PC GPU Thread of strange numbers and SUPER monikers

[Sho Nuff]

HELLO BOYS, PULL OUT THOSE PC MASTER RACE E-PEENS

I have a GTX 970 from back in the day when GPUs were under $400 HA HA HA THAT SHIT IS SO OVER. It's upgrade time. I'm not going AMD because their drivers have been dookie in my experience, so I've got some choices here, skewed by the bizarro pricing in Japan.

Down the street from my apartment I can get:

-- A 2070 Vanilla for $432
    It's the GALUKURO Japanese brand and they're not exactly famous for their build quality soooo

-- A 2060 Super made by Palit (huh?) for $392

-- A 2060 Super made by MSI (I think) for about $400

-- A 2070 Super for like $580 fuck that, not happening

These are the cheapest prices I can find in Japan. Online is at least $50 more. I'm not ordering from the States for fear of not being able to return a busted one.

The step between the 2060 super and the vanilla 2070 doesn't seem major but I'm buying this for Cyberpunk and Half Life Alyx. I've got a 4K monitor but I don't believe any card can reliably drive 4K/60 on a modern game so 1440 is good enuff. Which would you guys recommend?

[El Babua]

Have no fucking idea how good any of these Japanese/Asian brands hold up, but MSI cards are pretty solid.

Price wise, the 2070 super for $432 is a good deal tho, less than most US cards - so I'm guessing that's where the crappy build quality comes in. The performance is close to 2080 level (cause it's a lower binned 2080 lol) You can actually do 4K/60 on older games, and even cut down settings to get 4K/60 on newer ones. The one for $580 is closer to the US market price.

2060 Super is a solid 1440p card, and MSI is a solid brand. Even though the AMD software does suck, try to find deals on the Radeon 5700 or 5700XT. They give you slightly less performance to the 2060 S and 2070 S respectively for $100 less.

[Human Snorenado]

Out of all of those I would buy the MSI

Fwiw, the radeon 5700 vanilla or xt in that price range is technically going to give you more bang for the buck, just without the ability to do ray tracing, which no one uses and is not a thing, sooooo

[Human Snorenado]

Also my last gen 1080ti does 4k 60 on a lot of games



And of course the 2080ti would also almost certainly do 4k 60 on those upcoming titles even, but then you'd have to shell out $1300ish to get one

[pilonv1]

If you're only interested in 1440p you could look at a second hand 1070 depending on how cheap they are there.

[Don Rumata]

If you're only interested in 1440p you could look at a second hand 1070 depending on how cheap they are there.

Depends on the country, but the used market outside the US is generally really poor, so not always a realistic possibility.

[Rufus]

There's really no all around satisfying choice with these prices.

My scattered 2c:

Gainward owns or is owned by Palit. I think their cards are identical save for some differences in shroud designs. They're solid.

My 2060S is a Gainward Ghost, which is the cheapest model they offer. Sustains 1860MHz out of the box (Nvidia spec being 1650MHz) and temps stay below 70°C unless I'm too lazy to clean out the dust filter in my case. Noise is barely noticeable (through headphones) until the card hits 72°C. Review from a German site suggests cheap, but more than adequate components on the PCB.
Japanese summer might call for beefier cooling, or just better airflow in your case.

The 2060S is a good 1440p card, but I don't expect it to last as long as the 970 did for 1080p.

And lastly, you can always integer scale from 1080p to 4K, should it not be able to deliver good perf at 1440p two or three years from now. Nvidia drivers now have an option for that. You'll lose all the extra detail of course, but those pixels will be crisp.

[pilonv1]

If you're only interested in 1440p you could look at a second hand 1070 depending on how cheap they are there.

Depends on the country, but the used market outside the US is generally really poor, so not always a realistic possibility.

Yeah I wasn't sure what the second hand market was like for Japan, probably shouldn't have bothered mentioning it.

[Nintex]

As far as Nvidia goes:

Best bang for buck
- 2060 Super = 2070 but cheaper
- 2070 Super = 95% 2080 or 105% 1080ti (so an OC model gives you 100% - 105% 2080)

Worst bang for buck:
- 2070 (this sucked when it launched)
- 2080 Super (barely faster than the 2080, which is equal to the 2070 Super or 1080ti


I upgraded from a GTX 980ti to a 2070 Super Aorus from Gigabyte.
The difference in performance was much better than I expected especially with modern games such as Battlefield V.
It was worth the money alone for CONTROL with RTX features.

