General PC Discussion

[Monsieur Xavier]

I typically play single-player games with story and cinematics, so I was looking for something in the middle-ground. For hardcore, multiplayer stuff, yeah, much of the requirements seem to point to 1080p, TFT or IPS panels, and crazy high framerates for split-second response. IPS are great for brightness and colours, but they are more expensive for large panels and their uniformity/blacks aren't as good as VAs. VAs are kind of a happy middle ground. They are more cost effective for larger panels than IPS, have better colours and contrast than TFTs, but not as good colours as IPS, with decent, but not amazing refresh rates.

The brightness and colour auto-adjustment on your BenQ sounds great. It would be useful feature in my office because it unfortunately faces southeast, so the room can be annoying bright during the morning when I am working and I always have to manually change my screen brightness for gaming in the evening because I have crank it during the day.

I will probably jump to HDR and 4K at the same time when I build my next rig in a couple years.

MMh.
TN panel is best response time but not very good color/black.
VA panel is best color/black but low response time
IPS is middle ground, usually the preferred gamer panel type.

When I searched for my new monitor, I didn't saw much difference in price between VA and IPS.
What made the difference in price was G-Sync.
Edit: and maybe the DPI, the BQ is 96dpi (which is OK but you can get more and some monitor). DPI is a thing to take into account when it comes to big monitors (like 27+ inches)

Even "in the future", 4k gaming with 60FPS minimal will not worth it I think. 2k gaming is already super costly.
Then again, all that only matter if you mind your budget....even as a non gamer, if money wasn't a concerne, I would run the highest AMD proc and an 2080 Super or Ti with an expensive MoBo and RAM. Epeen you know

 

[Iceman]

I’ve had to replace my motherboard already.

 

[Gee]

I’ve had to replace my motherboard already.

Damn, that sucks. Hopefully the warranty is still in effect so you RMA'd it?

Any idea what happened?

 

[Iceman]

Damn, that sucks. Hopefully the warranty is still in effect so you RMA'd it?

Any idea what happened?

I think it was to do with pulling out a jammed DisplayPort cable by force during work. I didn’t really have much choice as when one of my TVs isn’t properly connected it ruins my whole work setup and there were time critical things going on as well as being in a live meeting. The IT guy who helps me has consulted with many other IT guys and it’s quite an unusual issue that no one has seen before and unfortunately not going to be covered by warranty. I’ve just ordered a replacement today but glad it wasn’t the CPU as they originally suspected.

 

[Gee]

I think it was to do with pulling out a jammed DisplayPort cable by force during work. I didn’t really have much choice as when one of my TVs isn’t properly connected it ruins my whole work setup and there were time critical things going on as well as being in a live meeting. The IT guy who helps me has consulted with many other IT guys and it’s quite an unusual issue that no one has seen before and unfortunately not going to be covered by warranty. I’ve just ordered a replacement today but glad it wasn’t the CPU as they originally suspected.

It was the lock mechanism, wasn't it? I've had some DP cables that the lever button was so hard to press to unlock and pull out the cable...

 

[Iceman]

It was the lock mechanism, wasn't it? I've had some DP cables that the lever button was so hard to press to unlock and pull out the cable...

Yeah, but also lack of knowledge from me as I've never used that connection on a home pc before. I always used HDMI to connect to just one TV in the past at home, but for work I needed multiple large TVs to try and emulate my 6 monitor setup. Also this is the reason I've been back at work for the last month even though nearly everyone else in my company is working from home.

 

[DKDetective]

Yeah, but also lack of knowledge from me as I've never used that connection on a home pc before. I always used HDMI to connect to just one TV in the past at home, but for work I needed multiple large TVs to try and emulate my 6 monitor setup. Also this is the reason I've been back at work for the last month even though nearly everyone else in my company is working from home.

That sucks, but it happens. I was afraid I almost did the same to the DP port on my new monitor when setting it up. The lock mechanism is a pain in the butt.

 

[Gee]

Next-gen graphics are here! Look at those clouds...

 

[Iceman]

Finally my pc is back and working! I had to pay out for a new motherboard but the CPU was designated faulty and replaced for free.

 

[Iceman]

Does the PS5's faster hard drive add much to the likely cost? I'm just trying to use it to help guess where the PS5 and XSX will land pricewise.

@geetard
@DKDetective
@Monsieur Xavier

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

No idea about Ps5 SSD additional cost. Some articles about the Ps5 pricing speculate that it will be 500 USD max.

 

[Iceman]

No idea about Ps5 SSD additional cost. Some articles about the Ps5 pricing speculate that it will be 500 USD max.

500 seems the most realistic price. 400 seems cheap given what you get and 600 too much, especially during a pandemic and weaker economy.
I just don’t know much about how much these faster SSDs cost.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

It will be a custom SSD I have read no idea what it technically means.
If you want a cheaper version there will be one with no optical driver around 400 USD.

 

[DKDetective]

Does the PS5's faster hard drive add much to the likely cost? I'm just trying to use it to help guess where the PS5 and XSX will land pricewise.

@geetard
@DKDetective
@Monsieur Xavier

This is the PC Gaming thread, man. We don't care about no PS5 in here!

