Etern4l

Unfortunately I have little ammo at hand to try and counter that, even though AMD clearly needs some reinforcements here lol Bro @Raiderman to the rescue perhaps? :) Good news though is that we know that the underlying HW and its specs are solid, and software issues are fixable. To be fair, I recall quite a few NVidia driver complaints - and actually I think I have a live one in Windows 11 concerning multi-GPU setup, which is not to say that AMD would have done better in this scenario.

I'm seeing very similar memory performance specs on the 7900 XTX, yes - a bit slower but we don't know the whole story so we shouldn't rush to potentially unduly harsh judgment. For example, GDDR6X was jointly developed by Micron and NVidia, do you imagine they would just let AMD use it? Also, clearly AMD can develop rock-solid drivers, since this stuff runs on consoles and Macs, so I wonder if what you perceive as "driver issues" is just incompatibility between NVidia-optimised titles and AMD drivers.

In practice, the background process count is just a proxy (and I'm sure Windows veterans rage against those services for a good reason), but it's oversimplifying things a lot to the point where I would not look at that number alone. All depends on what those services actually do. For reference my Linux box has over 300 running processes, and obviously I'm not concerned.

With Ada, we lament about NVIdia pricing and product offering across the board. It is an expensive hobby because NVidia are ripping us off. If AMD died and Intel GPU failed, then Jensen would probably jack up the prices even more. We can pretend there is nothing can be done about, however, that is patently false. Err, not so fast, let's look at the raw specs: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-4090.c3889 https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-7900-xtx.c3941 We see that the cards trade blows when it comes to texture and pixel rates, and NVidia is indeed faster in lower precision compute, while AMD does better in high precision (less important in gaming). The manufacturing process is the same, memory bandwidth numbers are very similar, so are caches. We don't have any theo performance specs on the RT cores (I am not sure comparing core counts across architectures is meaningful), so perhaps NVidia holds the theoretical upper hand there. Maybe. That aside, it follows that the difference in realised performance basically comes down to software. If things are optimised for AMD, it evidently has the upper hand, much to NVidia fans' self-defeating dismay. If a game leverages NVidia software features (DLSS etc) the tables turn. You typically see games leaning one way or the other - my guess is this is based on which manufacturer has a deal with the given dev house. I would assume that most PC titles and benchmarks are optimised for NVidia simply because it's the more prevalent platform, hence you see the dominance in benchmarks and PC titles. However, since NVidia gave up/lost the console games because it opted to go with the juicy business of ripping PC users off, it has to pay the price: some/many games are optimised primarily for AMD. In summary, the 7900 XTX specs are great, basically on par with the 4090 (apart from the RT area, potentially). In fact everything else being equal, at $999 it would have been a no-brainer vs the $1600+ 4090. Sadly, everything else is not equal, PC software probably tends to more optimised for NVidia, meaning that AMD is fighting an uphill battle. Without getting software studios onboard, which might be difficult given how deep NVidia's pockets are at the moment, they would have to come out with a product sporting 20%+ faster hardware just to match NVidia's performance in optimised titles.... basically it looks like NVidia first rips off PC users, then bribes devs to produce NVidia-optimised titles to keep the racket going lol. Wake up guys. That brought back a lot of memories, I grabbed the first Voodoo though if remember correctly (for the sake of our Candian colleagues, let's not forget about Gravis Ultrasound lol).

Fair enough, I don’t know much about power management on Linux laptops, I’m talking about performance as in speed. Wouldn”t necessarily expect Clear Linux to be super power efficient when idle, it’s optimised for pure power. I look at benchmark results as well, and the best resource for Linux vs Windows comparisons is Phoronix (that I know of). plus obviously I can dual boot and bench myself. I posted some results in one of the Linux threads. Windows gets blown out of the water in many cases, but never vice versa. Gaming could be another area of weakness (according to @Mr.Fox its not bad actually) but that would be due to Windows emulation. GPUs bench about the same on Linux as on Windows for me in native benchmarks.

Not all Linux distros are equal. Clear Linux is also much faster than most other Linux variants. Intel really delivered the goods there. I’m not really worried about a single aspect of that system”s performance being worse than Windows 11 lol. If you have some specific test results of concern (or pride, as a Windows user 😉 )let me know. The only thing that could spring to mind is some issue with drivers/kernel support for new hardware - for example, proper Alder Lake support took a while to get rolled out.

That’s a good point but the problem is that even if servicitis doesn’t flare up, Clear Linux is much faster. We are talking up to +30% in some CPU benchmarks.

