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

[Racist Trash]

Well GPU died and wanted to pick up something like a 1660 super but turns out no one has stock and anyone that does wants a ludicrous £300+ shit sucks man.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Well GPU died and wanted to pick up something like a 1660 super but turns out no one has stock and anyone that does wants a ludicrous £300+ shit sucks man.

Yeah, it is quite possibly the worst time to pick up PC hardware in years. Ehterium 2.0, Christmas and NVIDIA selling pretty much everything to miners basically fucked the market to death. Everything is being geared up to produce the new versions of cards, so the old versions are discontinued, so the only ones left are old stock or scalpers selling at insane mark-ups.

Basically AMD and NVIDIA are struggling to remove their terrible paper launches so there's just nothing being produced and most of the old cards were either bought by people who couldn't find a 3080 and didn't care enough, a replacement present for the new cards or just the last of stock sitting on the shelves. Due to the scarcity, cards never really go down in price. Like a 2080 super is the same price as a 3090. And since the margins for companies on the cards are so thin, they never really decrease in price.

 

[SuperConglomerateWhale]

Well GPU died and wanted to pick up something like a 1660 super but turns out no one has stock and anyone that does wants a ludicrous £300+ shit sucks man.

I was on a GTX 1060 for a month and it began to artifact on everything. I ordered an ASUS ROG Strix RX 5700XT for $530 (tax and shipping included) in November and the next day the same GPU went up to $650

 

[Secret Asshole]

https://www.pcgamer.com/this-crypto-mining-farm-with-78-geforce-rtx-3080-gpus-likely-rakes-in-dollar154000-per-year/

This is another reason why, little crypto tards think they can do something like this. Obviously, the only way he could have done this is pay the scalped prices, unless he was one of the miners NVIDIA made a deal with for most of their stock.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Yeah, it is quite possibly the worst time to pick up PC hardware in years. Ehterium 2.0, Christmas and NVIDIA selling pretty much everything to miners basically fucked the market to death. Everything is being geared up to produce the new versions of cards, so the old versions are discontinued, so the only ones left are old stock or scalpers selling at insane mark-ups.

You forgot the obvious one: COVID. That has increased the demand for gaming PCs, GPUs, and next-gen consoles, as well as low-end laptops and desktops since little Billy needs his Zoom-based education. Even Raspberry Pi sales are way up, and they are quick to point out improved Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom performance.

Things will improve, probably with the release of Navi 22 GPUs and Nvidia's lineup corrections, but it's a good idea to stick with whatever GPU you have available until prices drop. If you have nothing, play text roguelikes and emulators for a while. Or... Stadia?

One thing that won't improve much: the budget GPU segment. Wafer and memory costs become more significant at lower price points. So you probably won't see a new 8/7nm GPU with 8 GB of GDDR6 for $150, for example.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

well, i bought a 1060 6gb for 180 dollars. technically it was like 60 but shipping and taxes were like 20 bucks so
im not sure if i got ripped off on this or not tbh, but gaming on pc should be better

 

[Dark Edea]

Unsure if this is precisely the right topic. I've got a reasonably powerful system and am going to be reformatting that system. But I am less and less satisfied with Windows and have no interest in getting a newer version.

My question then is: how does a Linux-based OS handle gaming nowadays? And if I wanted to play newer games am I still looking at dual-booting or setting up a virtual machine to accomplish my goals? Are some Linux distros better than others for this purpose? And when it comes to higher-end CPUs and GPUs are there any special considerations I need to take into account?

I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too. I want off Windows and onto a open-source alternative but to still be able to play the newest games and otherwise not change my habits very much.

 

[Secret Asshole]

You forgot the obvious one: COVID. That has increased the demand for gaming PCs, GPUs, and next-gen consoles, as well as low-end laptops and desktops since little Billy needs his Zoom-based education. Even Raspberry Pi sales are way up, and they are quick to point out improved Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom performance.

Things will improve, probably with the release of Navi 22 GPUs and Nvidia's lineup corrections, but it's a good idea to stick with whatever GPU you have available until prices drop. If you have nothing, play text roguelikes and emulators for a while. Or... Stadia?

One thing that won't improve much: the budget GPU segment. Wafer and memory costs become more significant at lower price points. So you probably won't see a new 8/7nm GPU with 8 GB of GDDR6 for $150, for example.

That's true. I'm sticking with the 1080 and by the time stock improves the 3080 Ti will be announced so there's no reason to even buy a card anyway.

Unsure if this is precisely the right topic. I've got a reasonably powerful system and am going to be reformatting that system. But I am less and less satisfied with Windows and have no interest in getting a newer version.

