last three I have tracked on Ebay have gone for £705 - £749 (madness!), but will take a 'sensible' offer.
Ta Ta


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## si_c (21 May 2021)

Grant Fondo said:


> Long time no post! The graphics card market still a total nightmare ..... but I have a spare!
> Any CC member desperate for one I have a brand new unopened *12GB RTX 3060*!!
> Let me know. The last three I have tracked on Ebay have gone for £705 - £749 (madness!), but will take a 'sensible' offer.
> Ta Ta


I'd be tempted to make an offer, but I wouldn't be able to go above MSRP really, I'd suggest you sell it on ebay and maximise it's value. It'll only sell for what someone is willing to pay - you could always put it up for auction with a "sensible" reserve and let it take care of itself.


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## HMS_Dave (16 Jul 2021)

So... Hearts Of Iron IV with the Kaiserreich Mod...


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## Edwardoka (16 Jul 2021)

HMS_Dave said:


> So... Hearts Of Iron IV with the Kaiserreich Mod...
> 
> View attachment 599402


Down with the anarcho-syndicalists!


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## HMS_Dave (16 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> Down with the anarcho-syndicalists!


What a mess the USA find themselves in early on.


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## Edwardoka (16 Jul 2021)

HMS_Dave said:


> What a mess the USA find themselves in early on.


That's why I vastly prefer it over vanilla, every country is immediately interesting to play. Even minor nations in South America.
The only KR run I completed was as the Ottomans. It took me years to get across the Nile.


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## HMS_Dave (16 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> That's why I vastly prefer it over vanilla, every country is immediately interesting to play. Even minor nations in South America.
> The only KR run I completed was as the Ottomans. It took me years to get across the Nile.


Might give them a bash, lots of stability issues plaguing them. Should be an interesting one...


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