Hardware, it’s a big deal around here. Console upgrades only come around once every decade or so. It's a pretty simple calculation to get your head around. A new console will last around 8-10 years for gaming, for a few hundred dollars? Yes, no, not yet?
But of course the fun and flexibility provided by a new PC hardware upgrade can be fraught with doubt. Which (often expensive) component will deliver the best value for money? Will it deliver performance for an adequate amount of time, before something replaces it? The graphics card is normally one of the biggest hitting and singularly most expensive units in a gaming PC, this makes it a key priority to get your graphics card purchase right.
So naturally, Nvidia’s recent RTX 30 series has gotten a lot of people hyped, not only did we get a reveal of the world’s first 8K consumer graphics card (though still aimed more towards creatives and studio work rather than gaming), but we’ve also been promised a massive performance improvement over the previous-gen RTX 20 series cards.
This was to be expected. These sorts of graphics card announcements have to have a hefty performance boost to really get the masses pumped. But if we take a little look back at the 20 Series announcement, the price hike of the cards was a big one as well. We were told that the 20 Series price was to pay for this new, dazzling RTX tech they were loaded with. The problem was, no games existed that would make use of this tech and it felt like Nvidia were manufacturing a new “desire” for gamers, to help inflate graphics card prices. Nvidia stock prices took a hit and the RTX launch was a “failure”. Or was it?
Roll on just two years, to today, and the 30 Series announcement we saw a couple of days ago has everyone excited. Very excited. But this new graphics card range is the same price as that expensive outgoing range and the ray tracing tech is still questionable. It feels a little bit like 3D movies at the cinema. A novelty - nice enough, sure, but I don't really care enough to pay for it.
| Card | Base Clock (GHz) | Boost Clock (GHz) | CUDA Cores | RT Cores | Memory Type | Memory GB | TDP W | Price USD |
| RTX 3090 | 1.40 | 1.70 | 10,496 | TBA | GDDR6X | 24 | 350 | 1499 |
| RTX 3080 | 1.44 | 1.71 | 8,704 | TBA | GDDR6X | 10 | 320 | 699 |
| RTX 3070 | 1.50 | 1.73 | 5,888 | TBA | GDDR6 | 8 | 220 | 499 |
Of course, you can say it in a different way, like this: the new RTX 3070 - a GPU that we are told will be faster than the current top-end RTX 2080 Ti - is available to order for half of its price. And then there is the RTX 3080, which promises 2x the performance over the original RTX 2080, for the same price of $699. No price increase, but lots of extra performance.
That’s quite a steal in comparison right? When compared to those Turing-based RTX 20 series cards? But unfortunately that also means that some of us, understandably, feel a bit betrayed by our RTX 20 series purchases this year. Perhaps you bought your new 20 series a week or two ago, and it's Nvidia’s job to not give us any indication or advanced warning about this price/performance shift. Of course, they want people to keep buying the 20 Series for as long as possible, but they cut a fine line to maximise their profits.
| Card | Base Clock (MHz) | Boost Clock (MHz) | CUDA Cores | RT Cores | Memory Type | Memory GB |
TDP W |
Price USD |
| Titan RTX | 1350 | 1770 | 4608 | 72 | GDDR6 | 24 | 280 | 2499 |
| RTX 2080 Ti | 1350 | 1545 | 4352 | 68 | GDDR6 | 11 | 250 | 999 |
| RTX 2080 Super | 1650 | 1815 | 3072 | 48 | GDDR6 | 8 | 250 | 699 |
| RTX 2080 | 1515 | 1710 | 2944 | 46 | GDDR6 | 8 | 215 | 699 |
| RTX 2070 Super | 1605 | 1770 | 2560 | 40 | GDDR6 | 8 | 215 | 499 |
| RTX 2070 | 1410 | 1620 | 2304 | 36 | GDDR6 | 8 | 175 | 499 |
Gamers often rely on the resale of their hardware to fund their next upgrades. But it seems the R&D premium that Nvidia added to the 20 Series has cost anyone who bought into that range, especially if they bought a 20 series card this year.
For instance, someone who bought the $1000+ top of the line RTX 2080 Ti has just seen their graphics card resale value get slashed down to, at best, 40%. The ebay listings for these cards are going up faster than you can say “RTX 3070 for $499”. A lot of the second hand prices are already around the $600 mark for the RTX 2080 Ti, which a few weeks ago would have been an amazing bargain, but even those prices will drop soon, once the 3070 October launch arrives and people just buy those.
