Breaking Dad's Big Bad Gaming Discussion - For all things to do with PC Gaming !

[L&LD]

"AMD, which had been a perennial second-rater".

Still is for the consumer side of computing, for most.

Great job she did, no doubt. But, no matter how well she encouraged the engineers to develop/create the Zen architecture, the 'AMD experience' is below Intel platforms, still.

AMD may get there yet, but it won't be because of their hardware. They need to make the rest of their ecosystem (drivers, firmware, etc.) equally capable too. Not there by a long shot.

 

[Paliv]

For gaming - I've got an MSI Optix 27" QHD (2560*1440) curved display - I was a bit hesitant on the curved screen thing, but one does get used to it.

Nice thing is that it's 165Hz refresh and 1ms response time - It doesn't support nVidia G-Sync, but it does support AMD's thing (freesync?)

Works nice with my GE76 Raider and the 3060 is more than enough GPU to keep a 1440P screen fast for the games I play.

Daily driver - I'm still on Mac - Macbook Pro 16 Intel, so at least a dGPU is involved - Radeon Pro 5500M - and I have it driving an Apple 5K studio display.

It was actually the Apple 5K display that drove me to get the MSI screen - 1080 FHD at 27 everything looks too big, whereas 1440 QHD is in the Goldilocks zone...

I have a Gigabyte M27Q 170hz (freesync) that is working great with an AMD 7900 XT.

I have a Logitech G403 wired mouse that I love. And a very old Saitek Cybork keyboard that I liked so much I bought a second one about 10 years ago and still haven’t had to open it to replace.

Oh and on a X570 ASUS board with a 5800X with no issues. But judging by some sentiments here it should be unusable.

 

[ddaenen1]

As with my network equipment, my main PC is older generation hardware. For screens, i swear with Iiyama. I have 24" 1080p that does the trick for now. My first one that i got decades ago still works well and it still serves as screen for my server cabinet. Keyboard is an old IBM/Lenovo. Unbreakable. Mouse is a Logitech G5 from the time i was still serious about gaming. For motherboard i swear with Asus, now a P10S WS workstation board with an i7 7700K and 32GB RAM. I recently dropped in a 2nd hand Asus GTX1060 6GB card which does the trick for the little gaming i still do. I do have some Fancy JBL Quantum Duo speakers that can make much more noise than i will ever need in my office but the sound is great.

 

[BreakingDad]

I'll throw a firecracker in the room...

Screens, Keyboards, Mice, Audio...

I have two Asus Rog 27inch Panels, one is 165hz the other is 144hz, both 2560 x 1440, both full gsync, both 1ms response TN Panels.

My keyboard is a TKL HyperX Alloy, with Cherry MX Red Switches, I did have blue full size hyperX alloy for a while, however I prefer red as a nice balance of click and responsiveness. I sent the fullsize one to an uprooted Ukrainian gamer I know as she had a terrible keyboard having been booted out the Ukraine to Germany. I am tempted to get a Corsair TKL K70, do I need it - no, do I have a keyboard fetish - probably.

My Current mouse is a Logitech G Pro Wireless, battery life is excellent handling is arguably the best. I am tempted to upgrade to the ultra light version however, again I don't need to, I just want to. I also have a Glorious "O" Wired as a spare Mouse which is great, and have also used Zowie EC Mice before and they are also excellent. I did also used to use Deathadders for a while, but they tend to break on the centre scroll wheel pretty quick and I think the Zowie is better if you like that shape of Mouse.

Audio wise I use Corsair Void Elite Wireless headset, but I do have a pair of Creative Lab T20's should I ever need sound on but pretty much only ever use the headset. I've found the Corsair Headset to be very reliable and it sounds great, battery life is ok, not great. I had HyperX Clouds before, and while they sounded great, the internal wiring is very thin and breaks quickly, and the freedom that wireless headsets give you I will never go back to wired.

---


Interesting little post on vulnerability of some Gigabyte boards here :

As we discussed earlier in the thread problems are over ALL manufacturers, not just one or two.

Critical vulnerability in Gigabyte Motherboards discovered - gHacks Tech News

Security researchers have discovered a vulnerability in hundreds of Gigabyte motherboards that could lead to successful attacks against systems.

www.ghacks.net

---

Another talking point is this thread about PC Gamers blaming the wrong people over issues with games:

PC Gamers Are Getting Angry At All The Wrong People

Everything feels increasingly broken and expensive, and there's frustration in the air

kotaku.com

---

"AMD, which had been a perennial second-rater".

