Video Cards

[LunarMist]

What's the deal with video cards in 2021? Last year there was some crap about the Virus or the cryptolith miners, and now six months later there are very few for sale and prices are exhorbitant.

I am using an archaic card in the 3950X that was from the old Win 7 system, and then the later, but still somewhat weak second Quattro later installed in the 5950X system. In early 2020 the advice was to purchase the RTX card, but there was a newer RTX card supposedly being introduced that Spring. Of course it was delayed and then none were for sale.

 

[Chewy509]

Exactly as you mentioned...

Raw materials and supply chains being constrained for various reasons (mostly COVID-19 related), financial hardships in some countries, and then another crypto-mining boom. And add-in people working from home and most are now looking to update their home systems. (There are lots of people running Haswell-era (Intel 4th gen) systems that still work well, but are now starting to die).

With China now taking a hard stance against crypto-mining, coupled with Ethereum moving to a different model in the next few months, cards are only now starting to re-enter the retail market. You can buy lots of 50+ used cards from former crypto-miners on ebay, ali-express, etc now, and some retailers are now showing stock that lasts more than a day.

However it's going to take 6+ months for most stock levels and pricing to return back to normal, as now you have 100's of thousands of people wanting new cards (who haven't been able to get anything in the last 12mths). There are people who joined waiting lists mid-last year you are still waiting on their orders.

Basically, demand is still vastly greater than supply, so prices are up whilst stock is slowing making it to retailers.

 

[LunarMist]

I suppose the next question is whether the NVideo is still progressing R&D to make better cards or if that will be delayed.
I don't like the idea of buying mid-2020 RTX technology in late 2021/early 2020 if it will soon be obsolete.
What would you do on the Quattro?

 

[Mercutio]

Right now, there's a case of take what you can get, unless you're so well off you can do something like buy a name brand gaming desktop or engineering workstation solely to pull the GPU out of it. AMD, nVidia and even Intel are all making strides in improving their discrete GPUs, but we have fuck-all chance of getting anything with an MSRP above $150. It wouldn't surprise me if this lasts into 2023. The stuff we have right now may not be obsolete if only by virtue of the fact that developers are just as hosed by this circumstance as everyone else.

 

[Chewy509]

What would you do on the Quattro?

I assume you mean the Quadro, and not Quattro (the AWD system used by Audi).

The only reason to get a Quadro for gaming is for the VRAM support (up to 48GB), but otherwise from what I have seen they perform the same or a tiny little bit worse than their desktop/gaming equivalents. (This is due to driver optimisation focused on image rendering quality and correctness vs performance shortcuts, as well as missing game-title optimisations).

Also the Quadro naming/branding is being phase out. Any RTX Quadros are based on RTX-2000 (Turing) GPUs, with the nVidia A-series being based on RTX-3000 (Ampere).

Source: https://www.servethehome.com/confirmed-nvidia-quadro-branding-phased-out-for-new-products/

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. I was advised to get the graphics card for workstation use since it contained 10 bits/color. (Of course I don't have the crystal balls so Virus was a not a consideration.) I don't want to open the computer again to figure out which model, but it is small with one fan and no power supply. It has no RTX functions AFAIK. The RTX versions were $1000 or more at the time and my 5930K was already a bit old.

 

[Chewy509]

Regarding 10bit colour support, all RTX-2000 and RTX-3000 series cards (both desktop and Quadro/A-series) support 10bit colour for gaming an productivity, assuming you have a display that supports 10bit colour information.

Latest NVIDIA Studio Driver Now Available: Supercharge your favorite creative apps

NVIDIA Studio Driver adds 30-bit color support and is optimized for latest releases of Blender, Cinema 4D, Octane Render, VEGAS Pro and more.

www.nvidia.com

 

[LunarMist]

I know, but it was not in 2017 or whenever. That 10-bits did not work out anyways.
According to the Windows Report I have 2200 video units, whatever that corresponds with.

 

[LunarMist]

I wonder how many video cards were in there.

