Be Excellent To Each Other

The problem with these new AMD cards is that there's nothing in the pipeline to give Nvidia any reason whatsoever to not just carry on charging £600 for a reference 1080.

Whilst it's nice to see some proper tussling at the £150-£200 price point, without some genuine competition a bit further up the tree, the 1070 and 1080 can remain at piss-taking price points.

Nvidia were under a bit of pressure when they launched the 970/980, and this was reflected in their price and performance. One only needs to look at the 1070/1080 to see how much pressure they feel they're under at the moment....

There's a 490 coming before December. I would imagine it would be sometime in October.

Basically yesterday morning some one on Reddit was cashing in a voucher and he spotted this.



It could be a slip up but at E3 they interviewed one of the head honchos at Alienware and he was showing off a graphics amplifier. It's basically an external box that you fit a full sized GPU to and then plug it into your laptop for gaming goodness. Any way, he went through the range of Nvidia cards you could fit in there and then all of the 200 and 300 series Radeons before saying "And even the brand new RX 480 and 490". Then he went a bit red and went quiet...

Couple that with this from a few days ago.



And 2+2 could actually be 4. If not then the 490 could simply be a faster Polaris 10 card that they are holding onto until Nvidia have launched the 1060.

However I think either way we will either see something closer to the 1070 by October any way. If the 490 is Vega there's no reason it shouldn't be right up there.

Last couple of weeks I've been looking for an escape. Just to get my mind off crap things like depression, Brexit, moving house and poor social worker.

So I decided to pick up where I had left off about six months ago. I had basically gotten the inside as I wanted it but since then I changed my mind on a couple of bits. The fans I decked the rig out with were cheap but noisy. So I bought a set of these.



They're bionic fans. Serious static pressure whilst at 1200rpm almost inaudible.

Few Nitrous hose clamps to sort out the AIO hoses.



And I bought these..



And have now started making the box panels. Thing is this PC is a weird shape so I had to make templates from flexi plastic.



For example. To make the panels I mostly used leftover scrap from other projects so it's all different colours. But here you can see what I've been up to.



Lights after braiding etc



Some switches.



And some seriously expensive bolts.



And some black chrome. This will be used for labels (it'll make sense later)



And this.



The main body will be painted in black. It's kinda like between matt and satin

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36711989

"Mine has 10,000 times more LEDs"

I think that sounds like a challenge for you, Mr Coffey.

I'm working on it

Vulkan is looking very interesting for AMD, massive performance gains across the board on DOOM using their cards, to the extent that an AMD RX480 basically goes toe-to-toe with a GTX 980, and is pretty close to a GTX 1070. (The 480 is £160 cheaper than the 1070.)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... ance-gains

It's (apparently) all down to this asynchronous compute thingy which AMD cards natively support in hardware (and have done for a while) but Nvidia cards don't, with Nvidia waffling about how they're going to implement it at a driver level at some point, which no one really believes.

I gave Vulkan a try in DOOM and it was very inconsistent on my PC, introducing peaks and troughs where OpenGL was a lot more consistent, and the adaptive v-sync doesn't seem to work at all on Nvidia cards under Vulkan which had me very quickly running back to OpenGL.

Nice to see something give a shot in the arm to AMD though, it's been said for a while that asynchronous compute could really improve things for them in comparison to Nvidia's more brute force approach. (Which is particularly evident with the 1070/1080.)

Ever since the 7970 AMD have stuck to their guns with GCN (Graphics Core Next). Basically they've been making Fermi hay. What I mean by that is they have put in a whole lot of muscles that until now were wasted. They should have left it back then and concentrated on less going on and higher clocks like Nvidia have. It's been pointless for so long now.

But that is why they kick so much ass when you get something that can use it properly like Async. Nvidia simply do not have the hardware on their GPUs to run it so it's done via software IIRC.

The end result? yeah, AMD may just end up having the last laugh tbh. They've been betting on one legged horses at 500-1 for years now, maybe finally one of their ideas will pay off..

What I mean is look at Bulldozer. They knew the IPC was crap so they threw lots of cores in for good measure. When supported properly even the original 8 core Bulldozer could stand toe to toe with the 2600k. IIRC the only bench that it worked properly in was Winzip, and I guess people weren't going to buy a CPU because it could zip things up as quickly or quicker than a 2600k. And then there was the actual support in Windows - there wasn't any. AMD's Bulldozer and Piledriver CPUs simply did not work properly until we got Windows 8, and of course Windows 8 was not universally accepted like Windows 7 was.

