The PC Gaming Thread, no console peasants allowed

[misterBee]

I've given up on the idea of buying new graphics cards ever again.

 

The used market has been kind to me.

[Darc_Requiem]

7600 is basically a 6650XT. This is pure comedy at this point.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Hawkingbird]

I'm watching the 7600 reviews and all I'm seeing is buy a 6700XT instead

[Darc_Requiem]

23 hours ago, Hawkingbird said:

I'm watching the 7600 reviews and all I'm seeing is buy a 6700XT instead

Or a 6700 if you can find one. Those have 10GB of RAM were going for $280 last I checked.

 

It's crazy to me how AMD knocked Intel down, kicked them a few times, and then stepped on their throat. Nvidia breaks down while rounding the final turn of the race, AMD has clear chance at victory, and instead of driving across the finish line, they careen into the barrier, and watch Nvidia push their broken down car across the finish line.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Hawkingbird]

16 hours ago, Darc_Requiem said:

Or a 6700 if you can find one. Those have 10GB of RAM were going for $280 last I checked.

 

It's crazy to me how AMD knocked Intel down, kicked them a few times, and then stepped on their throat. Nvidia breaks while rounding the final turn of the race, AMD has clear chance at victory, and instead of driving across the finish line, they careen into the barrier, and watch Nvidia push their broken down car across the finish line.

It's insanity to me how both AMD and Nvidia publicly admit that anything less than 10GB of VRAM on a GPU won't cut it for modern AAAs but they are still trying to push less than that for their entry level.

[Darc_Requiem]

25 minutes ago, Hawkingbird said:

It's insanity to me how both AMD and Nvidia publicly admit that anything less than 10GB of VRAM on a GPU won't cut it for modern AAAs but they are still trying to push less than that for their entry level.

Nvidia is trying to, with a straight face, say 8GB is enough for 1080p. AMD has the memory of a goldfish because they just took shots at Nvidia for lack of VRAM in the last couple of weeks only to launch a card wit 8GB of VRAM. Any cards with 8GB of VRAM should be $200 or less. Honestly 12GB should the minimum for the low end.

[Hawkingbird]

47 minutes ago, Darc_Requiem said:

Nvidia is trying to, with a straight face, say 8GB is enough for 1080p. AMD has the memory of a goldfish because they just took shots at Nvidia for lack of VRAM in the last couple of weeks only to launch a card wit 8GB of VRAM. Any cards with 8GB of VRAM should be $200 or less. Honestly 12GB should the minimum for the low end.

Nvidia plan to increase the cache to make the VRAM work less didn't work in it's favor.

 

AMD needs to offer a different game for free with their GPUs. When I bought the 6750XT it came with the Last of the Us. That's being offered with the 7600 and it doesn't have enough VRAM to properly run the game

[Darc_Requiem]

On 5/25/2023 at 11:32 AM, Hawkingbird said:

Nvidia plan to increase the cache to make the VRAM work less didn't work in it's favor.

That's just PR. They knew good and damn well that wouldn't make up for a lack of VRAM. It's why their marketing doesn't even mention 1440p but with the 3060's they did. Nvidia has some of the most talented engineers in the world. The suits are just pinching pennies to boost their gross margin.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Hawkingbird]

Bas enough the 4060 Ti chokes in resolution beyond 1080, they perform a lot worse in PCiE 3.0 systems

 

 

He's using a 10 gen Intel for the benchmark which is not that old. I know people that like to use cards like this in old systems. Fuck them I guess.

[DarkSakul]

I low key want this PC case, despite it being absolute dog shit
 

Like I would gut it and make the weirdest looking sleeper case

Edited June 21, 2023 by DarkSakul

[misterBee]

5 hours ago, DarkSakul said:

I low key want this PC case, despite it being absolute dog shit
 

Like I would gut it and make the weirdest looking sleeper case

I think I'm going to buy a Dell Dimension 2400.

 

 

Want to relive my highschool days.  Maybe put some nice hardware inside...sleepers are a lot of fun.  👴

[Darc_Requiem]

@misterBeeNot even you could do much with my old high school rig. 