My question then is: how does a Linux-based OS handle gaming nowadays? And if I wanted to play newer games am I still looking at dual-booting or setting up a virtual machine to accomplish my goals? Are some Linux distros better than others for this purpose? And when it comes to higher-end CPUs and GPUs are there any special considerations I need to take into account?

I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too. I want off Windows and onto a open-source alternative but to still be able to play the newest games and otherwise not change my habits very much.

You're going to be fucking miserable trying to troubleshoot every game. Then you compound that with Driver support...lord. Yeah, I wouldn't bother.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Unsure if this is precisely the right topic. I've got a reasonably powerful system and am going to be reformatting that system. But I am less and less satisfied with Windows and have no interest in getting a newer version.

My question then is: how does a Linux-based OS handle gaming nowadays? And if I wanted to play newer games am I still looking at dual-booting or setting up a virtual machine to accomplish my goals? Are some Linux distros better than others for this purpose? And when it comes to higher-end CPUs and GPUs are there any special considerations I need to take into account?

I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too. I want off Windows and onto a open-source alternative but to still be able to play the newest games and otherwise not change my habits very much.

With Proton you can run a lot of Windows games on Linux.
Here's the DB to check for compatibility:

https://www.protondb.com/

 

[Racist Trash]

I'm hoping that the 3050/3050 ti/3060 release are soonish and are produced enough to escape this no stock hell, running on my old ATI 6870 ain't fun.

 

[Owlery]

Unsure if this is precisely the right topic. I've got a reasonably powerful system and am going to be reformatting that system. But I am less and less satisfied with Windows and have no interest in getting a newer version.

My question then is: how does a Linux-based OS handle gaming nowadays? And if I wanted to play newer games am I still looking at dual-booting or setting up a virtual machine to accomplish my goals? Are some Linux distros better than others for this purpose? And when it comes to higher-end CPUs and GPUs are there any special considerations I need to take into account?

I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too. I want off Windows and onto a open-source alternative but to still be able to play the newest games and otherwise not change my habits very much.

I have ran arch for roughly a year now on my primary gaming pc. Steam does a really good job of a majority of my games just working right off the cuff. I'd recommend Ubuntu for a first dip in the water. AMD cards generally are easier to work with and run due to drivers being practically baked into the kernel nowadays vs nvidia's proprietary drivers

 

[Max Doof]

Looking back I came out a little lucky when I had the chance to get my graphics card and cpu. Like both the 480 and 580 are still going roughly for sometimes 200 used and sellers are still asking insane prices for the r5 3600

 

[Dark Edea]

Thanks for the advice. Since I don't mind troubleshooting that much I will give it a shot. Worst case I just swap back.

GPU pricing is very troublesome right now. My "old" GPU costs more now than when I bought it new.

 

[An Avenging Bird]

This is just the worst.
Every article that comes out which is supposed to be a hype train of new GPU versions around the corner only lead me to think who cares, not like customers will be able to buy them anyway.

As I stated pages back, these manufacturers better watch it because crypto is a volatile market and if enough PC gamers have said fuck it I'm out, that's a lot of lost sales.

I wouldn't expect the scalper bots to be regulated until Nvidia, AMD, Sony, Microsoft feel the brunt of it months down the road with sales drops.
Essentially nobody gives a damn about the consumers.

 

[Secret Asshole]

This is just the worst.
Every article that comes out which is supposed to be a hype train of new GPU versions around the corner only lead me to think who cares, not like customers will be able to buy them anyway.

As I stated pages back, these manufacturers better watch it because crypto is a volatile market and if enough PC gamers have said fuck it I'm out, that's a lot of lost sales.

I wouldn't expect the scalper bots to be regulated until Nvidia, AMD, Sony, Microsoft feel the brunt of it months down the road with sales drops.
Essentially nobody gives a damn about the consumers.

Well, miners basically have bought everything up. I highly doubt they're going to trade in the 3080s they just bought for the 3080 Ti, as their margins shrink. The real worry is scalpers who basically buy up everything within seconds and then resell it for hundreds more. The 3080 Ti was supposed to launch January, but delaying to February seems like NVIDIA is waiting for stocks to build up. Of course, selling 175 million dollars worth of GPUs directly to miners basically kneecapped the 3080. Then miners and scalpers got the rest, with the miners basically paying the scalpers so they can make 'bank'.

The holiday season is over as well. So you already have miners who bought up the 3080s and are buying the scalped ones and the holiday buying season is over. Its hard to starve out scalpers when miners will pay for the cards.

 

[X Prime]

I'm not certain who are bigger scum, the miners or the scalpers.

The miners are just morons, while the scalpers are assholes. The latter are ubiquitous in nearly every market where there is limited supply now. I could swear it was not this bad even 8 years ago.