Malaysian Police crush crypto-mining kit to punish electricity thieves

Because in Miri District, that's how they roll

www.theregister.com

 

[sedrosken]

I'm only now getting back with a Polaris card in the wake of AMD discontinuing driver support for the very last of the Southern Islands cards. I'd sold my 480 when this mess kicked back up because I wanted to make the money I put into it back -- I overpaid at the end of the last crypto boom and within a month the same exact card went for a hundred bucks less, so sue me for wanting to get some of that back -- and now a generous friend is eschewing the extra profit he could have made throwing his 480 on ebay in lieu of selling it directly to me. He says by the time ebay got their cut he would have made about the same anyway. I would have liked an out-and-out upgrade, but I'll have to take what I can get, being unwilling to spend the 400-ish dollars that a GTX 1070 would cost.

The hope is that AMD holds off on axing driver support for pre-Navi for at least another year or so. Granted, I know on Linux this wouldn't even be an issue for my 380, since apparently AMDGPU will be targetting everything GCN+ (HD 7000 series and newer) for the forseeable future, but I'm not really in the position to be daily-driving Linux on my main machine right now, and with Win11 around the corner I don't want to chance anything driver-wise. I've got bad memories of things being just ever-so-slightly out of whack with drivers meant for earlier versions of operating systems where it mostly works, but something makes an obscure call and sends the whole house of cards crashing to its doom.

 

[LunarMist]

I finally found a video card that was not too price gouged nor too large to fit in exactly 2 slot widths. It is only the 3060 TL OC with two fans, but certainly much better than what I had. I had to find a cable to connect it to the power supply.
What do you use to stress test the GPU somewhat without damaging it or blowing up the computer?

 

[Handruin]

I often just try running the Heaven Benchmark 4.0 in benchmark mode for a bit and see if the system is stable.

 

[sedrosken]

Personally I find that if a stress test makes your GPU fail then it failed the stress test. Therefore I just let OCCT fly for a few hours and then hit it with the Extreme FurMark preset for another few hours. Then I make it fold at full power for another couple hours after that.

 

[LunarMist]

Personally I find that if a stress test makes your GPU fail then it failed the stress test.

That's rather a tautology.

I am totally naive to video cards of significant power, since I never cared for video games. This 3060 TL is the first that has a power input. Now normal software makes use of the video cards, somehow. I tried several benchmarks listed above, including OCCT, the Furmarker, Unigine's Heaven and Superpositron, etc. There is some software that enables the overclocker, but it is only stable for maybe 8%.

 

[Mercutio]

The place I see the biggest difference is in using Resolve Studio. It helps with .RAW exports as well but I barely notice that.

I just looked at what a new GTX 730 is going for and apparently the bin full of graphics cards I've pulled out of dead Dell and HP desktops over the years is now worth approximately 5 billion dollars.

 

[LunarMist]

Do you use DXO or Capture One? Supposedly they make use of the GPU for RAW conversion.
Canon numbnuts is 3x slower per pixel since R CR3.

 

[Mercutio]

I use Capture One. I don't really notice how long it takes to import or export but my files are substantially smaller than your R5's and I'm kind of on a best case scenario as far as hardware goes.

 

[LunarMist]

What is your system and does it have the 3090 or what?

 

[Mercutio]

I have a Threadripper 2950X (16c / 32t) with a 2080. There's room for improvement on that system but not very much.

 

[LunarMist]

5000 series is quite a bit better per core, but cheapset has fewer pcie lanes. Do any raw converters use more than 8 cores sustained?

 

[Handruin]

What are you needing a high quantity of PCIe lanes for?

 

[LunarMist]

I'm using all of the PCIe lanes of the x570 and that is enough.
I assumed Merc needed more lanes/slots or maybe the EEC RAM would be the reason for 2950x.

 

[Mercutio]

I assumed Merc needed more lanes/slots or maybe the EEC RAM would be the reason for 2950x.

I got an deal on the Threadripper that was too good to pass up. The previous owner had screwed up their water cooling setup and killed their GPU and motherboard. I swapped a working i7-8700 system with a GTX1080 and got a more or less intact system that became operable with a motherboard RMA and a switch to a big honking HSF instead of a radiator. I've never had a desktop system where I didn't pick all the parts, but it's a nice enough rig that I'm sure I'll be using it at least a couple more years.

 

[LunarMist]

I don't like liquid cooling either. The Nocturnal DH-15 runs cool and quiet.

 

[Mercutio]

Almost every time I encounter water cooling, it's in a system doesn't seem so quiet to me. It seems like a lot of extra work for a very dubious benefit.