 

Compaq Presario CDS510

 

I played a lot of Doom on that thing. Before moved on to my last store bought atrocity from Packard Bell powered by one of these bad boys at a blistering 266mhz.

 

 

It's the reason I swore off store PCs. I bought a 333mhz (AMD K6-2) to upgrade and the cheap mobo capped it at 300mhz. Luckily the overall superior architecture still gave me a big performance boost in good ole' Everquest 1. With my trusty Matrox G200....I miss when we had multiple GPU options. Now Nvidia has a virtual monopoly. That's it for story time with Ole' Man Darc.

[misterBee]

2 minutes ago, Darc_Requiem said:

@misterBeeNot even you could do much with my old high school rig. 

 

Compaq Presario CDS510

 

I played a lot of Doom on that thing. Before moved on to my last store bought atrocity from Packard Bell powered by one of these bad boys at a blistering 266mhz.

 

 

It's the reason I swore off store PCs. I bought a 333mhz (AMD K6-2) to upgrade and the cheap mobo capped it at 300mhz. Luckily the overall superior architecture still gave me a big performance boost in good ole' Everquest 1. With my trusty Matrox G200....I miss when we had multiple GPU options. Now Nvidia has a virtual monopoly. That's it for story time with Ole' Man Darc.

 

1. Get old PC
2. Dremel and hacksaw
3. Put in modern super high end shit
4. Marvel at your sleeper PC

I don't do it because it's smart.  I do it because I can.  😈

[Darc_Requiem]

1 minute ago, misterBee said:

 

1. Get old PC
2. Dremel and hacksaw
3. Put in modern super high end shit
4. Marvel at your sleeper PC

I don't do it because it's smart.  I do it because I can.  😈

That's a lot of work for the limited space of an all in one. I guess maybe a Mini-ITX board or remove the CRT, replace with an LCD, and use the extra space for higher grade hardware. Wait....why am I contemplating this, even if I still had the thing, such a setup is WELL beyond my ability.

[Hawkingbird]

To the surprise of no one, the regular 4060 is also trash

 

 

 

 

[Darc_Requiem]

It's crazy to me that Nvidia dropped a 60 series card that can't out place the previous gen's 60ti card. Hell it's minimal bump over the 3060 and has less VRAM. There use to be a minimum equivalency to the prior gen 70 series. Are they trying to sell people RX 7600's? Both Nvidia and AMD have been pulling naming shenanigans this gen but Nvidia has really gone beyond the pail with this one. This card is a 4050.

 

TLDR: Need a card? Buy a 6700XT

[Hawkingbird]

Nvidia should skip the "4050" if they have one in the works. It will be a waste of sand and it will collect dust with the rest of the 40 series.

[Darc_Requiem]

2 hours ago, Hawkingbird said:

Nvidia should skip the "4050" if they have one in the works. It will be a waste of sand and it will collect dust with the rest of the 40 series.

Except for the 4090, the entire 40 series is misnamed as it would have been worse if they didn't buckle on the "4080 12GB".  They are  named a tier higher than they should be.

[Darc_Requiem]

The 5600X3D is real but it's has limited quantities and will only be available at Microcenter.

 

 

[YourFavGrandpa]

22 hours ago, Darc_Requiem said:

The 5600X3D is real but it's has limited quantities and will only be available at Microcenter.

 

 

This might be something I get for my wife. She's got a older 2nd gen Ryzen (I think 2700x) in her PC, but the IPC gains between 2nd gen and 5th gen are nothing to mess with; and warrant me looking into this for her.

[Darc_Requiem]

8 minutes ago, YourFavGrandpa said:

This might be something I get for my wife. She's got a older 2nd gen Ryzen (I think 2700x) in her PC, but the IPC gains between 2nd gen and 5th gen are nothing to mess with; and warrant me looking into this for her.

Get one at launch, supply is going to be limited. 

[YourFavGrandpa]

The issue is that I'm 100+ miles from a Microcenter (about 2ish hours by car), so I might just pivot her to a 12th/13th gen Intel system and give her my case/motherboard/PSU; and move into a Mini ITX system. The issue with a Mini ITX system for me is that since I have a 7900 XTX, it's super hard to find a case that'll fit it in a smallish form factor. The wider A4 DAN case will fit it with 2mm to spare, and I think I can make that work.

