GPUs & CPUs & Enthusiast hardware: Questions, Discussion and fanboy slap-fights - Nvidia & AMD & Intel - Separe but Equal. Intel rides in the back of the bus.

[The Ugly One]

But looking back, it was an overrated positive from people probably tired of Intel's 4-core stagnation. Most people don't need to upgrade CPUs every few years.

Most people throw out their old computer and buy a new one when they need an upgrade. Few people even bother upgrading their RAM, let alone unscrew a heat exchanger and put a new CPU in an old motherboard.

I would advise you to stick with Nvidia or Intel for time being. They are leading in the AI space which is where I see most of the software landscape heading. 3080s are comparatively cheap if you grab one used. I got a 12GB one for SD and it works well enough. Cost roughly $600.

I know I sound like an NVIDIA shill, but DLSS2 makes such a big difference than AMD cards might as well be a generation behind right now. I'm half tempted to swap my 6700XT for a 3070, but I think I'll wait to see if there are any dual-slot Battlemage cards from Intel this year, or if they'll be making triple-slot, power-devouring monstrosities.

 

[jeff7989]

What is the state of ROCM right now?

On the scale of 1 to It just werks™/CUDA?

Most people don't need to upgrade CPUs every few years. We're at the point with CPUs improvements now where unless you're doing serious work, you can go a decade without upgrading. And if you do want an upgrade, you'll want the updated features of a new mobo.

Counterpoint, place I work at has quad core 7th gen i5s with 8 and 16 GB of memory, and they run like shit because of all globohomo corpo antivirus and monitoring software running in the background. And that's with SSDs mind you.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Maybe 10 years ago with their laptop line. Today, Nvidia releases their latest drivers/software to be compatible with all of the most popular distros via their own network repository. I downloaded CUDA-12-3 yesterday with the latest driver and it works like a dream in Mint.

Edit:If anything in the past, I've had more issues with AMD/ATI official drivers. They used to have a lot more kernel compatibility errors for mainstream releases on their installers/runtimes.

If that's the case then fuck it. I refuse to continue with Windows 11 so if there really isn't a way to improve my Linux experience (At least from a noob perspective) then I think I'm just done with computers.

 

[DavidS877]

What is the state of ROCM right now?

On the scale of 1 to It just werks™/CUDA?

I rate it Pain in the Ass.
I've gotten it working for SDXL/ComfyUI but it was a bit of a pain. The TextUI also works ok.
Performance seems to be worse than I was expecting, or maybe I was expecting more out of a 7900XTX

On the other hand, it still works, which is pretty good compared to the Intel.

I now have each of teams Red Green and Blue. Green still seems to lead the AI/ML pack.

 

[Betonhaus]

If that's the case then fuck it. I refuse to continue with Windows 11 so if there really isn't a way to improve my Linux experience (At least from a noob perspective) then I think I'm just done with computers.

Sounds like you should get a Mac.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

Sounds like you should get a Mac.

Just because I don't want to build my OS from scratch doesn't mean I want a fag machine. I just want Windows 7 as I've said a billion times on here.


Edit: Also, this is not an OS sperging thread. I have already said this shit to you in the linux thread. I am only speaking about linux here in the context of building a PC, which is what this thread is mostly about.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Not going to lie I bought a Bee-Link Ser7 and I've been pleasantly surprised at how robust it is for how tiny the actual device is.

The Ryzen 7 7840HS is not a slouch nor is the 780M graphics that come bundled with it.

I also recently bought a Beelink mini pc with an Intel Celeron N100 and 500gb ssd for a good sale price under $200. I too was surprised at how tiny it is. All the hardware looks good and it's nice the ram is removable. Time will tell how long it will last as a basic coffee table machine.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I never got why people cheap out on monitors, or not follow the old adage of spending as much on it as your GPU

It's an adage that needs to go imo. I know I keep saying this, but Starfield really opened my eyes on that. The amount of people complaining that the game is "unoptimized" only to turn around and say that their 4090 is in a PC that doesn't even have a SSD surprised me.

 

[Waifu Denier]

It's an adage that needs to go imo. I know I keep saying this, but Starfield really opened my eyes on that. The amount of people complaining that the game is "unoptimized" only to turn around and say that their 4090 is in a PC that doesn't even have a SSD surprised me.

I would have to heavily disagree. First I would hardly take Starfield as any sort of benchmark for optimization. Second, besides just resolution and refresh rate, there are numerous facets like panel type, color gamut, response time, etc which make very tangible differences is the actual experience. If someone is spending top dollar on a gaming pc, taking the bargain priced monitor just counters the intention of a high end setup.

 

[Betonhaus]

I would have to heavily disagree. First I would hardly take Starfield as any sort of benchmark for optimization. Second, besides just resolution and refresh rate, there are numerous facets like panel type, color gamut, response time, etc which make very tangible differences is the actual experience. If someone is spending top dollar on a gaming pc, taking the bargain priced monitor just counters the intention of a high end setup.

There are quite a few of the latest games that expect a ssd and have atrocious lags and loading times of they aren't on one. Pretty sure starfield is one of them.

 

[The Ugly One]

What is the state of ROCM right now?

The last time I looked, the documentation was wrong, with numerous dead links, and the build scripts didn't work out of the box. I just use SYCL now.

It's an adage that needs to go imo. I know I keep saying this, but Starfield really opened my eyes on that. The amount of people complaining that the game is "unoptimized" only to turn around and say that their 4090 is in a PC that doesn't even have a SSD surprised me.

Anything Gamebryo has the worst data management known to man.

