Okay so in my PC Plans post here I said I was considering getting a GeForce graphics card to replace the RX 590 in my PC right now for a bit more grunt, especially when I'm playing Metro Exodus. Also it would be nice to try out RTX/DXR in that game on the RTX card.
So this post is basically me spewing out some ideas and thoughts on what I plan to do. Ehm, it's more for my own sake of keeping a diary than shoving it down everyone's throat but you could maybe take something from it I guess lol.
Anyway here is what I am thinking.
Team Red or Team Green?
I love Radeon and Team Red and there is something cool about having a Full AMD gaming PC. It's pretty neat. But the thing is, I have been wanting to try RTX out for a while and I just want a fresh new architecture to play with... so that in mind it leads me to narrow my choices down to three video cards. Two unreleased, one currently available and they are...
GeForce RTX 2070 (Vanilla, you know, Not-so-Super)
RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 Ti are the only two cards in the current entire 20 series that I would even consider. Well, not because they represent amazing value but only because they are least bad value lol. 2080 Ti at least has the accolade of being the fastest gaming GPU around (And No: I don't even consider the RTX TITAN, this card might as well not exist with how abysmal the value proposition is for gamers). And the RTX 2070? Well this card is the minimum spend for an 8GB RTX card and represents the sort of, minimum entry point for this technology even at 1080p. (More on the 2060 Super in a moment..!)
If I was to choose a 2070 it would be this card. I like the look of this ASUS DUAL design and it looks like a good cooler, idk, it just appeals to me. Oh my, I am babbling and filling up my post with crap again. So the biggest killer for the 20 series for I'm sure a lot of people (myself included) is the price. £480+ Is hard to swallow for me for this performance. If the 2070 gets a price cut, to, say £420 or less this is an instant buy and my first choice from these three. I also want a high end AIB. Anyway...
GeForce RTX 2060 Super (with 8GB!)
This card interests me as a cheaper entry to RTX with a minimum of 8GB. I don't want less memory than my 590 lol. And I feel 6GB is going to be limiting going forward. Anyway this card if priced firmly below 400 pounds is going to be my choice. For about 380 or less I think will be a good value and I would buy that. But the rumoured price of 429 USD or around 410+ British Pounds Sterling is a no-deal for me. Sorry NVIDIA! Ball's in your court, Mr. Huang!
Radeon RX 5700 (non XT)
And my final choice, not necessarily the worst choice, but hey. This is me staying with Team Red and my beloved Radeon which served me so well these last many years since my NVIDIA Heathenry (lol). Anyway, this is the only card in "Navi 10" Duo I will consider for two reasons: 449 USD /~430 GBP is still too much for me to want to spend on something that lacks the RTX feature I wanted to play with, so the XT is out of the question. Now, 2070 performance (give or take) for £350-360 would be something I would happily buy assuming the above GeForces don't hit my price points.
Secondly? RX 5700 features the Navi 10 die with 36 Compute Units enabled (18 Dual Compute Units actually, but anyway...). And since RDNA/Navi 10's CU structure remains at 64 Stream Processors (but with 2 x SIMD-32 instead of 4x SIMD-16 in GCN) this gives this card 2304 Stream Processors! Guess what also has 2304 Stream Processors? That's right, my RX 590.
So I was thinking, throwing aside the fact that Navi 10 silicon has twice the pixel throughput (64 vs 32, but at 1080p this might not be a huge bottleneck) it would be cool to do a "per clock, per bandwidth" test between these two cards to sort of assess the architecural gains of RDNA over GCN4, with the same number of SP and memory bandwidth (if it's even possible to down-clock the GDDR6 that low...). Oh, and Sapphire Nitro+ all the way!
Conclusion?
Basically all three of my choices give me something cool to write a post about. With the GeForces, it's my testing and opinion on Hardware DXR (RTX) and Ray-Tracing in Metro Exodus and Battlefield V, and I would love to do an in-depth on that. And offer my dumb opinion lol. Or... with the Radeon it is doing a per CU/Bandwidth/clock analysis on RDNA improvements. And with all three choices I get a nice bump in performance over my RX 590 and I will not void the warranty like I did on my poor Radeon VII.
Yay! So I guess it all comes down to the pricing of the GeForce cards.
Please Mr. Huang, I want an RTX but don't wanna get fleeced for it.
But hey, you know, this may all change. But it's been like, what? Almost a week since I made my PC plans post and I have stuck to it so far. :D Wish me luck!
<3
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