Topic: Consoles back on the rise?

[PyroMenace]

With the current video card shortage that looks like it's not going to stop this year, PCs may become less of an option to turn to for gaming. I'm actually finding the whole prospect a bit scary. I was lucky enough to build a new PC that will hopefully carry me through this ridiculous price spike in GPUs, I'm thinking it will. If not, then consoles may end up being the financial safe bet for 4k entertainment. What do you guys think?

[Cobra951]

You're frankly better off buying good prebuilt systems right now.  I got very lucky when I bought this Powerspec G220 I'm using here, considering how out of touch I was with PC tech at the end of 2016.  That was $800 for an i5-6500, a 6GB GTX 1060, 16GB of 2133MHZ DDR4, a 250GB Samsung 750EVO SSD and a 1TB 7200rpm Toshiba HDD.  Those go into an MSI B150 PC-Mate mobo and get fed by a 500-watt EVGA PSU.  The equivalent 7th-gen-Intel system (221) was recently advertised for $930.  That's really not bad at all considering the 1060 can go for triple the price if you try to buy it alone, and memory has shot up as well.  I think outfits like Microcenter can negotiate component prices much better than we can in the midst of this crypto-mining blight.  They're not the only ones in the game either, only who I'm most familiar with.  I would stay away from the big brands (Dell, HP, etc).  Stick with whoever lets you spec out systems, or builds them with quality generally available parts in the first place.

Edit:  Had something to do, so I rushed what I posted.  Now I have some time to finish my thoughts.

As for 4K consoles, well, I wouldn't go with Microsoft's now.  They have dropped the ball in a big way.  They don't have compelling games, and their "games as a service" push is not for me.  Sony's ecosystem is much better, particularly for single-player games, but their hardware isn't quite up to 4K.  Not that I care, because I think filling 3840x2160 pixels 30-60 times per second is a monumental waste of computing power.  (I'm happy with 1080p max, and don't see that changing in the future.)  Plus there's noise already about the 9th console gen.  So nothing is ideal right now.

I guess if you already have something workable, stick to it for the duration of the unsettled times.  We should come out of this at some point.  Someone is bound to put out cheaper and more efficient hardware to do mining, for one thing.  For another, I think most of this mining is akin to Ponzi and pyramid schemes.  There will be a huge shakeout at some point, flooding the market with second-hand cards.  I wonder how many picks, shovels and sieves dotted the landscape after the California gold rush.

I don't think this will last. Bubble is going to burst at some point and it'll go back to normal. But we'll see, I guess!

Man after my own heart. 

[Quemaqua]

I don't think this will last. Bubble is going to burst at some point and it'll go back to normal. But we'll see, I guess!

[MysterD]

The problem is: RAM is showing up everywhere. Phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, cars - yeah, they're showing up everywhere. So, there's the crazy shortage of both regular RAM (those prices spiked up majorly) and the ones video cards (which use DDR5 or some variations of that, which is expensive anyways - so naturally, those went up also). Add the crypto-currency mess on top of this and the stuff with the vendors - yep, it's basically became a nightmare for anyone looking to build.

I never thought I'd say this: but if you have to get a PC now, get a pre-built one from Microcenter (those PowerSpecs often look to be bosses, in terms of power) or snag a crazy deal on clearance or something somewhere if you can catch one. I've seen some good deals listed on Reddit's Build a PC Sales for even Pre-builds, so...keep your eyes peeled.


Right now...

I still have my custom rig from 2011 that's been upgraded a few times. W7 64-bit, i7 950 Bloomfield, 16 GB RAM DDR3, "4GB" GTX 970, and more HDD's than I can shake a stick at. I run most stuff at 1440p with Medium or above settings normally at 30fps or better (but normally aim for 60fps, especially in fast action games/shooters).

I also have my gaming laptop at W10H, i7 4720HQ Haswell, 16 GB RAM DDR3, 2 TB HDD, 15.6'' monitor and 4GB GTX 960M; where I run games normally at 900p or 1080p with 30FPS or better - so, I'm good there if need be, too. And it's connected also to a 23'' monitor via HDMI Cable in case I want a bigger screen too.

Unless I see an amazing deal, I don't think I need to take one, TBH.

[MysterD]

I don't think this will last. Bubble is going to burst at some point and it'll go back to normal. But we'll see, I guess!

If the crypto-currency mess and regular RAM/VRAM shortage ever sorts itself, you might be onto something. I don't know if any of that is going to happen anytime soon, though.

