• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Sitting on the fence

late

late

DP Veteran
Joined
Oct 25, 2016
Messages
4,583
Reaction score
1,261
Location
Southern Maine
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Progressive
Over a year ago, I got a 1070 video card, and a new power supply. That was my first step in an upgrade.

I have a Lian Li ALu case that I like because it's light. So that is likely to stay.

I'm at 1080, the goal is to get to 2560, and eventually VR.

AMD and Intel are basically a tie. The only demanding thing I do with my computer is play games. While Intel holds a small lead there, if more games come out multi-threaded, then the equivalent Ryzen gets a small lead.

Looking to spend about 250 for the CPU, although the Intell 8700 is tempting at 300.

I like the new 470 mobos for AMD, but the Intel boards are fine. I want SLI on it. (In case VR gets to the point where a single 1070 wouldn't cut it. Although just buying a newer, hotter card would likely be a better idea) A high end audio chip would be a real plus, but I have a decent sound card, a Xonar, so that's not a deal breaker. AMd is likely to release a new chipset this summer, the Z490, and Intel is rumored to be bringing out the Z390 in the Fall.

Part of the problem here is that I like Gigabyte, and they have been having some heat problems on their new chipset. It's likely already been fixed, but I don't know that.

Tough call, at least it is for me. Ryzen scared the crap out of Intel, and they have been shoving new stuff out as fast as they can. I am tempted to keep waiting. Also worried some crisis will pop up, and eat my fun money.

So, if you were in my shoes, what would you do?
 
late said:
Over a year ago, I got a 1070 video card, and a new power supply. That was my first step in an upgrade.

I have a Lian Li ALu case that I like because it's light. So that is likely to stay.

I'm at 1080, the goal is to get to 2560, and eventually VR.

AMD and Intel are basically a tie. The only demanding thing I do with my computer is play games. While Intel holds a small lead there, if more games come out multi-threaded, then the equivalent Ryzen gets a small lead.

Looking to spend about 250 for the CPU, although the Intell 8700 is tempting at 300.

I like the new 470 mobos for AMD, but the Intel boards are fine. I want SLI on it. (In case VR gets to the point where a single 1070 wouldn't cut it. Although just buying a newer, hotter card would likely be a better idea) A high end audio chip would be a real plus, but I have a decent sound card, a Xonar, so that's not a deal breaker. AMd is likely to release a new chipset this summer, the Z490, and Intel is rumored to be bringing out the Z390 in the Fall.

Part of the problem here is that I like Gigabyte, and they have been having some heat problems on their new chipset. It's likely already been fixed, but I don't know that.

Tough call, at least it is for me. Ryzen scared the crap out of Intel, and they have been shoving new stuff out as fast as they can. I am tempted to keep waiting. Also worried some crisis will pop up, and eat my fun money.

So, if you were in my shoes, what would you do?
Click to expand...

I'm not a person that can answer your questions about what to do because I lack the knowledge and experience (although if you want to talk about an RV instead of VR, I may be your guy)... however, as country boy from the south, I can tell you one thing with certainty, if you sit on the fence too long, you'll likely get splinters where you don't want to have to pull them out.
 
Every time I decide to give AMD another chance, they blow it in exactly the same way - they never perform as promised and the heat issues are always the same.

I've never had an Intel CPU which wasn't a solid, reliable beast.

It's a lesson I apparently have to relearn over and over again.
 
Beaudreaux said:
1) (although if you want to talk about an RV instead of VR, I may be your guy)...

2) however, as country boy from the south, I can tell you one thing with certainty, if you sit on the fence too long, you'll likely get splinters where you don't want to have to pull them out.
Click to expand...

1) :cool::mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen::cool:

2) Ain't that the truth.
 
Harshaw said:
Every time I decide to give AMD another chance, they blow it in exactly the same way - they never perform as promised and the heat issues are always the same.

I've never had an Intel CPU which wasn't a solid, reliable beast.

It's a lesson I apparently have to relearn over and over again.
Click to expand...

I hear ya.

I've had AMD video cards, never a CPU, but I've always wanted to. You know, give the little guy a chance.
 
late said:
I hear ya.

I've had AMD video cards, never a CPU, but I've always wanted to. You know, give the little guy a chance.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've followed that pied piper a few times. Regretted it each time. I know what they're saying about Ryzen, but . . . it's still AMD.
 
SLI is dead. Performance scaling is bad almost universally. Developers just don’t want to put resources into supporting something only a tiny fraction of the user base is equipped for. VR is particularly sensitive to microstutter and latency, SLI for now actively makes most VR games worse than single GPU.

Better off selling old cards to fund a better one than doing SLI.

Ryzen has a refresh out which is worth looking into. Ryzen has a weakness in being dependent on fast RAM due to the way its core interconnect works, and RAM prices are stupid high right now. The refresh allegedly resolves some of that.
 
Deuce;1068485846 SLI for now actively makes most VR games worse than single GPU. Ryzen has a refresh out which is worth looking into. Ryzen has a weakness in being dependent on fast RAM due to the way its core interconnect works said:
Ouch, good to know.

Do you mean the new chipset? That's getting good reviews, but it doesn't change performance in games much. Some years back, I had 32 gigs, back when ram was cheap. That was pretty nice.
Click to expand...
 
late said:
Ouch, good to know.

Do you mean the new chipset? That's getting good reviews, but it doesn't change performance in games much. Some years back, I had 32 gigs, back when ram was cheap. That was pretty nice.
Click to expand...

