So one thing I decided I needed to do today was replace a couple of case fans. About 10 years ago I bought a really beautiful Corsair 650d PC case. It probably hasn’t been anything like a “modern” case for 8 or 9 years, but I like it. It’s big enough that I don’t sweat gigantic video cards and such.
But, the 200mm intake fan on the front stopped working a few years ago. The 120mm fan on the back started making noise and would intermittently stop at times. (I’ve got a Corsair liquid cooler on the CPU with two 120mm fans on the top grill that works just fine.)
But with that 3080 running at warm temps under load, I figured I’d be better off restoring full airflow through the case. So.
First thing: it’s not easy to find 200mm fans anymore unless you order from Newegg. Got lucky at a parts store for that.
Second: It took me all of 5 minutes to install the 3080. It took me nearly a 45 minutes to remove the two failed fans and replace them. Easily the most time-consuming, arduous part of building a PC that I’ve done in a while.
I’m surprised how few RTX games there are at this point. In my initial searching I was fooled by the long list of games “expected” to receive raytracing at a later date.
I don’t want to buy or play any of the current games, so I guess I’m stuck with Quake II and maybe buying another version of Minecraft for my kids, but that seems like a waste. I’ll focus on regular games for now and wait for Cyberpunk.
I’m really wondering what’s going to be the killer ray tracing functionality that is going make me go “WOW” during gameplay (not just standing still and observing on/off changes). All the videos I’ve seen of control look good, don’t get me wrong, but those are all specifically pointing out the ray traced parts. On the other hand on my 3070 I’m playing Division 2 on ultra and it looks amazing, and the reflections look great while playing. I had to stop and pan the camera just to verify that it was screen spaced, but I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t going out of my way.
I thought global illumination would be the killer ray tracing feature, but UE5’s demo proves that feature doesn’t need ray tracing. Quake RTX looks good but if that wasn’t put forth as an RTX showcase (of a game 100% ray traced) then I’m not really sure I’d oooh and aah much about it.
stusser
7349
It doesn’t really work that way, although I was pretty blown away by secondary reflections in Control. Most of the time it’s just that everything doesn’t look subtlely wrong. Objects don’t seem to float above the ground because the shadows are correct.
Yeah it’s just the next evolution of graphics. More games will look less fullbright than they do now.
The thing about Control is that the entire game feels designed to highlight the ray-traced parts. Lots of glass walls, tons of particles all casting their own shadows and reflections, etc.
stusser
7352
Exactly. We’re way past the point where anything is going to blow you away, gains are incremental these days. It isn’t like when they introduced programmable shaders.
stusser
7353
Right, it’s set in an office building, basically. Pretty much everything is reflective.
Get thee to the VR thread!
mono
7355
It doesn’t blow me away, but the ray traced reflections (on Ultra) in rainy London in WD:Legions are pretty awesome.
So are we near the end of the Visually Stunning timeline?
stusser
7357
No, the latest DF video went on about how great Godfall looks on PS5. Didn’t look so great to me, and it can’t even do 1440p at 60fps. Admittedly it was a sponsored video.
If you only want to play older or indie games, yeah don’t bother I guess. But I think anything recent/upcoming and bigger budget supports it well. Admittedly I do also plug console into my screen, not just PC.
Try a modern Ubi game (Far Cry New Dawn, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, new Watch Dogs), Red Dead Redemption 2, even Destiny 2 (though that one does need tweaking).
Yep agreed, I guess VRR is now so ingrained and default to me that it didn’t even cross my mind as an option!
That game does look amazing, but screen space reflections in general don’t look great to me. The motion of the camera shows artefacts around the character/objects in a reflective surface, particularly noticeable on bodies of water. Reflections also tend to be unnaturally bright.
Ray tracing makes things look right, where everything in the world has some degree of reflection and is properly lit.
Yes, this! :)
antlers
7359
In the office today and just noticed that we have a new server with a 3080 installed. It will most like never run a CUDA workload or be attached to a monitor…
morlac
7360
Microcenter in Ga has roughly 13 Powerspec gaming pcs with 3070s in them. Mostly in 10700ks but a few amd 3800 I belive as well. Ymmv for one near you but that’s the most stock they have had yet. No 3080’s though.
Yeah, mine is showing 14 in stock in Overland Park, KS.
It’s $1,900 though. That seems overpriced. That’s one to keep an eye on though for next year at this time, maybe it will be more in the $1200 range.
On it’s own, Microcenter has that i7-10700K on sale for $320. And a RTX 3070 is supposed to be $500. So that’s $820. Is the rest of that computer really worth $1080? Motherboard+case+32GB RAM+1TB SSD, etc?
morlac
7362
Yea I don’t see it taking into account the step current discount on intel chips. That’s $280 right there off normal price. $1,600 would be much better but still meh.
Except to pay about $550ish for a decent 3070. $600 for a supped up one.
TimJames
7363
My 3070 is still in “preparing for pickup today” at Best Buy. What are the odds I actually receive it today? The Series X controller I ordered last night already showed “ready for pickup” before curbside even opened this morning. Maybe a bad sign.
Screw LEDs. Waifus are the new hotness
