What is your "coping" strategy for the time until you can get a latest-model Nvidia/AMD GPU?

I have an ancient 1080TI FE. Traded my 1070GTX and $125.00. We both covered out own shipping. I think I got the very last reasonably priced 1080TI on earth. Even have a brand new spare cover, screws, and fan.
I feel I can last for a while or as long as the card lasts.
Well done.
You've still got 50% of the performance of a 3090, really good for 1080p and good enough for many games at 1440p.
I've got a Samsung CRG9 5120x1440p screen and some games (like FarCry New Dawn) can even run at native res with my 1080ti. Its an amazing card!
 
I have a few ways of coping.

-Clear out my backlog of games, most of which aren't that technically demanding.
-Run the more technically demanding ones on my laptop, which when packing an i7-9750H, RTX 2070MQ, and two NVMe SSDs, outclasses my aging i7-4770K 4.5 GHz, GTX 980, SATA SSD desktop... when said laptop isn't thermally throttling, anyway. Anyone got recommendations for cooling pads?
-Work on my older computers instead. I've got a small fleet of Commodore Amigas that could use some upgrading, and I'm helping upgrade another one for a local friend.
-Work on my cars, which could all be classified as "running, driving projects". Got the brakes fixed on my XJ recently, so I've been driving that while assessing its overheating tendencies and lining up replacement brake parts for my 240 before one of the rotors gets ground down to nothing from a worn-out brake pad.

Consoles do allow for KBM on FPS games.
To be fair, they haven't really allowed it since the PS1/Dreamcast/PS2 days, with few exceptions... and of those that do, you'll see a pattern.

-Quake II (PS1)
-Alien Resurrection (PS1)
-Half-Life (unreleased Dreamcast port and PS2)
-Quake III Arena (Dreamcast, haven't verified the PS2 port)
-Unreal Tournament (both Dreamcast and PS2)
-Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3 only)
-EVE Online: DUST 514 (PS3)

Note how literally all of those save for Alien Resurrection and DUST 514 are PC ports, and are better played there to begin with. On top of that, many of them are on consoles that didn't even have standard USB ports and thus needed proprietary, console-specific keyboards and mice.

There's a sort of bitter irony in how modern consoles all have USB ports as a standard feature, yet you have almost no chance of having KB+M support, even in multiplatform games with PC releases. It's baffling.

And, no, emulating a controller with KB+M using a XIM3 or SmartJoy FRAG or similar device doesn't really count. You can easily feel the difference with native vs. joystick-emulated mouse input.
 
I have a few ways of coping.

-Clear out my backlog of games, most of which aren't that technically demanding.
-Run the more technically demanding ones on my laptop, which when packing an i7-9750H, RTX 2070MQ, and two NVMe SSDs, outclasses my aging i7-4770K 4.5 GHz, GTX 980, SATA SSD desktop... when said laptop isn't thermally throttling, anyway. Anyone got recommendations for cooling pads?
-Work on my older computers instead. I've got a small fleet of Commodore Amigas that could use some upgrading, and I'm helping upgrade another one for a local friend.
-Work on my cars, which could all be classified as "running, driving projects". Got the brakes fixed on my XJ recently, so I've been driving that while assessing its overheating tendencies and lining up replacement brake parts for my 240 before one of the rotors gets ground down to nothing from a worn-out brake pad.


To be fair, they haven't really allowed it since the PS1/Dreamcast/PS2 days, with few exceptions... and of those that do, you'll see a pattern.

-Quake II (PS1)
-Alien Resurrection (PS1)
-Half-Life (unreleased Dreamcast port and PS2)
-Quake III Arena (Dreamcast, haven't verified the PS2 port)
-Unreal Tournament (both Dreamcast and PS2)
-Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3 only)
-EVE Online: DUST 514 (PS3)

Note how literally all of those save for Alien Resurrection and DUST 514 are PC ports, and are better played there to begin with. On top of that, many of them are on consoles that didn't even have standard USB ports and thus needed proprietary, console-specific keyboards and mice.

There's a sort of bitter irony in how modern consoles all have USB ports as a standard feature, yet you have almost no chance of having KB+M support, even in multiplatform games with PC releases. It's baffling.

And, no, emulating a controller with KB+M using a XIM3 or SmartJoy FRAG or similar device doesn't really count. You can easily feel the difference with native vs. joystick-emulated mouse input.

Not Accurate. COD/Warzone for example has native kbm support.
 