And it got me thinking. Nvidia is a business, with a long term strategy. They don't just pull this stuff out their ass. They plan, they prepare the market, and put together a launch and pricing roadmap. They likely already have the 40 and 50 series sat on their R&D work benches, waiting for the perfect time to pump us for the optimum amount of cash. It's up to competition to stop a business from defining market prices exactly how they want to.
Obviously that last sentence leads us on to a bigger debate for another time, about AMD and what they are doing to keep Nvidia in check, but whatever is happening it doesn't seem like it has been enough to stop Nvidia laughing all the way to the bank with our money and hearts.
This next bit I find particularly telling about how we dance to their tune, and how they are marketing masters.
They, and I will say it again, THEY have reminded us of the 20 series’ exorbitant costs. And in reminding us, they have made us think the same-priced new 30 Series is cheap, and a good deal. You can order a new 30 Series card soon and it will arrive in a matter of days. Don’t get me wrong, there is no argument, now is the time to upgrade your graphics card. Two weeks ago was the worst time.
And so we watch as Nvidia launches this new 30 Series, 1 year after the Super range, for the same big prices that we were all enraged about paying for a GPU back then. Only this time we're very grateful instead.
Unless you recently bought the 20 Series of course.
The RTX 30 series cards are looking great for anyone who wants to upgrade… but how do you feel about the shape of the market, the launch of the 30 Series, especially if you recently bought a 20 Series? Do you own an RTX 20 series card? Which one? And how does the RTX 30 series make you feel about your purchase? Let’s debate!
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I have upgraded my old amd 570 4gb with a RTX 2060 super 8gb this years and I can play alot of game at high or ultra setting in 1080p 1440p and this is ok for me I don't need to play in 4K so I can wait for later when the price will drop
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I'll be waiting for RX6000, to see how do they perform, and maybe a price reduction for NVIDIA, AMD must have a really lower price to compete with the greens, ill be ok with a GPU with a performance similar to the 2070 super
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that's rx 5700 xt?
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yeah, but a RX 6600XT will be cheaper
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AMD stated back when the Vega released they were done being the one everyone always wanted around just to lower Nvidia's prices. They stopped undercutting in price back then, that's why the Vega64 and Radeon VII were so dull, they were performing just over a GTX 1080 for the price of a 1080.
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The radeon vii was sold at a 7% profit margin, it literally couldn't have been much cheaper
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still running my 1070 here, gotta admit im a little meh'd by 3070 due to STILL only having 8gb ram, if the 3070/80/90 went 10 or 12/16/24gb ram then i would have snapped the 3070 up straight away but 8gb for VR is going to need replacing in possibly under 2yrs
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Wait for the Ti/Super series next year(?). I think you might be pleasantly surprised then!
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tbh im doing my cpu mobo and ram this year (this 4770k is starting to feel a little subpar) so im prob going to wait it out until the 4070, id be shocked, shocked i say if it didnt have at least 10gb ram (12gb and its bought). or if by some miracle HMB2 becomes affordable and its 10/12gb ill be throwing my money @ them
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It's got a hell of a lot more bandwidth, so yeah. You don't really need that much VRAM even at 4k, keep in mind that many video games nowadays fill the majority of the memory buffer regardless of what you do. Usually to eliminate all chances of pop-ins at a distance.
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@Psychoman It depends on the game. At 1440p on Horizon:ZD I use damn near all 8GB of my VRAM. Same with Star Wars: Fallen Order. I'd imagine both games use all 11GB of a 2080Ti at 4k.
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https://www.techpowerup.com/review/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-benchmark-test-performance-analysis/4.html
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You've probably enabled a buffering setting.
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Either way, these games can still use almost 8GB at 1440p. What's your point? lol
Games can currently use 8GB+ of VRAM. And as more games come out in the future, they will continue to increase that usage. Nvidia isn't stoopid. They know what they're doing...
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Hey I just wanted to add that reported Vram usage is not necessarily accurate.
I've dabbled in game development and in C++ you can basically allocate memory to objects. This is what the Driver reports on, how much memory has been allocated.
I can allocate 32GB's of Vram and only store a single 2MB texture in there, yet the driver would report full Vram on anything from a GTX 1060 3GB to a 24GB RTX 3090 :P. Many games do this as its easy and you'll never under-estimate your required Vram.
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@Themash I get that, but without knowing how much these textures use memory exactly, we have to take what the GPU VRAM usage is showing/reporting at face value. If there is a way for us end-users to really see how much is actually being used, I'd love to know because that is rather interesting to me.