There a 2 issues: * Potential death (or malaise) by a thousand cuts from all those background services - difficult to measure in practice, as regards impact on real-life use, which is not to say that such impact is necessarily inisgnificant * Instances of windows services kicking up and unexpectedly consuming humongous amounts of resources - I experienced this a lot, e.g. Windows Reliability Service or something like that (50% of CPU util. over long periods of time on a 13900K) - one of the reasons I ditched Windows

Makes sense, the starting point for the consideration of the Battlemage though would be the acceptance of the fact that 3090 Ti / 4080 performance is really OK for most reasonable purposes. If the mentality continues to be “4090 or bust” then Jensen will also continue having his way at our expense. BTW this medical technologies thing is often used as an excuse for investment in AI. I would confidently estimate that less than 1% (OK, 5% to be safe) of GPU power goes into medical research. It”s a publicity ploy.

Yes, some games arguably suck on PCs in the sense that they provide little extra benefit when run on the latter. We can also argue that consoles are particularly bad because they detract from PC sales, but that’s water under the bridge. The reality is that the huge price gap between PCs and consoles means that the latter are ever more viable now, and the ongoing NVidia ripoff is not helping the situation. I guess one could argue that by supporting the Green Goblin, their pricing strategy, as well as anything having to do with AI (the new crypto as regards the demand for GPUs) with our wallets, we are helping them kill PCs, only to later lament collapsing computer sales and further prices hikes as a consequence of falling volumes, a death spiral of sorts. Food for thought.

Just to play the devil's advocate, there are some pros: 1. Can be connected to the entertainment system if available - away from the desk 2. Controller gameplay is fine for certain kinds of games 3. Relatively cheap 4. Access to console titles (esp. on the PS side) 5. Fewer issues Certainly fine for lightweight gaming, which could be just the ticket for many. Shooters are a pain if you are used to kb/m, but servicable after some adjustment time (plus after-market KBM adapters are available). It's a somewhat limited experience, but that could be fine. You are right that console use can be self-limiting, which is a positive in my book. No piracy / a bit more expensive games though, which again could be viewed as a positive. It's interesting to note that NVidia first abandoned the console space, got dropped by Apple, and now they are arguably failing to treat the PC market well, taking it for granted sort of, but really just going all-in on AI where the competition is building up. Wonder how the strategy will play out.

Again, the original Fallout games had pretty compelling plots. I think Bethesdas logic was just to slap some Fallout-like content on the Oblivion engine, throw in a bit of shooting action to lure in the FPS crowd, and profit. @electrosoftyou are an MMO player, so you have a bit more inclination to enjoy that kind of open world-like content. No stranger to a bit of a grind (which this game clearly involves). Just saying. As for Metacritic, not sure how reliable that is at the early stage. For instance looks like Bethesda gagged some reviewers: https://metro.co.uk/2023/08/29/bethesda-is-withholding-starfield-review-copies-in-the-uk-19414929/ Reputable reviews are generally about 7/10. Anyway, enough Bethesda bashing 🙂

Basically, you either make a great FPS or a great RPG. A great RPG will not necessarily appeal to an FPS fan such as yourself, and vice versa. I happen used to enjoy both but in the pure form. The hybrid formula leads to games which are neither great RPG nor great FPSes. Arrgh, will cross-post from The Thread: A brilliant RPG is basically a non-linear adventure/puzzle game with a deep and intriguing plot that you can beat in many different ways, depending on your role-playing preferences. The original fallout went as far as allowing people to play as idiots with INT 2 or something, and the dialogues reflected that. You could be Saint Saviour of the Wastelands, or a practitioner of the oldest profession. It was a rather non-PC title. Combat is more about making it with limited resources, optimal gear etc. Turn based works best. In contrast, a brilliant single-player FPS (for Bethesda's information: a different genre) is all about, virtual combat, i.e. shooting skills using KMB/contoller. It tests players visual processing, reaction time, triggers the fight or flight response etc. A B-movie plot will do, although it needs to provide the right kind of backround for the action. Actually I thought Crysis had an OK, at the beginning Predator-like, plot. Obviously graphics and visual design are necessary for the immersion, and so are very important, unlike in the case of an RPG which can actually be played without a computer - again, another difference with the FPS lol You make one kind of game or the other. Titles which try to combine both kind of suck IMHO (e.g. Destiny MMORPG-FPS, boring as hell). Bethesda tried to combine both and and came up with Fallout 3: a mediocre derivative game that was neither a good FPS or a good RPG which... it wasn't horrible though, and it did quite well financially lol I guess people like walking around in huge virtual worlds, nuking stuff and collecting garbage without a particularly strong sense of purpose. That's free market for you.

