Cost of building a gaming PC *spawn

[homerdog]

Depends on where you are in the world and what your priority is.

In the UK the cheapest 3060ti is £440 while the cheapest 6700XT is £463.99

Both are close in terms of raster performance but the 3060ti flat out murders the 6700XT when ray tracing is on.

If ray tracing is your number one priority than at every price price point AMD loses to Nvidia and loses quite heavily.

The RTX3060 smacks the 6600XT around when ray tracing is enabled and can even beat the much more expensive 6700XT in heavier ray traced games.

I can only comment on USA pricing.

As for ray tracing, for the games I've seen, with anything less than a RTX3080 you're getting <60FPS at 1080p. Dunno who spends $400 on a GPU to game at <60FPS in 2022. Realistically, people will turn it on for a minute to see what it looks like and then turn it back off because performance is horrible. Whether you get 35 or 45 fps doesn't matter much.

On another note, what are the good PC hardware sites now? I'm trying to find recent benchmarks and Guru3D is like the only one left who regularly posts comprehensive GPU reviews. RIP TechReport, and PCPer and AnandTech don't publish very often.

 

[davis.anthony]

As for ray tracing, for the games I've seen, with anything less than a RTX3080 you're getting <60FPS at 1080p. Dunno who spends $400 on a GPU to game at <60FPS in 2022.

I have a 3060ti and was easily getting 60fps at 1080p with RT on in all but two games where I was in the low 50's so you don't need an RTX3080 for 1080p/60.

I've since moved to 1440p and can actually hit 60fps with RT on at native resolutions still in a lot of games and DLSS with the others to 60fps.

Seems you need to spend more time talking to people that actually use RT in games.

 

[homerdog]

I have a 3060ti and was easily getting 60fps at 1080p with RT on in all but two games where I was in the low 50's so you don't need an RTX3080 for 1080p/60.

I've since moved to 1440p and can actually hit 60fps with RT on at native resolutions still in a lot of games and DLSS with the others to 60fps.

Seems you need to spend more time actually talking to people that actually use RT in games.

What games? I'm genuinely curious since as I mentioned, it is surprisingly hard to find this data from recent games. The data I find is almost all from last year.

 

[davis.anthony]

What games? I'm genuinely curious since as I mentioned, it is surprisingly hard to find this data from recent games. The data I find is almost all from last year.

Only games where didn't managed a fully locked 60fps was Dyling Light 2 at max RT settings, CP2077 at max RT settings.

Every other game I've tried so far, and I've tried a lot were 1080/60 no issues.

Currently playing Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition at 1440p max settings, lowest fps without DLSS was 48fps, turn DLSS on and I get better IQ, locked 60fps and my PC even runs cooler due to the reduced load.

AMD GPU's have a much harder time than Nvidia GPU's when it comes to ray tracing, for example a 3060ti in Dyling Light 2 is faster than an RX6900XT.

Techspot do gaming benchmarks now and then and have some from this year: https://www.techspot.com/features/gaming-benchmarks/

Spiderman ray tracing results - https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/2518/bench/1440p-RT-p.webp

 

[homerdog]

Even in the Spiderman RT results, the 6700XT is slightly faster than the 3060. This is in line with the data I found, where the 6700XT is usually on par with the 3060 in RT, and far ahead in normal games.

 

[davis.anthony]

Even in the Spiderman RT results, the 6700XT is slightly faster than the 3060. This is in line with the data I found, where the 6700XT is usually on par with the 3060 in RT, and far ahead in normal games.

But as I said, depending on the country the 6700XT is another price class above the 3060 as it's 30% more expensive in the UK so the 3060 doesn't have any right matching or even beating it, but yet it does.

You also have to factor in their targets resolutions, the 3060 is a 1080p card where as the 6700XT is a 1440p card and when both are used at their respective target resolutions the 3060 will offer the better performance in every game.

And Spiderman isn't that heavy of a game when it comes to ray tracing, in Control the 3060 is faster.

