The new upcoming consoles. Can I beat em? Do I need to?

[Bombastinator]

It is axiomatic that basically all PC games are built to run on consoles first.

I have currently released consoles beat fairly handily ATM.  The upcoming stuff worries me though.

 

At this time I have a somewhat long in the tooth z97 rig with a low bin 4770k I can push to 4.0ghz but no faster and a 970 gpu.  It can game still... mostly.  It’s gpu bound rather than cpu bound though.  I strongly considered a 5700xt (I was waiting for those sub $400 partner cards that were promised but have yet to materialize) until I read microsoft’s Claim that the 5700xt will NOT be fast enough to run upcoming games on project Scarlett.  

 

The main reason i would have to upgrade at this point is point is to continue to be able to run games and it sounds like my current system is going to end of life as soon as the new consoles come out in any event, so I will Be building a system.  The impression I’m getting though is it’s going to take about $2,000 to beat project Scarlett specs now, and I wouldn’t be beating them by very much.  I can’t spend $2,000 on a new system, so I’m waiting and haunting the internet for news about Navi 21.

 

Consoles have limitations.

1.  Cost.  They can only retail for so much

2.  Size.  They can be only so large and make so much noise.  This means that 

3.  They can only produce so much heat.

 

we already know what the cpu is going to be: a heavily downclocked ryzen2 8 or 12 core.  This is easy to beat.  It can be done handily for a couple hundred bucks.

 

there are two things that are more vague though:

 

there is going to be some sort of serious mass storage improvement.  This could be anything from a sata6 SSD to some sort of optane workalike.

 

the GPU is listing as “navi21”. Not 23, but 21.  We know there are 3 variants, and judging from heat requirements of consoles I would be willing to bet on it being navi21 light.

 

the question I have is this:

can ANYTHING be reasonably be predicted about either navi21 lite or the new storage system?  Or am I just going to have to wait for Christmas 2020/New Years 2021 to find out what kind of system I am going to have to build?

 

if I KNOW a 5700xt will take whatever Sony and Microsoft are going to throw at me i’ll Just buy one and take the GPU cap off my system.  I don’t have enough spare cash not to use it if I have to do a motherboard upgrade though, so I can’t afford for it not to be enough.  Right now it’s sounding like I’m going to have to spend a couple Benjamin’s just on storage for any new system I build.

 

 

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

 

Most likely the consoles both basically use RX 5700s and their upscaling tech to get better 4k gaming at a lower price point.

Their CPUs don't really matter since they're only trying to hit 60fps.

[Bombastinator]

So a 5700xt will probably do the job but not by very much.  Ray tracing I find generally useless, and navi21 is supposed to have it, though I doubt the lite version will have much.

 

perhaps I will keep looking for a budget 5700xt then.

 

thankyou

[Streetguru]

21 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 

An RX 5700 should be like 60% faster than your 970, and a lot of the custom cards are back in stock now, the sapphire one is naturally the best.

You can flash an XT bios onto a non XT card and speed it up a bit too.

[Bombastinator]

I thought they killed that feature, and you could do it only on reference cards and not even all of those.  I am not a water cooling guy.  My system doesn’t move or receive regular maintenance so I tend to go for reliability. I tend towards overkill air cooling (my 4770k has a viper 6 pipe cooler and diamond paste on it) and enlobal fans. I like my quiet.  Reference blower style coolers are out for me.

[Bombastinator]

Ah the other thing: my memory is a small percentage performance boost generally isn’t that functionally noticeable.  You need to increase by 50% or even double speed for it to make a real difference.  This is why I’m worried that even a 5700xt might not really cut it.

[xg32]

it'll probably be a dedicated more optimized version of the 5700 xt, yields will be better, it will do 4k/60 on lower details (i'm hopeful it's not upscaling only), the ps5 will likely be 500bucks, the recent navi launch was likely a beta test for the consoles while yields improve.

 

I know it's a dreaded phrase around here but this truly is the year to wait. (first gen RTX also be a joke in retrospec, devs will work with consoles that support RTX and new cards will be out right after the consoles to not appear potato compared to consoles)

[Bombastinator]

I’m wondering if that wouldn’t produce too much heat though.  We know it’s going to be an APU.  That’s how these things work.  Assuming it’s 7nm is reasonable and that there will be thermal gains from that is also reasonable.  You’re likely right though.  Bah.  I want a better video card.  I’ve been dealing with a system lamed by garbage CPU binning for years now.  I’ve had half a mind to buy a used 4790k to replace it with but the performance boost would be negligible, especially if I’m GPU bound.  I have a nasty suspicion that with a good video card and some pcie NVME I could make my current system work at the new levels.  Won’t know till the consoles come out though.

[LeSheen]

Try waiting for black friday. I saved almost 1000 euros on my build this year. Could have saved even more if I didn't care about the theme of my build.