Question 4k stopgap until cards come back to earth

[Logan343]

I'm preparing to build a new system and thanks to cloud gaming services like Stadia I'm wanting to make the move to 4k. Most of the games I'll be playing outside of Stadia will be indie games with pretty low requirements. I'm sure there will be games that come along that aren't available on Stadia that I'll want to play, but for now I'm just looking for a $500-600 stopgap.


Any recommendations?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

So you're planning on primarily using Stadia which does not need a particularly powerful GPU, but are also looking for a stop gap card for indie games, and your budget for the stop gap Card is $500-$600?!

This is one of the more unusual asks on here. I'll assume you know what the market looks like right now, both new and used, based on the post's title, and I'll assume you know the shortcomings of Stadia.

Pick up an RTX 3060 (non-Ti) and go with god. Plenty of RAM, performance around a 1080 TI / 2070, plenty for high res indie gaming.

 

[Leeea]

I'm preparing to build a new system and thanks to cloud gaming services like Stadia I'm wanting to make the move to 4k. Most of the games I'll be playing outside of Stadia will be indie games with pretty low requirements. I'm sure there will be games that come along that aren't available on Stadia that I'll want to play, but for now I'm just looking for a $500-600 stopgap.


Any recommendations?

Anything with greater then 4g of ram = miner demand. As such, anything that can do 4k is being resold on ebay for $1400+. Even if you score one 2nd party from newegg or the like, you will be paying $1100+.

I suggest setting up your own bot to grab something direct for AMD or Nvidia.

Good luck.

ps: stadia = google = dead on arrival

 

[Mopetar]

This is one of the more unusual asks on here.

You can say that again.

I'm surprised Stadia is still around. I thought Google killed it off.

 

[jpiniero]

Series X?

 

[wege12]

.......


You may not sell outside of the FS/T Forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[Logan343]

So you're planning on primarily using Stadia which does not need a particularly powerful GPU, but are also looking for a stop gap card for indie games, and your budget for the stop gap Card is $500-$600?!

This is one of the more unusual asks on here. I'll assume you know what the market looks like right now, both new and used, based on the post's title, and I'll assume you know the shortcomings of Stadia.

Pick up an RTX 3060 (non-Ti) and go with god. Plenty of RAM, performance around a 1080 TI / 2070, plenty for high res indie gaming.

You think I could get by with less? The plan is to buy the 3090 once it's available and isn't $2000+. There are enough titles on Stadia to tide me over but I'm sure that won't always be the case.

What are the shortcomings of Stadia? It gets a lot of hate but it's worked very well for me.

 

[Muadib]

You think I could get by with less? The plan is to buy the 3090 once it's available and isn't $2000+. There are enough titles on Stadia to tide me over but I'm sure that won't always be the case.

What are the shortcomings of Stadia? It gets a lot of hate but it's worked very well for me.

Best Buy is still selling the Nvidia 3090 FE for $1500. When they have them, they go quick.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

You think I could get by with less? The plan is to buy the 3090 once it's available and isn't $2000+. There are enough titles on Stadia to tide me over but I'm sure that won't always be the case.

- Trick is, everything is absurdly expensive right now, with maybe the exception of some really old used cards with 4GB or memory or less thanks to Etherium mining. If you plan on spending $500-$600 for a card now, only to pick up a 3090 which has an MSRP of $1400... you might as well just spend $2000 on the 3090 right now and cut out the whole "tide me over" card.

I don't really know anything about the games you plan to play client side (not using Stadia) but a 3090 will definitely be overkill even at 4K for virtually all "indie" games (Star Citizen notwithstanding).

What are the shortcomings of Stadia? It gets a lot of hate but it's worked very well for me.

- Massive input lag so everything has a small but noticibale delay from when you input the controls (move the joystick on the controller, say) and the character actually moving. Instead of the signal from your controller going to your console or PC where the game is running, the signal has to travel all the way back to Stadia's servers and back again (a hobbits tale), making everything feel like its happening half a second after you wanted it to.

Its also a service offered by Google, who as a company have an absolutely *dismal* track record of actually maintaining the products/services/software they launch unless they are almost immediately successful out the gate (which Stadia definitely is not). I strongly suspect Stadia has about another year or two of gas in the tank before Google pulls the plug on the whole thing.

 

[Leeea]

What are the shortcomings of Stadia? It gets a lot of hate but it's worked very well for me.