Yeah, I am not sure why at one point some RPGs started including crafting. Wasn't it Bethesda that started the trend at scale in Oblivion? For some reason CDPR decided to include this in Witcher, which is surprising (guess they thought they needed a gameplay filler) since it's fairly out of character for the Witcher to do any crafting. Imagine they made him a banker as well or something. He could lend NPCs money, collect percentage, execute the deliquents etc. There, I've said - don't blame me if CDPR and Bethesda implement this in their next games. There was no crafting in the original Fallout games, just some very minor weapon modding maybe, in the sequel. Totally get it, as an erstwhile Quake and Crisis player, but those are totally different gaming formulas. A brilliant RPG is basically a non-linear adventure/puzzle game with a deep and intriguing plot that you can beat in many different ways, depending on your role-playing preferences. The original fallout went as far as allowing people to play as idiots with INT 2 or something, and the dialogues reflected that. You could be Saint Saviour of the Wastelands, or a practitioner of the oldest profession. It was a rather non-PC title. Combat is more about making it with limited resources, optimal gear etc. Turn based works best. In contrast, a brilliant single-player FPS (for Bethesda's information: a different genre) is all about, virtual combat, i.e. shooting skills using KMB/contoller. It tests players visual processing, reaction time, triggers the fight or flight response etc. A B-movie plot will do, although it needs to provide the right kind of backround for the action. Actually I thought Crysis had a decent plot. Obviously graphics and visual design are necessary for the immersion, and so are very important, unlike in the case of an RPG which can be played without a computer - again, another difference with the FPS lol You make one kind of game or the other. Titles which try to combine both kind of suck IMHO (e.g. Destiny MMORPG-FPS, boring as hell). Bethesda tried to combine both and and came up with Fallout 3: a mediocre derivative game that was neither a good FPS or a good RPG which... it wasn't horrible though, and it did quite well financially lol I guess people like walking around in huge virtual worlds without a particularly strong sense of purpose. That's free market for you.

I do wonder if some sort of incentives from graphics cards manufacturers play a role here. This is where consoles have an upper hand. The HW is set and games must be optimised to run on it, with particular FPS requirements. One more point consoles vs PC - NVidia's greed is part of the reason why we have such a huge gap in cost of consoles vs reasonable PC HW. Console manufacturers are able negotiate amazing deals, whereas Jensen can spectacularly rip individuals off. Hence a need for some sort of collective thinking and action on this.

Well, you don't seem to be too much of an RPG connaisseur, which is fair enough. Consequently though, Fallout 1 and 2 would have been unlikely to appeal to you. That said, I hope you will enjoy the second part of my earlier post which I edited in moments ago to save us from the headache of double-posting :)

There is a thread on that. Predictably enough the visuals are there but the plot and gameplay mostly suck. I listened to what the “butcher of Fallout” Todd had to say, and it”s clear he has no clue. It’s like “yeah, we have the engine let’s make a space game, a Bethesda game through and through” lol Yet, people accept the mediocrity and purchase their products. Same thing with buying overpriced hardware from a hardware monopolist. Clearly, the ideal situation would be for, say, 3 manufacturers: NVidia, AMD and Intel to go hand in hand, trade blows, and sort of stay in balance. Obviously the current situation is out of whack and unfortunately only we can do something about that. They wouldn't be able to be in that mode if people were more strategic in their purchasing decisions. Imagine the situation where all gamers think like say @Mr. Fox. NVidia would quickly become one of the most customer-focused companies on the planet, the 4090 would be offered at $999, at most, before heavy discounts lol It's just that they can count on a pool of people to rip off. This is why I like what @tps3443 is saying - "3090 is plenty for this, I'm fine". Refraining from consumption to send the message is the only way. Saying you are an enthusiast is fine, but isn't @ryan with his 3060 laptop? It's just that you want to posses the fastest hardware possible and you are not concerned with voting with your wallet. This is kind of self-centered enthusiast thinking we are all guilty of to some extent, but looking at the number of benches done, we are really no more enthusiasts than @ryan even though some of our HW cost 10% of his total spend. Ultimately though, we usually don't put the hardware on display just to stare at it, we use it - if a 4090 is a must have then fair enough, but I would hope more of us could really just take a step back and have a sanity check on whether that's really the case, or is it just a bit of an addiction to power. We should be legion, we are not - we are being played and exploited by the likes of Jensen, who in addition runs a company which is no longer concerned with gaming or enthusiast PC hardware, and IMO should be penalized on that basis alone. Going beyond gaming, I suggest we will all be in deep trouble before long unless we assume very robust community agency when dealing with big tech and other problematic corporations.

