PC Master Race bonus monies burning a hole in my pocket

[TdC]

Guys and dolls, BigCompany(tm) have given me a bonus this year (*boggle*). To get rid of before I do something stupid like putting it in my savings account I am seriously considering going to SLI two 980 TI's. Due to slowly evolving and convoluted plans (e.g. selling my current cards) I have to buy those puppies one at a time, but still doable.

Now, I currently have two 970's and am quite happy with them, but my goal is to get a nice monitor a la what @Tom just bought, which means a looooot of gfx card oomph.

So, I guess my question is...is there any conceivable reason why I shouldn't get two 980 TI's? Will the next gen cards drop before this year's summer? I'd be happy waiting for Nvidia's Big Pascal chip to drop if it happens any time soon. Anyone got any good intel on this?

 

[Scouse]

Yeah. Order a rift. Now.

 

[caLLous]

Next gen is concentrating on efficiency rather than more power so you won't get more grr but you will get current levels of grr with lower power requirements if you hold on a few months. Next gen next gen (HBM2) won't happen until mid-2017.

You shouldn't get two 980 Ti's because Nvidia are not in as good a place re DirectX 12 as AMD are (to do with async compute and other sexy sounding things) so current gen Nvidia has a markedly shorter life expectancy than current gen AMD (where dx12 is concerned). Also, Nvidia are evil proprietary motherfuckers while AMD are open source and brill (even though Gameworks is opening up a *bit*).

 

[Embattle]

Next gen graphics chips aren't that far away now, wait for gen 2 of the rift.

 

[ECA]

Vive+next gen gpu is my plan.

 

[old.Osy]

I'd save the monies for the moment, tbh. Next gen is around the corner, and then today gen will drop it like it's hot.

I'm still on 280x, and it does _everything_ very well, still. Upgrade wise, if you're already on Haswell, look into bigger display, nicer sound setup, etc.

VR at this point is still in its infancy (and has been for the past 15 years), so I would not dabble into it just yet.

Then again, I'm never an early adopter, so there's that.

 

[Exioce]

SLI won't help with VR.

 

[Bodhi]

The correct answer is of course, coke and hookers.

 

[ECA]

I prefer pepsi though.

 

[old.user4556]

I'm in the same boat @TdC - I've got a whole manner of nice things kicking down my door, but I'm primarily waiting on:

- Fuji X-T2 later this year, likely to be derived internals of the X-Pro 2 but with tilt / rotate screen advanced AF etc.
- next gen graphics / VR, I don't see the point when a) it's just out b) next gen gfx are within touching distance

In the mean time, I need more screen real estate, so I say go with a sexy widescreen job like @Tom

Where else do you have a gap in your technology lineup?

 

[TdC]

Heh, cheers guys. I should have mentioned...I'm certainly *not* a VR convert at this time. I'm really slow to adopt new tech.

Also, re AMD vs Nvidia, I would *dearly* love to get a Radeon and agree that as Cal states above sometimes AMD tech is superior. However, what I can see on the stats sites tells me that around the rez I would like to go to even my current 970's would beat the big AMD. When @MYstIC G and I compared his new system w/980ti to mine I juuuust beat him in the Futuremark benches, though he likely has half the power draw I do hehe.

my current setup is based around a very overclocked AMD cpu. I *could* hold off the GPU/screen upgrades, and switch over to a more efficient Intel based one, decent mobo. prolly need to get new ram too. ultimately I expect something like a new 4790 i7 to deliver a faster computing experience than my AMD, not that a human could tell but heyooo. would likely save me on the leccy bill too.

 

[caLLous]

I have a Asus X99 Deluxe + 16GB of Dominator Platinum DDR4 sitting here if you're interested. Then you'd just have to add a 5820K/5830K/5960X (or one of the Haswell-E Xeons).

 

[TdC]

Ooh pm meh French sexgod!

 

[Raven]

Personally I would wait the few months left before the new cards come out to see exactly what we are looking at.

I know we could spend all our lives waiting for the next, next, next gen but it really is so close now that there is no reason not to wait a little.

If anything the top end of current gen will come down a bit and you might be able to get new graphics cards and coke and hookers.

 

[TdC]

yeah man, I hear you. thing is, as you mention already, if I give in to the waiting game I'll be waiting forever.

 

[Exioce]

Buy gear when you need it, you'll be waiting forever otherwise.

For those hoping for massively cheap and powerful cards just around the corner, what makes you think this will happen?
What's amazed me over the last near-decade is how consistent GPU power/cost has been.
New generations of cards have come out, but there have been no massive jumps in performance/cost. Each generation maybe offers 10% improved performance/cost, admittedly improved efficiency, and consumers have been happy with it.