Not Accurate. COD/Warzone for example has native kbm support.
I'm out of the loop, then, because every CoD game I've played on console somewhere else, admittedly way back in the Xbox 360 era (CoD4:MW, MW2 and MW3), sure didn't seem to have the option. Heck, maybe there was a Microsoft mandate somewhere back then that forbade KB+M for games, because as I recall, it wasn't supported on the X360 port of UT3.

Also speaking of CoD, for an inverse example, I was legitimately surprised to see that Black Ops 3 on PC (my first personally-owned CoD, thanks Humble Bundle!) had split-screen multiplayer support and also gamepad controls that felt just like on console, making for more feature parity since PC games tend to drop split-screen for some inadequately explained reason. LAN setups are better, yes, but that's a gaming-grade PC for every player, not always financially feasible if the other players aren't bringing their own.

I should note that I've been considerably less interested in this past console generation outside of the Switch; most of the games are ones that run and play better on a decent PC by far, and all that consoles have going for 'em are the usual Nintendo exclusives and even a few Sony exclusives that tempt me into getting a PS4 or PS5, some of which unexpectedly wound up on PC anyway.
 
-Run the more technically demanding ones on my laptop, which when packing an i7-9750H, RTX 2070MQ, and two NVMe SSDs, outclasses my aging i7-4770K 4.5 GHz, GTX 980, SATA SSD desktop...
You know...I was perfectly happy with my 4790k/GTX 980 machine for the longest time. That was until I bought a 1440p monitor. As a 1080p machine it still worked pretty well.
 
You know...I was perfectly happy with my 4790k/GTX 980 machine for the longest time. That was until I bought a 1440p monitor. As a 1080p machine it still worked pretty well.
I'm fine with it for 1080p120 gaming, actually.

The problem is VR; I quickly noted that my Oculus Rift CV1 generally wasn't being as performant with avoiding framedrops in 2020 like it was back in 2016 on the same system, and that's before I replaced it with a Valve Index.

Making matters worse is that some of the games I want to play in VR are notoriously unoptimized (No Man's Sky, DCS) and all but require an RTX 3080 at the very least to keep framedrops to a minimum. Maybe a bog standard RTX 2080 (non-Super) would've sufficed, since my framerates in DCS literally doubled when I tested one for an evening. (It wasn't mine, though, so I didn't get to keep it. I was trying to troubleshoot an i9-9900K/SLI RTX 2080 build since only one of the GPUs was coming up, and thankfully, they both worked and just needed some reseating.)

Framedrops on a flat monitor are merely annoying; framedrops in VR are straight-up nauseating and headache-inducing if reprojection/spacewarp techniques can't keep things looking smooth, and even then, they result in visual artifacts.

The irony is that my new gaming laptop still isn't that much of an improvement overall for VR, because the OMEN X 2S has inadequate HSFs and is highly prone to thermal throttling, which results in framedrops even in flat/monitor games (enough to make Doom 2016 and Eternal much less enjoyable, let alone anything VR). The fact that I'm not using any sort of laptop cooling pad probably isn't helping at all.
 
I'm out of the loop, then, because every CoD game I've played on console somewhere else, admittedly way back in the Xbox 360 era (CoD4:MW, MW2 and MW3), sure didn't seem to have the option. Heck, maybe there was a Microsoft mandate somewhere back then that forbade KB+M for games, because as I recall, it wasn't supported on the X360 port of UT3.

Also speaking of CoD, for an inverse example, I was legitimately surprised to see that Black Ops 3 on PC (my first personally-owned CoD, thanks Humble Bundle!) had split-screen multiplayer support and also gamepad controls that felt just like on console, making for more feature parity since PC games tend to drop split-screen for some inadequately explained reason. LAN setups are better, yes, but that's a gaming-grade PC for every player, not always financially feasible if the other players aren't bringing their own.

I should note that I've been considerably less interested in this past console generation outside of the Switch; most of the games are ones that run and play better on a decent PC by far, and all that consoles have going for 'em are the usual Nintendo exclusives and even a few Sony exclusives that tempt me into getting a PS4 or PS5, some of which unexpectedly wound up on PC anyway.

When Black Ops Cold War beta was released, Playstation got it first. Me not wanting to wait the 24 hours for it to be released on PC, downloaded it on my PS4. Played a bit with the controller then got curious if KBM would work since I wasn't doing very well at all with the pad. Hooked up a USB KBM and it just worked. Didn't have to do anything special, so it's not just a MS mandate since this was on a Sony platform and not a MS game.
 
I'm fine with it for 1080p120 gaming, actually.