Also doesn't seem like NVidia seems to be planning to throw their next 1100 video card model series anytime soon, either - which is probably what most people want to happen, as they're probably hoping their next series could be 4K-based so that can be more consumer-friendly in terms of $$.

[Cobra951]

I've been following all this for a while, and I think you're right.  The GPUs are not the only scarce commodities here.  Memory, including what the video cards need, is also under extreme demand.  Everything needs it, and there just aren't enough fabs cranking it out.  Add that Nvidia pretty much calls the shots now, and that they don't seem overly concerned with how gamers feel.  They're perfectly happy chasing GPU-compute applications (mining included) and the AMD Vega came up short, meaning they feel no pressure to push past the GTX 10xx line just yet.  Ironically, that's good for me, since I'm already there, and I feel no pressure at all to upgrade my card, or my memory.  (CPU is another matter, but those haven't gone into ROFLMAO territory, yet.)  But that offers little comfort.  I hate to see this happening, and lingering.

[MysterD]

I've been following all this for a while, and I think you're right.  The GPUs are not the only scarce commodities here.  Memory, including what the video cards need, is also under extreme demand.  Everything needs it, and there just aren't enough fabs cranking it out.  Add that Nvidia pretty much calls the shots now, and that they don't seem overly concerned with how gamers feel.  They're perfectly happy chasing GPU-compute applications (mining included) and the AMD Vega came up short, meaning they feel no pressure to push past the GTX 10xx line just yet.  Ironically, that's good for me, since I'm already there, and I feel no pressure at all to upgrade my card, or my memory.  (CPU is another matter, but those haven't gone into ROFLMAO territory, yet.)  But that offers little comfort.  I hate to see this happening, and lingering.

Nvidia is now in Intel turf: they don't have to push anything out, to own the market; they already own it. Ryzen was a shot in the arm b/c of pricing (way cheaper than Intel per core and performance is similar, but doesn't top Intel's best), so Intel seems to still be in control of the CPU market regardless...for now. With AMD failing to really catch up with Vega, NVidia don't have to do anything but...what they're already doing. NVidia is still leading here.

Most gamers and people are probably already happy with 1080p, some are doing 1440p, and I don't think many are pushing 4K (as that likely floats in the NVidia 1080 Ti range that goes for $1000+ - so, only the super-enthusiasts and very rich will afford that). So, most PC gamers probably feel like they don't need to make any real moves, unless a crazy sale or clearance occurs.

This is fine by me. I'm already good here and if Intel and NVidia don't wanna push anything, then I'll just keep doing what I've been doing. I won't really need a new system anytime soon, if this all keeps up like it is w/ nobody really pushing anything.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, that's just it.  We're all at the same stagnant point, including developers.  We don't have to worry about games demanding hardware much superior to what we already have.  And Digital Foundry found that the GTX1060@1080p cranks out a somewhat better frame rate than the GTX1080ti@2160p ("4K").  So, if the push is toward 4K displays, I'm sitting pretty for a while with my card@<=1080p.  Fears of it burning out, or some freak electrical event zapping it do haunt me, though--just a little.  Replacing it would break the bank right now.

[MysterD]

Yeah, that's just it.  We're all at the same stagnant point, including developers.  We don't have to worry about games demanding hardware much superior to what we already have.  And Digital Foundry found that the GTX1060@1080p cranks out a somewhat better frame rate than the GTX1080ti@2160p ("4K").  So, if the push is toward 4K displays, I'm sitting pretty for a while with my card@<=1080p.  Fears of it burning out, or some freak electrical event zapping it do haunt me, though--just a little.  Replacing it would break the bank right now.

I actually have 4K monitor (and 4K HDTV too) - but yeah, I don't usually render games at 4K resolution; only a few w/ the GTX 970 (MK XL, WWE 2K games, Bayonetta PC). Most of them: 1440p @ 30fps+ with AA/AF cranked-up (to get rid of image downgrading blur). I was in market for 1440p monitor, but saw a 4K monitor for almost the same so I went with that instead.

[gpw11]

Yeah, it doesn't look great - mining causing GPU price spikes, RAM shortages, and CPU stagnation.  At the same time, PC gaming has just never been more consumer friendly.

I remember when I started gaming and then got into PC gaming a few years later - like 2001 or 2002.  Hardware was expensive and short-lived.  AMD and Intel were highly competitive and, as a result, new cpus with very notable speed improvements were being released all the time and it had a big impact on games.  I never even think about CPU requirements now but I remember back then new games would come out and maybe you'd hit the requirements, maybe not - even with a mid-high tier CPU from a couple years ago.   I don't think it was until the Core2 series where we didn't have to worry about it so much.  My midrange Core2Duo held up for like 8 years or something.  Now, buy yourself an i5 and you know you're good for like a decade.

