SpectusStaff Emeritus Jedi Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
 by Spectus on Feb. 13th, 2019 9:51 pm
I wound up draining much of the day today to articles on the new generation of nVidia graphics cards! (Also drained a big chunk of the day trolling Facebook, but that's a subject for a whole 'nuther rant, which I won't go into.)
ANYway, I think I've spotted an acquisition target for a few months down the road, once I get my cash flow fully stabilized with my new job: the GeForce RTX 2060!
I don't anticipate any big moves into 4K UHD gaming or monitors any time soon -- maybe at most a modest upgrade to a midsized 1440p monitor. And for that level of detail, it sounds like the 2060 is right on target...
| Quote: | FROM THE WEBSITE, ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM...
...At 1080p, you’re absolutely laughing with the RTX 2060, as it ploughed through almost every game in my testing suite at a breezy minimum of at least 70fps, if not 75fps in a lot of cases, on maximum quality settings. That includes Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Total War: Warhammer II, Monster Hunter: World and The Witcher III. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey had to make do with ‘just’ 60fps on Ultra High when I ran its internal benchmark, all told, but was quickly back up at 71fps on the next setting down, which is still Very High. Doom and Forza Horizon 4, meanwhile, were dashing off averages closer to 100 / 120fps on their respective Ultra settings, making this the perfect partner for a high refresh rate 1920×1080 monitor...
The only game where it dipped below that hallowed 60fps at 1080p was, you guessed it, Final Fantasy XV. Here, you’re looking at an average of around 55fps, with the occasional low of 40fps, but that’s with everything whacked up to eleven, including all of Nvidia’s fancy pants lighting effects. Disable VXAO and you’ll be back up at a full 60fps+ in no time at all.
Where the RTX 2060 really comes into its own is gaming at 2560×1440. Here, the RTX 2060 trounces its cheaper competition and roundly smashes its more expensive rivals, producing near flawless 60fps frame rates on maximum or so-very-near-Ultra-it-might-as-well-be settings pretty much across the board.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/01/16/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-review/ |
Basically, the performance of the RTX-2060 makes it a rival or effective replacement for the still-more-expensive 1070 and 1070Ti. This new card outperforms both -- and it is the entry point for the new feature, real-time ray tracing (RTS) and a concept called "Deep Learning Super Sampling" (DLSS). Taken together, these features make for a really intriguing combo.
In brief, DLSS is a data-gathering system, in which data learned about graphical objects in a game are funnelled to a cloud-based database somewhere in the bowels of nVidia. The graphics for the objects are analyzed, and the learning about how best to render those objects is funnelled back to your system, in effect optimizing every object you can encounter in that game. This creates a significant performance boost. And it is particularly helpful for complex data like ray-tracing...
| Quote: | | Take Final Fantasy XV, which stuttered along at 34-39fps on Average at 4K with all of Nvidia’s extra effects turned off, but whizzed up to a much smoother 43-45fps when I turned on DLSS in its anti-aliasing menu. That’s something the GTX 1070Ti really can’t compete with. |
The roster of games that support RTS and DLSS is still in its infancy -- but great news for me is that one of those early adopters is ARK: Survival Evolved!
So, the current price point for the RTX-2060 looks like $349.00. At that price, it's my target for a future acquisition.
So, does it look good? I don't know yet, but here's a hype video from nVidia that purports to show RTS in a real-time render, using the Unreal 4 engine. According to the write-up under the post, this clip was powered by a single NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 (a pro-grade card that currently markets for a cool six thousand bucks or so!) and shows off cinematic-quality rendering in real time. So, the kind of real-time rendering power we see in this clip is still a ways off for consumer-level cards, but still, interesting.
Given that above caveat and my skepticism of sales tools and hype videos, here's a possibly helpful analysis of the subject of real-time ray tracing from Digital Foundry...
(All linked information previewed by me for adherence to S3G community standards. No objectionable content found.)
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DrZ3Veteran Jedi General
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by DrZ3 on Feb. 14th, 2019 12:14 am
I'm getting the 2070 in my new laptop. Excited to try ARK and Anthem on it! A little concerned though as I've heard the newer graphics cards have a negative effect on LOTRO.
_________________ The King Reigns and His Son,
Dr. Z, a half crazy Elvish scientist
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Jao ThaunOverseer Elder Jedi Grand Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Jao Thaun on Feb. 14th, 2019 1:09 am
Good choice spectus!
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Intrepid CorsairArbitrator Elder Jedi Grand Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Intrepid Corsair on Feb. 14th, 2019 8:17 am
The RTX 2060 will work out nicely for anything you play at 1440. It might bottle neck with your MOBO/CPU combo but it’s a good start. Don’t forget to upgrade to 16 GB of RAM. ARK eats RAM meat for breakfast.
_________________ As for me and my house, we will follow the Lord. In mind, body and spirit. 
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SpectusStaff Emeritus Jedi Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Spectus on Feb. 14th, 2019 1:07 pm
| Intrepid Corsair wrote: | The RTX 2060 will work out nicely for anything you play at 1440. It might bottle neck with your MOBO/CPU combo but it’s a good start. Don’t forget to upgrade to 16 GB of RAM. ARK eats RAM meat for breakfast.
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Yeah, a plan is in the works for a motherboard upgrade. My current mobo is a mini-ATX board with only two RAM slots, and those can only handle 4Gb sticks at that. I'm planning to buy Jao's old mobo and DDR-3 sticks in early March, so that'll enable me to get up to 16Gb. Then I should be good to go in late April or early May for the GPU.
After that, I'll see how this layout performs. If I see bottlenecks, I might look at an upgrade to a Ryzen CPU/mobo/DDR-4 combo sometime in the fall. I'm also hoping it'll run Star Citizen decently. As Major Hochstetler used to say in "Hogan's Heroes" -- "Vee zhall see."
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SpectusStaff Emeritus Jedi Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Spectus on Feb. 14th, 2019 1:26 pm
| DrZ3 wrote: | | I'm getting the 2070 in my new laptop. Excited to try ARK and Anthem on it! A little concerned though as I've heard the newer graphics cards have a negative effect on LOTRO. |
How so?? If that's true, it'd have to be some sort of compatibility issue. I'm sure SSG would figure it out soon. 
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Intrepid CorsairArbitrator Elder Jedi Grand Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Intrepid Corsair on Feb. 14th, 2019 1:29 pm
It’ll be cool to see what your results show, Specs. Keep us informed, Major.
_________________ As for me and my house, we will follow the Lord. In mind, body and spirit.
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Eryn SuunAeryn SuunVeteran Jedi Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Aeryn Suun on Feb. 23rd, 2019 3:14 pm
Thanks for the info 2060 will be going into my new gaming rig.
_________________ 2 Corinthians 5:21. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." All people are sinners by nature and by action. All people are sinners from birth. All people are born alienated from God who is Holy, cannot look upon sin, cannot fellowship with sinners. That alienation because of sin prevents us from knowing God. He is too perfectly Holy to have anything to do with sinners, except to reject them. Now the result of that rejection, the result of that alienation in time is Godlessness. The result of it in eternity is hell. So this alienation in to which every human being is born is indeed a serious issue. It means that everybody lives their life without God and if they die in that condition, will spend their eternity without God in torment.
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SpectusStaff Emeritus Jedi Master
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re: Graphics Card: Target sighted!
by Spectus on Feb. 27th, 2019 6:42 pm
| Aeryn Suun wrote: | | Thanks for the info 2060 will be going into my new gaming rig. |
Cool! Glad my scribblings were of assistance!
So what are the other components you are planning to build into your rig? (CPU, memory, HDD and/or SSD, etc.)?
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