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Again they are buffering textures and objects that are not rendered and in close proximity so that it can load them as fast as possible, so it's all about the bandwidth, and the themash is right when you or an automated interpreter allocates ram be it system ot video ram(they are the same) it always allocates more and some revs just slap a huge X GB allocation so they don't have to optimize it
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Hell the simplest example is when you declare and define primitive variables, if you define an integer(int) you allocate 32 bits of memory even if the value you assign it is 3, which can be stored in 2x bits of memory you have buffered 32 bits for that variable anyway.
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https://www.techpowerup.com/review/horizon-zero-dawn-benchmark-test-performance-analysis/4.html\#:-:text=Graphics%20Memory%20Usage&text=Even%20at%20lower%20resolutions%2C%20Horizon,8%20GB%20VRAM%20or%20more.
He wouldn't post this because it means conceding that his point will be lost because someone else will be right.
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Ooor, I just knew that SW:JFO doesn't consume as much VRAM and again games buffer memory. BF4 is one of the first popular game that did that. I didn't say anything about Horizon Zero Dawn and I'm pretty sure I didn't hack techpowerup and try to delete or block access to the page. I mean I'm pretty sure... I think... hmm...
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Oh and win or lose? Why do you make everything an artificial competition?
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So rx 580 4gb vs rx 580 8gb in Horizon Zero Dawn at the same settings, but the 8gb one is running an r5 3600 and the 4gb one is running a r5 2600 and the 4gb one has 7gbps vram while the 8gb has 8gbps vram:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcpKodRGc20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JieZnHLInj0
The performance looks pretty much the same to me. Why? The game buffers VRAM.
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yeah sure its faster ram, so sure its going to be able to have more thrown at it and handle it ok. but from my VR experience of HL:alyx, tested on a 980ti and 1060 6gb and my 1070: 980ti was playable at low, 1060 was unplayable headache inducing if it even booted the game in first place, 1070 playable ish med setting
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so to me that screams of 6gb being worthless for VR, 8gb being ok right now and optimal being 10/12gb right now. when HL:alyx 2 or whatever drops in a year or 2, i would lay money that 8gb, regardless of bandwidth will be minimum or under minimum
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Will repost again:
rx 580 4gb vs rx 580 8gb in Horizon Zero Dawn at the same settings, but the 8gb one is running an r5 3600 and the 4gb one is running a r5 2600 and the 4gb one has 7gbps vram while the 8gb has 8gbps vram:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcpKodRGc20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JieZnHLInj0
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maybe im just thick, but i dont really understand what your trying to point out to me here? are you saying that none of my VR performance differences were vram related? just gpu core related? or CPU related? that 8GB vram on a 3070 will be perfect for high to ultra VR performance on games in 2 years time?
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No I'm just saying that a lot of modern games are buffering extra VRAM without using it when there is extra VRAM available.
I'm not saying anything about VR.
When it comes to VR I'd say that 8GB of VRAM in the RTX 3070 will be great for a long time at 1440p(3.686 million pixels) otherwise the Occolous Quest/Link has a total resoltuion of 4.6 million pixels which is 1.8x times smaller than 4k.
The PS4's VR has a total resolution of 1920x1080 which is literally just 1080p
And the rtx 3070's performance shouldn't be good enough for the most demanding 4k/VR games in 2-3x years time way before VRAM becomes the limiting factor.
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i didnt make it competition, you just feel like that.
i mearly pointed out you skipped over a part that was brought up for the same reason you always do.
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And then I showed you a 4GB GPU vs an 8GB GPU playing the game getting the same performance give or take 5% due to the r5 2600 vs r5 3600.
Proving my point that games just buffer extra vram.
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And I'm setting it straight, I don't compete, I don't care what people think about me. I'm chill and I don't care about feelings or what other people think. I will not beat around the bush just because there is a chance that I'm wrong.
If I'm wrong I expect to be told straight: You are wrong. Here is why.
if someone disagrees with me I expect to be told straight: You are wrong. Here is why.
Feelings, perceptions, etc, etc are absolutely pointless. I have no hidden meanings behind what I say and I have no alterior motives or whatever. I just say what's on my mind and what I know(could be wrong or right).
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you want to play this game. he mentioned two games and you clearly and obviously only went with one of them and not both of them until I said something. you didn't prove anything until I brought up the second game.
so you obviously got your feelings hurt and came back at me. to prove the point, you can scroll through the conversation above.
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Guess again. I just didn't know crap about Horizon Zero Dawn on PC, I don't own the game on PC, on the other hand I've played SW:JFO and I know it doesn't need even close to 8GB VRAM.