[misterBee]

8 hours ago, YourFavGrandpa said:

The issue is that I'm 100+ miles from a Microcenter (about 2ish hours by car), so I might just pivot her to a 12th/13th gen Intel system and give her my case/motherboard/PSU; and move into a Mini ITX system. The issue with a Mini ITX system for me is that since I have a 7900 XTX, it's super hard to find a case that'll fit it in a smallish form factor. The wider A4 DAN case will fit it with 2mm to spare, and I think I can make that work.

If you're going to have a massive full-size GPU it's better to just stay with m-atx.

 

Most ITX cases that support full size hardware are too big.  Some of them are almost the same size as a normal mid-tower, defeating the purpose of going ITX in the first place.

[Hawkingbird]

16 hours ago, YourFavGrandpa said:

The issue is that I'm 100+ miles from a Microcenter (about 2ish hours by car), so I might just pivot her to a 12th/13th gen Intel system and give her my case/motherboard/PSU; and move into a Mini ITX system. The issue with a Mini ITX system for me is that since I have a 7900 XTX, it's super hard to find a case that'll fit it in a smallish form factor. The wider A4 DAN case will fit it with 2mm to spare, and I think I can make that work.

Which 7900 XTX do you have?

[Hawkingbird]

There's a rumor going around that EVGA motherboard team resigned. If true they will have to pull out of the MB market too.

[Darc_Requiem]

It's not a rumor. GamersNexus asked their Bios team about their next project and they confirmed that there is no next project. Basically the company seems to be winding down, the owner doesn't want to sell it. So there will be no EVGA in the near future. 

 

Side Note: I finally got a new laptop to replace my 6 and a half year old warhorse. It's something I've considered in the past but I just couldn't justify dropping damn near 3K on another laptop now that I have a desktop. That said, even though I don't typically care for Alienware. Dell is basically clearing out their m17 Ryzen E9 edition stock. I'm kicking myself because I got the 4K version and noticed Dell is selling the 1080p version for $1200 on their site. As for the specs.

 

R9 6900HX

RX 6850M XT 12GB (This was the most important for me. My 2014 and 2017 laptop had 8GB of VRAM)

32GB DDR5 4800 (I only wanted 16GB because I'm swapping to 5600 but limited stock means limited options)

4K 120hz Display

Cherry MX Mechanical Keyboard

1TB NVME SSD PCIE Gen 4

 

I'm just testing it out. The only issue I have with it is something I knew when purchased it. There is no num pad on the keyboard. It's a slight annoyance but given the discount I got over full price it's minor. The webcam is meh (720p), but I never used my webcam on my old laptop and I never bought a webcam for my desktop so it's a none issue for me. I'd rather have a QHD display, because lets be real that I'd be gaming at...except for probably SF6 but it's nice to watch video content at 4K at least. I've already got the RAM and second 4TB NVME to install....just don't know if I can do it at present. I'm pretty ambidextrous so, I'll probably be able to pull it off. If not, I'll just wait.

 

Edit: I had to disable the "hybrid graphics" in the BIOS. On paper the auto switching between the GPUs is a good thing. When you aren't gaming in runs on the iGPU to save on battery. Two problems though. I did random brief (less than second) freezes while watching Youtube that would cause an error report. The bigger issues is performance. SF6 at 1440p was not a solid 60fps. It would have occasional drops like 3 to 6fps. Given the different in GPU power between my old system I knew was the hybrid graphics. Laptops with a iGPU and discrete GPUs perform worse than they should. The system render stuff on the GPU but run it through the iGPU before it gets to your display. Disabling the iGPU resovled the issue. I mean a 6850M XT is basically a 175w desktop 6700XT.

 

Side note: My old custom laptop had more USB ports. It had 4 USB A and two USB C's. This laptop has 3 USB A and one USB C. That, more the number pad is downside for me. 4 isn't terrible but I've gotten used having 6 ports for the last 6 years.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[YourFavGrandpa]

On 7/2/2023 at 7:57 AM, Hawkingbird said:

Which 7900 XTX do you have?

