Yeah, hopefully, that's the case! I'll probably stick with EVGA or something similar for aftermarket, I find they have a good balance between cooling and clocks. I never push my cards too hard, I've had one smoke out on me once.

If the 3080TI was available now with those specs I would probably choose that over 3090 but if I can get a 3090 by mid December I going to do that.  My logic is I got leave that expire January 3rd so am taking off work December 18 - January 3rd. Normally I would do some traveling but COVID so instead 2 weeks of Cyberpunk 2077 assuming they don't delay it again. The money I would of spent traveling more then covers the difference between 3080ti and 3090 so totally worth it so I can have a good GPU to play Cyberpunk with when am off work.

Now that I think about it, I'm probably going to skip this years GPU's and go straight for Ampere refresh. There's only one game (Cyberpunk) that I want to play that will push these cards anyway.

Yeah, I'm using their products where I can for this exact reason. I mean, it's in their name, after all.

Just wish they'd used the Shadow Wings fans on their AIOs instead of Pure Wings, would be even more quiet then. But maybe that will come out as Shadow loop at a later date.

I do expect the 12GB 3060(Ti) GPUs to only come in limited numbers, atleast until GDDR6X has gotten cheaper and the production capacity has catched up to their demands - which I don't expect to happen any sooner than summer next year.

On the other hand, considering the meager difference between the 3060 and 3050Ti (3840 vs 3584 Cuda cores, so only 8% less in that regard), the 12GB would be able to make all the difference here on the longer run. I'm fully expecting the 3050Ti to become NVidia's volume card for this generation due to being much more affordable than the bigger cards but also powerful enough to keep up in most games, so exactly what OEMs are looking for.

Either way, the 3060 is in a weird and bad position. Too little power advantage against the 3050Ti out of the box and with 12GB getting into the price range of the next bigger card means that both the 3050Ti and the 3070 will eat up most of it's market share. It certainly won't reach those 15% the 1060 had on steam with such a narrow market for itself.

It'll be interesting to see how the RX6700 will fair against the RTX 3060 (also 12GB GDDR6)

Yes, finally some talk of the good cards. Slowly moving towards the legendary 5050 Ti and its Amd equivalent. 

RDNA 3 is going to offer a similar jump like from 1 to 2, supposedly. Both AMD and Nvidia (with Hopper) are rumoured to be using chiplet designs.

Isn't z73 their newest model where you can put custom gifs, animations or temps on the lcd screen instead of jist the rgb?

Another day, another round of news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

Assassin's Creed Valhalla doubles Odyssey's day one player count
https://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-valhalla-doubles-odysseys-day-one-player-count/
Just two days after launch, Ubisoft already has reason to call Assassin's Creed Valhalla a record breaker—Eivor's Viking saga has already doubled AC: Odyssey's day one player count, according to a new press release. Additionally, Ubisoft says Valhalla's launch has "reached high levels of viewership and engagement on Twitch and YouTube that surpass any Ubisoft game launch to date."

Steam has two new sales:

• The King of Fighters franchise is up to 75% off for the next 4 days: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/king-of-fighters/
• And, once again, we have the Armistice Sale to support War Child UK. The sale will last 4 days and bring between 15 and 90% discounts: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/armistice

And Fanatical's new Star Deal is Torchlight I & II Pack, 93% off for the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/torchlight-1-and-2-pack

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

Cinebench R23 benchmark adds thermal torture test and support for Apple’s new M1 chip
https://www.pcgamer.com/cinebenchr23-adds-thermal-torture-test/
One of the most popular cross-platform CPU benchmarks has just received a spot of tweakage. Cinebench R23 imposes a 10-minute thermal throttling runtime by default, as opposed to the traditional single-run sprint that has previously defined the benchmark, along with a 30-minute system stability mode. Also added is support for Apple’s new M1 chip, its first ARM processor for Mac systems.

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-empty-

GAMING NEWS

Fallout 76 Steel Dawn Update releases on December 1st
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/fallout-76-steel-dawn-update-releases-on-december-1st/
Bethesda has announced that the Steel Dawn Update for Fallout 76 will release on December 1st. In order to celebrate this announcement, the team has released a brand new trailer that you can find below.

PUBG Update 9.2 available on PC Test Server, adds Dirt Bike, brings new features
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/pubg-update-9-2-available-on-pc-test-server-adds-dirt-bike-brings-new-features/
PUBG Corporation has released Update 9.2 for PUBG on the PC Test Server. This new update adds the Dirt Bike, brings some new features, and introduces some performance improvements.

But that's the only difference afaik. And is that worth 120 Euro more? Not to me at the very least.