Google murders any project that does not generate massive amounts of revenue instantaneously. This has left behind many angry burnt users and developers.


Many people have invested $ into google ecosystems, only to have said ecosystems completely destroyed when google trashes them. Because stadia is a cloud product, the day google kills stadia most likely all of its users will be left with nothing. No software, no games, worthless non-functional hardware.


That is the way google rolls:

Killed by Google

Killed by Google is the open source list of dead Google products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Google.

killedbygoogle.com

Nest Secure: buy a bunch of hardware for your home security system, worthless 3 years later

Google play music: no way to listen now -nelson laugh-

Google station: buying a wifi hotspot from google was probably not the best idea

Google cloud print: to be fair, many printers do not seem to last particularly long anyway

Google fiber TV: TV is over rated anyway ...

Chromecast audio: audio has always been overrated, who needs music?

... it is a long list that goes on and on

 

[NTMBK]

Right now you're better off getting a prebuilt system, rather than building your own. Only way you'll get your hands on a decent GPU.

 

[Mopetar]

I think a 3060 is probably a good compromise right now. It can be had in that price range and you can just use DLSS to get a 4K image if you don't want to run a lower resolution.

Unless you camp out to get something at MSRP expect to eat a lot of markup. Compared to the 3060 Ti the 3060 isn't even a good value at $330 assuming you could buy one at that price.

What are you using right now? That may even be good enough to tide you over if you want to eventually get a 3090. $500 you spend now is $500 less to put towards a 3090 later.

 

[simas]

I'm preparing to build a new system and thanks to cloud gaming services like Stadia I'm wanting to make the move to 4k. Most of the games I'll be playing outside of Stadia will be indie games with pretty low requirements. I'm sure there will be games that come along that aren't available on Stadia that I'll want to play, but for now I'm just looking for a $500-600 stopgap.


Any recommendations?

I would seriously consider Xbox ecosystem as potential tide over (I do for the same reason - PC gamer primarily with hardware I want to upgrade to enjoy 4k but do not want to jump at this availability/prices). Cheap enough ($500) , fairly available (i was able to get one for kids and one for myself without much fuss at MSRP ), add in service like Gamepass (or convert your xbox live gold subscription to it) and you are done. Real game catalog that is growing, downloaded to your console (no cloud streaming stuff), if you get gamepass ultimate you can also do the same on PC.

I will probably built new PC anyway but for now xbox +gamepass ticks off all necessary boxes and is cheaper that my CPU would cost or GPU , each..

 

[Fallen Kell]

I would seriously consider Xbox ecosystem as potential tide over (I do for the same reason - PC gamer primarily with hardware I want to upgrade to enjoy 4k but do not want to jump at this availability/prices). Cheap enough ($500) , fairly available (i was able to get one for kids and one for myself without much fuss at MSRP ), add in service like Gamepass (or convert your xbox live gold subscription to it) and you are done. Real game catalog that is growing, downloaded to your console (no cloud streaming stuff), if you get gamepass ultimate you can also do the same on PC.

I will probably built new PC anyway but for now xbox +gamepass ticks off all necessary boxes and is cheaper that my CPU would cost or GPU , each..

Yeah, I would have to agree with this. If you are looking to spend $500-600 on a stopgap, the Xbox is by far the best use of the money since it won't be a throw-away once the bubble bursts on mining.

 

[CP5670]

- Massive input lag so everything has a small but noticibale delay from when you input the controls (move the joystick on the controller, say) and the character actually moving. Instead of the signal from your controller going to your console or PC where the game is running, the signal has to travel all the way back to Stadia's servers and back again (a hobbits tale), making everything feel like its happening half a second after you wanted it to.

Its also a service offered by Google, who as a company have an absolutely *dismal* track record of actually maintaining the products/services/software they launch unless they are almost immediately successful out the gate (which Stadia definitely is not). I strongly suspect Stadia has about another year or two of gas in the tank before Google pulls the plug on the whole thing.

I think the problem with Stadia is it's not clear who would want it. The people who are interested in those types of games will likely already have a console or PC and want a better experience using that, and more casual gamers will be playing phone games. Right now it's appealing because you can't buy anything, but otherwise it's only good for non-gamers who want to get into games, and who will cancel the service at some point and just buy a console/PC if they want to keep gaming.