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Zkuq on 12 August 2023
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:
Zkuq said:

So, I got a budget Mini-ITX PC for some living room fun in the spring, and now I'm kind of arriving at the conclusion that yes, a budget SSD can be not only non-ideal but actually really bad. I got a 500 GB Kingston NV2 since it was cheap for what it offerred, and initially I was happy enough with it. However, over the months, I've been experience some random slowdowns that last for up to dozens of seconds at once, then perhaps the situation eases for a few seconds, and then it gets really bad again, and so forth. When it's bad, you can't basically do absolutely anything on the PC. For example, simply opening the Start menu can take dozens of seconds, and sometimes even the cursor stops moving. At some point the situation might get remedied entirely, and usually if I can start up a game, there are no issues whatsoever.

Anyway, recently I finally investigated the situation a bit, and it turns out that disk utilization is at exactly 100 % whenever the slowdowns occur, and then we're talking about sub-1 MB/s speeds. No wonder it's slow... When it's not terrible, it's at least several hundreds of megabytes per second, and it's supposedly capable of more, but I haven't benchmarked it properly. Not sure if a faulty disk or just bad, but some online discussions indicate that it gets really poor performance very quickly when its gets filled up, and not necessarily even very much. Gonna have to investigate further, but I kind of suspect things will improve if I uninstall some games... That, and there's some other things I might be able to try still (such as a firmware upgrade). Not at all happy though! I'm probably going to assume that cheap SSDs can be absolutely crippling, even worse than HDDs, if things get really bad (not that I was going to cheap out too much on my new desktop probably later this year).

Reading the reviews, I wouldn't have used it as an OS drive

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kingston-nv2-ssd

The ssd that you put the OS into is put under significant strain, especially on Windows as Windows loves it's background tasks and updates and etc. From the review, it sounds like you can either get QLC or TLC as well as the choice of a good controller and a mediocre controller. Since it's Dramless, if you got the double whammy combo with no way to tell until after you got it, yea it can certainly perform worse than hard drives. The OS SSD should always be top spec reliable SSD like a Samsung or Western Digital. Back in the day, a 970 would have been perfect or today, SN850. Getting cheap SSDs for secondary or third drives is perfectly fine however since those won't get hammered like the OS drive does.

You can also dual boot into a fresh OS by creating a custom petition on your SSD tho and see if a fresh OS will solve your issues. If it does, then it's likely something is hogging your SSD.

Yeah, not a great choice in any way, but I figure that it'll just be slower, not outright unusable (assuming it's not simply faulty). It's not a PC whose performance I care that much about, so I figure pretty much any SSD that's not going to break too soon will do - but perhaps I was wrong... Definitely not going to repeat the mistake though (unless it turns out that the problematic SSD is faulty after all).

Chazore said:
Zkuq said:

Wait, Titan Quest II is coming? Awesome! Now I hope they don't screw it up, since the devs of the original are (quite successfully) doing other things now. Sounds like there's a good chance it's going to be good, at the very least. It's been a long time since there's been much to look forward to in terms of new games, but the situation's been getting pretty good recently. I'm really surprised.

Aye, but it says "coming soon", which could mean this yr or possibly early next year, they haven't exactly given any date or month to run with.

Afaik it is being created by the dev team behind SpellForce 3, so I've got some confidence they can pull it off. Just gotta hope they don't pull a Diablo 4 and slap in stupid shit like a season pass/battlepass or a cash shop. I want this ARPG to be authentic like Grim Dawn and the original TQ.

Luckily I have patience (and too much to play anyway, especially with Cities: Skylines II coming soon). I'm not too worried about a season pass of whatever with this one, but of course I could be wrong, but instead, my worry is how well suited the team is for a game like Titan Quest. I haven't played Spellforce, but it sounds like it's quite (but not totally) different.



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Pemalite on 12 August 2023
numberwang said:

RDOA3 is just 1% faster compared to RDNA2 with identical clock and VRAM speeds. There is strong variation game to game, example RDR2 is 20% faster but Horizon ZD is 10-30% slower.