 

[homerdog]

You also have to factor in their targets resolutions, the 3060 is a 1080p card where as the 6700XT is a 1440p card and when both are used at their respective target resolutions the 3060 will offer the better performance in every game.

Are you being serious?

Anyway, I should have mentioned that I was only commenting on the situation in the US. Here, the 3060 is the same price as the 6700XT.

 

[davis.anthony]

Are you being serious?

Anyway, I should have mentioned that I was only commenting on the situation in the US. Here, the 3060 is the same price as the 6700XT.

Yes I'm being serious, imagine comparing a card targeting 1080p to a higher priced card that targeting 1440p.

And I've just checked Newegg and they're not the same price at all, the 3060 is cheaper.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Its the same arguments we always had and they were always valid but so are the arguments of convenience

Yeah but as soon as you bring in arguments about ease of use, you can counter with arguments of more functionality and greater flexibility. And since both those arguments are less easy to quantify than simply cost and performance, it's difficult to compare them directly. I agree though that they are absolutely factors that people should consider in terms of the value proposition for themselves.

I put a question mark on cost savings from PC upgradeability though. That has its limits too.

It does of course have limits, but it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new PC every time. You can save on storage costs, the case, the PSU, peripherals, windows license, and you don't have to upgrade all the core components together or with the same level of frequency.

Motherboards become obsolete fast and thus incompatible with newer components.

Not necessarily that fast. A motherboard socket can often run for 5 years (e.g. LGA 1151, AM4) and will offer a big improvement from start to finish. That said, since you will only need to upgrade your CPU once per console gen to maintain parity or better, you may also choose to upgrade the motherboard and memory at the same time - personally I always have.

Wanting to upgrade a GPU alone can cost you more than a console.

Can do, but it can also cost you less, for more performance. It all depends on how well you time the purchase and how much you care about getting relative value compared to consoles. For example you could have picked up a 3060Ti when it first launched (assuming you were quick enough to avoid the mining craze) for less than the cost of a high end console despite having more performance. If you wait a couple of years into the generation, you should get much more performance for less cost.

I do think you'll be spending more on hardware overall, even with the well timed upgrade option if you want to stay above console performance the vast majority of time, but that's where the other savings come in to reduce the overall relative cost of ownership,

 

[homerdog]

Yes I'm being serious, imagine comparing a card targeting 1080p to a higher priced card that targeting 1440p.

And I've just checked Newegg and they're not the same price at all, the 3060 is cheaper.

I will concede that if you test the RTX3060 at 1080p, and test the RX6700XT at 1440p, the 3060 will win.

When I check Newegg for new cards sold by Newegg, the cheapest ones are the same price ($369.99). Maybe Newegg shows different prices based on your location, or you are looking at refurbs/3rd party sellers or something.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Didn't know I had to tailor it to your store prefrences. I just use microcenter cause that is where I shop. They are also located in paterson nj so less sales tax since its a crappy city and the state tries to get people to go spend money there.




1) I am sure you can find similar deals.

No you can't! I'm pretty good at deal hunting and I still have trouble finding deals to compete with Microcenter. I can find individual sales on a very limited basis for some stuff, but no where I've seen has the complete deal packages that MC has. (I use the Westmont store because I hate the Chicago locations taxes, but both are sort of awful)

 

[see colon]

If my memory serves me correctly most if not all of those were handled by a 3rd party developer versus being done in house. For example, the initial Windows version of Panzer Dragoon was handled through NVidia as part of their agreement to bundle it with the NV1 (and the special rendering that it required).

While I'm not going to contest the involvement of a 3rd party, because I really don't know, I can say that Sega has a history of contracting 3rd parties even for ports from say, their arcade hardware to their home console. House of the Dead on Saturn was like this, and the PC port was clearly related to that port. Virtua Fighter 3 also had a 3rd party port to Dreamcast, so flagship titles weren't immune from this sort of treatment. This is less an issue with Sega not going full on PC (where they actually had some exclusives under the Sega PC label), and more a way that Sega operated in general.

