Personally if you can get a 3080Ti for $600-$700sh which could be possible, it wouldn't be a bad idea to bite. But a 4070 will be more efficient in terms of power as that will be around 300 watts while a 3080 Ti will be around 400 watts and both are rumoured have similar performance. But you will have a much easier time to get a 3080 Ti than a 4070 no doubt. And the 3080Ti will most likely have more Vram than a 4070 (12GB vs 10GB). So getting a 3080 Ti for $600-$700 just so you can get a GPU instead of fighting with scalpers and avoiding the potential price increases might be a good idea.

And I know there's a rumour that says 3080 12GB has been discontinued but it is still selling.

https://www.newegg.com/msi-geforce-rtx-3080-rtx-3080-ventus-3x-plus-12g-oc-lhr/p/N82E16814137712?Description=3080%2012gb&cm_re=3080_12gb-_-14-137-712-_-Product

Everyone laughed at the guy that spent $700 on a 2080 Ti back when Ampere was announced until the scalpers and crypto boom increased the 3070 prices to $1000+.

Friday news, all in one post:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG has three new Deal of the Day and the Weeklond deal:

• The first Deal of the Day is Shadow Man Remastered, 25% off during 46 hours: https://www.gog.com/en/game/shadow_man_remastered
• The second DotD is MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, 33% off until Monday: https://www.gog.com/en/game/mechwarrior_5_mercenaries
• The third, and last, DotD is Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition, with a 35% discount until the 18th: https://www.gog.com/en/game/soldier_of_fortune_platinum_edition
• The Weekend Sale features games to play in co-op with up to 90% discounts: https://www.gog.com/promo/20220715_weekend_sale

Steam has five new deals:

• The first weekend deal is Zombie Army 4: Dead War, 66% off until Monday: https://store.steampowered.com/app/694280/Zombie_Army_4_Dead_War/
• Unity of Command II, 67% off until the 18th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/809230/Unity_of_Command_II/
• The Season of Pride Sale brings up to 80% discounts until Monday, 18th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/seasonofpride2022
• The Save & Sound Sale features up to 90% discounts on games and soundtracks until July 18: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/SaveandSound
• And Buddy Simulator 1984, that has a demo, will be 30% off until the 21st of July: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1269950/Buddy_Simulator_1984/

Fanatical's new Star Deal is The Quarry, 41% off during 24 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/the-quarry

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

NVIDIA GeForce 516.79 HOTFIX
https://videocardz.com/driver/nvidia-geforce-516-79-hotfix

The hotfix addresses the following issues:

• [Apex Legends] Improves gameplay stability [3661210]
• [Overwatch] Game may freeze on launching a match [3696921]
• [Dungeons 3] Game will crash on startup [3691274]
• [Red Dead Redemption 2] Performance improvement when using DLSS is lower compared to previous drivers [3700239]
• [Destiny 2] Game may randomly freeze after launching game or during gameplay. [3685638]
• [Halo Infinite] Increased stability during gameplay [3603261]

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

-Empty-

GAMING NEWS

A new official Aliens game has been announced, using Unreal Engine 5
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/a-new-aliens-game-has-been-announced-using-unreal-engine-5/
20th Century Games and Survios have announced a new game that will be based on the Aliens franchise. This new Aliens game will be coming on PC, consoles and VR, and will be using Unreal Engine 5.

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's release date is in line with 'historical precedent', says game director
https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcraft-dragonflights-release-date-is-in-line-with-historical-precedent-says-game-director/
Since the surprising announcement that World of Warcraft: Dragonflight will launch in 2022, there has been some concern that the upcoming expansion is being rushed out the door. Shadowlands hasn't been great and it's easy to assume that, like us, Blizzard wants to close the door on the current expansion as soon as possible.
"We've seen concern in the community of like, oh, is it too soon? Is it going to be rushed? I understand looking solely at alpha and beta timelines, how that might seem to be the case." WoW's game director, Ion Hazzikostas tells PC Gamer. "But if you take a step back and ask: is two years after the last expansion too soon for the next one? Well, no, that's in line with a kind of historical precedent there."

