Jesse221

I recently struggled to decide going back to AMD (7900xt) or stay Nvidia and get a 4070ti. My two reasons were same as yours dlss and encoder. I preferred AMD adrenaline software when I had my previous AMD card but switch due to lack of support for the encoder when I built my next PC. In the end I’ve switched back because now more software is supporting AMD and I tested on my AMD laptop first to verify the software was truly using the encoder acceleration so even though maybe not as fast as Nvidia it’s good enough for hobby level. Then the second issue of dlss is becoming more and more a non issue for it Intel XESS 1.3 showing impressive improvements and FSR improvements coming and unlike Nvidia (so far anyway) they don’t kneecap their previous cards so for me on an rtx 20 series dlss still kind of looks like crap since it’s just the basic dlss whereas AMD has a better history of long term card support and improvement. I’ll be installing this weekend so hopefully made the right choice.

Ok well I did a test video on my new laptop that’s AMD cpu/gpu and the editing software run quick so seems I’ll be ok. Ordered 7900xt, back on team red.

Or the better question is am I losing anything in video rendering vs my current 2060s? As long as I’m not taking a step backwards it wouldn’t be as big a deal.

Ok so the 7900xt is even better than the gre so you’d lean that way vs the 4070ti? I found them within 25.00 of each other so the only really hold ups are video rendering and dlss. Are we talking a couple minutes difference rendering or like a half hour like before?

Hmm no inputs, was hoping to buy one today but tough call which.

Ok so I’ve narrowed down my options to either a 4070ti or 7900xt. I can get either with a waterblock for about 700ish dollars. In the past I’ve used an R9 390 and that thing rocked and lasted a long time since it had 8gb memory which was a lot for the time. Now I’m using a 2060s and I really should have gotten a better gpu at the time but I had built the whole system and it was my first water cooled etc so some money went into that and then GPU pricing went insane etc etc so I’ve just been waiting the last few years. Now prices have come down and I’m able to find some either lightly used or open box for a good price. One of the major reasons to switch to Nvidia was at the time the two video editing softwares I used didn’t support AMD (video studio and pinnacle) now they do but I’m not sure if Nvidia is still better or not. I don’t really use raytracing in games (2060s can’t really handle it anyway) so not a deal breaker. I still think AMD has better software UI where Nvidia still feels like it’s from the 90’s but also not a deal breaker. No interest in 4k as that’s just a bigger money pit. so for 2560x1440 ultrawide light gaming (don’t game as much as I did but still like to occasionally) mainly warzone, 2142, helldivers 2 some hobby video editing on snowboarding, kayaking and MTB trips and watching movies (either one here obviously just stating what the PC is used for). what’s the non biased take? The extra memory has me wonder if the 7900xt is the better route but then I’m not sure how well AMD current encoder is vs cuda (in the past it sucked) and then also with dlss now I’m not sure what more important for future proofing games dlss or vram. The only reason I can even play warzone now with a 2060s at 1440 is because dlss. rest of the system is ryzen 7 3800x 32gb ram

Cool. Thanks for all the reply’s I’ve actually been hoping to go back to amd gpu simply because I like the tuning software built in and my last r9 390 was such a great price to performance card although I do have to admit the nvidia has had very stable drivers and just always worked. I’d like ray tracing if I can use it but not interested in running having to run lower resolution or lower other settings to use it which seems the situation I’m in now where the 2060s was able to run cod mw with ray tracing and high graphics at 1080 but once I switched to 1440 it has to stay off but can still run high settings however now newer games like bf2042, cyberpunk, cod mw2 are starting to push its limits and have to run settings on low. So obviously if I go amd then ray tracing is a no but that’s not necessarily a deal breaker since I imagine I’d need a 3090 or above in nvidia to use 1440 with ray tracing and high and then that’s getting a bit expensive. My budget isn’t set and I’m more letting the need determine the budget since there’s no point buying another card and not having it run in the settings I want since I don’t “need” a gpu now and mine will plays what I want but just at lower settings than desired but I’m hoping some price drops to get something that fill the roll at abut 700.00

Hey guys I’m curious about what would be a good match for my current system (ryzen 3800x, 32gb ram). I currently have a 2060s and it was a good card and still manages to play well but with my new monitor as of last year an ultra wide 1440 I can no longer run games with high-maxed settings, especially not bf2042 or cod mwII so I’ve just been waiting for gpu pricing to go down and if I find something worth getting then I’ll consider it. My system is water cooled so I’ll probably be looking at reference or very popular cards to ensure a gpu block exist. I’m just curious what’s the best match for 1440 cards today that can play on high-ultra and hold around 100-140fps? I’m thinking the next 4070 or whatever is next from amd but just want to make sure the 4080 and above are really only needed for 4K (4K cards not really 1440) and would be a waste of money.