Sapphire Nitro+

[Hawkingbird]

On 7/12/2023 at 11:47 AM, YourFavGrandpa said:

Sapphire Nitro+

According to PC part picker, should fit in the Fractal Design Terra Mini. 

[Darc_Requiem]

Looks like I'm sending back the new laptop. I haven't all kinds of stability issues. I'm going to give it once last try this weekend but I already put in a return request. I'm salty because the only model of laptop I can still find with 12GB of VRAM that isn't an arm and a leg is the model I'm returning. Check that, there is one model that I see that I'm avoiding because it lacks LAN port and then I read the reviews seems sus anyway. Man why can I find a Legion 7 Gen 7 AMD. Lenovo put them on sale when I wasn't looking and now that I am, they are gone.

 

Edit: Found the Legion 7 I wanted. Now I have to hope I get my refund from Amazon before someone buys it.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Jocelot]

Hey guys, my PC recently started crashing when I play games. It was never an issue before, my friend suggested I update my AMD drivers so I did that, and for a while things were fine. But now when I play games I know aren't taxing on my PC like Elden Ring it crashes. Same when I tried to play Resident Evil 4 Remake. I didn't even make it through the entire intro village fight before the screen went green and I had to force the computer to shut down.

 

I thought updating the drivers would make things better but now things almost feel a bit worse? Even the cutscenes in Elden Ring drop frames now and Street Fighter 6 gets stuttery during the start up of CA's which it didn't do before.

 

Any help would be appreciated

[Darc_Requiem]

2 hours ago, Jocelot said:

Hey guys, my PC recently started crashing when I play games. It was never an issue before, my friend suggested I update my AMD drivers so I did that, and for a while things were fine. But now when I play games I know aren't taxing on my PC like Elden Ring it crashes. Same when I tried to play Resident Evil 4 Remake. I didn't even make it through the entire intro village fight before the screen went green and I had to force the computer to shut down.

 

I thought updating the drivers would make things better but now things almost feel a bit worse? Even the cutscenes in Elden Ring drop frames now and Street Fighter 6 gets stuttery during the start up of CA's which it didn't do before.

 

Any help would be appreciated

@misterBeeI'm thinking using DDU* in safe mode and re-installing the drivers would be a possible solution. What do you think?

 

*Display Driver Uninstaller

[misterBee]

3 hours ago, Jocelot said:

Hey guys, my PC recently started crashing when I play games. It was never an issue before, my friend suggested I update my AMD drivers so I did that, and for a while things were fine. But now when I play games I know aren't taxing on my PC like Elden Ring it crashes. Same when I tried to play Resident Evil 4 Remake. I didn't even make it through the entire intro village fight before the screen went green and I had to force the computer to shut down.

 

I thought updating the drivers would make things better but now things almost feel a bit worse? Even the cutscenes in Elden Ring drop frames now and Street Fighter 6 gets stuttery during the start up of CA's which it didn't do before.

 

Any help would be appreciated

What are your system specs?

 

You said the system was crashing before?  Crashing how?  Blue screen?  System lock up?  System shutting itself off?

[Jocelot]

19 minutes ago, misterBee said:

What are your system specs?

 

You said the system was crashing before?  Crashing how?  Blue screen?  System lock up?  System shutting itself off?

My specs:

Processor    12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12400F   2.50 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
 

My graphics card is a Gigabyte Radeon RX6600.

 

Basically when I play Elden Ring, sometimes only for 20 minutes it will suddenly freeze. Sometimes I can still hear things going on in game while the screen is frozen. Then after that the game closes completely and I'm back at the Steam launcher.

 

For RE4 Remake, the whole screen went just green. A green screen of death, and I couldn't do anything it didn't even bring me back to my desktop. I lost total control not even ctrl+alt+delete would work. I haven't tried to boot it up since then.

 

Before this, I had played games like Tales of Arise and Mass Effect Trilogy no problem, no screen freezes or crashes at all. 