GPUs were also developing rapidly.  Buy a Geforce 3 and it smokes everything....for like a year. Unless you were buying the top tier card games would probably outpace your card in 2-3 years.  Sure, you could still run something, but maybe not at full resolution and you'd be turning some setting down.  If I remember, even that was a bigger deal back then - I can't really see the difference with a lot of the more subtle high end graphical settings these days (ambient occlusion, etc) but back then I'd often be sitting there like "if I turn off AA and shadows this can run pretty smoothly." Not to mention huge differences in textures, etc.

And RAM was up and down as well, generally more expensive than the last few years.   

But the biggest difference was just the state of PC gaming in general.  A lot of games wouldn't ever come to PC and most of what we had were FPS games or RTS games. Big console ports were rarely a thing and a lot of what we got was pretty badly botched - not Dark Souls botched but Metal Gear Solid 2 "yeah, your ATI card just isn't going to run this" botched.   Finding games a lot of the time was a bit of a pain as stores were dedicating more and more space to consoles and removing the giant PC game boxes to do so.

Steam and digital distribution has made a huge difference.  It's so easy to get new and old games now.  Steam sales have created a huge userbase - I remember a few years ago reading everywhere on Reddit "don't buy a console, put some extra money into a PC and only buy games during sales - you'll save money in like three years".  And all the extra consumers have had huge benefits - everything from drivers to store software has become more streamlined and easier to use.  Companies put out more and more pc versions and ports because they know they'll be getting sales for years and Steam has a huge install base.   

I think PC gaming has never been better than right now to be honest.    As for the future?  RAM pricing is a concern but I imagine it'll spike and drop like it always has.  Production will increase because there's money to be made.  CPU stagnation isn't great, but I don't think it really affects gaming at this point, since the majority of games are GPU bound and the CPUs we have now are more than adequate.  Plus, if anything I think game development for the PC is now more directly linked to console power than ever before rather than CPU potential.

The GPU issue is definitely alarming.  The Amazon price for the 1060 6 gb I bought is like a couple hundred dollars more than when I bought it last summer. It'll last for years, but that's still somewhat ridiculous.  I imagine Nvidia and AMD will be increasing production to an extent with their next cards if this is still going on, because they're really not getting much out of this at the moment - the card manufacturers aren't getting the massive profit margin that's been introduced due to scarcity, the re-sellers are - they're going to want to get more product to the market because they know it's going sell.   That said, I'm sure the MSRP on the next cards will increase anyways because the market has shown that there is demand for cards at higher prices in this state.   But, what worries me more is I suspect the R&D going into these cards right now is prioritizing mining utility.  I don't think they'll ever admit it and they'll claim they're still just focusing on gaming cards but there's such a vested interest in having a card that is good for mining that they're going to internal focus on that to some extent - both know who is driving the market right now.   Yeah, they'll still be gaming cards, but both companies are probably in a race to get out the best gaming card that kills it when mining.

I think PC gaming is going to be a-ok, but the next few years hardware wise may be a bit iffy.

[scottws]

The cryptocurrency thing just needs to die. Its ridiculously environmentally unfriendly and no one has come up with a cryptocurrency solution that's a truly good solution for its intended purpose.

[MysterD]

Reply to GPW, 2 posts up:

Yeah, a lot of times I do turn some stuff down just to hit the 60fps - especially in games like shooters and fast action-paced games. Often, I throw V-Sync off b/c that alone can kill performance...and it stays off, as long as I get no graphics issues. Graphical issues I look for w/ V Sync off include issues w/ physics going out the windows, graphical tears, frame-time goes off, shadows not being produced properly, and other weird graphical non-sense. A lot of games, don't have issues w/ V Sync off b/c they are really built for 30fps cap or 60fps cap - so you can normally cap framerates to either one via NVidia Control Panel, NVidia Inspector, MSI Afterburner...and you should be good to go.

About Ambient Occlusion - it basically adds extra shadows & reflections to make the game even more realistic. Very useful, if your system can handle it. Most of the time though - you can use a weaker form of it or none at all and performance should be fine.

