Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 16:23:
With that setup buying the entry-level should be a no-brainer. Your brother will see immediate and noticeable gains. However, it's going to be challenging to get 4K60. He should upgrade the CPU/mobo. Once a person games at 4K, they don't go back to 1080 or 1440. :)

My brother mostly games at 1080p on his 4K monitor for performance reasons, so he's obviously not the most fussy. He's going to get a hand-me-down 3900X and MB from my father, who is determined to upgrade to a 5950X. He's also going to get a free GTX 1080, so that's why he's not sure if he will go for the 3080.

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 16:23:
My build. I specifically built it for 4K60 or very close to that.

CPU: I7-8700
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11G
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4-2133
MOBO: ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E Gaming
1st Drive: SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB
2nd Drive: SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB
3rd Drive: WD Black 2 TB 7200
Power Supply: 1600 Watt CORSAIR AX1600i
Displays: (2) LG 27" 4K UHD IPS
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Except for a few games like MSFS, I see at or above 60 FPS. In MSFS, I see between 40-50. It will drop to 33 when I fly in and around large metros, but the game quickly stabilizes framerates so that lower rates are buttery smooth. In older games like Guild Wars 2, with all settings maxed running on legacy DirectX 9, I see between 70 and 90 depending on the area, and when the screen fills with players, 40-60 (area dependent). GW2 is my go-to benchmark for testing what I like to call the trueness of a video card's performance. If it does well in a game like GW2, it'll handle modern games without issue.

I have no doubt upgrading to a 30XX would boost performance past 4K60. However, I'm not messing with the 3070 or 3080. I'm saving my pennies for the 3090. I paid $1,200 for the 2080 Ti, and it was well worth the cost. Solid 4K60 gaming for the past year and a half. Video card generations rapidly change. I didn't want to wait for a 30XX when I could get a 2080 Ti and enjoy 4K60.

I have a similar setup: 8700K, GTX1080 Ti, 32GB DDR4-3000, Intel Optane 900p, Sabrent 2TB nVME, 1000W PSU, 32" 1440p @ 165Hz.

My GPU is a bit older, so I'll see more of an uplift than someone like yourself on a 2080 Ti. I'm trying to avoid upgrading my CPU / MB this year and see if I can hold out for PCIe 5.0 and DDR 5 generation down the road. As I'm not gaming at 4K I think I'll be fine for now. I'll look at a 4K high refresh monitor down the road but likely once HDR implementation has settled down.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 15:06:

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 13:57:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 12:57:

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:54:
Relax everyone. Just wait a few months and then you pick one up after the hype and crazy dies down.

I've seen it go both ways. Sometimes you have stock shortages for weeks / months and prices are higher than if you get in early. Plus I'm expecting my third child in December and have a month of annual leave / paternity leave, so ideally want to get the card prior to that to make the most of it.

Congratulations!

Cheers Not only will I have the little one to deal with but my eldest is five and really into Fortnite and I told him I'd install it again if I bought a new graphics card. He keeps asking when the graphics card will be downloaded, so I don't think he really understands it all. So yeah, I'll be one of those crazy people playing Fortnite with raytracing. Might even have to buy an Xbox Series X for the Mrs, as she's started playing Fortnite a bit more recently.

The number of people trying to get hold of these cards is ridiculous. My father, who isn't even a gamer and is only interested in Flight Simulator 20200, even managed to order one today. And my brother hasn't upgraded his computer since 2012 (he's rocking a horrendously mismatched i7 2600K, hand-me-down GTX 970 SLI setup and a 4K monitor) and even he is seriously considering one.

With that setup buying the entry-level should be a no-brainer. Your brother will see immediate and noticeable gains. However, it's going to be challenging to get 4K60. He should upgrade the CPU/mobo. Once a person games at 4K, they don't go back to 1080 or 1440.

My build. I specifically built it for 4K60 or very close to that.