The problem is VR; I quickly noted that my Oculus Rift CV1 generally wasn't being as performant with avoiding framedrops in 2020 like it was back in 2016 on the same system, and that's before I replaced it with a Valve Index.

Making matters worse is that some of the games I want to play in VR are notoriously unoptimized (No Man's Sky, DCS) and all but require an RTX 3080 at the very least to keep framedrops to a minimum. Maybe a bog standard RTX 2080 (non-Super) would've sufficed, since my framerates in DCS literally doubled when I tested one for an evening. (It wasn't mine, though, so I didn't get to keep it. I was trying to troubleshoot an i9-9900K/SLI RTX 2080 build since only one of the GPUs was coming up, and thankfully, they both worked and just needed some reseating.)

Framedrops on a flat monitor are merely annoying; framedrops in VR are straight-up nauseating and headache-inducing if reprojection/spacewarp techniques can't keep things looking smooth, and even then, they result in visual artifacts.

The irony is that my new gaming laptop still isn't that much of an improvement overall for VR, because the OMEN X 2S has inadequate HSFs and is highly prone to thermal throttling, which results in framedrops even in flat/monitor games (enough to make Doom 2016 and Eternal much less enjoyable, let alone anything VR). The fact that I'm not using any sort of laptop cooling pad probably isn't helping at all.
Ah, VR....yep that would do it I'm sure. I've not gone down that rabbit hole yet. Something I don't want to invest into until I get a chance to try it to see if it's even something I could handle/like.
 
When Black Ops Cold War beta was released, Playstation got it first. Me not wanting to wait the 24 hours for it to be released on PC, downloaded it on my PS4. Played a bit with the controller then got curious if KBM would work since I wasn't doing very well at all with the pad. Hooked up a USB KBM and it just worked. Didn't have to do anything special, so it's not just a MS mandate since this was on a Sony platform and not a MS game.
Cool to see that Sony's still as accepting of it as they've always been, and that console CoD players aren't arbitrarily denied KB+M support now like they were in the past. There should be no technical reason that anyone should be screwed out of how they prefer to play, regardless of platform.

That might give me even more reason to pick up a PS5 whenever they're in stock, even though half the reason I want one is to play PS4 games that haven't made the jump to PC yet. (Backwards compatibility is enough of a selling point for me that I specifically picked a CECHA PS3 to also run PS2 games natively.)
 
I'm fine with it for 1080p120 gaming, actually.

The problem is VR; I quickly noted that my Oculus Rift CV1 generally wasn't being as performant with avoiding framedrops in 2020 like it was back in 2016 on the same system, and that's before I replaced it with a Valve Index.

Making matters worse is that some of the games I want to play in VR are notoriously unoptimized (No Man's Sky, DCS) and all but require an RTX 3080 at the very least to keep framedrops to a minimum. Maybe a bog standard RTX 2080 (non-Super) would've sufficed, since my framerates in DCS literally doubled when I tested one for an evening. (It wasn't mine, though, so I didn't get to keep it. I was trying to troubleshoot an i9-9900K/SLI RTX 2080 build since only one of the GPUs was coming up, and thankfully, they both worked and just needed some reseating.)

Framedrops on a flat monitor are merely annoying; framedrops in VR are straight-up nauseating and headache-inducing if reprojection/spacewarp techniques can't keep things looking smooth, and even then, they result in visual artifacts.

The irony is that my new gaming laptop still isn't that much of an improvement overall for VR, because the OMEN X 2S has inadequate HSFs and is highly prone to thermal throttling, which results in framedrops even in flat/monitor games (enough to make Doom 2016 and Eternal much less enjoyable, let alone anything VR). The fact that I'm not using any sort of laptop cooling pad probably isn't helping at all.
My wife has noticed the same on her 6700K box - and that's on a GTX1080, and she's not playing super demanding games. It might be time to upgrade her.
 
My wife has noticed the same on her 6700K box - and that's on a GTX1080, and she's not playing super demanding games. It might be time to upgrade her.
That's significantly more powerful than a 980 on the GPU side of things, and it's still not enough for the higher end of PCVR? Ouch.

I just wish this wasn't such a terrible time to upgrade. Given everything that's happening lately, we're both probably better off holding off another year and cobbling together a new system with DDR5 and the new Intel and AMD platforms to support it. Zen 3/Ryzen 5000 was very tempting, but it's on a dead-end platform.

Maybe by then, GPU availability will be decent and pricing will be relatively sane.
 
That's significantly more powerful than a 980 on the GPU side of things, and it's still not enough for the higher end of PCVR? Ouch.