Specifically talking about Panzer Dragoon, it, and VF Remix had normal PC ports and they were different than the stock PC versions. I know for me I've only played the PC version of Panzer Dragoon with software rendering. And while I've never owned an NV1, the box does not mention anything about hardware acceleration at all. Only that it's optimized for Pentium. I'm pretty sure the NV1 port was exclusive to the pack in, and I think the only work nVidia did (or contracted to have done) was the update to the renderer.

 

[eastmen]

No you can't! I'm pretty good at deal hunting and I still have trouble finding deals to compete with Microcenter. I can find individual sales on a very limited basis for some stuff, but no where I've seen has the complete deal packages that MC has. (I use the Westmont store because I hate the Chicago locations taxes, but both are sort of awful)

I dunno I've found the 5800 3d on sale for $330 more often at other places. I am going to wait for black friday and likely snag it for myself. Give my wife my 3700 and maybe retire the 1700x

 

[digitalwanderer]

I dunno I've found the 5800 3d on sale for $330 more often at other places. I am going to wait for black friday and likely snag it for myself. Give my wife my 3700 and maybe retire the 1700x

Good plan and I've seen the same, Newegg actually has some really good deals now and again lately. There's a Ryzen 5 5600 for $120 that I am just forcing myself not to buy, I want it <$100 before I replace my 1600. Right now I don't really need a better CPU since I'm still gaming an 8GB RX580 at 1080, but I know I'll be picking up a new GPU sometime early next year or end of this year when the price drops hit my level so I'm keeping an eye on CPUs too. I can't believe how long AM4 has lasted! My system is pretty nicely balanced right now, upgrading my CPU won't give me much better framerates as I'll be GPU limited and vice-versa but prices are just about to the point where I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on an upgrade.

The one thing about the CPU price and being able to find them at places other than Microcenter for me is the CPU/motherboard bundle. If I just get a new CPU I'll have my 1600 just sitting around, if I go to MC I can get a CPU/mobo deal that is just insane. When I upgraded to my current setup I think it was April 6, 2018. My wife took me for my birthday. I picked up a 1600, Asrock B450 pro4, 2x8GB Geils 3200 DDR4, some 256GB SSD, and an open box 8GB RX580, the total was $420.18. I remember the total because I thought it was insane and it cracked me up. Next upgrade I'll probably do the same thing so I can pass my 1600 to my daughter or wife, my son has the same mobo/CPU as me when they went on sale for $129.99 for both.

Another place you may like if you don't already have it on your daily site rotation is Reddit's PC deals page. Great amalgamation of deals with comments about them.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Specifically talking about Panzer Dragoon, it, and VF Remix had normal PC ports and they were different than the stock PC versions. I know for me I've only played the PC version of Panzer Dragoon with software rendering. And while I've never owned an NV1, the box does not mention anything about hardware acceleration at all. Only that it's optimized for Pentium. I'm pretty sure the NV1 port was exclusive to the pack in, and I think the only work nVidia did (or contracted to have done) was the update to the renderer.

The normal PC ports came out after the NV1 version. The NV1 version of included titles included support for its hardware acceleration of Quadratic surfaces and texture mapping. While the games had beautifully rounded edges (for the time), outside of NV contracted ports, no other developers would use it due to its deviation from more conventional 3D rendering.

I had an NV1. I had to get one once I saw the NV1 version of Panzer Dragoon and VF. Of the two, Virtua Fighter made more impressive use of the hardware accelerated quadratic surfaces. I don't necessarily regret it now, but at the time I really regretted the purchase as it failed to attract any developer interest.

While it's not much to look at nowadays, at the time (1995) that was much nicer than other conventionally rendered hardware accelerated 3D games that were out.