So yeah, that's the sort of thing AMD have been doing for years now. Odd ideas that make sense in their world but fail to work out properly when actually launched. Fair play to them though it was them who pushed for 64 bit computing...

Apparently Vega is coming next. However, after Vega we are going to get Navi, which is touted as scalable. In other words AMD could be making cards like the ill fated Voodoo 5500 and on. Cards with more than one core on the die, basically. Thing is, given that they make both of the consoles it may just work.

Crossfire and SLi now as we knew them are dead. It's all about IMA (implicit multi adapter, similar to AFR (alternate frame rendering) and EMA (explicit multi adapter, much better but harder to support). Microsoft announced a few days back that they were going to make it far easier for devs to code in IMA in DX12. Two days later Rise Of The Tomb Raider gets an Async and IMA update...

So yeah, their vision may just come off !

There's an article up at Eurogamer today about a swizzy 1080 with a big factory overclock and a great aftermarket cooling solution. Nothing particularly exotic, just one of MSI's better cards.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... g-z-review

Sounds pretty nice, I thought, wonder how much it's going for.



I mean, really. Fuck off.

I have money sat here ready to spend on a new PC (well, technically it's in the bank), but I just refuse outright to buy at a time of such blatant price-gougery.

Even the 1070 is holding at £380 for the cheapest one with a decent cooler on it.

980Ti at £350, I'm keeping an eye on that, £300 would make it very interesting.

Yeah it's absolutely fucking ridiculous tbh. It's a tiny mid range piece of silicon and they want a king's ransom for it. And the thing is in a few month's time the cunts will launch the 1080ti and Titan P and then say "Grand for the 1080ti and £whatever we make up for the Titan P".

The problem is vendors are not helping the situation. OCUK are the fucking worst, they slowly started upping their price and then every one followed. I guess they all figured they could charge whatever the dearest price was and get it.

Thing is I have also been monitoring the forums and it's amazing just how many people have stumped up and paid that and more. There's one called a Sea King with a £30 AIO on it and it's £800 or more.

Absolutely fucking disgusting.

If everyone boycotted paying that much, the prices would drop....

But of course, they won't. Because everyone wants new shiny

If it's too expensive it won't sell in enough numbers. If it does sell then they are right to have priced it that way. How is this situation different to anything else that people make and sell?

i agree, so either buy or don't.

I don't think anyone's arguing with the right of anyone to charge whatever they want for a graphics card or anything else (at least when it comes to things which are just 'nice to have'), but the graphics card market, at least at the high end, is damn near a monopoly at the moment and this is reflected in what Nvidia are charging for their cards, and by extension, what they're getting through to retailers at.

I agree that one can 'buy or not buy' (and I'm firmly in the 'not buy' camp at the moment, hence my 'Fuck off' comment, because I object to the prices being charged), but what really needs to happen is Nvidia have some serious competition in the mid-high to high end of the graphics card market to get prices back down to sensible levels.

When did you become a free marketeer? Capitalist scum

In other news I'm hoping my 1070 arrives today

How am I supposed to have a better computer than you if you keep upgrading, foo?

Get a 1080?

But then you'd get a 1080Ti or something.

And it would all descend into mutually assured bankruptcy.

Someone's got to be the bigger man and take their finger off the buy button. And that's me, as I am veritably huge.

This should last until the Rift 2 is out.

Which make/model did you go for?

Palit GeForce GTX 1070 GameRock 8GB GDDR5 Dual-Link DVI HDMI 3x DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

Rolls off the tongue nicely.

Doesn't it just?

Google Play Music All-Access I'm Feeling Lucky

Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec R33 400R RBX-GT2

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THIS THING

It was actually so big it wouldn't fit without me detaching the cage the SSD and HDD were housed in, moving them to a different, smaller cage, and leaving this one out completely.

Working now though!

No LEDs ??

He hasn't turned it on. It has all the LEDs.

ALL OF THEM.

What can I do to make my PC better? It's quite old now and, without spending a lot of money, I would like to improve it and make it able to cope with editing videos a bit better. It kind of does ok now, but does seem to stutter a bit on high quality videos. I'm guessing my graphics card is old... or is it?

Would that help?

RAM is your cheapest upgrade, then an SSD, then a graphics card (although that won't make a massive difference to video editing).

I already have an SSD and yeah, I did notice the difference with that. So RAM it is then. Where is cheap to buy RAM from these days?

Also, as far as my processor is concerned... Is it a bit crappy now or will it still last a couple of years?

It's not great, but it's not bad, and it's a shag to replace.

Yeah, I thought as much... RAM it is then I guess.

I'd best start saving for a new PC I think.