Depending on resolutions, how big your monitor/HDTV is, and whatnot - you might not even need AA solutions; especially if you're doing 4K.  FXAA is your cheapest and doesn't take much hits, so that's normally worth being on at the least. SSAA and MSAA can take way more hits - so, use those only when performance is good without it. You can always test it, if performance is really good - and see how things go w/ MSAA and MSAA; but honestly, I very rarely use those.

Yeah, ever since Capcom came to the PC and especially when Dark Souls hit the PC, we've seen more and more console games from Japanese developers hit the PC - which is great b/c a lot of these companies put out good-to-great console games. I also think Microsoft making the XBox controller on PC really helped us out a lot too - as those can double as both console XBox controllers and Windows PC controllers. Square Enix seems to be porting every Final Fantasy here now & we have Dragon Quest coming here soon; Bandai saw the success of Dark Souls PC port and keep bringing them here and now have Tekken here; Konami brought MGS V here; and the list keeps growing.

Yep, I think the state of PC gaming is at its best right now, as there's so many games on the PC (past and presents), Steam's thriving putting lots of games in people's hands (metaphorically - and well, so is UPLAY, GOG, B-NET, and others, for that matters - but nobody is doing it like Steam is though), and b/c they are mirroring console cycles so much your PC can last you a very long time if you buy something solid. 4K is not standard here, so that helps. With 1080p as the standard here and 4K being too expensive for many - a lot of the current GPU's can ace 1080p no problem at 60fps. And for most games, you don't need a lot of regular RAM for 4K - you'll likely not go over 12GB anyways, from my experience. For 1080p, you probably won't even go over 8GB of RAM. For most at 1080p, you likely won't ever need over 3-4GB of VRAM anyways.

PC Gaming is more popular than ever with more titles hitting here and some console gamers I know were not happy w/ mid-gap PS4 Pro and X Box 1 X hitting - and either joined PC gaming or are thinking about coming here. Sure, prices have spiked way up - but as long as you watch for a sale or especially a clearance, you can get a kick-ass pre-built these days at Microcenter (especially them), Fry's, and even some of the prefabs on special occasions. Even laptops have came a very long way too, as w/ the Nvidia GTX 1000 series, they've gotten even closer to their desktop counterparts.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, it doesn't look great - mining causing GPU price spikes, RAM shortages, and CPU stagnation.  At the same time, PC gaming has just never been more consumer friendly.

I remember when I started gaming and then got into PC gaming a few years later - like 2001 or 2002.  Hardware was expensive and short-lived.  AMD and Intel were highly competitive and, as a result, new cpus with very notable speed improvements were being released all the time and it had a big impact on games. . . 

GPUs were also developing rapidly.  Buy a Geforce 3 and it smokes everything....for like a year. Unless you were buying the top tier card games would probably outpace your card in 2-3 years . . .

I was there.  I skipped a little over a decade (2006 through 2016).  Console Gen 7 did great.  (I still think it's the best console generation yet.)  But I was into PC games since the Atari 8-bit micros.  What you're describing made me look elsewhere.  Prices were too high, and hardware would become obsolete in a couple of years.  My financial situation didn't merit keeping that up.

Skip ahead to late 2016, and the picture was so different.  I wasn't even looking for a game PC.  I needed a replacement for my 16-year-old PC.  The price gap between a crap big-brand desktop and what I got was too small not to go for it, even if I didn't quite know then what all the alphabet soup meant in the specs.  Man, what a surprise.  I was genuinely shocked.  (Details in my PC thread.)  What a difference.  Everything just works, and it works well.  The technical hurdles are mostly gone.  And for more than just games.

Steam and digital distribution has made a huge difference.  It's so easy to get new and old games now.  Steam sales have created a huge userbase - I remember a few years ago reading everywhere on Reddit "don't buy a console, put some extra money into a PC and only buy games during sales - you'll save money in like three years".  And all the extra consumers have had huge benefits - everything from drivers to store software has become more streamlined and easier to use.  Companies put out more and more pc versions and ports because they know they'll be getting sales for years and Steam has a huge install base.   

I think PC gaming has never been better than right now to be honest.

Amen to that.  Quite a contrast from the 90s and the early part of the new century.

As for the future?  RAM pricing is a concern but I imagine it'll spike and drop like it always has.  Production will increase because there's money to be made.  CPU stagnation isn't great, but I don't think it really affects gaming at this point, since the majority of games are GPU bound and the CPUs we have now are more than adequate.  Plus, if anything I think game development for the PC is now more directly linked to console power than ever before rather than CPU potential.