Example, my old GTX 560Ti from 2011 was roughly the same price as a new GTX 950 is now, with only a 50% performance improvement!
50% in five years. I remember the days when Moore's law more accurately described the CPU/GPU race.
(Don't even ask about CPUs. The modern i5 at the same price point as the equivalent from that era is barely 30% more powerful.)

It seems to me that three factors have come together to cause this:

• Technical silicon limitations. Smaller and smaller gains to be had. The only real gains are in parallelisation.
• Vendors unwilling to devalue their existing ranges
• Console level graphical fidelity being good enough, no impetus for more power than they need

Here's hoping that VR kicks the entire industry up the bum.

 

[caLLous]

Here's hoping that VR kicks the entire industry up the bum.

It won't. The only thing that is keeping Nvidia even remotely honest right now is AMD. Competition breeds advancement and the only thing that is going to keep the graphics card industry advancing is companies actually trying to improve their technology rather than spending their resources trying to cripple the opposition's product with underhanded practises. Pretty much everything AMD does is with the intention of advancing technology (they have been directly responsible for any number of technological breakthroughs in the industry), in direct contrast to how Nvidia operate.

Moore's law hasn't been relevant for a while now, Intel said a few years ago that everything was slowing down (which actually holds true to Moore's second law or Rock's law).

 

[Gwadien]

8Pack Systems | OVERCLOCKERS UK

 

[Raven]

When I build my next PC in the next 6 months or so I will be using one of those cube cases.

 

[MYstIC G]

Heh, cheers guys. I should have mentioned...I'm certainly *not* a VR convert at this time. I'm really slow to adopt new tech.

Also, re AMD vs Nvidia, I would *dearly* love to get a Radeon and agree that as Cal states above sometimes AMD tech is superior. However, what I can see on the stats sites tells me that around the rez I would like to go to even my current 970's would beat the big AMD. When @MYstIC G and I compared his new system w/980ti to mine I juuuust beat him in the Futuremark benches, though he likely has half the power draw I do hehe.

my current setup is based around a very overclocked AMD cpu. I *could* hold off the GPU/screen upgrades, and switch over to a more efficient Intel based one, decent mobo. prolly need to get new ram too. ultimately I expect something like a new 4790 i7 to deliver a faster computing experience than my AMD, not that a human could tell but heyooo. would likely save me on the leccy bill too.

I've got dual 980's since then

 

[Gwadien]

Just realised, the most expensive 8pack computer has 4 titans in it.

lololoololololololololololololololololololol

 

[fettoken]

You can actually set one of those up to use several screens and use as lan computer for several people depending on how power-hungry the game is.

 

[Raven]

11 grand is still stupid though.

Its probably 6k parts rest labour.

 

[Gwadien]

11 grand is still stupid though.

Its probably 6k parts rest labour.

Labour is probably dear (Since it's all overclocked too) but I wouldn't say it's 5k labour, that's pretty ridiculous - Although thinking about it, I don't imagine they sell that many of these PC's a year.

Titans are £400 a pop, times that by 4, that's £1600 already.

 

[Gwadien]

11 grand is still stupid though.

Its probably 6k parts rest labour.

Bah, I started to do a parts picker, but I accidentally quit it, got up to around £9k was missing the case & PSU.

Frankly, if I was wealthy enough to buy a PC of that price (wealthy enough to build it myself I mean) I think I'd rather fork out the extra grand or so, for the warranty, and get someone to build it amazingly well.

 

[fettoken]

Well, three Radeon Ti's and some other stuff would suffice tbh. Spend the rest of the money on hookers. First i were going to advice to buy a car, but remembered that's not such a good investment, lifetime commitment and all, so I'd opt for hookers. Investment wise, maybe not so good, you'd hate yourself a little afterwards but at least it'd go away quick.

 

[caLLous]

It gets to a point where putting more money in won't make it noticeably faster and you surely get to that point well before you get anywhere near £11k.

 

[caLLous]

Labour is probably dear (Since it's all overclocked too) but I wouldn't say it's 5k labour, that's pretty ridiculous - Although thinking about it, I don't imagine they sell that many of these PC's a year.

Titans are £400 a pop, times that by 4, that's £1600 already.

They are Titan X cards not Titans. Titans are a couple of generations old, the Titan X is the current "big 980 Ti" and costs north of £900.

 

[Gwadien]

They are Titan X cards not Titans. Titans are a couple of generations old, the Titan X is the current "big 980 Ti" and costs north of £900.

Holy diver.

It's insane, I wonder how many of these are sold.

I know that Camelot Unchained is being made by using Titans (Not sure if they're Titan X's) - I find this kind of bizarre really, surely the best way to test a new game is by using a middle of the road card and checking performance that way.

 

[Raven]

Current gen titans will be £20 by the time that is out