Overall RDNA3 is 3-10% faster irl compared to RNDA2 depending on games and resolution but all of it comes from higher clocks and power consumption. The 7600 is very similar to the 6650XT (which is an overclocked 6600).

The 6650XT is not just an overclocked 6600, it's an overclocked 6600XT. - Different chips.

The 6600 actually has less CU's, 56GB/s less banwidth... But also a 50w lower TDP than the 6600XT.

The 7600 is actually a great replacement/upgrade over the vanilla 6600, but we also need to compare them based on price... Where the 6650XT is actually cheaper than the 7600, making the 7600 a bad buy.
And if we compare it against the 6600, the 6600 is $100 AUD (25%) cheaper, so if you are on a really tight budget, might be the better choice anyway.

Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Not what I'd call a good gen on gen uplifts or good pricing either as you can get a 7900XT for $700-$750 vs $650 which is a big leap in performance if you want to go AMD.

Honestly the 7900GRE is a great card, it's just priced and named incorrectly.

It would be a fitting 7700XT or something with 6800XT levels of performance.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

hinch on 12 August 2023
JEMC said:

There's a problem with the cutting down hardware even more strategy that you fear. Since AMD would no longer fight for the high-end, they'll need to make their products compelling, and that means delivering good performance (for their tier) at good prices.

If Nvidia relaxes and cuts down their hardware even more than they've done this gen, they may find themselves getting kicked in the ass by AMD in every tier they compete, putting Nvidia in a bad position. Sure, having the faster and more powerful card is great for marketing, but for those in the market looking to spend, say $350, if what AMD gives them for that money is 15% faster than what Nvidia brings to the table, the choice is quite easy... at leat for most.

So, who knows, maybe this new AMD strategy could also force Nvidia to get back on track. More so if Intel stays in the game and also goes for marketshare over profits (for the time being).

Hmm true will see how RNDA 4 performs first as that'll likely launch next year. And scrapping Navi 41/42 in favor of focusing on GPU's that can actually go up against Nvidia's Blackwell, in (the rumored) 2025 launch or beyond.

There's also the issue of if big tech are still invested in Ai and Nvidia may not even care much for selling GPU's. Especially on the lower end of the stack where there's less money in it. Take the disasterous 4060 /Ti launches.. they are terrible cards for the money but they are still selling - if we go by the Steam survey charts. Many people buy Nvidia regardless, as we've seen with Ampere vs RDNA 2 and now this gen. AMD needs sometthing that absolutely blows Nvidia out of the water for price or performance. And not just the odd 10-15%.. to get people to switch. They need better software too.

Hopefully will be more interesting either way come next gen. Really need AMD to come back to counter Blackwell in some way and/or Intel to bring the heat. The mid-range especially as that's the segments thats largely been so crappy this generation. Otherwise another generation of gimped or lackluster releases will leave many wallets closed.

Last edited by hinch - on 13 August 2023

Jizz_Beard_thePirate on 13 August 2023
Pemalite said:

Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Not what I'd call a good gen on gen uplifts or good pricing either as you can get a 7900XT for $700-$750 vs $650 which is a big leap in performance if you want to go AMD.

Honestly the 7900GRE is a great card, it's just priced and named incorrectly.

It would be a fitting 7700XT or something with 6800XT levels of performance.

"Honestly the 7900GRE is a great card, it's just priced and named incorrectly."

May as well be the slogan for the RDNA 3 generation lol



                  

PC Specs: CPU: 7800X3D || GPU: Strix 4090 || RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000 || Main SSD: WD 2TB SN850

Conina on 13 August 2023
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Not what I'd call a good gen on gen uplifts or good pricing either as you can get a 7900XT for $700-$750 vs $650 which is a big leap in performance if you want to go AMD.

If the 7900 GRE is only 10% faster than a good old 6800 XT... will the 7800 XT be even faster than its predecessor 6800 XT?