In all seriousness, I have no idea about the PS5 and have not really followed the development of this console generation. Also, I have never used a Sony console because I can't stand the controllers or the shapes for the buttons. SSDs are more expensive than hard drives, but they have made massive advances in recent years and the prices have come down a ton. It has been my understanding that console prices never really reflect the price of their components upon release and the first few years. They are usually a loss leader, with console manufacturers losing money on the consoles themselves, but then making their profits back on royalties for the games and the like.

 

[Iceman]

This is the PC Gaming thread, man. We don't care about no PS5 in here!

In all seriousness, I have no idea about the PS5 and have not really followed the development of this console generation. Also, I have never used a Sony console because I can't stand the controllers or the shapes for the buttons. SSDs are more expensive than hard drives, but they have made massive advances in recent years and the prices have come down a ton. It has been my understanding that console prices never really reflect the price of their components upon release and the first few years. They are usually a loss leader, with console manufacturers losing money on the consoles themselves, but then making their profits back on royalties for the games and the like.

Haha, actually I thought you above average guys would be most likely to know compared to the console-only guys who know less about components and parts.

The PS5 has a faster SSD but otherwise a lesser CPU/GPU and I was trying to judge how the costs of that significantly faster SSD would measure up against the XSX advantages/costs. pc is still king regardless though.

 

[DKDetective]

Haha, actually I thought you above average guys would be most likely to know compared to the console-only guys who know less about components and parts.

The PS5 has a faster SSD but otherwise a lesser CPU/GPU and I was trying to judge how the costs of that significantly faster SSD would measure up against the XSX advantages/costs. pc is still king regardless though.

Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think you will get any kind of satisfying answer on that. My understanding is console prices are simply dictated by the market and what they think people will pay for them rather than the costs of manufacturing and components. A faster SSD would theoretically improve load times and things of that nature, which I recall can be a real pain on consoles. In terms of overall performance, the CPU/GPU/RAM has more bearing. Although I understand that a traditional HDD is starting to bottleneck performance on some new games.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

About SSD vs HDD, a blind test was done by LinusTechTips team about the loading time and how "fast" the game play feel. Summary: it doesn't really matter. A good HDD can "feed" your RAM/GPU fast enough.



The again, SSD are quiet and load the OS faster.

 

[Gee]

Both PS5 and XSX come with the latest 4th-gen NVMe SSD. Such SSD on PC costs a lot; a 1TB from Corsair costs 200 USD:
Force Series Gen.4 PCIe MP600 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD

Though these SSDs are custom for the consoles, who knows if they are cheaper or pricier than the PC counterpart.

Also, MS recently revealed details of the hardware:
Microsoft Xbox Series X Architecture Deep Dive at Hot Chips 2020 | Tom's Hardware

One of the charts shows the estimated die cost for the XSX is higher than previous consoles:

So with this info, I reckon that the bill of materials for these consoles is high. Now if Sony and MS decide to sell them at 500 or lower, there will surely be selling at a loss for each box sold. Even at 600 I believe they'll be selling at a loss but I'm just speculating so don't take my word on this.

 

[Gee]

About SSD vs HDD, a blind test was done by LinusTechTips team about the loading time and how "fast" the game play feel. Summary: it doesn't really matter. A good HDD can "feed" your RAM/GPU fast enough.



The again, SSD are quiet and load the OS faster.

That test is between three SSDs though? SATA SSD vs Gen3 NVMe SSD vs Gen4 NVMe SSD.

I agree with those three you won't really see major differences when it comes to gaming. A NVMe SSD is more suited for things like video editing/rendering right now.

Reminder that Sony has a patented(?) technology around their SSD that is apparently a game changer (no pun intended). So their first-party games will take advantage of that when it comes to gameplay while third-party games won't.

As for HDD vs SSD in gaming, there is definitely a boost with the latter. There's no way I'm going back installing/playing a game on an HDD.

Digital Foundry did a test by replacing the PS4 Pro's HDD with an SSD:

 

[DKDetective]

About SSD vs HDD, a blind test was done by LinusTechTips team about the loading time and how "fast" the game play feel. Summary: it doesn't really matter. A good HDD can "feed" your RAM/GPU fast enough.



The again, SSD are quiet and load the OS faster.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that the HDD bottlenecking issue is probably more of an optimization issue. Developers are getting lazy about it because most people are installing their newest and shiniest games on their SSDs.

 

[Iceman]

Thanks a lot for these answers guys.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

Thanks a lot for these answers guys.

No pb, just don't buy a games console you may angry the PC God, instead invest in a 3K + USD PC rig to appease him.

 

[Gee]

Here we go!



3090 - $1499
3080 - $699
3070 - $499

The 3070 being a better 2080 Ti and for 500 bucks?! Holy shirt.

 

[Iceman]

Hands-on with RTX 3080 - is this really Nvidia's biggest leap in gen-on-gen performance?

 

[DKDetective]

Here we go!



3090 - $1499
3080 - $699
3070 - $499

The 3070 being a better 2080 Ti and for 500 bucks?! Holy ****.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to put a 3070 in as soon as they are released unless anything thinks my 7700k will bottleneck it.