Cores.  Ryzen has upped the game on number of cores.  Intel had to improve their game there.  4 cores with no hyperthreading may not be good enough in a couple of years.  We'll see.  Some games do get bottlenecked at the CPU too.  I had to cut back shadow distance in Fallout 4 from like 20000 to 5000 to keep good frame rates in the urban areas--and that was all CPU.

. . . what worries me more is I suspect the R&D going into these cards right now is prioritizing mining utility.  I don't think they'll ever admit it and they'll claim they're still just focusing on gaming cards but there's such a vested interest in having a card that is good for mining that they're going to internal focus on that to some extent - both know who is driving the market right now.   Yeah, they'll still be gaming cards, but both companies are probably in a race to get out the best gaming card that kills it when mining.

As I said earlier, I've been following this.

“Cryptocurrency and blockchain are here to stay. Over time, it will become quite large. It is very clear that new currencies will come to market. It’s clear the GPU is fantastic at cryptography. The GPU is really quite well positioned.” Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang

https://centhrone.com/2017/09/18/the-fundamental-analysis-of-nvidia-corp-nvda/

That's the most depressing related thing I've read yet.  it's not just mining, but the blockchain technology itself, for which applications keep springing up.

I think PC gaming is going to be a-ok, but the next few years hardware wise may be a bit iffy.

Hope so!  It'd be a shame if I have to skip another decade.  It may be my last.

[MysterD]

@Cobra

Intel has i7's in the newest sets (7000 series & 8000 series) using the K tag or X tag that might have 6 cores; you'll have to look at the specs of them. They also have the i9's, too - but all of those are pricey as hell.

AMD might give more cores and more bang-for-$ value, but their performance w/ more cores still hasn't touched Intel's best. Often, in one single core of Intel vs. AMD, Intel normally wins. Intel's are more used on the market and tested by gamers and game dev's alike and are often more stable - so for now, until AMD gets their crap together, I'll stick w/ Intel.

There's also the likely chance that w/ AMD pushing the CPU cores, it can cause Intel to likely respond strong and we'll (again) see Intel put their foot big-time in AMD's ass. Intel usually seems to respond strong, when AMD tries pushing stuff. It happened when AMD's x64 bit CPU's came out and Intel responded strong w/ theirs; and then AMD really got slaughtered again when Intel pushed the multiple-cores....and AMD hasn't done too much of anything, except Ryzen.

[MysterD]

Cores.  Ryzen has upped the game on number of cores.  Intel had to improve their game there.  4 cores with no hyperthreading may not be good enough in a couple of years.  We'll see.  Some games do get bottlenecked at the CPU too.  I had to cut back shadow distance in Fallout 4 from like 20000 to 5000 to keep good frame rates in the urban areas--and that was all CPU.

Turn off God Rays (i.e. reflections, shine, and whatnot from the Sun), if possible...or go as low as you can go at its Lowest with them on.  A bug happened in one of the more recent FO4 updates, which forces it on; not sure if fixed. Even if you messed with INI's, it would go back to sticking it on.

Also, FO4 is not a good standard for PC game titles, on the technical side. The game doesn't look spectacular by any means technically and still uses the old-engine basis (GameByro) that they've tried to revamp (see Oblivion and Skyrim) and duct-tape more times than a stick can be shaked it. It also is not the best running engine given how its graphics are outputted, either.

Newest version of CryEngine (see Prey 2017), Id Tech (see DOOM 2016), Frostbite (see Battlefield 1), and Unreal Engine absolutely put Bethesda's engine to shame, in both terms of looks and performance. It's not even a contest.

[Cobra951]

Oh, godrays--God, yes.  Those are off, but not because of performance.  The visuals are so much crisper and cleaner without them.  In order for them to work, I guess this layer of milky murk needs to cover everything.  Ick.

Yeah, Gamebryo is old and creaky.  No doubt.  But Bethesda games are some of my longest mainstays.  I've moved on to other things in the past 8 months (?), maybe.  I was using FO4 as an example of CPU bottlenecking.  In general, the 1060 could use a stronger CPU feeding it than my Skylake i5.  I consider it the weak link right now.

I don't update something if I'm already happy with it--like, ever.  I have to force myself to make sure Windows and browsers stay secure.  Sorry to hear an update bug forces godrays on you.

[W7RE]

Well this is a depressing read. In anticipation of getting on my feet again, I was looking forward to possibly updating my PC. (Well, building a new one, but I have the case, PSU, and peripherals covered. May need a hard drive for more storage.) I was mentally debating 4k vs 1440p and looking at monitor prices, but if prices are too high on other parts I may have to stick with 1080p.