[misterBee]

@Jocelotyou can first try installing your old drivers.

 

Uninstall radeon graphics driver, then install them fresh.  Choose the option to restore settings to factory defaults.

 

You can also try to see if it's a heat issue.  Is your PC stuffed into an enclosure or some kind of cabinet?  Make sure there is good airflow around it.  You can also try running it for a while with the side panel off.

 

Let me know if either of these things help!

[Jocelot]

4 hours ago, misterBee said:

Uninstall radeon graphics driver, then install them fresh.  Choose the option to restore settings to factory defaults.

Let me know if either of these things help!

 

 

I think it worked! I uninstalled and reinstalled and it I've been playing Elden Ring for the last couple hours with no issues. Before I couldn't even play for 30 minutes before the crashes so this is a big improvement. 

 

Thanks, and thanks @Darc_Requiem too

[Darc_Requiem]

I ended up going with a built to order laptop. It was above the budget I set but options are limited when it comes to GPUs above 8GB of VRAM in laptops. 6700M, 6800M, 6850M, 4080 Laptop, and 4090 laptop. There was sale going on I ended up going with the 4080 Laptop. My current laptop was a built to order and honestly it's been one of the least problematic laptops I've owned. Company that made it is still around but they basically just sell existing laptop brands with some customization options. Man, I gonna miss the I/O overkill of my current laptop when I retire her. HMDI out, 2 mini HDMI's, SD Card Reader, three audio jacks, thunderbolt port, USB-C, and 4 our USB-A ports. At least when I go home, to visit family or want to game and watch TV at the same time, I'll have plenty of head room. The 6850M XT, the brief time I had it, was an impressive upgrade over the GTX 1080 in my current laptop. Which, unlike laptops currently, was an actual GTX 1080.

 

Side note: I miss when Laptop GPUs had more appropriate names. A 4080 Laptop is for 4070 Ti limited to 175W with 3% less CUDA cores. The 4090 Laptop is a 4080 desktop limited to 175W, the 6800/6850M are 6700XTs limited to 145 to 150W. The 6700M is the only one with a proper name. Only difference between it at the desktop 6700 is that its 135W instead of 175W. Also apparently water cooled laptops are a thing. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[misterBee]

Bought 2 Dell Precision T5810 workstations for 70 bucks!

 

System 1:

Xeon 1607v3 (4c/4t)

24GB DDR4 ECC RAM

GTX 1030

425W PSU

 

System 2:

Xeon 1650v4 (4c/8t)

685W PSU

 

Already took the first rig and put in a six core Xeon/RX 6600.  The 6600 was like new and cost me 140 bucks on Facebook.  😎

[Darc_Requiem]

It's way early, I just got it the new laptop. Put in the second NVME and upgrade the RAM from 16GB 4800 DDR5 to 32GB 5600 DDR5. The CPU is only rated to 5200 DDR5, but I'll see if can OC it in the BIOS. Anyway, here are the specs.

 

i9-13900HX

32 GB DDR5 5600

RTX 4080 

 

It game with a liquid cooler....which I have yet to hook up. I haven't a got a chance to put this through it's paces. We'll see how it works out. This laptop is super stable. I tried give Alienware a chance on the prior model and they ended up just as trash as I remember.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Darc_Requiem]

Okay, I got the liquid cooler hooked up, it was pretty easy setup. I just had to run out and get some distilled water for it. Liquid cooler is quite and now so is my laptop. The fans were pretty audible, even on my cooling pad, but now I barely hear them at all.

 

CPU Topped out at 68°C while gaming, GPU only hit 55° and the fans were whisper quiet. The fan on the radiator is barely audible. This isn't a gimmick. Shit actually works and works well.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Hawkingbird]

8bitdo is trying their hand at the custom keyboard market

 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/31/23813761/8bitdo-retro-mechanical-keyboard-nintendo-famicom

[misterBee]

11 hours ago, Hawkingbird said:

8bitdo is trying their hand at the custom keyboard market

 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/31/23813761/8bitdo-retro-mechanical-keyboard-nintendo-famicom

Oh neat!  😄

[Darc_Requiem]

Anyone else have Baldur's Gate 3 on PC? The Cloud Save feature doesn't seem to work for me. Depending on what I'm doing, I'll play PC games on Desktop or Laptop. So Cloud Saves are a godsend. With Baldur's Gate, my saves don't show up on my laptop. I actually started on my laptop but had really bad crash. 

