Please update an old user - what's happened in the last 3 years?

E

El_Capitan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 11, 2012
Messages
292
Over 3 years ago, I was fully immersed with the computer industry (both in the IT field, and building and overclocking my own computers) in Somerville, Massachusetts (close to Boston). Now, I'm not, and in Columbus, Nebraska. Just asking to see if someone would spare a few minutes to update me on how things are going in the graphics card end (as well as CPU end). My last graphics card I bought was a GTX 1080 Ti and I'm still on an i7 3930K. Thanks!
 
CPUs have improved quite a bit since then more than usual both in core count and clockspeed/ipc, and so have GPUs, but current GPU pricing is and will be crap until at least next year due to a number of reasons.

At least you have a 1080ti though. That still performs more than decently. Buy it a can of compressed air to clean it up, cause if it dies today, your wallet will cry.
 
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for GPU's nowadays it's all about ray-tracing...fancy new tech to make games look more photorealistic
 
mda said:
CPUs have improved quite a bit since then more than usual both in core count and clockspeed/ipc, and so have GPUs, but current GPU pricing is and will be crap until at least next year due to a number of reasons.

At least you have a 1080ti though. That still performs more than decently. Buy it a can of compressed air to clean it up, cause if it dies today, your wallet will cry.
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Thanks! Yeah, I just checked Newegg for GTX 3080 Ti pricing, and yikes, around $2k!

cjcox said:
old == 3 years

??? == 20 years?

???? == 30 years?
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Lol, 3 years away from computer builds is a long time these days. I bought a GTX 1080 Ti from someone in these forums back in December 2017. The selling price for used seems to be higher than what I bought it for? I'm so confused.

polonyc2 said:
for GPU's nowadays it's all about ray-tracing...fancy new tech to make games look more photorealistic
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I remember Nvidia's PhysX was the rage back when. I'll have to look at ray-tracing.

Westwood said:
Ever watch the documentary called Idiocracy?
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Yeah... seems like we're getting closer to that reality, lol.
 
Many CPU's and GPU's are in short supply and high priced for various reasons. Add to this, the very high demand, and you have the perfect budget bellyache for anyone trying to build or upgrade a PC.

You have a lot more people working from home, so the demand for computers went up significantly, especially when a lot of folks found out that their old computers weren't going to be able to handle today's programs.

Intel was able to weather this storm better, since they have their own fabs. AMD is fabless, and relies on TSMC, which is all but swamped right now, which is why it's very difficult to find a cheap Ryzen processor these days, new or used.

The Cryptocurrency miners are still at it, scarfing up every last GPU that could realistically be used for mining, making the supply side even leaner.


The chip crunch is here to stay for a while, and even Intel doesn't think it will get better until probably early next year.
 
philb2 said:
LOL. My first PC had 286. Before that I had a Z80-based system.
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Wow...we had an 8086 that we got second hand from my uncle. My grandfather, the highest tech redneck I ever knew, had like the AT&T 6300 plus or something. I remember spending countless hours playing FS1 as a kid on that thing. No joystick, color monitor or mouse. Just using keyboard inputs and it all in green. I crashed into the Hancock building probably 1,000 times.

But yeah, that 1080ti is no slouch. I have one and it is able to handle the new version of Flight Sim (which is probably one of the most demanding titles right now) at the highest settings under most circumstances. Really urban settings close to the ground it slows down to less than 30fps.

I got a second hand 4790K which I think is pretty comparable last year and built a system with it...not the fastest thing, but certainly capable.

so yeah, be content.
 
Depending on when you last looked into cases, manufacturers have recently come to the conclusion that airflow is a thing that exists, and theyre actively looking into ways to prevent the inside of your PC from catching fire. Examples like using mesh panels and allowing for air to enter/exit the case, rather than making a stupid glass box that insulates heat.
 
In the graphics card realm, the latest versions of cards offer some good improvements but a 1080ti is still a very capable card and is now at the level of something like the 3060 series. MSRP is really out the window due to multiple reasons (tariffs, AIB pricing, etc.) so whatever prices you might've seen advertised a year ago are basically impossible to buy at unless you buy directly from amd.com (slim chance) or other similarly rare outlets. Prices have been increasing steadily since EIP-1559 turned out to not be the end of the world for crypto mining. It's not a bad time to sell older GPUs and upgrade IMO though because although new prices are high, availability is generally good enough now that you can at least find something on the shelf at microcenter or in stock at newegg and older GPUs are still selling for probably as much as you paid for them originally. If crypto tanks then GPU prices will definitely fall, but I think it will be older GPU prices that drop the most. AMD vs nvidia, both are pretty competitive but nvidia recently gimped their GPUs for crypto mining which will push some people to AMD, inflating those prices. The 3080ti is generally a poor buy but I honestly think 3070TIs are a decent buy if you can get them at $1k, because everyone wants the lower end models for crypto mining which pushes those prices up. For AMD, 6800xt's aren't any better really at crypto than 6800s so those are also a good buy for gaming (relatively speaking).

CPU availability is pretty much fine now and there have been some major improvements so that's a worthwhile place to spend money on upgrades right now. AMD is clearly on top right now across the board and they've been dropping prices on new products recently.
 
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