CPU: I7-8700
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11G
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4-2133
MOBO: ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E Gaming
1st Drive: SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB
2nd Drive: SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 500GB
3rd Drive: WD Black 2 TB 7200
Power Supply: 1600 Watt CORSAIR AX1600i
Displays: (2) LG 27" 4K UHD IPS
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Except for a few games like MSFS, I see at or above 60 FPS. In MSFS, I see between 40-50. It will drop to 33 when I fly in and around large metros, but the game quickly stabilizes framerates so that lower rates are buttery smooth. In older games like Guild Wars 2, with all settings maxed running on legacy DirectX 9, I see between 70 and 90 depending on the area, and when the screen fills with players, 40-60 (area dependent). GW2 is my go-to benchmark for testing what I like to call the trueness of a video card's performance. If it does well in a game like GW2, it'll handle modern games without issue.

I have no doubt upgrading to a 30XX would boost performance past 4K60. However, I'm not messing with the 3070 or 3080. I'm saving my pennies for the 3090. I paid $1,200 for the 2080 Ti, and it was well worth the cost. Solid 4K60 gaming for the past year and a half. Video card generations rapidly change. I didn't want to wait for a 30XX when I could get a 2080 Ti and enjoy 4K60.

Nullity wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 13:45:

Dev wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 13:46:
The PCI express scaling article, short tldr version if you don't want to slog through about 30 pages:
1% difference between PCIe 3 and PCIe 4.
I figured it would be pretty small, but wanted to verify, because if I get this and put it into my intel with 9900 CPU I don't want it crippled by PCIe 3... like the crippling that will happen to a next gen nvme SSD if I put it into this system, because Intel is slow at putting PCIe 4 in.

Yeah, with just video card performance alone, it's basically a rounding error. However, when games start to use the new DirectStorage/RTX IO, then PCIe 4 may provide a benefit.

This "when" thing is pretty far away. nVidia are going to start distributing the RTX IO SDK to developers at an unknown time next year. Developers are obviously not going to begin cranking out RTX IO games like it is second nature whenever that happens. The next couple of years are going to be all about the PS5 and the XSX hype. To put it mildly, there aren't going to be too many developers that will focus on PC-centric features like RTX IO at all. Maybe a nVidia sponsored showcase title or two but that will be it.

The vast majority of developers will wait for the unified Microsoft DirectStorage API (RTX IO will be the DirectStorage compatible backend just like RTX is the DirectX 12 Ray-Tracing backend) which is even further away. Microsoft are going to release a developer preview version of DirectStorage at an unspecified time next year. They will be collecting and evaluating feedback from developers, do tons of testing and incorporate all of that into a beta and eventually a release candidate. All of this will take many months and might last well into the year 2022 before they are going to finally wrap it all up into a consumer Windows 10 update. We might see the very first games utilizing RTX IO/DirectStorage in 2022 at the earliest but more widespread use is even further out.
Intel will be moving to PCIe 4.0 with Rocket Lake CPUs next year (spring) so they will have made the switch when RTX IO and/or DirectStorage games might become relevant.

PC Gamer also talked about this in their Should you upgrade your CPU for top nVidia Ampere performance article:

So PCIe 4.0 is potentially going to be important for games. Eventually. There is a bit of a downer here though, and that is because games aren't going to start using this for a while yet. Nvidia isn't releasing the SDK for it until next year, and so probably won't be getting games which utilize it until 2022, and more likely later than that. By which time Intel will definitely have made the switch to PCIe 4.0. It's recently revealed Tiger Lake laptop CPUs already support PCIe 4.0, and its future desktop platform will surely make the shift next year.

Plenty of cards on ebay, so I guess someone got them.

I just hope the 3090 has stock. Am eager to upgrade my 2080ti (which I got day 1 iirc).

The irony is that all I play lately is zandronium/zdaemon (original doom ports), and war thunder...

I do owe a kid a 3000 series for his birthday (I promised). I hope to get him a 3070, but with this sort of availability he will get whatever 3070 or 3080 with which I can actually make it through checkout.

-scheherazade

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 13:57:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 12:57:

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:54:
Relax everyone. Just wait a few months and then you pick one up after the hype and crazy dies down.