Bit out of context there, let's have the whole line :

AMD, which had been a perennial second-rater, began generating record profits by building its own processors that beat Intel’s on speed.

 

[L&LD]

No, that is not the point I was making, nor have they beaten Intel on speed (for the consumers).

 

[BreakingDad]

PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End

PassMark Software - CPU Benchmarks - Over 1 million CPUs and 1,000 models benchmarked and compared in graph form, updated daily!

www.cpubenchmark.net

CPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2024: CPU Rankings

We've run thousands of CPU benchmarks on all new and older Intel and AMD CPUs and ranked them.

www.tomshardware.com

Agree to disagree, it's as futile as discussing apple vs android with an apple fan.

 

[L&LD]

Lol... Those are not convincing.

 

[Paliv]

Tom’s hardware has had trustworthy cpu benchmarks for decades. Intel makes a good product, so does AMD. Brand loyalty is nonsensical.

 

[L&LD]

No brand loyalty.

Use the one that is faster.

Again, consumer use. Not gaming. Not benchmarking.

Use the system that gets what I need done (work, not play), while having a stable, reliable, and consistent experience.

 

[Paliv]

No brand loyalty.

Use the one that is faster.

Again, consumer use. Not gaming. Not benchmarking.

Use the system that gets what I need done (work, not play), while having a stable, reliable, and consistent experience.

Then you could probably use an ARM chip and not notice. You don’t need a 13600K for word and outlook.

 

[BreakingDad]

Tom’s hardware has had trustworthy cpu benchmarks for decades. Intel makes a good product, so does AMD. Brand loyalty is nonsensical.

As have cpubenchmark, at least 15 years. Nothing against Intel tbh, but to avoid turning the thread into a silly amd vs intel thread just going to know the facts in my head and keep the mouth closed.

Hopefully we can revert to peripheral talk again, or talk game ports being dire rn

 

[sfx2000]

It's a great time in the industry - having viable choices for both CPU (Intel/AMD) and GPU (nVidia/AMD) - without having to make compromises or excuses - mix and match as needed for budget and games of choice.

We're all winning with the competition between AMD and Intel - esp in the middle tier, where the pricing is good across both - same with nVidia vs AMD (I haven't seen Intel ARC, so can't comment there)...

1080P/Full HD - any of these can do great with the middle range of CPU/GPU combos - keeping in mind that the most important part of gaming is the user, not the hardware - to that end I opened the discussion on peripherals, as the human interface is the key to being the most effective game player.

 

[Paliv]

It's a great time in the industry - having viable choices for both CPU (Intel/AMD) and GPU (nVidia/AMD) - without having to make compromises or excuses - mix and match as needed for budget and games of choice.

We're all winning with the competition between AMD and Intel - esp in the middle tier, where the pricing is good across both - same with nVidia vs AMD (I haven't seen Intel ARC, so can't comment there)...

1080P/Full HD - any of these can do great with the middle range of CPU/GPU combos - keeping in mind that the most important part of gaming is the user, not the hardware - to that end I opened the discussion on peripherals, as the human interface is the key to being the most effective game player.

I would argue we aren’t winning with the gpu manufacturers who got too happy with the high prices during the pandemic. I know prices have come back down, but the RTX 3070 launching for $500 with performance near a 2080ti was a boon in value we may not see again. But since it started choking at 1440p due to limited vram, maybe that explains some things.

 

[Paliv]

@BreakingDad I try to keep in mind I don’t want to get many games at launch. It takes at least a month for most of the wrinkles to be ironed out, if you’re lucky.

 

[sfx2000]

I would argue we aren’t winning with the gpu manufacturers who got too happy with the high prices during the pandemic.

Black swan event - a severe supply constraint on not only the big silicon chips, but everything else down to the popcorn parts, the resistors, caps, inductors, PCB's and the people to make them - if they're locked down at home, they're not in the factory producing goods...

Combine that with a huge demand surge driven by Crypto and just increased customer demand because the customers were locked down at home as well and needing IT gear for home school and work when the buildings were closed down.

Things are starting to sort out - some areas are even seeing oversupply - NAND for example - a couple of weeks back I picked up a 500GB PNY SSD for $22 USD - imagine that... street prices are well below MSRP in many cases.