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more lies. literally posted nothing about you owning it. you posted a techpowerup.com page. so unless you write for them, you didnt post a single thing about you owning it. none. at no point. zip.
https://gyazo.com/6f35f73814d4beaa6f1d0b43eb149e0c
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Yeah, do I need to say that I don't own Horizon Zero dawn? I just said that games buffer VRAM, I didn't say specifically SW:JFO and HZD, he did, and then since I've played SW:JFO on my PC I know that you don't need 8GB of VRAM to play it well so I sent a link with proof. I'm confused on how you interoperate what you are reading.
Then you sent me HZD and it said it consumed so much VRAM so I checked online 2x of the same GPUs, but one with 8GB and one with 4GB playing the game at the same settings. The 4GB card performance as well as the 8GB card, even though on the 8GB card 6-7GB of VRAM were being "used"(buffered).
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I think I'll wait to see how a 3080 ti compares to the 3090 when revealed.
If it's better than 3090 for cheaper I will buy that, if not I'll buy a 3090.
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It's definitely not going to be better than 3090, they're not crazy to undercut their 1500$ card.
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I'm not sure about that. Didn't the 2080ti out perform the Titan RTX, or at the very least come close?
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If it comes out it'll be between the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080, which is not that big a performance window. The most you can hope for a beefed up RTX 3080 with more GDDR6X Vram (hopefully 16GB).
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if the price is cheaper while at the very least performing on par with the 3090 at 4k resolution while having power to spare I'll be happy. 8k isn't important.
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Well so far in the immediate aftermath, used RTX 2060 up to 2070 Supers value has remained unchanged. I wonder if that will change once the 3060 gets introduced.
Good for me because I only bought 2060 Super during the heart of this still going pandemic, but have the system to stick a rtx 3000 without a bottleneck
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I bought the RTX 2080 ti back in May. Do I feel sorry? No. Should I sell it to buy the new 3000 series? No. I don't really care about playing at over 100 fps. I'm fine with 35+ fps and I'm gonna upgrade when it won't be able to run AAA games at 1080p/ Medium Settings. T'was a future proof buy for me
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Its insane how many RTX 2080 Ti purchasers are suddenly too good to care about "performance" now that its affordable.
You bought the best there was because you wanted the best right. Why did you suddenly do a 180 on this?
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Yes, I bought the best because I wanted the best but I'm not gonna go crazy mode like what's happening on Ebay to sell it with around 500 bucks in order to purchase the 3070. I bought it after a gradual upgrade over the years (GT 440 to 750 ti to 970 to 1080 to 2080 ti)
That was my point.
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I didn't buy 20 series because I overclock the piss out if everything. My 1080 SLI ran better than a 2080 SLI. My 1080ti runs just ahead of a 2080s and that single card has about 83% of the performance of the dual cards (better if the game doesn't use SLI).
We didn't buy them at work because we believed them to essential be beta hardware. The prices all but confirmed that.
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30 series brings back faith in the company investors and and true enhancement to the gpu for customers.
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yeah and 50% of that 70% performance gain comes from going from 20/16/12nm to 7nm. Not really impressed.
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Gotta Love The pricing tho perfect if you live in America But Europe ho ho ho not up in here 3080 is gonna be 800 Euro like the 2080 was 3070 is gonna be 600 Euro like the 2070 was 2080ti used to go for 1200 Euro which is a big difference compared to 999 dollars and when the new 3080ti launches it will also most likely be 1200Euro. So feels bad man
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I live in the UK so I can't help you with the prices, but I checked the German site for Nvidia and the price of the 3070, 3080 and 3090 is €499, €699, and €1,499 respectively; although Idk if it changes in other EU states.
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Ye Official Thats how much they should be but you will see when they pop up in 2 weeks 3080 gonna be 800Euro i guess Between 750 and 850 Depending on the Different Custom Manufacturers Cuz lets be real nobody be buying the Reference Cards directly from Nvidia
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ocuk currently listing the EVGA 3090 cards for £1399
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/evga-geforce-rtx-3090-icx3-24gb-gddr6x-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-32a-ea.html
EVGA 3080 £659
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/evga-geforce-rtx-3080-icx3-10gb-gddr6x-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-329-ea.html
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EVGA 3070 £479
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/evga-geforce-rtx-3070-icx3-8gb-gddr6-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-328-ea.html
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Those Are Some Decent Prices Lucky you But The Rest Of Europe Not So Much Bought My 2080 Back in 2018 For 820 Euro On Amazon.de Now Will Get a 3080 For Around The Same Price.