CONTROL is currently the most demanding game as far as RTX goes.
I get 60 fps on 1440p upscaled to 4k with all RTX features enabled.
If you disable RTX you get like 120 - 140fps by default in any game. 

[Sho Nuff]

Great advice from yall, thank you!

I'm gonna hold off for a day or two, see if there's anyway I can get a 70 Super since the perf seems pretty substantial over the 60 super.

Wish I could go secondhand but I've literally had GPUs catch on fire/blast smoke out the back so I'd prefer something with a warranty

[nachobro]

I'm also rocking a Gigabyte 2070 Super (windforce oc) and its pretty solid and gives great performance if you can find one.

[thisismyusername]

The super would be "future proof," in a way. But if you're not doing 4K or anything special, the MSI would work. I haven't heard anything about the other two brands.

I dunno if the import tax would be as much as the national prices for you, but I know the 2080 Super is about $100-200 less than the 2070 super you list.

HELLO BOYS, PULL OUT THOSE PC MASTER RACE E-PEENS

I have a GTX 970 from back in the day when GPUs were under $400 HA HA HA THAT SHIT IS SO OVER. It's upgrade time. I'm not going AMD because their drivers have been dookie in my experience, so I've got some choices here, skewed by the bizarro pricing in Japan.

Down the street from my apartment I can get:

-- A 2070 Vanilla for $432
    It's the GALUKURO Japanese brand and they're not exactly famous for their build quality soooo

-- A 2060 Super made by Palit (huh?) for $392

-- A 2060 Super made by MSI (I think) for about $400

-- A 2070 Super for like $580 fuck that, not happening

These are the cheapest prices I can find in Japan. Online is at least $50 more. I'm not ordering from the States for fear of not being able to return a busted one.

The step between the 2060 super and the vanilla 2070 doesn't seem major but I'm buying this for Cyberpunk and Half Life Alyx. I've got a 4K monitor but I don't believe any card can reliably drive 4K/60 on a modern game so 1440 is good enuff. Which would you guys recommend?

https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/358866/the-best-graphics-cards-for-4k-gaming

2070 and 2080 should do 4K at 60. But it really depends on hardware, obviously.

FWIW, if you dabble with Linux (>implying Sho Nuff-san is going to go with Linus Tech Socalism) AMD has better drivers. But I'm #TeamGreen like you and generally didn't have much issues there outside of it being a pain in the ass (so typical Linux) to edit/etc.

[Sho Nuff]

...argh, or I could do what the engineer at work says and wait until Winter CES when nVidia announces new shit and the price drops.

Considering the games I wanna play won't be out until Q1 2019, maybe that wouldn't be...impossible!?

[thisismyusername]

I mean it depends on how much you're dying to play Cyberpunk day 1. If you can wait and don't mind being a generation behind for the sake of cheaper prices, I totally would do that. Especially if you're not doing enthusiast/4K resolution. It's what I'm doing. I went from a 760 to a 1060 and someone recommended the 2070 Super, but I'm waiting for the price to drop a bit since I'd just be doing 1080p gaming on my cheap-o monitor. Plus, I just dropped like $600 to replace a broken motherboard/hardware so I had to do an update (long overdue) on other shit anyway.

For me, the 1070 should do Cyberpunk fine, and if not, I'll look into a GPU upgrade around then which should have the prices slightly cheaper then.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, if you don't HAVE to buy one now and have the willpower to avoid doing so, then I'd wait. The thing is, prices on existing shit is ALWAYS going to fall, and when you decide that you're going to build something you just have to kind of accept it. When I built my latest pc in late 2018, it was right when the RTX cards were getting announced and I didn't want to wait a month for the new cards to come out and maaaaaaybe the prices on the 10 series falling, which ended up not really happening anyway.

[Nintex]

One of my employees bought an AMD threadripper, 2080 Super and Valve Index this weekend.

[Rufus]

If you can wait, wait. Just don't count on prices to fall.

[Sho Nuff]

Aiiight, I'mma hold for now. Am I insane or did I buy my 970 for like $350 when it came out? GPU pricing is koo koo krazy now.