Yep, I no longer game but a 10s look at the headlines was enough to call it. Bethesda are really stuck developing a particular type of games focused on basic open world simulation. From the early days of the The Elder Scrolls: Arena, if you wanted to spend enormous amounts of time in a simple but endless and increasingly visually impressive environment to explore, they've got you covered. Unfortunately, for some reason, they don't really have brilliant/groundbreaking story writers and designers. Since people have brought up comparison with Fallout, one thing I really can't forgive Bethesda for is how they butchered that IP, and turned fascinating experiences into boring mechanical environment traversal in pursuit of gear. Fallout 3 and presumably 4 are OK games (NV is a bit better since it was developed by Obsidian), but they are nowhere near as well thought out and brilliant to play (IMO) as the original(s), plus the lame shooter-like gameplay sucks - it's not challenging at all in the way an FPS is, but very little is required in terms of tactical thinking.

No, no, no! What do you mean „3090 is enough”? Get on with the basic program and reward NVidAI with even more money just so you can join a "top dog" club, and play presumably equally (vs other Bethesda productions) plot-less Oblivion in space with more FPS that you don't really need, since all that is very important. Besides, the 4090 is as far as NVidia will go for years to come: "Ah, and of course, we will absolutely not release anything that could supersede 4090 all the way until 2025, that would be us trying to milk the whale/enthusiast/prosumer part of the PC market which is not something we would stand for as a company. We understand that the 4090 represents a significant entertainment system investment in absolute terms, I mean you can get 3 high-end AMD-powered consoles (each good for 5 years if not more) for the price of one NVidia graphics card alone, so - as always - it's imperative that we protect that expenditure and provide gamers with the best value for their money possible. Customers' best interests have always come first at NVidia, and always will, that's a guarantee."

Yes, the problem is the stuff buried in the core OS and Google services, which clearly are not easy to disable. Idiotically, the best degoogled OS only runs on Pixels.

Do right by the customer. This should be the corporate first commandment, alas even if it actually is at some point, it tends to get dropped past certain market share. Hence the rarely properly fulfilled role of FTC et al to ideally prevent market abuse by monopolies. The problem is that's just too weak a mechanism - you are right, everything should start with the people and sadly people these days are less and less rational agents, and more and more becoming marionettes of big tech. Should this continue, and IMHO the trend will only accelerate with the big-tech controlled AIs doing people's thinking for them, the likely consequences are terrifying. Indeed, Google is a great example of the subterfuge: the beautiful "Don't be evil" founding motto quickly got dropped once they zoomed past the monopoly milestone, and once the work on the evil stuff began at scale. The old Microsoft, while predatory and featuring Gates who swindled quite a few people on his way to the PC market hegemony, arguably at one point (the 90s-early 2000s) played a positive role in bringing affordable powerful computing to the consumer. That Microsoft has been dying a painful to watch death since they decided they would rather become another Google, just overtly evil with a fair amount of stupid.

I have a feeling we haven’t seen nothing yet in terms of how invasive Satya”s WindowsGPT gets. Old news just to get bro @Papusan more excited about Windoze11 below 🙂 What’s not mentioned by the Redmont Reprobates is that all those invasive services are cloud-based and this requires massive amounts of personal data to be sent to M$ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2023/05/23/bringing-the-power-of-ai-to-windows-11-unlocking-a-new-era-of-productivity-for-customers-and-developers-with-windows-copilot-and-dev-home/

It’s not that people buying NVidia are idiots, most people here would be guilty as charged then, it’s just that if there is little choice. Resistance would take a little sacrifice (or sometimes wouldn’t be an option at all, my situation included), as is usually the case, and people aren’t willing to suffer a degradtion in FPS or eye candy that when it comes to their entertainment. There is also the question of how much “fighting spirit” there is in a modern Western hedonistic society, and it’s safe to say that not much - other than as regards virtual struggles with KB/M or a controller, perhaps that’s a part of what defuses it…

Accountability is super-important, without it the system is broken. Let’s say that those two factors cause AIBs to lose too much money on their 4090 RMAs, then NVidia is mainly to blame here: 1. For designing the fragile connector 2. For jacking up the prices of the silicon so much that AIBs can’t afford the RMAs. Secondary blame falls on CableMod and the influencers shamelessly promoting the gimmick. Sadly it’s not easy to vote the former culprits out of the market, it’s kind of a totalitarian system at the moment. Let’s hope it can be toppled one day.

Makes sense. OK there is almost no point in this product whatsoever then (almost, because it’s a little bit shorter than the FE) If they made the card 2 or 2.5 slot then there would have been some niche rationale. Sad indeed. They want to cut down on RMA risk obviously, the new slim connector and CableMod adapters I called out as dangerous gimmicks the moment I saw them being mentioned here 🙂 are likely to blame.