Darktide has horrible loading times even with a SSD, and the CPU is always running burning hot even when in the hub world, staring at a wall. I'm pretty sure the game was coded by monkeys.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I would have to heavily disagree. First I would hardly take Starfield as any sort of benchmark for optimization. Second, besides just resolution and refresh rate, there are numerous facets like panel type, color gamut, response time, etc which make very tangible differences is the actual experience. If someone is spending top dollar on a gaming pc, taking the bargain priced monitor just counters the intention of a high end setup.

That's my point. People complain about Starfield being unoptimized. But when people post their specs they're often lopsided to an amazing degree.

Instead of buying a 4090 (£2,200), and cheaping out on everything else, I think people would be better off with a 4070 (£500) and maybe getting a SSD, a slightly better cpu, more system ram, and maybe a mid tier monitor. You might even have money left over. I think my PC (a basic bitch mid tier AM4 with a 6600) cost £1000 or so all up.

My point is, even if Starfield is a completely broken mess, if your system is that lopsided any amount of optimization on the game's part is going to be wasted. The GPU is important for gaming, but you should at least get everything else to mid tier before you blow your budget on an overpriced GPU. The difference between running an old i3 and a modern i5 is going to trump the difference between a 4080 and a 4090.

 

[Betonhaus]

Yeah if you don't have a ssd then you're not even trying. And if you have no SSD but have a 4090 then I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[Almighty Space Duck]

How's this for a media server build?

Good luck getting the mixed ram to run at anything besides JDEC speed/timings. And to echo what @snov said - Get an A380 for encode/transcode duty. I’ve passed the encode part of mine to Jellyfin under Docker and it works perfectly.
Might be worth trying to track down what the IOMMU layout for that board is too. I have the B450m Mortar and the IOMMU from the chipset is pretty shit.

 

[The Ugly One]

My point is, even if Starfield is a completely broken mess, if your system is that lopsided any amount of optimization on the game's part is going to be wasted.

GPU and fixed storage aren't really related at all, so they can't really be "imbalanced." It's not like Starfield will run any better with a HDD & 2070. If software runs like shit if you have a hard drive, the problem isn't that your GPU and your fixed storage device are imbalanced, the problem is the software is, like Starfield, doing lots and lots and lots of random access reads, and probably writes, which is stupid game design, and a problem Bethesda's data architecture has had for over 20 years now. Rockstar could handle an open world on a DVD more efficiently than Bethesda could handle an open world with a much, much faster HDD.

 

[Betonhaus]

I hadn't realized that low end m.2 SSDs have gone so fard down in price, it's almost feaseable to make a server that uses a bunch of m.2 drives in a raid. No idea how well the $50 4tb m.2s on AliExpress will work tho, but if they aren't the boot drive they will probably be fast enough.

 

[Judge Dredd]

GPU and fixed storage aren't really related at all, so they can't really be "imbalanced." It's not like Starfield will run any better with a HDD & 2070.

They are not related, but fixing a bottleneck is going to have a far bigger impact than the just throwing money at a gpu.

So if you're playing any modern AAA game (Starfield in this case), and you're complaining about stutter on a 4090, but you only have 2gb of system RAM (Starfield requires 16gb), then it's stupid to whine on forums about optimization. You'd have been better off going for a 4080 and using the £800 saved to get more ram.

If you CPU is constantly at 100% in any game you play, upgrading your GPU from a 3090 to a 4090 isn't going to help.

It's like putting £4,000 F1 tires on a used Citron Saxo and then complaining you can't keep up with a Dodge Viper. "But I've got Pirelli's, this is clearly the race tracks fault."

If someone is running a 3060 or less, then I can understand cheaping out on other components. But once you enter the high end GPU market I don't get it.

I have no love for Starfield. It's just that's the game that opened by eyes to how lopsided some people's systems are.

 

[The Ugly One]

They are not related, but fixing a bottleneck is going to have a far bigger impact than the just throwing money at a gpu.

Sure, but I was responding to you saying that optimizing data use & management on the part of the developer would be wasted on someone with a high-end GPU & HDD, which isn't true. Many games can make very good use of a high-end GPU without needing a fast disc drive. In general this is true of any game that doesn't stream data from the HDD during play.

 

[Blue Miaplacidus]

I hadn't realized that low end m.2 SSDs have gone so fard down in price, it's almost feaseable to make a server that uses a bunch of m.2 drives in a raid. No idea how well the $50 4tb m.2s on AliExpress will work tho, but if they aren't the boot drive they will probably be fast enough.

They are 100% a scam. You will not get a 4tb NVME from aliexpress for anywhere near that price point. I just took a cursory glance and they are absolutely a scam. Every cheap drive with a too-good-to-be-true price has 5 star reviews, but they're not for SSDs. The reviews mention purses, shirts, socks, hats. I don't know of any SSD that has "fine leather". The 1 star reviews mention it does not have the correct capacity, which is a common scam with these chinese garbage. They run hacked firmware which report a 4TB capacity in your computer but they really only have 64-120GB and it just writes over older data. Or they flat out just give you a completely different size, which would be far worse functioning and smaller than if you spent $50 USD with a reputable vendor.

Cheap drives exist, and I'd recommend quite a few of them but E-waste trash is not worth the risk unless you're fine with being scammed or losing data. If you just want a good boot drive, a Crucial p5 plus, Samsung 970 evo plus, Acer Predator GM7000 all have cheap 500gb-1tb sticks. Acer has a 4TB stick that is really good for the price, I got x3 of them for 180USD each. There is cheaper options but they're noticeably slow, especially when they start getting full.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs are slower at single-core work than previous-gen models — new benchmarks show IPC regressions vs Raptor Lake

I hadn't realized that low end m.2 SSDs have gone so fard down in price, it's almost feaseable to make a server that uses a bunch of m.2 drives in a raid.

SSD Prices To Skyrocket By 50% In 2024 As Manufacturers Implement Large-Scale Price Bumps