You have just about the best CPU you can have without replacing CPU ram and motherboard all together

Press the turbo button
If you don't have a turbo button, install one.

Then get LEDs.

You've got it connected up weird dude. You're using two six pin on those hideous adapters to one 8 pin yes? If you look carefully you will see that next to the six pin there are these little plugs with two connectors. These are what you 6+2 with to make an 8 pin. That way you can remove those honking adpaters Then you can just use one and tuck the other out of the way

Nice card though.

I present The SSD-UFO.







That should satisfy your cravings.

It's in and working so I really DGAF at this point.

Title.

Best yet!

#view" class="postlink">http://www.hkepc.com/14257/%E5%85%A8%E6%96%B0GP106%E7%B9%AA%E5%9C%96%E6%A0%B8%E5%BF%83_NVIDIA_GeForce_GTX_1060%E7%99%BB%E5%A0%B4/page/7#view

Pretty much as expected then, almost 980 performance. There's a fag paper between it and the RX 480 now it all comes down to price. I've been hearing that the RX 480 Nitro SHOULD cost £209. Less than the stock model and apparently this was from Sapphire themselves. The only price we have seen so far is the gouged OCUK price but if they do go out at £209 then I fail to see how Nvidia are going to be able to match that. They won't want to sell it (the 1060) for £209 that's for sure and I doubt we will see a decent custom model available for anywhere near that price.

Ed. The vital piece of the puzzle is missing though, Doom Vulkan performance..

Sorry I didn't get around to answering this I've been really busy of late.

It all depends dude. Your CPU was capable of running on older motherboards with DDR2 memory *or* DDR3 on later boards/chipsets. If DDR3 is needed then you only need to tread slightly carefully. Older DDR3 and their controllers and the motherboards ran at higher voltages. This was usually 1.65-1.9v. Modern DDR3 only runs at around 1.3v. Some modern DDR3 is rated in JEDEC at 1.65v but if you are running 1.9v forget it. You'll blow up any modern memory.

If it's DDR2? then get ready to spend what you could get a new CPU and motherboard for. DDR2 is very expensive now.

I would start by providing me with a model number for your motherboard OR a photograph of the label on the memory. You can then go to Crucial and if you put in the model number of your motherboard it will tell you exactly what RAM you need. Like timings, voltage ETC.

But do be careful like I say, as most DDR3 these days is DDR3L (or low, low voltage) and will pop if you give it 1.65v.

I understood about 4% of that post. What I'll do, is take a picture of my current memory and post that. How do I find out my motherboard manufacturer?

There is a thing on the crucial website that you can download and run, and it will tell you what memory to buy for your computer.

It should be on the board somewhere fella. Or somewhere around it. Model number is more important than manufacturer though..

Sorry if my post confused you it was a bit geeky

What I am basically saying is that memory standards and voltages have changed a lot since your CPU was new and thus you may find it hard to find compatible ram for it.

Do what Trooper suggests if that's the case, then post a screen grab of what it suggests for you. You'll get it cheaper than Crucial but they will tell you the exact ram spec you need

There still is.

Use this http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/systemscanner and search for what it tells you on Amazon (or buy it from them, if it's cheap).

The 1060 is looking really good as a possible future upgrade for Hearthly Jnr's PC, which is one of those modern fangled mini-ITX affairs in a case that hardly looks big enough to accommodate a full sized power supply.

It can house a double-slot graphics card, but only half-length - at the moment it has a 750Ti in it, admittedly one of the nicer ones with an aftermarket cooler on it (so it maxes out its boost very freely) but there's a limit to how far that card can go, and the latest WoW expansion (which is going pre-launch tomorrow with all the shiny new graphics options) has amped up the graphics settings possibilities quite considerably. (Plus Jnr is on a 1920x1200 monitor, so that's a lot of pixels to chuck around.)

Obviously I'll see how the game runs first and how the new graphics options work out, but the 1060 will be available in the same sized package as the 750Ti with the same power requirements, so it'd be a nice easy upgrade for Jnr's PC. (And let's face it, CPUs are basically going nowhere now.)

The 1060 outclasses the 970 fairly comfortably, and as you say JC is absolutely nip and tuck with the 980, so even at its somewhat high price for a midrange card, it still makes far more sense than any of the outgoing mini-ITX friendly 970s, which are both hard to get hold of and cost £250 or more.

So this is what Crucial said... So, if I buy 2x 2gb of RAM then that'll make me have 8gb of RAM won't it? Which would be better for doing computery things?

Why does Crucial suggest I get 2x 1gb of RAM?