The Ryzen 2XXX series. 1700 is being superseded by the 2700, 1700X by the 2700X, 1600 by the 2600, etc. Same architecture, just some improvements.

The raw gaming performance king is still in the hands of Intel, now the 8700k instead of the 7700k. However, AMD has some solid price:performance spots.

Here's some benchmarks for SLI scaling to give you an idea. A lot of games only end up with like 20-30% better framerates despite twice the hypothetical power. Many games simply do not improve because their engine just isn't programmed to use two GPUs.

https://babeltechreviews.com/gtx-1080-ti-sli-performance-25-games/3/

As for VR, the underlying problem is that SLI tends to use alternate frame rendering, which can improve overall frame rate but doesn't improve frame latency. (and can sometimes make the latency worse because there's extra time spent sending data back and forth between the GPU) For normal games this latency isn't something you'd notice unless you're some pro twitch CS:GO 240fps type, but VR is veeerry latency sensitive. If the delay between head movement and the new frame is too long, people get nauseous.
 
Deuce said:
The Ryzen 2XXX series. 1700 is being superseded by the 2700, 1700X by the 2700X, 1600 by the 2600, etc. Same architecture, just some improvements.

The raw gaming performance king is still in the hands of Intel, now the 8700k instead of the 7700k. However, AMD has some solid price:performance spots.

Here's some benchmarks for SLI scaling to give you an idea. A lot of games only end up with like 20-30% better framerates despite twice the hypothetical power. Many games simply do not improve because their engine just isn't programmed to use two GPUs.

https://babeltechreviews.com/gtx-1080-ti-sli-performance-25-games/3/

As for VR, the underlying problem is that SLI tends to use alternate frame rendering, which can improve overall frame rate but doesn't improve frame latency. (and can sometimes make the latency worse because there's extra time spent sending data back and forth between the GPU) For normal games this latency isn't something you'd notice unless you're some pro twitch CS:GO 240fps type, but VR is veeerry latency sensitive. If the delay between head movement and the new frame is too long, people get nauseous.
Click to expand...

Yup.

I think I am down to the motherboard. Intel 8700, WD 1TB M.2, Corsair 3000mhz ram, Seagate 2TB Barracuda (2 TB for 60 bucks, that is just amazing), Cryorig H7 cooler.

I really like good sound, and a mobo like the Gigabyte Gaming 7 ($230) is how much it costs to get one with a good sound chip. There's a new Intel chipset coming in the Fall, it should have more PCI lanes, and more of the fast ones. I may wait for that. I got a SSD a couple years ago. A M.2 stick, a regular SSD and a HD will take up a lot of the PCI lanes. This prob won't happen, but one potential solution to wireless VR is to have 2 video cards, one for each screen. You could then used 2 wifi channels. I know, silly, but Intel really should have added more lanes by now.

But I would very much like to get this done.
 
Last edited:
late said:
Yup.

I think I am down to the motherboard. Intel 8700, WD 1TB M.2, Corsair 3000mhz ram, Seagate 2TB Barracuda (2 TB for 60 bucks, that is just amazing), Cryorig H7 cooler.

I really like good sound, and a mobo like the Gigabyte Gaming 7 ($230) is how much it costs to get one with a good sound chip. There's a new Intel chipset coming in the Fall, it should have more PCI lanes, and more of the fast ones. I may wait for that. I got a SSD a couple years ago. A M.2 stick, a regular SSD and a HD will take up a lot of the PCI lanes. This prob won't happen, but one potential solution to wireless VR is to have 2 video cards, one for each screen. You could then used 2 wifi channels. I know, silly, but Intel really should have added more lanes by now.

But I would very much like to get this done.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about PCI lanes. Most motherboards will run SLI in x8/x8 rather than x16/x16 but this wont have any noticeable effect. A 1070 doesn't put out enough data to saturate x8, much less x16.

I assume you are referring to an NVMe m.2 drive because you're talking about PCI lanes, if you want to preserve PCI lanes you could just go with another SATA SSD. Real-world loading times really aren't that different and it could save you a few bucks. Loading your OS on boot up or loading a new level in a game tend to bottleneck at the CPU now rather than the SSD.
 
Last edited:
Deuce said:
Don't worry about PCI lanes. Most motherboards will run SLI in x8/x8 rather than x16/x16 but this wont have any noticeable effect. A 1070 doesn't put out enough data to saturate x8, much less x16.
Click to expand...

Good to know, thanks.

Any suggestions about what to get for a mobo?
 
Got the Giga Gaming 7.

The Sabre dac is really good. It has a Killer internet chip, but my internet is actually slower now, prob something stupid.

Other than the Killer, it does everything better.
 
late said:
I hear ya.

I've had AMD video cards, never a CPU, but I've always wanted to. You know, give the little guy a chance.
Click to expand...

Don't do it.
From yet another film pro.
 
late said:
I wound up getting an 8700. Skyrim looks better with the same video card.
Click to expand...

I've been drooling over some of the enterprise level graphics super workstations lately.
They have a couple of models with dual procs totaling 36 cores.
These machines will also accommodate multiple high end graphics cards.
Out of reach...not by much but just enough that I can't get one.

However a super-geek IT buddy I know told me that his company has a couple of the first ones and that they're thinking of upgrading and that he might be able to sneak one to me somehow for a killer price.

I need a drool bucket :D

https://www8.hp.com/us/en/workstations/z840.html
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
However a super-geek IT buddy I know told me that his company has a couple of the first ones and that they're thinking of upgrading and that he might be able to sneak one to me somehow for a killer price.
Click to expand...

Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom