Building a gaming PC

[volsung]

Found an MSI GTX 1070 Ti Gaming 8G for 469 €. What do you guys think? It's around the price of a Vega 56 but it appears to perform slightly better in some games.

For 200 more I could get an RTX 2070 but we can all agree the performance difference hardly justifies the price. I could instead use that money towards a bigger monitor.

 

[Sapooken]

Always get a good processor! Never less than good! To avoid bottleneck, that is. Graphic cards is important too, I recommend one of a famous manufacturer, you don't want those fake plastic ones, not worth the money at all! I would be specific with $$ but that is not my currency, so I recommend you use online search for that alright.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

If you plan to game on Linux - go with AMD, it's way more future proof, including Wayland and FreeSync. In US prices on Vega cards dropped again. You can now get Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 for $400 on Newegg.

 

[M4xw0lf]

Found an MSI GTX 1070 Ti Gaming 8G for 469 €. What do you guys think? It's around the price of a Vega 56 but it appears to perform slightly better in some games.

For 200 more I could get an RTX 2070 but we can all agree the performance difference hardly justifies the price. I could instead use that money towards a bigger monitor.

I'd say the 1070Ti is you best option in that price range. All 2000 cards are grossly overpriced, and as much as I lean towards AMD personally, there's no looking past the 1070Ti being the overall better product in comparison to a Vega56 card. (On Windows systems, that is. Can't give any opinion on all things Linux )

 

[volsung]

Thanks guys I'll think about it. I personally have zero issues with Nvidia in Linux and it has the advantage of CUDA which is much more widespread for GPGPU.

Also I just found this RTX 2070 article for Linux:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-rtx2070-linux&num=1

where they compare a bunch of different cards, like the GTX 970 (my current card), both Vegas, and the new Nvidia cards. Surprisingly the 1070 Ti performs better than even the Vega 64, even with Vulkan. The 1080 Ti is still a monster and while the RTX are fast, they're just ridiculously overpriced. The 1070 Ti appears to have the best value overall (eg. FPS per dollar).

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Vega 56 / 64 are positioned as matching GTX 1070 / 1080 respectively, not Ti ones. So I don't think it's a proper comparison.

The issues that plague Nvidia are all based on the same problem - their kernel driver is out of tree and isn't integrated with Linux DRM/KMS (direct rendering subsystem, not the crooked DRM that is). That results in a whole list of problems, such as lack of functional vsync (tearing in many games despite using vsync settings), lack of PRIME functionality, no support for sys interfaces (i.e. you can't use lm-sensors for hardware monitoring), and so on and so forth. I.e. you can use Nvidia for gaming, but at the cost of poor desktop and system integration.

Plus, if you want to switch to Wayland compositors (modern Linux display servers), Nvidia isn't an option at all, since they decided not to use common memory management API (gbm) that Wayland compositors rely on. Another big sore point is lack of FreeSync which Nvidia refuses to support so far.

Because of all this mess, AMD is a much better option for Linux gaming today. Sure, AMD cards are behind Nvidia top cards in performance (they simply don't have a match), but at the same time Vega can be more than enough for many games. For instance Vega 56 runs games like The Witcher 3 and Shadow Warrior 2 fine for me at 60+ fps on max settings (Wine+dxvk).

AMD should release Navi cards in 2019, and then really new generation architecture cards in 2020. That's when they can catch up to Nvidia in performance as well.

 

[EngryEngineer]

Vega 56 / 64 are positioned as matching GTX 1070 / 1080 respectively, not Ti ones. So I don't think it's a proper comparison.

The issues that plague Nvidia are all based on the same problem - their kernel driver is out of tree and isn't integrated with Linux DRM/KMS (direct rendering subsystem, not the crooked DRM that is). That results in a whole list of problems, such as lack of functional vsync (tearing in many games despite using vsync settings), lack of PRIME functionality, no support for sys interfaces (i.e. you can't use lm-sensors for hardware monitoring), and so on and so forth. I.e. you can use Nvidia for gaming, but at the cost of poor desktop and system integration.

Plus, if you want to switch to Wayland compositors (modern Linux display servers), Nvidia isn't an option at all, since they decided not to use common memory management API (gbm) that Wayland compositors rely on. Another big sore point is lack of FreeSync which Nvidia refuses to support so far.

Because of all this mess, AMD is a much better option for Linux gaming today. Sure, AMD cards are behind Nvidia top cards in performance (they simply don't have a match), but at the same time Vega can be more than enough for many games. For instance Vega 56 runs games like The Witcher 3 and Shadow Warrior 2 fine for me at 60+ fps on max settings (Wine+dxvk).