 

Unrelated to BG3, my system crashed during the 1st hour. TLDR I think my have bad RAM stick but I got to run stable by Sunday night. Ended up using System Restore, so I lost anything done on my laptop after 8/1. So when I booted up my desktop, my saves weren't there. I figured maybe the game only syncs when you quit and when I had crashed it never got the chance. However, I when got on my laptop to try out the system stability I couldn't continue from the saves on my desktop, Yet when I go back to my desktop, they are there. I have cross save enabled. So I'm a bit lost, never had an issue with Cloud Saves on any platform before.

 

Side Note: I ordered two more stick of RAM, just in case. I did the memory diagnostic and it said there was a hardware error which matched up with BSOD error code. I ran it a second time after everything seemed fine and it found no errors. 

[Darc_Requiem]

I think I have everything settled with my laptop. Anything else goes side ways and I'm going to have take advantage of the warranty. I swapped the memory, and I replaced the 1TB primary drive with a 2TB drive and did a clean install of Windows 11. I only got a 1TB drive because the up charge for the 2TB drive costs a much a good 2TB PCIE 4.0 drive. 

 

While I'm swapping drives, I'm finally going to replace the PC 3.0 main drive on my desktop. Besides being slow, 1800MBs read, it's pushing 4 years old. I'm gonna pop in the 2TB unit a bought. Besides being over 4 times faster (7300MB/s read), it's got a high durability rating for 2TB drive 1400TBW. It boggles my mind how cheap NVME drives have gotten. The two 4TB drives I bought recently where both cheaper ($160 and $185 respectively) than the 1TB drive I got with my PS5 back in 2020. That thing was over $200. The 2TB model I'm installing this evening was $95 with the heatsink included.

[Hawkingbird]

This seemed like a long time coming. Steve is calling out Linus

 

 

[YourFavGrandpa]

Was without a desktop computer for over 2 weeks due to multiple parts failing at the same time, then replacement parts being DOA; then being out of town for Quakecon this past weekend. That being said, for the "upgrade" I did get some decent stuff .... 12700KF and a Asus z790 motherboard with DDR4 support (?!). Everything booted first try as well, and I didn't have to buy another Windows license.

 

2 hours ago, Hawkingbird said:

This seemed like a long time coming. Steve is calling out Linus

 

 

Steve makes some very good points, as always. I haven't watched LTT stuff in a very long time (I even get recommendations for LTT content, main channel or otherwise) , but this is gonna get interesting very quickly, me thinks.

[Darc_Requiem]

6 hours ago, Hawkingbird said:

This seemed like a long time coming. Steve is calling out Linus

 

 

I watched this earlier in the evening. That shit they pulled with the prototype copper water block was fucking criminal.

[Hawkingbird]

Hardware unboxed responses to Steve's video

 

 

[Darc_Requiem]

Linus' response was atrocious. That dude can't admit fault for the life of him. I can see Luke on the next WAN show trying to mask his discontent while Linus quadruple downs on his nonsense. 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Darc_Requiem

[Hawkingbird]

LTT management responding to the criticism

 

 

[Darc_Requiem]

@HawkingbirdThat should have been the initial response.

 

Side Note: I'm over all the LTT Stans being mad at GN when if this were another corporation say Asus, they would been thanking GN for taking a stand. "He should reached out to Linus for a response." Linus has been responding to these problems, i.e. Billet Labs, and doing so poorly. His employees wanted more time. He seemingly didn't care and just wants to push out content. I can't imagine how much worse the whole "Trust Me Bro" situation would have been if Luke had not kept pushing back on Linus. Heck he's the one dude in the video that shouldn't be apologizing. He's seems to be the only guy there that was willing to stand up to Linus before all this happened.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Darc_Requiem