[scottws]

I read something yesterday about an APIC for mining Ethereum, and a hope that would help stem the inflation of GPU costs due to cryptomining demand.  So there's hope!

[Cobra951]

You also have to hope they don't change the mining algorithms to prevent the ASICs from taking over.  I'd like to see dedicated mining hardware that's just as flexible (i.e., programmable) as a GPU, but more economical to buy and to run.

I have to believe that at some point, there will be enough hardware to meet demand no matter what.  More players will get into the GPU-manufacture business, since product is guaranteed to sell with good margins.  Recent example: ASRock.

W7RE, the GTX1050ti is a good 1080p card (and a fair 1440p card), and doesn't seem quite so popular with the miners.  Prices are close to where the 1060 was a year ago--low/mid-$200s.

[MysterD]

W7RE, the GTX1050ti is a good 1080p card (and a fair 1440p card), and doesn't seem quite so popular with the miners.  Prices are close to where the 1060 was a year ago--low/mid-$200s.

Disagree on the 4GB 1050 Ti as a "Fair 1440p card".

You're gonna have to crank down some settings to even keep that card around 25-35 frames (depends on the game). At "fair 1440p card", you're better off with a "4GB" GTX 970; or either 3GB 1060 or 6GB 1060.

See here:

[Cobra951]

Price matters, D.  Those Pascal cards you mentioned are way too expensive right now.  I know they're better if money is no object.  The 970 is not a current card.  I don't know about its availability or price.  (A quick look at Newegg pegs them at around $400.)  Used GPUs are a gamble.  Abuse can shorten their lives considerably.

[MysterD]

Price matters, D.  Those Pascal cards you mentioned are way too expensive right now.  I know they're better if money is no object.  The 970 is not a current card.  I don't know about its availability or price.  (A quick look at Newegg pegs them at around $400.)  Used GPUs are a gamble.  Abuse can shorten their lives considerably.

You called the 1050 Ti capable at 1440p. Personally, I disagree with that.

If anybody is going to use a 1050 Ti to do 1440p, that's just not a good idea IMHO. Not an ideal PC gaming experience.

The charts in the video show that most games are in the 25-35 frame range, which is not really ideal for most games; and those aren't even the newest of titles in there, pretty much. GTA5 is the only one even in the 40's, nevermind 60's. At 1440p - Hitman 2016 was listed there at around 29fps, FC Primal is barely over 30fps at 31fps, Division is at 27fps. That's console gaming performance, IMHO. It's a waste to even try 1440p, if you even have a chance to even be under 30fps often. That's console-gaming turf, TBH. Might as well be a console gamer, at that point.

You're better of sticking w/ 1080p to make sure you get those 60fps (which is what the 1050 Ti is capable of), at that point - especially if you're playing fast-paced action-y type of games.

For something like a turn-based RPG - eh, 30fps might not matter that much, TBH. It won't matter w/ something like say Divinity: Original Sin.

True 1440p cards aren't cheap. You'll be looking into 3GB 1060 or better yet the 6GB version; GTX 1070; or above. And yes, those are very expensive. 970's will be a tough find these days, so you're probably better off w/ a GTX 1060 or 1070, if price is no object.

While I do have a "4GB" GTX 970 - I do normally 1440p at Medium to High with above 30fps. Often, I aim for 50-60fps, even if I have to turn a few things lower of off (i.e. AO settings, VSync off, God-Rays, use a lower AA such as FXAA, etc). I have sometimes locked it down before to 40fps; 45fps; 50fps; and other numbers - if need be; depends on the game. But no way will I allow for a game to go much under 30fps.

With all the regular RAM and VRAM shortage, the cryto-currency non-sense, and whatnot - if someone's not looking to break any banks open anytime soon, for those not in the market for a brand new PC - yeah, it might be worth waiting to see how performance in the 11xx series turns out and what that is priced at, whenever the hell that actually occurs. Will be interesting to see if that series makes 1440p or 4K very affordable to the average consumer, in the mid-range price-range (i.e. $200-300)...or not.

[W7RE]

I still have plenty of friends that play on console, so if I upgade my PC it will be mostly for PC exclusives. In the near future, I primarily want to play the new WoW expansion. I may just upgrade everything else, and I think I can get my hands on a hand-me-down 970. That should be pleny for WoW, expecially considering I've been playing it up through it's current expansion on a Phenom II and a GTC 460.

If GPUs drop at some point, then I could pick up something new and a higher rez monitor.