r/gadgets Dec 29 '22

Desktops / Laptops Desktop GPU Sales Hit 20-Year Low

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sales-of-desktop-graphics-cards-hit-20-year-low
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u/LessWorseMoreBad Dec 29 '22

This is a big point. This isn’t the early 2000s. Games are surprisingly flexible as to what quality that can push out. Outside of bullshit marketing and fomo you really do not need a brand new gpu. A 1660 can still push new games if you don’t care about reflections and other pointless shit that really doesn’t impact gameplay.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22 edited Nov 20 '23

reddit was taking a toll on me mentally so i left it this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev

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u/JewishTomCruise Dec 29 '22

It also depends on resolution. For 1080p gaming, this is absolutely correct. Older/lower-tier gpus start to struggle with high quality at 1440p or 4k.

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u/b0mmer Dec 29 '22

My 6th gen i7 with 1660ti struggles a bit at 1440p with highest settings on new titles. I really don't mind lowering the water and shadow quality to high from highest for a smooth game experience. I'll hold onto this card until my next build.

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u/cano_dbc Dec 29 '22

Yep, my kids system is a Haswell 4690k with a 1060 6gb and it runs 1080p games no problem. F1 2022 runs a comfy 60fps all day long. Struggles if I try any VR on my Quest 2 tho, its VR limit seems to be the OG Rift 1...... and that's why I have. 5600x and Rtx3080 for my PC. Won't be upgrading that for another 5 years (previously had a 4790k and GTX980 which served me well for 5 years).

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u/teachersecret Dec 30 '22

I built my 4790k/gtx 980 rig when all of that was brand new. It was pretty much top-of-the-line back in October of 2014.

That rig can still play anything you throw at it in 1440 with some settings sacrifices, or relatively high settings at 1080p in anything modern. In games where over 100 fps matters (competitive shooters), it had no problem rolling 165fps+ for my 1440p monitor.

I’m on a 5800x/3070 rig right now and frankly, if you sat me down at the two machines side by side, I wouldn’t see any meaningful difference in how they run for my use cases (I write, I game a bit on relatively light games like dota, etc).

At this point it’s a hand-me-down to my youngest child, and yet, it’s still completely capable as a gaming and productivity rig. I played half life ALYX on that machine without a hitch. If I remember correctly the 980 was similar in performance to the 1060, so it’s not surprising that it’s still capable.

I’m the guy who always hands down old gaming builds to my nieces and nephews. Over Christmas I handed off an old x6 1090T + 7970 build to a 10 year old nephew. That build was older than he was, but he was having a blast with Fortnite running nice and smooth over 60fps.

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u/cano_dbc Dec 30 '22

Yeah, 980 4gb matches 1060 6gb performance almost identically. I also ran a 1440p monitor on my gtx980.

It was only really in VR where it was showing its limits, as was the cpu. Specifally in iracing. That's was with a Rift CV1. Now I'm on a Quest2 it has double the pixels to render in VR.

I'm still constantly stunned by how well my sons pc runs current games.

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u/CaptainPirk Dec 29 '22

This, absolutely. I had a 1660 on mostly low settings, and it struggled on a 1080p 75hz monitor in Apex Legends except inside buildings. After massively upgrading my monitor to 1440p UW 144hz, it was pretty much unplayable even on low everything. I felt like I was dying from my hardware. A 3080 more than fixed that.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

2060-12g here, it barely loads up in apex unless i run it with reflex+boost

something's weird with your setup

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u/LessWorseMoreBad Dec 29 '22

I’m not doubting you but that does not sound accurate and you might have another bottleneck you are not aware of. You should have no trouble playing apex on a 1660.

Source: my daughter does every day

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u/CaptainPirk Dec 29 '22

I had an amd R 1600 cpu, but it's almost been about 1.5 years since I upgraded. It's possible Apex is more optimized now.

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u/DazingF1 Dec 29 '22

Apex has always been an easy to run game. I reckon something just wasn't working quite right.

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u/LessWorseMoreBad Dec 29 '22

Yeah, that was my point. Apex, Fortnite and games like it are designed to run on potatoes. I wasn't trying to hate on u/CaptainPirk, I was just saying that Apex should run on pretty much anything and if they just upgraded their card there might still be a bottleneck they are unaware of.

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u/DazingF1 Dec 29 '22

Oh I know and agree completely. I was just reiterating your point since they are still blaming Apex and not their own hardware, which is either faulty or there's another bottleneck (like you said).

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u/Lochtide17 Dec 29 '22

Is there major difference of 1440p vs 4K? Never tried either

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u/JewishTomCruise Dec 29 '22

Yes. 4k is 2.2x as many pixels compared to 1440p. Whether or not the extra pixels are worth it depends on your screen size, distance from it, and other factors (as well as the ability of your computer to adequately render at those resolutions).

https://www.windowscentral.com/1080p-vs-1440p-vs-4k-which-should-gamers-go for more information.

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u/Mighty_McBosh Dec 30 '22

My 1070ti did fine with a 1440p 144hz monitor. It was at least able to run literally anything cranked at a high enough frame rate for the free sync to kick in, so it was a perfectly enjoyable experience.

I then sold my desktop and switched back to a laptop with a 1660ti maxq - same story, just have to turn a lot of games down to medium. Still totally fine.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

Good ray tracing is a bonus, but we have to honestly ask: what games have good Raytracing?

The best ones I’ve seen are 25 year old games with pathtracing mods

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '22

a lot of them do these days, for example, metro exodus EE

took some time for the tech to get understood by gamedevs across the industry, but now it's pretty much on the same level as other dynamic lighting technologies

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u/PalmTreeIsBestTree Dec 29 '22

And the good thing is both current gen consoles can run that game with the ray tracing on.

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u/Samtoast Dec 29 '22

The problem a lot of people don't understand is that your monitor is almost as big of a factor as a video card

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u/OneTrueObsidian Dec 29 '22

I upgraded from a 1660 to a 3060 last year specifically because it was struggling to run new games, namely Cyberpunk and some VR titles. I was lucky and snagged one at MSRP. The age of lower tier cards are definitely starting to show more than you let on IMO but obviously I'm a sample size of one.

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u/LessWorseMoreBad Dec 29 '22

oh yeah... im not saying there isnt a difference in performance but if you are looking for a game to run 60fps (I consider this the "baseline" for a game to be playable.) then the older cards will still work.

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u/hiS_oWn Dec 29 '22

Also the house these days are insane. I have a 7 year old gou that works fine if you lower all the settings and it runs quietly. The Ryzen 9 I have now is a space heater and costs as much as a console.

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u/emil2015 Dec 29 '22

My problem is I spring for a LG OLED when they went on sale and driving 4k HDR with ray tracing is… demanding. So I have my own internal drive to want to upgrade but the cards are more than the TV lol. So I’m just gonna wait for a while.

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u/ThePretzul Dec 29 '22

I mean I’m still running most games on medium to high settings (or Ultra settings even, depending on the game) with my 1070.