[Human Snorenado]

Aiiight, I'mma hold for now. Am I insane or did I buy my 970 for like $350 when it came out? GPU pricing is koo koo krazy now.

That was pre bitcoin shitstorm, tho

[kingv]

Aiiight, I'mma hold for now. Am I insane or did I buy my 970 for like $350 when it came out? GPU pricing is koo koo krazy now.

I think I got my 970 for like $330.

I agree that GPU pricing is awful nowadays. Both brands seem to have left the mid range $350 dollar space completely barren of decent options.

[Human Snorenado]

Aiiight, I'mma hold for now. Am I insane or did I buy my 970 for like $350 when it came out? GPU pricing is koo koo krazy now.

I think I got my 970 for like $330.

I agree that GPU pricing is awful nowadays. Both brands seem to have left the mid range $350 dollar space completely barren of decent options.

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%204019

The 2060 super and 5700 vanilla and xt are both fine cards and arguably the best bang for your buck of any graphics card you can get these days, so not sure where you're getting that idea from

[kingv]

I forgot about the super version and the 5700’s. For what I do, I still haven’t found any of them exciting enough for the price to upgrade from the 970. It still seems to do fine at 1080p.

[nachobro]

For 1080p gaming you don't really need anything above a 1080/590 card

[Brehvolution]

I have a 580 and it has run everything I've thrown at it at 1080/60. Even Modern Warfare which is gorgeous.

[Human Snorenado]

Yeah, true if you're not going above 1080 there's really no reason to upgrade tbh

[thisismyusername]

Well, Sho is 1448p(?) which is a little bit above that.

I do think RTX (>meme ) needs newer cards though.

[Sho Nuff]

Yeah, I'm also into VR stuff too, which chews up GPUs like nothing else.

[kingv]

If anything makes me get a new gpu it will be VR.

I do my 4K (checkerboard) games in Pro/X1X.  One thing that seems different this gen is that the consoles are closer than ever to a mid range PC in this point in the gen. It seems almost certain that Scarlet/PS5 will perform as almost as well or a bit better than a mid-range PC today with a $300 gpu.

I’m pretty sure Pc GPUs are a lot more powerful on paper, but I’m guessing they must have more overhead.

I loved my 970 when I bought it in 2015, because I could play everything 1080p/60 FPS that was was running kind of trash on consoles (like Witcher 3 at release). I know I could get to 4K/60 on a PC but I don’t want to drop that kind of coin.

Now that I looked into the 5700, it looks like maybe it’s suitable for 1440p/60, but I’m not sure for how long with the new consoles on the way.

[nachobro]

If you're just trying to run 1440/60 even my 1070 could do that. i don't know if i could recommend an amd card right now just because their drivers seem to be real hit and miss, but a 5700 is more than powerful enough to hit that mark.

For 1440 and higher fps i still think the 2070 Super is the card to get if you want to get a card today, I'm able to run VR stuff great and regular games at 120+ fps easily. It falls off for 4K high performance but I'd rather have higher fps than 4K anyway. imo 4K is not worth building a pc around right now.

[Sho Nuff]

Numbers on the 2070 Super are dropping fast, seeing it down to $460 at the local PC shop (sold out, unfortunately). Will keep my eyes peeled, that might be low enough for me to jump.

[Sho Nuff]

ARGGHH. 2070 supers are now $100 more than 2060 Supers, IS IT WORTH IT FFFFFFF

[thisismyusername]

A small bit more, yes. "You get what you pay for" is the idea.

But there's very marginal increases generally between the X60-X70->X80 lines.

[nachobro]

~$500 is the most you should pay for a 2070 Super. I think my Gigabyte 3 fan model was 530 after tax/shipping. If they are over $550 just wait.

This is american prices, I dunno what its sitting at in the EU

No matter which of the two you get you'll be destroying games so it's kinda whatever. I just jumped on the one I did for the overclock potential but a 2060 Super is still extremely good and will take you through the entire upcoming gen of games.

[Sho Nuff]

Was in Tokyo this weekend so did some comparison shopping. Wound up getting a PALIT 2060 Super at the Akihabara Dospara for $375 (5% cash back since I used a cashless payment system; it's dumb but it's a tax relief thing). Tried some VR stuff that was making my old 970 choke and it was butter smooth at +150fps.

BTW, they had 2070 Supers but the cheapest one was $150 more than the 2060 Super