General PC Discussion

[Iceman]

Final Fantasy XV, Shadow of War and Killer Instinct all look awesome on this pc!

 

[Iceman]

Gears Tactics is out today. The reviews look decent.

 

[Gee]

The modern Deus Ex games are now DRM-free on GOG! Hopefully Square Enix will also release the modern Tomb Raider series on that platform. I'll gladly double-dip...

In other news, Total War: SHOGUN 2 is free to own on Steam until Friday.
Total War: SHOGUN 2 - Get Total War: SHOGUN 2 free! - Steam News

 

[thalidomide]

Anyone here plays Modern Warfare Warzone?

 

[Gee]

Anyone here plays Modern Warfare Warzone?

I've played some (I think I'm like level 16?) I usually only play with my colleague.

I'm pretty much on-and-off on battle royale type of games so if you're looking for squad members I'm not the guy.

 

[Iceman]

Gears Tactics is pretty fun so far if you like Xcom style games.

 

[Gee]

Well, this happened...

Fan releases Super Mario 64 port for PC, no emulator required

 

[Lily Adler]

Well, this happened...

Fan releases Super Mario 64 port for PC, no emulator required

I NEED a link now!

 

[Iceman]

Well, this happened...

Fan releases Super Mario 64 port for PC, no emulator required

Awesome. I have actually never played it!

 

[Lily Adler]

Awesome. I have actually never played it!

It's aged kinda poorly in some spots such as the camera, but it's great piece of history. Super Mario Odyssey and Sunshine are more polished forms of the formula.

 

[Gee]

Rumor: Diablo 2 remaster coming this year | PC Gamer

Eh, after the fiasco of WC3: Reforged, I'm not too excited...

 

[DKDetective]

Wow, EA may have possibly made a better remaster of a classic RTS than Blizzard...

This looks like an absolutely amazing remake of so many good games. All that nostalgia encased in a product with so many genuine improvements.

I'm really psyched for these in a couple of weeks. CnC 95 (aka Tiberian Dawn) and Red Alert were the games that made me a gamer and in particular a PC gamer. My neighbour had them and he would lend me the second disk so we could both play. My friends had Nintendos and other 90s consoles and my parents got me an NES when I was 5 or 6, but it never really connected for me. But the first two CnC games and then X-Wing and TIE Fighter, they blew my mind and I have been a PC gaming purist ever since.

I couldn't wait and have been replaying the entire Westwood CnC canon lately, even without the remasters. So far I have finished both GDI and NOD campaigns for Tiberian Dawn, Tiberian Sun, and am about 2/3s of the way through Renegade. Renegade was a little backwards when it was released and didn't have the sophistication of contemporaries like Half-Life, Allied Assault, or Halo, but its kinda just plain, silly fun.

 

[Iceman]

I'm really psyched for these in a couple of weeks. CnC 95 (aka Tiberian Dawn) and Red Alert were the games that made me a gamer and in particular a PC gamer. My neighbour had them and he would lend me the second disk so we could both play. My friends had Nintendos and other 90s consoles and my parents got me an NES when I was 5 or 6, but it never really connected for me. But the first two CnC games and then X-Wing and TIE Fighter, they blew my mind and I have been a PC gaming purist ever since.

I couldn't wait and have been replaying the entire Westwood CnC canon lately, even without the remasters. So far I have finished both GDI and NOD campaigns for Tiberian Dawn, Tiberian Sun, and am about 2/3s of the way through Renegade. Renegade was a little backwards when it was released and didn't have the sophistication of contemporaries like Half-Life, Allied Assault, or Halo, but its kinda just plain, silly fun.

Yeah I really loved them and they are a big part of what made me a RTS fan. I also played C&C Generals to death.

 

[Iceman]

Gears Tactics has some of the best PC graphics settings I've seen

 

[Gee]

Prey and Metro Exodus are now DRM-free on GOG!

Gears Tactics has some of the best PC graphics settings I've seen

I don't expect anything less. Having this much of customization in a game is always a big plus in my books. The preview that shows what setting does in-game is a nice bonus too.

I don't like it when some devs are lazy and offer limited customization that we have to resort to tweaking the settings in the config files or using a third-party trainer/mod.

 

[Iceman]

Yeah that function to preview what effect changing a setting would have is awesome. I hope one day all pc games do that. It’s nice to be able to turn everything to max when you spend time reading how each thing you turned to max is benefiting what you’re seeing on screen.