I just wish this wasn't such a terrible time to upgrade. Given everything that's happening lately, we're both probably better off holding off another year and cobbling together a new system with DDR5 and the new Intel and AMD platforms to support it. Zen 3/Ryzen 5000 was very tempting, but it's on a dead-end platform.

Maybe by then, GPU availability will be decent and pricing will be relatively sane.
She's mostly getting weird hitches here and there, and they don't make sense. Make her miss things in Beat Saber/etc, which drives her nuts. Internet connection is good, system is good... I'm wondering if it's background fixes for spectre/etc. Temps are golden across the board... ~shrug~

I've got an ITX server I could give her (Z490/10900K), which at least has SOME of them fixed in hardware. Move the 6700 to a server instead (would have to get more ram for it though).
 
I’m building a X58 system with GTX 275 on the cheap to play some old games for my brother while he’s looking for GPUs.
 
I’m building a X58 system with GTX 275 on the cheap to play some old games for my brother while he’s looking for GPUs.
Need parts? I have an Asus X58 Rampage III Formula, i7-960 and a couple triple channel 6GB kits (1600 and 1866 I think) that I am looking to get rid of.
 
Need parts? I have an Asus X58 Rampage III Formula, i7-960 and a couple triple channel 6GB kits (1600 and 1866 I think) that I am looking to get rid of.
I’m mainly looking for an EVGA SR-2 motherboard now since some people at EVGA forums hooked me up with X58 parts.
However PM me what you’re looking for and I might consider another X58 build
 
Still rocking my RX 480 8gb. fine for anything at 1080p. was going to up grade to a 1440 monitor but until GPU are back to normal on prices that purchase is on hold. My 3700x takes a lot of the load with MS FS2020. FPSs all run about 70-90 at Ultra so no rush.
 
Last Sat I was at my local Microcenter picking up parts for a build and the rep asked me if I was looking for a GPU. He said they had a few 3080tis. I thought about this for a few ms and asked if he had any 3090s. Expecting an outburst of laughter, he said "you know what, I may have a 3090 lemme check". He came back after a few minutes which seemed like forever and told me there was a Strix 3090 that someone did not pick up and asked me if I wanted it! Of course. And that was that. Aside from expensive Quadro stuff, this is the most I've ever laid down for a GPU ever! I've had every titan except for the ludicrous RTX and V/CEO versions but this takes the cake. This is the second card with three 8 pin connectors I've owned. (technically the third counting the 6900xt liquid devil but that isn't for me) Looks like (unlike the MSI 2080ti) this one can actually use all three! It's pushing an LG 5120x2160 UW panel and does pretty decent. I just wish (nvidia) did 10bbp out of the box like AMD. Aside from that, pretty snappy GPU. Solitaire runes great! ;-)
 
I’m mainly looking for an EVGA SR-2 motherboard now since some people at EVGA forums hooked me up with X58 parts.
However PM me what you’re looking for and I might consider another X58 build
I'll work on getting some pics and figuring that out and PM you. Thanks.
 
Last Sat I was at my local Microcenter picking up parts for a build and the rep asked me if I was looking for a GPU. He said they had a few 3080tis. I thought about this for a few ms and asked if he had any 3090s. Expecting an outburst of laughter, he said "you know what, I may have a 3090 lemme check". He came back after a few minutes which seemed like forever and told me there was a Strix 3090 that someone did not pick up and asked me if I wanted it! Of course. And that was that. Aside from expensive Quadro stuff, this is the most I've ever laid down for a GPU ever! I've had every titan except for the ludicrous RTX and V/CEO versions but this takes the cake. This is the second card with three 8 pin connectors I've owned. (technically the third counting the 6900xt liquid devil but that isn't for me) Looks like (unlike the MSI 2080ti) this one can actually use all three! It's pushing an LG 5120x2160 UW panel and does pretty decent. I just wish (nvidia) did 10bbp out of the box like AMD. Aside from that, pretty snappy GPU. Solitaire runes great! ;-)
I’ve also always bought the Titan card of each generation (only didn’t own black, Z and RTX). Luckily the 3090 was cheaper than the RTX Titan and little did I know the GPU supply would be bad this long. The 3090 was the easiest to buy so I guess it kinda worked out for my personal build although I did not get one until November.
 