 

[sedrosken]

My one flirtation with liquid cooling began and ended with a CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite 240. The pump was annoyingly loud and it didn't run noticeably better than the Cryorig H7 it'd replaced, once the water warmed up. Then again at the time I was cooling an overclocked 3570K that drew maybe 90W under load, maybe it does better with higher wattage stuff. I'm noticing weird temperature anomalies with my 3700X on my NH-D15, but that's drawing more like 140W, and I'm told AMD CPUs tend to report offsets rather than true temperature figures, so I guess as long as it's not thermal throttling I'll consider it a win.

 

[Chewy509]

With the release of the AMD RX6600XT at it's price point I was hoping that it would drive down the price of some of the older parts, instead all the MSRP stock has disappeared, and replaced with more expensive models... The prices on older models (eg GTX1650 and RTX2060) have remained the same (at times more expensive that the RX6600XT).

For example, a nVidia RTX2060 goes for around AU$700-$750 and the RTX3060 for around AU$1000.
The RX6600XT on debut was going for as low as AU$680, and some models can still be found for AU$750.
I was hoping that the price of the RTX2060 would drop to below AU$600 and the RTX3060 to the around same price as the RX6600XT, however that seem to have happened...

 

[Clocker]

Almost every time I encounter water cooling, it's in a system doesn't seem so quiet to me. It seems like a lot of extra work for a very dubious benefit.

I'm not a fan of water cooling either but I was reading/researching to learn more about it and it was interesting to see that a lot of systems are installed wrong - allowing air bubbles into the pump area. Even the manufacturers show it installed wrong in some of their documentation.

 

[Handruin]

I was considering water cooling my GPU to see if I could bring down the noise level of the fans. I got overwhelemed with the amount of parts to research and haven't made any decisions on it.

 

[Mercutio]

I might be wrong but it seems like there are a lot fewer options available now than there used to be if you just want aftermarket air cooling. I'm sure there are decent AIOs if you don't want to spend a year learning about tube fittings and bend radii, too.

 

[LunarMist]

The can't put an arrow for the flow direction?

 

[Chewy509]

I might be wrong but it seems like there are a lot fewer options available now than there used to be if you just want aftermarket air cooling.

It's something I've noticed as well, but I've put it down to two things:

1. Lack of innovation in the segment, so no new designs. (AIOs are the cool kid on the block, so that's were the R&D money is spent) and,
2. For a decent cheap cooler most people just get the CoolerMaster 212, or if you need higher end they just get a Noctua unit. Again if you need low profile (can't use a tower cooler), just get a Noctua LP unit.

A small number decent solutions that cover 95% of applications, there's no need for retailers to carry more than those few units that are big sellers. And with the lack of innovation, there's nothing new/exciting entering the market.

 

[Clocker]

The can't put an arrow for the flow direction?

It's not about flow direction. Basically, air bubbles always find their way into the highest point of the system. Many of these systems, with manufacturing variation, can have up to 10% air in the closed loop - which may even slightly increase over long periods of time (under severe conditions). If the system is installed with the pump up high, air will find it's way into the pump area, where the cooling block for the CPU/GPU happens to be as well. Under that condition, the cooling efficiency & pump life is greatly decreased. You can also have bubbling/gurgling noises as well.

 

[LunarMist]

I certainly won't be buying any of those gassy closed loop systems.

Kevin, your face sure has aged strangely. I hope you are doing well.

 

[Mercutio]

Intel released its first Alchemist GPUs today. Today's products are for mobile devices only and appear to benchmark at about double the speed of the current Intel IGP, but this is also the weakest part in the lineup. I do think it's good news that a new discrete GPU has entered the market, and that we might see some uplift on Intel mobile devices soon as well.

 

[LunarMist]

It probably only works in Win 11.

 

[Mercutio]

It probably only works in Win 11.

Probably 10 and 11, but also Linux!

 

[Chewy509]

Probably 10 and 11, but also Linux!

Linux support is well underway, and expected to be mainline before launch of the cards. (kernel drivers + mesa support).

Some reference: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-PP-Optimize-XeHP

 

[Mercutio]

There's a compiled version of the Matrix Awakens Unreal 5 engine demo floating around now. I got a copy of it from a Mega link and tried it out.
It looks absolutely amazing, but I can't seem to do better than 35 - 45 fps @ 4k with RTX 2080.

It might be interesting to come back in six months or a year after RDNA3 / Lovelace get released to see what things are like.

 

[LunarMist]

Isn't the basic 2080 only as good as a 3070 or 3060 TI?