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Pemalite on 13 August 2023
Conina said:

If the 7900 GRE is only 10% faster than a good old 6800 XT... will the 7800 XT be even faster than its predecessor 6800 XT?

Where they should fall is... The replacement cards should be anywhere from 10-25% faster than their predecessors if we go by the Radeon 6600 > 7600 and 6900 > 7900 examples.
This generation is not a generation leap.

The 7900GRE is an outlier though.

The Radeon RX 580GME was exactly the same performance as the RX 580.

The RX560D sat between the Radeon RX 550X and 560. Aka RX 555?

The RX 470D sat between the RX 460 and RX 470, but was definitely closer to the RX 470.

So whilst AMD has released chinese optimized parts in the past, they haven't fallen anywhere consistently in terms of AMD's product stack, it's basically whatever cost-effective die-harvesting AMD can get to sell in a more price-sensitive market.

So the 7900GRE would make a brilliant 7800XT, but I wouldn't be surprised if the 7800XT was actually similar or even faster.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Jizz_Beard_thePirate on 13 August 2023
Conina said:
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Not what I'd call a good gen on gen uplifts or good pricing either as you can get a 7900XT for $700-$750 vs $650 which is a big leap in performance if you want to go AMD.

If the 7900 GRE is only 10% faster than a good old 6800 XT... will the 7800 XT be even faster than its predecessor 6800 XT?

Yea it is a bit of a head scratcher. We know from the powercolor leak that a 7800XT will only have 60CUs vs 72CU from 6800XT while 7900GRE has 80CUs. Maybe the 7800XT will have a higher power limit as GRE version has 260 watts ceiling. So if 7800XT has a 350 watt vBIOS, then it can attempt to bruceforce the 72CU 6800XT. But who knows. AMDs entire lineup is a mess lol.

If they release FSR 3 for RDNA 3 only or have some exclusive Ai features that only RDNA 3 can do that RDNA 2 can't do, maybe that could be the selling point.



                  

PC Specs: CPU: 7800X3D || GPU: Strix 4090 || RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000 || Main SSD: WD 2TB SN850

Darc Requiem on 13 August 2023
JEMC said:
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

AMD Ryzen 8000 “Strix Point” APU Sample Allegedly Spotted: 12 Core Hybrid Zen 5 Design In A 45W TDP

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-8000-strix-point-apu-spotted-12-core-hybrid-zen-5-design-in-45w-tdp/

Intel reportedly planning a dual-core “Intel 300” desktop CPU with 46W TDP

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-reportedly-planning-a-dual-core-intel-300-desktop-cpu-with-46w-tdp

It will be interesting to see how AMD deals with the hybrid cores and the core allocation problem, if they go with a hardware based one like Intel or rely on the Window's one like they used for their 7950 and 7900 X3D chips.

As for the Intel part... well, I guess there's still room for dual-core CPUs for really chip (office) computers.

It will be a lower degree of difficulty for AMD. Their C cores are the same architecture. The main difference is the reduced cache. Intel's are different architecture entirely from their P cores and lack hyper threading.



Darc Requiem on 13 August 2023
Conina said:
Jizz_Beard_thePirate said:

Not what I'd call a good gen on gen uplifts or good pricing either as you can get a 7900XT for $700-$750 vs $650 which is a big leap in performance if you want to go AMD.

If the 7900 GRE is only 10% faster than a good old 6800 XT... will the 7800 XT be even faster than its predecessor 6800 XT?

I was thinking the same thing. The 7800XT is going to be clocked higher but I can't see that making up for the 20CU gap. It's probably going be around 2.5Ghz which would only be around 11% higher. 



numberwang on 13 August 2023
Conina said:

If the 7900 GRE is only 10% faster than a good old 6800 XT... will the 7800 XT be even faster than its predecessor 6800 XT?

No, unless you

a) cherry pick games that favor 7800XT

b) clock the 7800XT higher than the 6800XT with more juice TBP