Speaking of NAND - there's a price war going on between the major incumbents (Micron, Samsung, WD/Kioxa, SK Hynix, Solidigm (ex-intel)) - the incumbents against the Chinese YMTC - YMTC is selling below cost to build market share, and they actually have a competitive 3D NAND part and like everything in China, they have huge capacity so the incumbents are trying to price them out of the market - much like the DRAM price fixing issue many years back.

 

[sfx2000]

Combine that with a huge demand surge driven by Crypto and just increased customer demand

And I'll add that yes, nVidia is doing extremely well these days because of the shift from mining to AI - and there, it's the industrial scale GPU's that are the margin leaders and competing for wafer capacity for us consumers that are looking for the retail gaming cards.

 

[L&LD]

Then you could probably use an ARM chip and not notice. You don’t need a 13600K for word and outlook.

That's the problem, I would notice. Nothing 'ARM' is worth buying today in a Windows world.

And, the 'need' is for stability and speed. One without another is meaningless.

Yes, it's great to have choices. I chose the more salient platform. And that is after actually using them all.

My original comments in Post#201 stand. This isn't about just raw performance. This is about the environment that AMD/Intel operates in. After being burned with AMD more than once, my choice is Intel, for good reasons (already given). My point isn't AMD vs. Intel, hardware. My point is the experience once you've bought into that hardware. AMD has a lot of growing up to do, still.

 

[BreakingDad]

I opened the discussion on peripherals, as the human interface is the key to being the most effective game player.

Interestingly I performed a rather unscientific test, I went to https://humanbenchmark.com/ and ran the reaction test, at my age I wasn't expecting anything amazing, I was hitting around 250ms (the average for a human) on my standard office dell pc at work. So I wondered how I would fare at home on my gaming rig. I was hitting around 160ms reaction time using a pretty modern system with fast monitor, mouse etc. Goes to show, peripherals can make a difference.

I try to keep in mind I don’t want to get many games at launch

Yes I agree, but sometimes they bribe you with launch freebies. Finally at least MW2 seems stable.

 

[Maverick009]

Getting back to the main topic -- while CPU/GPU/Mainboard topics are fun...

I'll throw a firecracker in the room...

Screens, Keyboards, Mice, Audio...

Any particular favorites there - this is how we interact with the computer, and likely the most important aspect, so it would be fun to discuss particular preferences here.

For Me, I have been sticking with some paticular brands. I was at one point all in with Corsair since my most recent PC build, but as I have been recently upgrading hardware overtime, I took a look back at the everyday hardware as well, and was using a Corsair mechanical K70 Rapidfire wired Keyboard and Dark Core RGB Pro SE wireless mouse along with Virtuoso SE wireless headset, but have begun a switch back over to Logitech. I currently have upgraded to the Logitech G915 Clicky wireless mechanical keyboard, which has turned out to be a great investment and puts me back on full wireless. I do plan on eventually upgrading my mouse to the G502 X Plus wireless mouse and I may upgrade to the G Pro wireless headset as well. Part of the reason moving back was Logitech is a great brand still actively developing hardware, and it allowed me to go wireless with little to no compromises at all. The other part is I have a Logitech Brio 4K webcam, and plan on getting other logitech gaming peripherals for driving sims and flight sims and only want to deal with one main app. As great as icue is, I am trying to lower the need for multiple apps, and with Windows 11 about to have RGB controls baked in, I may be able to eliminate icue and the disastrous RGBfusion from Gigabyte.

I also have Logitech's Z906 5.1 Surround sound speakers, which are great.
As for screens, my setup may be slightly different as I have dual 32" Dell S3220 curved HDR Freesync 165hz 1440P monitors that I use for gaming and when working from home using a dual monitor free floating stand. I do eventually plan to upgrade them to 4K HDR600/1000 monitors at some point as prices are falling but no rush. The monitors were being powered by my Geforce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB card, but I retired that into my unraid NAS/Gaming server and now have a Radeon 7900 XTX Red Devil OC 24GB card.

 

[Tech9]

I also have Logitech's Z906 5.1 Surround sound speakers, which are great.

I still have one set of Logitech Z5500 5.1 in perfect condition. The THX 505W RMS monster "PC speakers":

Used to be my home theater audio system for a number of years. Logitech used to make great speakers indeed.