AMD should release Navi cards in 2019, and then really new generation architecture cards in 2020. That's when they can catch up to Nvidia in performance as well.

I love AMD, they have been leading the charge with open formats, cross platform compatibility, not sticking everything behind proprietary protocols/code, not including a backdoor on every processor they've made since 2008, etc. So I am really hoping your optimism pays off, for me though it just seems like the gap between them and nvidia has done nothing but grow for the past few generations so I went green for this new build.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

From what I understood, AMD are focused on compute more, that's why their cards are so liked by crytpocurrency miners. AMD is better for GPGPU, while Nvidia focused on gaming more, so they didn't bother implementing something like asynchronous compute that AMD have.

AMD realize that it's a disadvantage for gaming use case, but you can see that they are less focused on gaming, like with 7nm Vega coming out for datacenters, but not for gamers.

AMD's GCN architecture is more suited for GPGPU, but they plan to address that in their next generation architecture (post Navi). It should be suitable both for compute and gaming.

See: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/super-single-instruction-multiple-data-simd-patent-of-amds-from-2016-gcn-replacement/132791

Post automatically merged: Oct 25, 2018

Quite interesting video:

 

[EngryEngineer]

From what I understood, AMD are focused on compute more, that's why their cards are so liked by crytpocurrency miners. AMD is better for GPGPU, while Nvidia focused on gaming more, so they didn't bother implementing something like asynchronous compute that AMD have.

AMD realize that it's a disadvantage for gaming use case, but you can see that they are less focused on gaming, like with 7nm Vega coming out for datacenters, but not for gamers.

AMD's GCN architecture is more suited for GPGPU, but they plan to address that in their next generation architecture (post Navi). It should be suitable both for compute and gaming.

See: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/super-single-instruction-multiple-data-simd-patent-of-amds-from-2016-gcn-replacement/132791

Post automatically merged: Oct 25, 2018

Quite interesting video:

Truly I hope you are right, but in the lead up to Vega they kept talking about how it will translate to a super powerful gaming card too, instead of an adequate one. It has been a few years but the top end GPU's used to trade blows in gaming while AMD still had the upper hand on compute, but in over a year and a half they still don't have an answer to the 1080 ti. This significant lag is allowing Nvidia to rake in money over a significantly overpriced incremental update. I think it is a good idea for AMD to aim for the server market, and there they are killing it in CPU and GPGPU, but in the consumer space it took them over a year to have an answer to the 1080, which Nvidia by that point had already trumped. I want to be wrong on this but I'm expecting their cards in 2020 to be trading blows with the 1080 ti, maybe approaching on the 2080 ti while Nvidia is releasing the 2100 series.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Once they hit the limit of the architecture, there isn't much they can do without making cards run too hot and consume too much power. That's why Zen was such a big breakthrough in CPUs for them, but it actually was quite a long time in development. May be AMD realized that instead of squeezing out GCN to compete with Nvidia for gaming, they should wait until their new architecture will be ready. Also, they seem to be very busy with APUs for consoles.

 

[volsung]

Well to be fair I don't really follow up on what AMD (or Nvidia for that matter) are manufacturing. I just learned that AMD does have a SIMD coprocessor similar to a Tesla, called Radeon Instinct, and they look pretty interesting. The thing with Nvidia/CUDA is that they pulled a Microsoft and are present in most HPC clusters, which has lead to the adoption of CUDA as a de facto standard for this type of computation in the academy and industry.

I do like everything you just described about AMD cards but I wish I could get the price/performance ratio of Nvidia (especially since I want to move to playing games at 2560x1440). That 1070 Ti looks very tempting... maybe I can survive a few more months with a GTX 970 if Navi comes out soon?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Yeah, Vega cards are still a bit pricey despite dropping from the very crazy levels that were during cryptocurrency rush. I'm not sure how long the wait for Navi will be though. They didn't give a clear ETA besides sometime in 2019. However there is a chance prices on Vega will drop further before Navi comes out.

Post automatically merged: Oct 25, 2018

The good thing is, it's still possible to sell a used GPU after buying a new one, I've done it several times already. Especially if it's in good condition and wasn't used for mining. So you can recover some of the money. I sold Nvidia GTX 680 and AMD RX 480 that way (that was my switching path, GTX 680 → RX 480 → RX Vega 56).

 

[SlapstickMarmalade]

Nobody seems to have mentioned this, but if I missed it and someone indeed did, my apologies.

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have not been fully fixed yet, with CPU manufacturers only releasing microcode updates and such, but no updated hardware has been rolled out yet. The software patches can cause a performance penalty of up to 30% in some cases, for Intel processors. AMD, being only really affected by Spectre, takes a smaller hit but it's there all the same. I would recommend buying as cheap a processor as your situation will allow, until a properly fixed processor hits the market.