Regards,
SB

 

[Flappy Pannus]

No you can't! I'm pretty good at deal hunting and I still have trouble finding deals to compete with Microcenter. I can find individual sales on a very limited basis for some stuff, but no where I've seen has the complete deal packages that MC has. (I use the Westmont store because I hate the Chicago locations taxes, but both are sort of awful)

With less than 30 stores in the US, they're largely irrelevant as they don't offer shipping for these deals, as they are basically loss leaders to get you into the store.

The most relevance they have is to use them for price comparison threads. These deals are not an option for ~95% of the buying public.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can only comment on USA pricing.

Which makes these debates pretty limited.

Along with very diverse regional prices, we also end up with the 'shop around for hardware' options as if consoles are never in sales, and 'PC games are cheaper' comparing only RRP and not really comparing best deal prices.

Ultimately the topic is far more complex than the to-and-fro pointwise arguments we always have. The list of parts, the links to Craigslist, the limited pricing comparisons...it really is kinda pointless unless someone was to really commit considerable effort to research a fair comparison.

I think it obvious PC is better long-term value, but the nuances in ownership and the buying experience can't be readily quantified to make a fair comparison and argument which is the better buying option. I won't stop anyone else debating this again, but personally I don't see any value in the discussion. My original point about the jaw-dropping GPU prices is more interesting to me in relation to price/performance over time. Do these GPUs pay their way, costing more because they are proportionally better than lower prices GPUs, or is the price of top tier gaming increasing (like everything else, so you'd expect so!)?

Also, Steam's Big Picture mode had an overhaul. How is it now? Reasonable substitute for a console?

 

[digitalwanderer]

With less than 30 stores in the US, they're largely irrelevant as they don't offer shipping for these deals, as they are basically loss leaders to get you into the store.

The most relevance they have is to use them for price comparison threads. These deals are not an option for ~95% of the buying public.

I don't think they're fair for price comparison threads since they're so unavailable to most people. I feel very lucky to have one near me, let alone two, but the trip there and back is a pain in the arse. The tollroad is faster, but that adds another $40+ to the trip. I-94 through Chicago is one of my fave runs because it's a true test of driving ability and guile, it made the "USA's most dangerous stretches of highways" top ten list many, many, many times and I look at it as a challenge so there's about a 30% chance I'll get a ticket for exuberant driving. I much prefer ordering online, but every few years it's really worth the trip for me. I just gotta learn to be a bit more patient and more tolerant of Illinois drivers. (It's a Hoosier thing, I had to put the dig in there. Like how I always pronounce the silent "S" in "Illinois" just to see them cringe. )

I don't count MC for pricing vs online, I just can't. It's unfair.

 

[eastmen]

Even in the Spiderman RT results, the 6700XT is slightly faster than the 3060. This is in line with the data I found, where the 6700XT is usually on par with the 3060 in RT, and far ahead in normal games.

But as I said, depending on the country the 6700XT is another price class above the 3060 as it's 30% more expensive in the UK so the 3060 doesn't have any right matching or even beating it, but yet it does.

You also have to factor in their targets resolutions, the 3060 is a 1080p card where as the 6700XT is a 1440p card and when both are used at their respective target resolutions the 3060 will offer the better performance in every game.

And Spiderman isn't that heavy of a game when it comes to ray tracing, in Control the 3060 is faster.

What settings would spiderman on the ps5 be to get a pc looking like it ?



here with High quality / High ray tracing at 1440p you'd be able to go down to a a 3050 and stay above 30fps

 

[Flappy Pannus]

What settings would spiderman on the ps5 be to get a pc looking like it ?

here with High quality / High ray tracing at 1440p you'd be able to go down to a a 3050 and stay above 30fps

The PS5 has dynamic res at 1440p with RT so it can drop to 1080p I think - but with the framerate uncapped, it goes to 80+ fps with RT. The 3050 is irrelevant.

The RT benchmarks most sites do as well is basically Spiderman running along the street, likely for reproducibility. Actual web slinging around the city is another matter and puts far more stress on the CPU. Your 3600 would absolutely crater here regardless of the GPU.