I've seen it go both ways. Sometimes you have stock shortages for weeks / months and prices are higher than if you get in early. Plus I'm expecting my third child in December and have a month of annual leave / paternity leave, so ideally want to get the card prior to that to make the most of it.

Congratulations!

Cheers Not only will I have the little one to deal with but my eldest is five and really into Fortnite and I told him I'd install it again if I bought a new graphics card. He keeps asking when the graphics card will be downloaded, so I don't think he really understands it all. So yeah, I'll be one of those crazy people playing Fortnite with raytracing. Might even have to buy an Xbox Series X for the Mrs, as she's started playing Fortnite a bit more recently.

The number of people trying to get hold of these cards is ridiculous. My father, who isn't even a gamer and is only interested in Flight Simulator 20200, even managed to order one today. And my brother hasn't upgraded his computer since 2012 (he's rocking a horrendously mismatched i7 2600K, hand-me-down GTX 970 SLI setup and a 4K monitor) and even he is seriously considering one.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 12:57:

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:54:
Relax everyone. Just wait a few months and then you pick one up after the hype and crazy dies down.

I've seen it go both ways. Sometimes you have stock shortages for weeks / months and prices are higher than if you get in early. Plus I'm expecting my third child in December and have a month of annual leave / paternity leave, so ideally want to get the card prior to that to make the most of it.

Congratulations!

Dev wrote on Sep 16, 2020, 13:46:
The PCI express scaling article, short tldr version if you don't want to slog through about 30 pages:
1% difference between PCIe 3 and PCIe 4.
I figured it would be pretty small, but wanted to verify, because if I get this and put it into my intel with 9900 CPU I don't want it crippled by PCIe 3... like the crippling that will happen to a next gen nvme SSD if I put it into this system, because Intel is slow at putting PCIe 4 in.

Yeah, with just video card performance alone, it's basically a rounding error. However, when games start to use the new DirectStorage/RTX IO, then PCIe 4 may provide a benefit.

https://hardforum.com/threads/official-nvidia-ampere-in-stock-thread.2001399/
There are several “in stock” threads spread across the Internet (Reddit for instance). Here’s another one.

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:54:
Relax everyone. Just wait a few months and then you pick one up after the hype and crazy dies down.

I've seen it go both ways. Sometimes you have stock shortages for weeks / months and prices are higher than if you get in early. Plus I'm expecting my third child in December and have a month of annual leave / paternity leave, so ideally want to get the card prior to that to make the most of it.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:02:

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:00:
Raising prices literally as you're hitting F5.
That's some definite bullshit.

It happened with Scan as well. So annoying.

Hardware retailers taking advantage of people who are willing to pay a day one early adopter idiot's premium? Unheard of!

Kxmode wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:54:
Relax everyone. Just wait a few months and then you pick one up after the hype and crazy dies down.

Exactamente. It never hurts to wait a few weeks after launch to wait for all custom AIB cards to be on offer, for the prices to settle and to see whether there are any glaring issues (RTX 2080Ti "space invaders" anyone?). The rumors of poor RTX 30xx availability for the remainder of the year are unsubstantiated rumors. They might as well have been spread by nVidia themselves to make people rush to stores and the nVidia website on launch day because nVidia wanted as many people as possible to buy a card before the AMD reveal and before the end of the financial quarter.

As a RTX 2080Ti owner I have no interest in the RTX 3080. The RTX 3090 would be a real upgrade but seeing how it will most likely be "only" another +30% faster than the RTX 3080 at more than TWICE the price it seems like a pretty poor deal. No gamer is going to need 24GB VRAM for the foreseeable future so you are paying a lot of money for unused VRAM. The RTX 3090 is a waste of money for gamers in my opinion unless maybe you are really gaming on a 8K TV already.
I'm very sure that nVidia will fill in the blank between the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 with the usual RTX 3080Ti at some point in time. A 20GB RTX 3080 would also be quite interesting for RTX 2080Ti owners. I will be waiting to replace my 2080Ti with either one of those future options when the time is right.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 10:49:
The launch was exactly as much of a shitstorm as I expected. The nVidia website didn't provide any purchase option from the live date - refreshed constantly for an hour before it showed as out of stock. All the main UK retailers went down: Overclockers, Scan, Ebuyer. I got as far as the payment accepted page on Overclockers once but they it still failed before the order completed. Then tried it again and the price had gone up £50. I had one in the basket for Ebuyer but then the cart failed.