Yea I hear you. So far mine has been working well since a fresh win10 install but that would really suck to have to do just because of the x3. The x3 is really loaded with features but they may have rushed to get it out there as it’s no where near as stable as the ae-5 was. I guess this is what we get for being early adopters, I’m just hoping creative keeps with it and works it out which I imagine they should since it’s their latest tech/dsp.

I was having this same issues to. Eventually it fixed itself and then started acting up again after the installing the latest firmware. Now it’s working again after a clean install of win10 (for a different reason). So far it’s been a good amp/dac but it’s very buggy. The way around this for me was to go through that stupid screen and then the 3 leds would stay flashing red on the x3 until I used the phone app to load the profile. Extremely frustrating and stupid but I’ve read others having the same issues so eventually creative will have to fix it. I’ve also heard others say after removing command and the drivers and doing a new install then it fixes it but I never tried that with the new firmware but it never worked for me with the old and just one day outa the blue it started working with the old firmware, no idea why.

So I have the sound blaster x3 amp/dac and I’m a little confused even after googling so maybe someone can clarify some settings that shouldn’t only be x3 specific. So in headphone mode it will be using its own internal amp so the volume would be adjust the amp output but in the eq setting there is a pre amp slider ranging from +9db - -9db. How does the relationship between the pre amp setting in the eq function vs amp output? Then in speaker mode the eq has the same setting but I believe the volume would also be a pre amp setting since the speakers have their own amp. So would this be a pre amp to a pre amp setting? I am assuming all amp/dacs/soundcards must have similar settings so hopefully someone can explain the relationship between them all. Also is there a rule of thumb to volume output in speaker mode? I know in the past If I remember right in car audio the deck output you wanted to keep no more than 75% to prevent clipping, so you’d set your amps to the loudest you’d want with the deck at 75% and then you could control volume down from the deck. So would this be true here too where you don’t want the PC volume to be more than 75% (or other number) or is this doing something different?

I got the koss gmr 545 air and they have been great. I tried the closed back version too and they’re good as well but the 545 air sound much better to me for games or movies and sound better than other ones I’ve tried in the past. I also have their studio headphones. I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with stuff from them and they’re not as expensive as some other brands and headphones are their specialty.

Ok so maybe some audiophiles can help me out or clarify some things. So I have the AE-5 and it’s been an awesome sound card for me, it does just about everything well. I generally leave it in the DSP mode so the ability to reach 384khz isn’t a big deal to me. I have recently picked up the X3 for some of its features and I’m just not sure which is overall the better audio solution. movies the X3 wins, the ability to use Dolby digital for external and the SXFI for headphones is a clear winner vs the AE-5 however the AE-5 sbx is pretty close and I don’t watch a ton of movies with heaphones. games it’s kind of a toss up but I think again the X3. I’ve tried the sxfi in games and maybe a couple it sounds good but for the most part sbx is still better but what’s odd is both cards support sbx but for whatever reason I seem to get better directional sound out of the X3 especially in FPS games like COD or BF. I really don’t understand why that is and maybe I need to do a back to back compare but it was only a day apart and the X3 seems like it has better directionality. and now the part where I’m not so sure about the X3 and maybe not satisfied. In music with headphones I tend to use the sbx but only for the crystalizer at not more than 50%. With the AE-5 I get really great sound out of my koss pro4studio headphones. With the X3 it sounds really good but something just feels off, it’s like they’re loud but lacking power or life. It gives very good soundstage for distortion type guitar like Neil Young with crazy horse, maybe even better than the AE-5 in that sense but plucked instruments don’t sound as sharp and crisp/powerful same with effects types music (not talking bass). is this a result of the change in amp or the dac? I’m not sure why they ditched the x amp since that seemed like a better amp and really the only thing lacking in the x3. Unless it’s the ess dac that I prefer. I think I’ll have to install both so I can try one right after another but I was trying to avoid driver conflicts etc. So maybe I’m just mistaken but curious looking at hardware specs is there any validity to the AE-5 sounding better for headphone music? last question on the side of the EQ for the X3 there is a slider of +9db to -9db and when I raise it to about +2db I seem to get a little more of the power/life back but I’m not 100% sure what this slider does pros vs cons. It’s not really the same as just more volume so what’s this doing?

I also just updated my asus x570 chipset drivers just recently and actually found they added another power plan (ryzen power saver) so now I have three versions of ryzen specific power plans where before I just had two (ryzen high performance and ryzen balances). Bios and win10 fully up to date so I’m not thinking I should be on win10 balanced.

Yea I got the 2060 super and I can’t complain about the ray tracing in bf5 and new COD. Maybe the next AMD GPU’s will use ray tracing and gain more market share and get more software devs to utilize their encoder. Their new CPU’s are kicking butt again so that’s a positive and their software suite needs to get more attention, all in one package of monitoring, OCing, fan controls etc no relying on 3rd party for anything. Until then the 2060s is a good buy