 

[DKDetective]

So I am really debating whether it is time to upgrade my PC. It is four years old, but I spared no expense and it was a beast of a rig at the time: i7 7790k cpu, 32gb RAM, GTX 1080. It's been a super solid rig for 2K gaming and can still run most new games at high or ultra settings with a solid framerate.

Normally, I build a new PC about every 4 years, but looking into where the tech is right now, I'm not sure I feel like it is the right time for a new build. Intel's Coffee Lake is already pretty long in the tooth. The RTX 2080 still struggles with 4K, the 2080 Ti is stupidly overpriced, and 2K is still going to be the standard for a while longer. I feel like a new 1440p build based around the 9900k or 9700k and RTX 2080 would probably not have great longevity.

I wonder if I should wait another year or two until we are more firmly in the 4K era and build something that truly feels next gen then? Things also seem to jump forward the most after new console generations, which is still around the corner. Should I just do a minor incremental upgrade and swap out my video card? If I did, do you think the i7 7700k could keep up for another couple of years? I'm a single player gamer, so the CPU stresses of online play is not a big factor, but I am a bit of a sucker for pretty graphics.... immersion and all.

 

[Gee]

It's getting late here so I could go more into details tomorrow, but I'll just say this: wait.

Nvidia is soon announcing their RTX 3000 series later this year and it's been teased it'll be a beast of GPU generation. We'll see about pricing, but if it's 4K gaming you want then wait to see/hear what the 3000 series is about.

 

[Iceman]

I'll be interested to know what comes of this for you DK. @geetard is definitely your man for this. His advice was crucial during my pc build.

 

[Gee]

@DKDetective So yeah, I'd definitely wait. I'm still on my 6600k/GTX1070 from end-of-2016 and I don't see myself upgrading soon. I can do 4K gaming in max/ultra settings at 30+ FPS.

Nvidia just revealed their professional GPUs (medical, AI fields) based on their new Ampere architecture and they boast 19.5 TFLOPS!

NVIDIA Ampere Unleashed: NVIDIA Announces New GPU Architecture, A100 GPU, and Accelerator

The latest "CPU gaming king" is the i9 10900k and, according to benchmarks, it's about the same performance than the 9900k. But the 10900k requires a different socket than the Coffee Lake CPUs (9900k and 7700k in your case) so you'll have to fork out more money for a new motherboard.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-9900K-vs-Intel-Core-i9-10900K/4028vs4071

So, if there's one thing you can upgrade it is the CPU with a 9900k. Though if you do more than gaming, definitely check on AMD's side with the 3700X and 3900X which will give you a fantastic price/performance ratio and similar performance to the 9900k (compared with 3900X). You'd obviously need a new mobo on the other hand.



As for the GPU, get a 2070 Super at decent price. It'll suffice for 1440p gaming and I honestly think 2K is the sweet spot for now.

In short, Nvidia will show off their new consumer GPUs possibly based on Ampere and AMD will reveal their Ryzen 4th Gen CPUs later this year. I would wait to see what they'll offer before building a whole new PC this year.

I'll be interested to know what comes of this for you DK. @geetard is definitely your man for this. His advice was crucial during my pc build.

Haha, I take no credit. I like watching PC benchmark videos from LinusTechTips, Gamers Nexus, etc. and looking up builds from strangers on Reddit.

 

[DKDetective]

@DKDetective So yeah, I'd definitely wait. I'm still on my 6600k/GTX1070 from end-of-2016 and I don't see myself upgrading soon. I can do 4K gaming in max/ultra settings at 30+ FPS.

Nvidia just revealed their professional GPUs (medical, AI fields) based on their new Ampere architecture and they boast 19.5 TFLOPS!

NVIDIA Ampere Unleashed: NVIDIA Announces New GPU Architecture, A100 GPU, and Accelerator

The latest "CPU gaming king" is the i9 10900k and, according to benchmarks, it's about the same performance than the 9900k. But the 10900k requires a different socket than the Coffee Lake CPUs (9900k and 7700k in your case) so you'll have to fork out more money for a new motherboard.

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-9900K-vs-Intel-Core-i9-10900K/4028vs4071

So, if there's one thing you can upgrade it is the CPU with a 9900k. Though if you do more than gaming, definitely check on AMD's side with the 3700X and 3900X which will give you a fantastic price/performance ratio and similar performance to the 9900k (compared with 3900X). You'd obviously need a new mobo on the other hand.



