Question Just checking in on coming gaming cards

[Craig234]

So, I was planning to get a new graphics card. Thanks to VirtualLarry, I got a placeholder card to wait for new cards later this year.

What cards should I be watching for? It'll be a good, 8GB, 1440p gaming card with Freesync. Before I was considering a 5700 XT. I understand that both AMD and Nvidia are now Freesync options. Any idea when they're coming, is this a summer thing, a holiday thing, etc.

 

[NobleX13]

I would expect announcements from both sides as early as August. Next-gen consoles will launch at or before the holiday season this year if the rumor mill is to be believed (which I think it is), and both AMD and NVIDIA will definitely want to get their new product lines out in advance of that. If they don't they could lose a small segment of sales to people who would pick up a XBOX Series X or PS5 instead of waiting.

As far as what you should watch for it's too early to say. The latest round of NVIDIA leaks suggests that a hypothetical "RTX 3060" should have the equivalent ray tracing performance of the 2080 TI. Here's a good video on the subject.

On the Radeon side RDNA 2 won't be a slouch either. I would expect the "midrange" cards from both sides to be able to target 4K @ 60FPS in the $300-$350 price range. Considering the consoles are targeting that, and they are only $500.

 

[Craig234]

Thanks.

 

[Mopetar]

End of the or early next seems like the most likely times for launches. I definitely think it’s worth holding out since both companies should have some great cards.

AMD will have had time to refine RDNA and the benefits of working with the TSMC process for several products.

NVidia will have been able to make improvements to their RT technology and moving to the 7nm process would be huge even if they did nothing else but shrink down Turing.

I’m expecting that prices will be a lot more competitive as well, particularly in the high end where AMD hasn’t been a contender for years.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

End of the or early next seems like the most likely times for launches. I definitely think it’s worth holding out since both companies should have some great cards.

- Very specific 😛

But yes, for OP, the general consensus is leaning hard on the end of this year or the start of the next.

 

[Craig234]

Well, I guess that's that then. Since I'm using an old CPU - Intel i7-4790K - and I have a hard drive starting to get disk writes I may or may not be able to use another 8 months - I might want to just consider a whole new system.

 

[Stuka87]

Well, I guess that's that then. Since I'm using an old CPU - Intel i7-4790K - and I have a hard drive starting to get disk writes I may or may not be able to use another 8 months - I might want to just consider a whole new system.

Your 4790K is actually still pretty good for gaming if its overclocked. Intel really has not progressed that much. New CPU's are faster, but not in a ground breaking way.

 

[blckgrffn]

Well, I guess that's that then. Since I'm using an old CPU - Intel i7-4790K - and I have a hard drive starting to get disk writes I may or may not be able to use another 8 months - I might want to just consider a whole new system.

Haha, as Stuka says, you could keep using that setup.

Although you will find that many here will help you spend your money on new components 😀

Around Christmas this year could be really interesting time for an all new build, probably the next generation of Ryzen will be available to pair with whatever card you invest in. This should be console+ speeds and a huge step up over that i7.

The only things I would advise not waiting on or finding a deal on now?

Hard drives and power supplies. Hard drives are likely moving to much more value based flash (QLC) and so getting a good TLC based NVME drive now might be a lot easier than it is in six months. I bought 2TB NVME drives in February and they've done nothing but go up in price since then. On the PSU front, between COVID and tariffs the deals aren't nearly as good or frequent as they once were. Waiting and striking on a good PSU at a good price might get you out of a jam later. There has been a few times over the last few months that there weren't any solid PSUs to even pick from.

Maybe the unemployment situation in the US changes that in six months? IDK.

 

[Craig234]

Your 4790K is actually still pretty good for gaming if its overclocked. Intel really has not progressed that much. New CPU's are faster, but not in a ground breaking way.

Interesting. I'm happy with its speed in any game; I was just assuming after this many years and generations that there's some benefit to modern motherboards/ram/etc. If it ain't broke, maybe not a big need to fix it.

 

[Craig234]

Oops, wrong thread. Bit of mixed feedback on a new system above🙂 And if I do get a new one, whether to look for a quality premade or build another, but I hear horror stories about premades using crap parts for things like PS.

 

[Stuka87]

Pretty much any SSD will be essentially silent. NVMe drives are great if your board supports one, but a SATA SSD will still be a huge jump in performance over an HDD.

 

[Craig234]

Pretty much any SSD will be essentially silent. NVMe drives are great if your board supports one, but a SATA SSD will still be a huge jump in performance over an HDD.

Ya, it's two topics. I use an SSDS (SATA now) for boot/speed critical games, and a hard drive (5TB full now) for most games.

 

[Stuka87]

Interesting. I'm happy with its speed in any game; I was just assuming after this many years and generations that there's some benefit to modern motherboards/ram/etc. If it ain't broke, maybe not a big need to fix it.

As it happens, LTT put up a video just on how good an old system is:

 

[Shmee]

Yup interesting stuff. It's a pity he didn't mention an OC for that 3770k.

 

[Stuka87]

Yup interesting stuff. It's a pity he didn't mention an OC for that 3770k.

Yeah, with an OC it would have been much more competitive in gaming.