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight isn't being designed for players obsessed with topping DPS meters
https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcraft-dragonflight-isnt-being-designed-for-players-obsessed-with-topping-dps-meters/
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is bringing back talent trees, similar to those we saw in the early expansions. Blizzard has been revealing the new class trees steadily over the last month or so, with varying reactions from players. One of the more controversial of these belongs to the priest, which is keeping the Power Infusion ability, allowing the player to grant a 20-second haste buff to any character.

The Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires campaign everyone's been waiting for finally has a release date
https://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-warhammer-3-immortal-empires-release-date/
Total War: Warhammer 3's gargantuan Immortal Empires campaign is five weeks away. We've known since last month that it would be appearing in August, and in a developer Q&A published today Creative Assembly finally gave us the specific date: August 23.

Skate will be 'an authentic evolution' of the series, but is definitely not Skate 4
https://www.pcgamer.com/skate-will-be-an-authentic-evolution-of-the-series-but-is-definitely-not-skate-4/
Electronic Arts has revealed more about its upcoming Skate reboot, including that it will be a free-to-play live game—and why it's not called Skate 4.
We've actually been calling it Skate 4 for awhile now, because there were three previous games when EA first began teasing this one, and numerical sequences are generally how the industry works. But creative director Cuz Perry emphasized that the new Skate is something altogether different.

Worldwide corn enthusiasts gather next week at FarmCon 22, the Lollapalooza of videogame agriculture
https://www.pcgamer.com/worldwide-corn-enthusiasts-gather-next-week-at-farmcon-22-the-lollapalooza-of-videogame-agriculture/
(...)
The big FarmCon show will kick off on July 21 with a two-hour stream on Twitch offering a first look at the upcoming Farming Simulator Platinum Edition expansion, which will include new machines and a new map, plus with an unveiling of two new content packs, a feature on modding, a look at real-life farm equipment manufacturer Kubota (which just recently added its equipment to the Farming Simulator series), and a retrospective on "precision farming."

Feed weird creatures to other creatures to make more powerful creatures in this new open-world survival game
https://www.pcgamer.com/feed-weird-creatures-to-other-creatures-to-make-more-powerful-creatures-in-this-new-open-world-survival-game/
Chimeraland is a new open-world survival game from Chinese developer Pixel Soft and Tencent's publishing brand Level Infinite that sets players off in a sprawling, prehistoric world based on Eastern mythology filled with magical, impossible beasts that roam the land, air, and sea.

PUBG's new map lets you slingshot across it
https://www.pcgamer.com/pubgs-new-map-lets-you-slingshot-across-it/
(...)
New map Deston is a ruined and lavishly detailed cityscape, filled with points of interest (swampland, a festival, a hydroelectric dam,) and all about introducing a more vertical element to matches. It's got tonnes of skyscrapers and other tall buildings, and introduces ziplines that can zoom your character up the side of buildings, as well as towers that you can zipline up and shoot out of the top of.

And that's it. Until Monday I wish you a happy and gaming weekend.

Yeah, tbf, that's around what I got my 1080ti for (around £600ish).

I just don't see the 4070 coming out for ages and then not being scalped, and I'm not up for falling into that scenario where I wait for a 4070, it gets scalped, shrug shoulders, try to get a 3080ti, it's nowhere to be seen, go back to waiting another 2 yrs for stock/fair prices all over again.

Scalpers and pricing are my biggest concerns, as well as the wattage with the 4000 series.

Take care! And don't forget to stay hydrated.

You have to keep in mind that TSMC raised the prices during the last two years (that why AMD "had" to increase the cost of its GPUs) and they've done it not too long ago. Between that and Nvidia betting a lot on TSMC's 5 and 4nm, it's easy to see why the prices of their GPUs will increase. 

Also, don't forget that Nvidia and AMD estimate that demand will be lower than with the last cards and wanted to reduce the orders from TSMC, which may have said no, explaining again the increased price of the GPUs (they'll make a lot but sell less, having to recoup the cost of those unsold GPUs with the other ones).