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Very happy that I waited. RTX was a bit lackluster when 20xx series came around and expensive as well. Jump to 1080 was also a bit too little for me. 3080 seems like the best choice for me now
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I got my RTX 2070 late in 2018 so just after its release by a short time, and it was an upgrade from a GTX 770 (2GB Edition, and yes there is something about '70' when I buy a GPU :"D), so at that time an upgrade was a real necessity and my RTX 2070 has been with me for two years now so why would I feel bad about getting it? Actually I feel good about the RTX 30xx today because if the performance leap they claim is true, then I can only imagine how my next RTX 4080 will perform like, and surely at that time I will have gotten a 4K monitor that justify such an upgrade.
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for my self its juste an rtx 2060 not a big deal but were i live we pay like 50% more than original price , prices are really messed up and i got mine for a price of a gtx 1650 super so nope im still happy i still can sell it for the price i got it
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Well I already have 2080 bought last year and I don't feel disappointed because when i look at 3000 series TDP they are quite hot I will not buy card with TDP more then 220 wat... They are so hot! And right now I'm more looking for ryzen 4000 series cause my 7700 even bloking full potential of my 2080
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I agree with your conclusion, but that reasoning makes little sense unfortunately. Ampere is also 1.9x more efficient though according to Nvidia :P. So hypothetically if you lock the framerate to whatever fps you're running now it'll use 54% of the power a Turing GPU would.
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I bought two 2080 Tis for $700 (used), and sold two 2080 Super for $650 each. Am I pissed? No way.
I am waiting if anyone wants to buy my new Tis for $900 (it's still being sold for $1400+ where I live). Either way it has been a fun ride.
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Why people are complaining about their RTX 2k series being bought? About this GPU has been talking a lot and in order to buy rtx 2080ti you either don't care about the rtx 3k or you simply are not tech person who doesn't follow GPU's news, but usually NVIDIA make every year new GPU, but the new RTX 3k with its double VRAM over it successor i would say i'm pretty damn hype over it.
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it would be more interesting to see rtx 3080 vs rtx 3080ti when it comes out and people will start complaining. You'll either wait for it or buy it now. Otherwise i can say this next gen GPU is simply better than the rest since before the VRAM was usually +-4-6GB and now its double that for probably the same price as RTX 2080TI. Good luck with that.
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actually as a european if i buy the RTX 3k on USD currency it'll be more cheaper since the $$'s price decreased in these a couple of months
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I've skipped few years of upgrades and still can game comfortably at 1080p... After new AMD stuff will release and new RTX will be around for few months i'll build new rig. Probably early next year. Can't wait.
PS
If i bought into rtx 20xx series i would be well and truly pissed...
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Yeah both, cpu and gpu upgrades would be good for you, though if i were you i would just wait for am5 or intel equivalent platform (rocketlake? forgot the name) with ddr5 and pcie 5.0 platform but its like one more year before that so if you want the upgrade its not bad idea either imo.
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I agree, wait for the AM5 since it will be here relatively soon
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I upgraded from my RX 5700 to the 2080 super a month ago since my games kept crashing, BSOD, etc when I had the AMD GPU. Luckily I was able to return it to Amazon and I used that money + what I have earned to buy the RTX 2080 super. When the RTX 3000 series got released; I checked my Amazon and luck has been my side I still had 8 days to return my 2080 super so I did. Currently borrowing a 1070 from a friend and then I plan to buy the RTX 3080
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you already got an rtx 3080 i see haha
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Just a placeholder for now since I pretty much know what I'm getting haha
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Bought the 2070S about 6 months ago, and don't really mind. Will probably sell it as soon as I can get a new 3070. It's obvious that new products are coming out, cant really be mad about that.
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I got a 2080 Super in April thanks to the stimulus checks. I had a 970 SLi system before that and I am in the camp of skipping a generation of cards. I'm excited for the 40 series whenever that is released.
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oof size BIG for those who bought 20 series gpu for the same price without doing any researc, it's only their fault and no one else, there were tons of videos on YT if you should wait or upgrade your pc now
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I purchased my 2070 Super back in June, knowing full well of the approaching 30 series. I did so because I was building this computer, not as part of an upgrade. I've always been a firm believer of "you have to jump in at some point" in regards to tech. Anyone who would be mad at what's happened, it's on YOU. Just like the stock market, you have to do your due diligence. Same goes with anything else. I was expecting this kind of alleged performance increase, but was not prepared for the price.
I'm excited for this series because these cards are within reasonable prices (I speak for America on this one, sorry for those with outrageous VAT). It allows more people to own RTX cards, giving developers a reason to begin implementing this technology into their games. LET'S GO!