NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 gets first 3DMark scores, GTX 1660Ti performance with DLSS/raytracing?

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3050-gets-first-3dmark-scores-gtx-1660ti-performance-with-dlss-raytracing

1660Ti performance with Ray Tracing + DLSS. 8GB of Vram and shat at mining? All while Cryto is crashing? Maybe just maybe, this could be the perfect budget card!

NVIDIA quietly increases prices of GeForce RTX 30 Founders Edition cards in Europe

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-quietly-increases-prices-of-geforce-rtx-30-founders-edition-cards-in-europe

Tech Focus: Nvidia DLDSR - What Does AI Downsampling Actually Do?

DLDSR 2.25x+smoothing gets close to (and in some areas is better than) 4x DSR without smoothing while having significantly better performance

The machine learning step in the downsampling provides automatic edge detection and antialiasing that decreases shimmering

If you combine it with TAA upsampling or DLSS you can get big image quality wins with a much lesser performance impact than normal super sampling. This means for those of you who used to do 4X DSR + DLSS performance for maximum image quality can do this instead for much better fps

Yea I do think that cloud gaming will eventually take off once they find the right formula and I think Nvidia's (and maybe Xbox/PSNow?) formula is the correct one.

Imo the "Stadia" formula is the one that is the least likely to take off. We have seen it time and time again that most people don't like the idea of paying for a full cloud only version of a game. While you don't need to buy the console hardware, the idea of losing all progress/game and such if the cloud provider goes down is a hard pill to swallow. But I think Nvidia has the correct idea. You buy your games on Steam so you own it and any progress you make on GeForce Now gets saved onto your Steam cloud save. So if Geforce now ever goes down, you still have access to everything.

And in the PC market, cloud might be the most viable option when the mining craze happens and GPUs are impossible to find.

$100 every 6 months or $200 per year means you get access to a $2000-$3000 PC with a 3080. A 3080 alone costs $700 MSRP. So after about 4 years of using Geforce now, you get the price to be the same as owning a 3080 back in 2020. Then if you include the CPU and such, probably more so around 7-8 years of gaming. And you don't have to worry about driver updates, maintenance on your PC or any of that. Of course, you can only play games and only the games that are approved to use Geforce Now. So not every Steam game will work which is the biggest caveat. But I do think that for a certain type of buyer, Cloud gaming can do a lot of wonders. Especially as Cloud starts matching local input latency and streaming quality.

Thanks but I'll pass.

I don't know exactly what it is, but there's something in this game that puts me away.

Every time I see coin crashing, I'm just brought back to this glorious scene and how futile the future of mining looks. 

I think this generation has taught PC gamers a very important lesson and that is the fact that PC is no longer a platform that can supply everyone. Even during the last big mining boom, you could buy decently priced GPUs but this time around? Nope. The GPU market got roflstomped. I think the main contributer was the fact that last time, Nvidia GPUs weren't all that great at mining and Bitcoin was really the only profitable coin which continued to get harder to mine relatively quickly.

This time though, not only was Nvidia GPUs crazy good at mining, you also had ETH which was much easier to mine and the difficulty increase isn't as rapid. There's of course more reasons but assuming crypto dies down and ETH moves to staking, the lesson here is, buy a GPU that will last you a generation. Because Crypto is certainly here to stay for better or for worse. And every time a mining boom happens... It lasts longer than the previous one and affects a larger portion of the market.

I am certainly going to aim for the 4090 on my next go but we shall see.

It also doesn't help that Nvidia just recently stated it's going to increase the prices of it's 30 series across the EU, which means double the punishment for us here, and no one will win, except nvidia. 

Miners won't learn though. They remind me if those who decide to frack or drill for oil, only to find out at the last possible moment that it was a big mistake, yet never learn beforehand from previous knowledge/history. 

We're sadly a species inherently doomed to repeat certain sequences and actions, so seeing the miners like this doesn't really surprise me anymore. They'll just pick up the pieces and waste time/resources/energy again, just to get a smidgen of what they think will be some vast fortune. 

At the end of the day, the world in it's current state isn't likely to accept their digital wealth as being on the same level of say, Bill gate's amassed wealth, and I really do wish that people would see that. The get rich quick schemes never truly work out, not for long anyway. 

I'm pretty certain that even if mining holds on for another 5- years, it's going to be radically changed into a form where those who once thought they could get rich, will just become another lower/middle class. I don't see Govs allowing the entire populace to get rich within the next 10 or more yrs, because then how is the global eco going to work if everyone can just mine digital currency?.

These people do not know what they are messing with (Don't want to come off as a crackpot or The Question, but these people really do not know the bigger picture).

I'll say a few things that are controversial just to play a bit of a devils advocate.

GPU mining is in a situation where it's sort of a risk free investment for majority of miners. The math is more or less there as to how many days it will take until they get their ROI back and even if they do or don't, GPUs can be sold at a profit or at worst case, slight loss. Like for example, with my mining with one 3080, I was able to make 3x the return from it's original value that I bought it for. And don't even let it mine all that much. Only really when I am working and during coldish days (Granted in Canada, that's 9/12 months lol). Now imagine someone that has a bunch of GPUs that are mining 24/7.

The trick isn't to cash out only when you have enough to get rich, the trick is to cash out once you have reached your return on investment and then the rest is profit. Typically with a 3080, that's about 4 months of consistent mining if the crypto market stays the same which for my case, the value went up so it took less time. Then once you cash out and the rest is profit. Even if Crypto market dies at that point and you sell a 3080 for $300, you will make $300 profit. Now I am not saying buy GPUs and start mining right now but if you time it correctly, you should be profitable.

I do think at some point, governments will do something about it but it's hard to tell exactly what. Like we see China, India, Russia etc all ban crypto but the reality is, this isn't the first time they "banned" crypto. The issue is that they only "ban" it when it becomes a problem and then once crypto goes back to reasonable levels, they loosen it up. And a lot of governments like US/Canadian and etc are looking to more so regulate it then ban it completely.

Personally I do think crypto is here to stay and I don't mind mining... But I don't like when people buy GPU in droves to mine. I think mining with one GPU as a form of side income is fine because it's one of many benefits of owning a PC. Using it to play games is great but when it's not playing games, may as well use it to make money so I can buy more stuff. But it's when people start buying them in droves is when I raise my fist but sadly, is it what it is.

PSA: Don't play Dark Souls 3 until a new remote code execution vulnerability is patched
https://www.pcgamer.com/psa-dont-play-dark-souls-3-until-a-new-remote-code-execution-vulnerability-is-patched/
This new security vulnerability in Dark Souls 3, as outlined on Twitter by user @SkeleMann and in multiple threads, including one pinned by moderators, on the Dark Souls 3 subreddit, seems to operate on the level of full-on malware and could pose a serious risk to anyone playing the game in its online mode. The well-respected Blue Sentinel mod, which has been able to counteract similar, if less serious vulnerabilities in the past, has just been updated to address the issue as of this afternoon.