Read more about Meltdown and Spectre here.

 

[EngryEngineer]

Nobody seems to have mentioned this, but if I missed it and someone indeed did, my apologies.

The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities have not been fully fixed yet, with CPU manufacturers only releasing microcode updates and such, but no updated hardware has been rolled out yet. The software patches can cause a performance penalty of up to 30% in some cases, for Intel processors. AMD, being only really affected by Spectre, takes a smaller hit but it's there all the same. I would recommend buying as cheap a processor as your situation will allow, until a properly fixed processor hits the market.

Read more about Meltdown and Spectre here.

On the upside, AMD does not have a hardware bound remote vulnerability that bypasses OS/software protections so Spectre and all classes of Ryzenfall both require admin access on the OS to begin the infection. Consequently making sure your daily user account does not have admin privileges, you have an updated strong antivirus, & using good security practices goes a long way to reduce susceptibility. Additionally, there are settings in BIOS for many motherboards that allow network or OS based firmware updates, turn those off so the only way those update is if you are manually flashing them will also significantly reduce risk.

 

[edmondo]

Because of all this mess, AMD is a much better option for Linux gaming today. Sure, AMD cards are behind Nvidia top cards in performance (they simply don't have a match), but at the same time Vega can be more than enough for many games. For instance Vega 56 runs games like The Witcher 3 and Shadow Warrior 2 fine for me at 60+ fps on max settings (Wine+dxvk).

Fully agree.

And keep in mind, the DXVK main developer is using an AMD card (POLARIS) and Valve employed some developers to work on the AMD open source driver. So in my opinion you get a much better gaming support with an AMD card.

 

[volsung]

OK I think I will postpone getting a new GPU for now and instead get a new monitor... and then a GPU. I want to get a larger screen with a higher resolution but I'm not sure what to choose. I'd like at least a 32" screen, possibly bigger (seems good for work and games) and was thinking 2560x1440 but at that size I think the pixel density would be too low, so maybe 4K is better. But then a new, much stronger GPU would probably be necessary.

So... suggestions? I'm willing to spend a few hundred on a decent, large IPS. I don't play competitively so 60 Hz and 5 ms. is probably OK.

BTW I'm still tempted to get one of those 43" 4K screens, they're just so ridiculous I have to have one.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I'm curious about good IPS monitors with higher than 1920x1200 resolution too, but 43" is a bit extreme I doubt it will be ergonomic on a desk.

 

[Sardukhar]

BTW I'm still tempted to get one of those 43" 4K screens, they're just so ridiculous I have to have one.

I have a 40" 4K screen. It's not ridiculous, it's very nice for daily use. Multiple windows open, easy reading, nice video watching. If you have the GPU, games are very good. Witcher 3 at 4K and 40" was wonderful.

You should get one!

 

[SigilFey]

So... suggestions? I'm willing to spend a few hundred on a decent, large IPS. I don't play competitively so 60 Hz and 5 ms. is probably OK.

5ms has become pretty average. 1 ms, 144 Hz, G-Sync, >32" would be more competitive. In general, I always find it better to shop based upon what results I want, then balance the specs for that. For me, I primarily do SP games, so 60 Hz with deep, rich color temps is far more appealing than blazing FPS with instant response times.

For latency (5ms, 3ms, etc.) you'll be unlikely to notice any difference unless you're playing at 100+ FPS. So, someone really into Counterstrike or CoD might get some ghosting running at 1080p, on a big, G-Sync screen. You won't see any ghosting at 60-80 FPS, even with 10ms.

So what's your preference? Crisp image and blazing FPS? Or moderate FPS with higher detail, color range...maybe even 4K? No reason to invest in a 144 Hz G-Sync if you're unlikely to use it. No reason to purchase a 4K monitor if you're happy with a smaller screen. A 1080 ti would be a much more balanced purchase than a 2080 ti unless I intend to go for top-of-the-line everything.

Regardless, I can't recommend enough the importance of buying the best of the prior generation of hardware if you're looking for ease of use. (I'm still using a 980 ti, and I've yet to see a game it can't handle. A 1080 ti would be an optimal buy for a GPU right now.)

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

144 Hz with 4K would require a real beast of a GPU, or more like several at once. Given that practically no games use multi-GPU today, it would be quite wasteful probably. So today it's either very high resolution or very high refresh rate, not both yet.

Also, this was mentioned above - better avoid GSync. It's not future proof. Standard Adaptive Sync supported by AMD (and upcoming Intel) is a better option. Nvidia will have no choice but to support it eventually.

Post automatically merged: Nov 1, 2018

https://community.amd.com/thread/231913