As for the GPU, get a 2070 Super at decent price. It'll suffice for 1440p gaming and I honestly think 2K is the sweet spot for now.

In short, Nvidia will show off their new consumer GPUs possibly based on Ampere and AMD will reveal their Ryzen 4th Gen CPUs later this year. I would wait to see what they'll offer before building a whole new PC this year.

Haha, I take no credit. I like watching PC benchmark videos from LinusTechTips, Gamers Nexus, etc. and looking up builds from strangers on Reddit.

Thanks a ton. Yeah, unless Ampere really is a game changer, I think I am going to wait a while to do a new build. I also realized that I built my PC in 2017, so I have another year before my usual new build anyways. Part of me is also apprehensive to build a new PC right before a new console generation is about to drop. I always feel like things really jump forward after the new consoles drop because developers no longer feel as constrained by the aging console hardware.

However, I am a bit of sucker for pretty graphics and might do a GPU upgrade for the eye candy. (I'm thinking about finally the trigger on an Index for Alyx and a big part of me revolts at the idea of playing a new Half-Life game at anything less than high/ultra settings.

Any problem with upgrading the GPU and not the CPU? My research seems to be split regarding the risks of a 7700k bottlenecking an RTX 2K card. Also, I'm not much of an online gamer, more of a single player offline gamer. I know that online gaming tends to be more CPU intensive, so not sure if that changes the analysis at all.

By the way, my motherboard is a Z270, which I understood can't really handle the Coffee Lakes, which I thought need a Z370 or Z390?

 

[Gee]

By the way, my motherboard is a Z270, which I understood can't really handle the Coffee Lakes, which I thought need a Z370 or Z390?

Yes, you're absolutely right. I only looked at the socket (they both have LGA1151) but they do have different chipsets. Your CPU/mobo are pretty much at their end of life. Even people on 8700k/9900k will have to change their mobo if they want to upgrade to 10900k since it's a completely different socket (LGA1200).

****ing Intel. Meanwhile the Ryzen 4000 series will support motherboards from 4 years ago...

If you really want to upgrade your GPU now, you shouldn't have any bottleneck with that CPU. Here's a review of a 2080 Ti with a 7700k:
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition Review: A Titan V Killer | Tom's Hardware

As for HL Alyx, a friend of mine also has a 7700k with a 1080 Ti and he claims to run the game at max settings.

 

[DKDetective]

Yes, you're absolutely right. I only looked at the socket (they both have LGA1151) but they do have different chipsets. Your CPU/mobo are pretty much at their end of life. Even people on 8700k/9900k will have to change their mobo if they want to upgrade to 10900k since it's a completely different socket (LGA1200).

****ing Intel. Meanwhile the Ryzen 4000 series will support motherboards from 4 years ago...

If you really want to upgrade your GPU now, you shouldn't have any bottleneck with that CPU. Here's a review of a 2080 Ti with a 7700k:
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition Review: A Titan V Killer | Tom's Hardware

As for HL Alyx, a friend of mine also has a 7700k with a 1080 Ti and he claims to run the game at max settings.

Thanks a ton. I figured my CPU/motherboard were at the end of their lifecycle (which is why i was looking at a new build initially) and given what I read about the 9900K and 10900K, socket changes and the like, I didn't feel good about them in the long-term.

With respect to your friend, the GTX 1080 Ti is a beast in the Alyx benchmarks. According to this article, even an RX 5700 XT cannot handle Alyx on Ultra:
https://babeltechreviews.com/half-life-alyx-performance-iq-review-across-13-amd-nvidia-cards/

Allegedly, the only GPUs that could run Alyx on Ultra were the GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2070 Super, RTX 2080 Super, and RTX 2080 Ti. The GTX 1080 is stuck at medium unfortunately. My understanding is that Alyx requires really strong and consistent framerates to protect against motion sickness.

 

[Lily Adler]

I finally am about to Ryzen based computer with a GTX 1660. What do you guys think?

 

[Gee]

I finally am about to Ryzen based computer with a GTX 1660. What do you guys think?

Well for decent 1080p gaming you'll be fine with that GPU.

What's your budget? I think you can look at AMD for better priced mid-range GPUs.