I wouldn't put a lot of thought on that Zen4 leak because it's a very GPU heavy benchmark. That only tells us that Zen4 may be better for games, but we don't know how it will behave in other tests.

Also, regarding when the new GPUs will launch, PCGamer has an article about it: The Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU may not be launching this year after all. Mind you, their souce is MLID.

When I read his name, I understood why Unity is acting like crazy and going like shit. He almost destroyed EA with his obssessin with monetization and now is doing the same with Unity.

Yea and the other main advantage of getting a 3080Ti which no one talks about and you may cringe at but it is a worth noting... Is that 3080Ti will be much better at mining than a 4070 with it's 384bit memory bus vs 192bit memory bus. So if the crypto boom happens and the prices go up. I am willing to bet that your 3080Ti will retain a much better value to miners than a 4070. Kind of like how a 5700XT and Vega GPUs were going for crazy prices during the mining boom. So you could always sell it when the prices go up and potentially get a higher tier Lovelace GPU like a 4080.

But it is a gamble and rumours aren't exactly reliable. So I'd suggest waiting until you are close to the Lovelace announcement before making your purchase.

Intel Officially Unveils Arc A750 Limited Edition Graphics Card Performance Benchmarks, Up To 17% Faster Than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 at 1440p

https://wccftech.com/intel-arc-a750-limited-edition-graphics-card-performance-benchmarks-official-unveil-faster-than-nvidia-rtx-3060/

Remember when leakers were saying 3070 Ti performance... While this isn't the top, Intel GPUs are struggling

Not seen that one, might give it a watch.

Yeah Nvidia seems to be pushing for flat out performance over efficiency for gains for Ada and they will most likely will reshuffle prices again, for each tier. Agreed, its definitely worth waiting it out. Hold out for a good deal on a 3080 or 3090. Otherwise if you can get a hold of a RTX 4070 at MSRP for around $550-$600. Which would be quite a good deal; as it should be moderately faster than a 3080, in raster and 3090 in RT. Only thing is that it'll have 10GB GDDR6 vs 10 or 12GB GDDR6X of the 3080.

There will be some improvements again on RT again (if murmurs are correct) so it'll be just juggling whether its worth the expense and hassle of dealing with pre-orders and fighting against other people including scalpers. I'm personally leaning towards a RTX 4070 myself but if I can't get one and I see a great deal on an Ampere card, I be swayed to go that direction.

But yeah a 3000 series card will be good for a long time. Until maybe Nvidia figures out chiplets, these huge monolithic top end GPU's will only get bigger pricier and more power hungry.

Semi watched that Jaytwocents "DON'T WAIT!!! ACT NOW!" video and wth.. thats some terrible advice. Buying a high end GPU now is probably the worst time to do it. Not sure if he's being serious or just straight up shilling there.

Telling people to don't think and run out and buy two year old overinflated GPU's now when we're so close to Ada/RDNA 3 launch is just.. smh. These GPU's are sitting there in stockpiles due to crash in mining and peoples lack of interest in them. And only recently gone back to its original prices. The prices are going to get lower closer to launch when people start to panic sell. And much lower by the end of the year.

Besides that prices are already crazy enough as it is, never mind these GPU manufacturers thinking they can get away with selling their 2 year old GPU tech for MSRP.

Anyone buying a GPU now is either uninformed, forced to do so (their GPU has broken and need to be replaced now) or has found an excellent deal. That's it.

I think that applies to PCs in general tbh. With Zen 4 and Raptor Lake on the horizon, buying CPUs right now feels like a bad time as well since they get massively discounted when the next gen comes out. The only component you could get is a power supply cause those prices may increase when Zen 4/RaptorLake/Lovelace/RDNA3 releases since they are all going up in wattage. You can easily find a 850 Watt PSU from Evga that's fully modular for $90.

Personally I'd get 1000 watt and be done with it cause it's not like your PSU will be using 1000 watt unless it's needed.