 

[An Avenging Bird]

Well, miners basically have bought everything up. I highly doubt they're going to trade in the 3080s they just bought for the 3080 Ti, as their margins shrink. The real worry is scalpers who basically buy up everything within seconds and then resell it for hundreds more. The 3080 Ti was supposed to launch January, but delaying to February seems like NVIDIA is waiting for stocks to build up. Of course, selling 175 million dollars worth of GPUs directly to miners basically kneecapped the 3080. Then miners and scalpers got the rest, with the miners basically paying the scalpers so they can make 'bank'.

The holiday season is over as well. So you already have miners who bought up the 3080s and are buying the scalped ones and the holiday buying season is over. Its hard to starve out scalpers when miners will pay for the cards.

So it seems as though the thing to do is just sit around and wait to see what transpires over the next year or two, and if crypto tanks while many give up and move on from PC gaming, the CEOs of Nvidia and AMD will ask where all the gamers went.
Without gamers buying this shit, product innovation will stagnate as well.
Short-sighted, greedy zipperheads.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Only retards are buying rx 6000 cards for mining.

The problem with AMD is even if they were pumping out cards at full speed, they're trying to fill a gigantic void left by Nvidia.

It was never going to happen.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I'm hoping that the 3050/3050 ti/3060 release are soonish and are produced enough to escape this no stock hell, running on my old ATI 6870 ain't fun.

Well, here it is:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-to-offer-entry-level-RTX-features-with-the-GA107-RTX-3050-with-2-304-CUDA-cores-upcoming-Lenovo-Legion-R5-desktops-to-offer-RTX-3050-RTX-3050-Ti-and-RTX-3060-12-GB-options.512553.0.html

Lul @ RTX 3050.

Only retards are buying rx 6000 cards for mining.

The problem with AMD is even if they were pumping out cards at full speed, they're trying to fill a gigantic void left by Nvidia.

It was never going to happen.

I heard that AMD nerfed mining performance on RX 6000 cards. They're in short supply because they are in high demand and launched 2 months after Nvidia did. Nvidia also had high demand but deliberately shipped out cards to miners to keep prices high, because the cards are more expensive to make.

 

[Dick Justice]

Unsure if this is precisely the right topic. I've got a reasonably powerful system and am going to be reformatting that system. But I am less and less satisfied with Windows and have no interest in getting a newer version.

My question then is: how does a Linux-based OS handle gaming nowadays? And if I wanted to play newer games am I still looking at dual-booting or setting up a virtual machine to accomplish my goals? Are some Linux distros better than others for this purpose? And when it comes to higher-end CPUs and GPUs are there any special considerations I need to take into account?

I'm probably trying to have my cake and eat it too. I want off Windows and onto a open-source alternative but to still be able to play the newest games and otherwise not change my habits very much.

You'd get better answers in The Linux Thread. Don't listen to @Secret Asshole , his post is at least 5-10 years outdated. Instead check this one I made in that thread a while back.

Between native ports, proton, playonlinux, and lutris I'm going to say that depending on your target genres:
50-75% of games work right out of the box, so easy your grandma could do it.
5-15% of games simply do not work satisfactorily
the remainder can be made to work with effort ranging from trivial to heraclean, but if the solution to the problem isn't immediately obvious when you encounter the problem half the solution is going to be figuring out what terms to websearch.
If vidya is what you want to do your best bet is honestly either to dualboot or setup a second desktop running headless and use something like steam streaming to play anything that doesn't run easily.

One thing worth noting that I don't think gets enough airtime is this very weird situation we've somehow found ourselves in where running older games, particularly late 90s-late 00s is very often much easier on *nix because of the ease and flexibility of mimicking the games expected host environment in wine. For example I tried to play Max Payne on windows once and after much hassle with compatibility mode and pcgw patches it seemed to work except for no audio in cutscenes. A few years later I couldn't get it to work at all. I tried running it in wine and the whole thing was clicking one button to change the host environment to windows xp and then running the executable. If you've ever had to fuck with CPU affinity or force single-core rendering to get a game to work your experience will probably be improved by switching to *nix. It's crazy to think that POSIX is becoming the optimal way to preserve old windows games. Now that I think about it emulators tend to be easier as well.

I use the dualboot strategy but haven't actually needed to boot into Windows to play anything in almost a year now. Depending on what you like there'll be some can't miss games where you have to bite the bullet, but they're few and far between. Seriously consider starting with not Ubuntu, but something based on it like Mint, PureOS, Pop!OS, etc, or at least doing a non-gnome/unity version of Ubuntu. My experience with Ubuntu was that it ties your hands far worse than windows ever did, and its attempts at tight integration like snaps just make the whole thing less reliable and more difficult to use, but ymmv and all that. Also be very suspicious of anyone unironically recommending Arch. It's not bad per se, but it's never as good as the BTW I USE ARCH crowd pretends it is.