Just your usual capitalist profiteering bullshit.

Botters be botting unfortunately.

I've seen this sort of nonsense for the Nintendo Switch, videocards, Nike Shoes and basically any "hot ticket" item in the past few years. I eventually got fed up and wrote a python script to ensure I can get a unit of what I want with a few specific retailers. Even with that I've "lost" a few times to bots who are using multiple servers to proxy requests to avoid timing bans from webservers. I've noticed many retailers still use deprecated captcha functions and some don't bother at all. There's a few bots that can even beat Google Recaptcha 2 natively, so they claim anyway.

It really sucks because there is no incentive for stores to improve, all they care about is making the sale. I've tried reporting these issues to a few of them but they just don't care. Nvidia could obviously manage launch inventory better too.

Relax everyone. Just wait a few months and then you pick one up after the hype and crazy dies down.

Finally managed to get one ordered and cheaper than a lot of sites are trying to charge now. Would have preferred a Founder's Edition for the cooler but I don't have my case on display, so no big deal. I'm still going to email their support and see if I can get them to drop the price to match what it was originally showing for - doesn't hurt to try.

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 11:00:
Raising prices literally as you're hitting F5.
That's some definite bullshit.

It happened with Scan as well. So annoying.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 10:49:
The launch was exactly as much of a shitstorm as I expected. The nVidia website didn't provide any purchase option from the live date - refreshed constantly for an hour before it showed as out of stock. All the main UK retailers went down: Overclockers, Scan, Ebuyer. I got as far as the payment accepted page on Overclockers once but they it still failed before the order completed. Then tried it again and the price had gone up �50. I had one in the basket for Ebuyer but then the cart failed.

Just your usual capitalist profiteering bullshit.

Raising prices, on opening day, literally as you're hitting F5.
That's some definite bullshit.

The launch was exactly as much of a shitstorm as I expected. The nVidia website didn't provide any purchase option from the live date - refreshed constantly for an hour before it showed as out of stock. All the main UK retailers went down: Overclockers, Scan, Ebuyer. I got as far as the payment accepted page on Overclockers once but they it still failed before the order completed. Then tried it again and the price had gone up £50. I had one in the basket for Ebuyer but then the cart failed.

Just your usual capitalist profiteering bullshit.

AirWreck wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 10:40:
Tried to get one this morning -- no dice. Was able to see a button to add to cart on newegg, got one added to cart on evga, but sites were getting too crushed to get the transaction through.

lol
I was wondering why EVGA's b-stock sales page wasn't opening.

Good Luck, hopefully you'll find a retail priced card out there on the intarweb.

LOL at this launch, there are ZERO reports of anyone getting a FE's and none were on ebay for resale that I heard. Hmmm....

Tried to get one this morning -- no dice. Was able to see a button to add to cart on newegg, got one added to cart on evga, but sites were getting too crushed to get the transaction through.

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 09:37:

Acleacius wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 04:32:
Any idea why those evga b stock "discount sales" ended? Sales don't usually end on a wed, it was 9/16 if that matters, weird.

No telling. The sale could be over, they could be out of stock or it could be due to aliens.
I noticed it on the hot deals subforum.
https://hardforum.com/forums/h-ot-deals.28/
You might check the site once a day, but beware, some of the deals are so good you'll find yourself purchasing things that you don't really need.

Thanks! Oh god, another place to spend money!
I've got most everything but video card and monitor, held off because they both seem like great candidates for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Edit: That link explains a lot, it apparently is a Wed sale (possibly weekly). Including an additional discount code, at least yesterday.