Hello!
Not a lot going on in the mWave raffle thread last night for the 3090 launch, dunno if everyone too exhausted by the 3080 one the week before, or if the 3090 is just ridiculously expensive for 12% gains over the 3080 that most gamers can expect…
Just a spot for thoughts, memes, links, anything of interest in the lead up to the 3070 launch.
Catalog of Useful Links
NVidia RTX 3070 Launch Moved to Oct 29th
* unsure of Australian Date.
https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-delays-the-launch-of-the
The MWave Raffle
* ( it's the only way to get a "founders edition" )
Personally, I think the 3090 is stupid for 97% of the population, and 100% of gamers. It is a purchase only for those with money to burn or who want the status of owning a 3090.
The 3080 vs 3070 is where the focus needs to be on for everyone.
Personally, I am not looking to upgrade this release as I have a 2080Ti (luckily bought back on release in 2018, so I've had plenty of use out of it). It's also on a custom loop which makes plug and play a little more difficult. I will wait for Ti/Super versions or 4000 series. Some might say "bUt th3 3o80 iS tWIce aS f4sssst" but whatever, here's why… I already have a 34" ultrawide 1440p monitor with a high refresh rate, and my 2080ti more than gives me more frames than I need at that resolution, on ultra settings for the games I play. When I look to upgrade my GPU, it will only be when the frames start dropping below what my monitor can give me. By that stage i'll probably be on a whole new rig build anyway.
What I will say though, is whilst the 3070 has a performance parity (or better?) 2080ti, it lacks in VRAM, meaning that at high resolutions, in graphic intensive games the card is going to max. 8gb is not what I would consider future proof anymore. Where a 1080Ti was a card you could buy and use for 5 years comfortably, I think the 3070 might struggle to produce decent results in 2024+ when 1440p is the norm, 4K is the enthusiast and 8K is getting more common. The 3080 on the other hand has more VRAM, higher memory bandwidth, about 45% better than the 3070 in terms of specs. It is however, not 45% more expensive, so the dollar returns are much better.
So I think if you are looking to do a full new build now, the 3070 is not bad if you are buying today's monitors, if you were just dropping in the 3070 into a prexisting rig to last another year or two for a whole new rig build, I think i would consider the 3080, so that if you get everything else new, the card isn't going to have issues delivering the required frames.
Or maybe I'm just talking smack… who knows.