If it weren’t for the size I’d love mine. Water block is just a touch too big for the case- have to leave the side panel off
 
If it weren’t for the size I’d love mine. Water block is just a touch too big for the case- have to leave the side panel off
I have a similar issue. Only card I was able to buy is a EVGA RTX 3090 Hybrid so the 240mm radiator was stuffed into my 5.25” slot area lol. I’m using an Alienware Aurora R4 case so there’s no room for a radiator like that.
 
I have a similar issue. Only card I was able to buy is a EVGA RTX 3090 Hybrid so the 240mm radiator was stuffed into my 5.25” slot area lol. I’m using an Alienware Aurora R4 case so there’s no room for a radiator like that.

Both of the 6900XT cards I have "technically" fit my case but the Asrock card is so niche that it doesn't have a waterblock offering for it and, TBH, it just doesn't "fit" the theme I was going for.

I ended up getting a different 6900XT card. Now that the Powercolor card arrived I'm much happier. It's small enough that I can redo my loop to be better and I don't have to worry about the card being so long that it interferes with the AquaComputer LeakShield.

Card Porn Follows:

IMAG0112.jpg
 
^^^ I think you got your quote formatting wrong, as I didn't say that 2nd part.
 
Both of the 6900XT cards I have "technically" fit my case but the Asrock card is so niche that it doesn't have a waterblock offering for it and, TBH, it just doesn't "fit" the theme I was going for.

I ended up getting a different 6900XT card. Now that the Powercolor card arrived I'm much happier. It's small enough that I can redo my loop to be better and I don't have to worry about the card being so long that it interferes with the AquaComputer LeakShield.

Card Porn Follows:

View attachment 375604
Nice! My radiator is sitting in the 5.25” but I only have a pic with the radiator outside and side panel open.
293E0B97-89AE-4FEA-97A5-D91DC04A6B34.jpeg
 
Ugh I'm playing all games that aren't demanding. I'm on a 970gtx. I finally decided to upgrade my cpu, ram, mobo and psu. I had a 4690k @4.5. I upgraded to a 5800x, 32gb ram and the difference is night and day even allowing me to play games that lagged often on my old system like battlefield v. Will there be any chance to get a 3070 this summer? Lol
 
Continue playing on my Acer Nitro 5 with built in RTX 2060 6GB at 144Hz until I'm able to procure a laptop with 3080 and HDMI 2.1.

Isn’t the noise on a gaming laptop with a flagship specs ridiculously loud or do you just turn the sound up to drown it out?
 
Bought a RTX 3070 laptop, and will skip this fiasco. I'll build a new desktop in 2022 or 2023.
 
Isn’t the noise on a gaming laptop with a flagship specs ridiculously loud or do you just turn the sound up to drown it out?

This laptop isn't noisy at all. I play with headphones and don't hear a thing. Take the headphones off and all I hear is a very, very faint fan noise.
 
Ugh I'm playing all games that aren't demanding. I'm on a 970gtx. I finally decided to upgrade my cpu, ram, mobo and psu. I had a 4690k @4.5. I upgraded to a 5800x, 32gb ram and the difference is night and day even allowing me to play games that lagged often on my old system like battlefield v. Will there be any chance to get a 3070 this summer? Lol
Yes, but expect to pay 3080 prices. Most of the cards are becoming available now if you spend time looking around Newegg, MC, etc. However, this is largely due to the fact that the AIBs have raised their MSRP's to scalping prices.
 
On my gaming system, I just purchased a 1070 GTX. I am hoping this will hold me over till the newer cards hit MSRP...in a couple of years =).
 
Will be on my 4770k and 980 for the foreseeable future. Even if I wanted to make a version jump to 1080 (not really worth it imo), I'd need at least a PSU.. if not a case too (drawback of mitx builds). Anything beyond the 1080, I'm probably going to have a cpu bottleneck.
 
Yes, but expect to pay 3080 prices. Most of the cards are becoming available now if you spend time looking around Newegg, MC, etc. However, this is largely due to the fact that the AIBs have raised their MSRP's to scalping prices.
That sucks. Will the AIBs ever drop their prices when demand cools off?
 
That sucks. Will the AIBs ever drop their prices when demand cools off?
Anyone that says they know if/when are full of it. Even if demand goes down some, we still have the issue of rampant inflation of the USD, which has an exponential impact on prices of imported goods.
 
The lack of reasonably-priced GPUs is causing me to hold off on buying an $800 CPU, a $450 motherboard, $300 worth of DDR4-4000, and at least a couple of hundred dollars worth of games that I won't buy until after I do my big upgrade. Of course, AMD, NVIDIA and their board partners are too busy laughing all the way to the bank to notice.
 
Back
Top