BF2S Forums Tech: Open thread

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

On SSDs, 2TB seems to be the sweet spot at the moment when it comes to pricing. Crucial and Samsung 2.5" for $200. That would have been so nice to have had available instead when I added my 500GB.

For sure going to add one to the list before I pull any kind of trigger.

Of course, some of the devices' pricing is laughably skewed. "Let's jack up the MSRP on a similar-performing piece of hardware and then announce a 60% discount." Get outta here.

If I'd funneled the kind of budget money it would take to put in an SSD approaching 8TB, I'd for sure use it on a 2080 ti instead and still have some to spare.

we are sort of talking at cross-purposes here. you're talking about these parts for a prospective desktop build and i'm talking about the latest bunch of high-end laptops with extremely thin form factors. regular 8tb 2.5" SSDs are not really an option.

but isn't that just what you find when you buy pre-assembled machines from any vendor? HP? dell? alienware? apple are expensive - no arguments there - but it never struck me like they were being 'obnoxious' about it. they're clearly positioned as a premium product in the market and charge accordingly. i mean, i'm not surprised all this stuff can be found cheaper individually for self-assembly or self-upgrade on pcpartspicker or whatever.

e: to clarify, i mean don't all the vendors go beyond 'cost plus' and charge make-believe prices for their complete systems?

i guess i've been out the game for so long that it seems like an insane amount of tech to have in a few lbs of weight for $2500.

Last edited by uziq (2019-11-15 16:49:51)

uziq wrote:

we are sort of talking at cross-purposes here. you're talking about these parts for a prospective desktop build and i'm talking about the latest bunch of high-end laptops with extremely thin form factors. regular 8tb 2.5" SSDs are not really an option.

Right, but similarly if you were going to buy a drive on its own (7.6 TB is cheaper, looking at newegg), that 8 TB is still going to bump you up by over $2000 USD on a MBPro. Which is fine if it's within your workstation budget and not compromising something you need more.

It would be interesting to know more about what kind of chips they're using even if I had to wade through stuff about thin bezels and remanufactured aluminum to get there.

Also, it should be worth noting that 2.5" form factor SSDs can have different heights.

Despite never having owned one, I always take a look at Apple whenever considering a new computer. I've enjoyed the time I spent using Logic and Final Cut in the past. If I was in the market for a workstation laptop, the current MBP 16" would be quite tempting. As an important bonus, I've heard it said that past model keyboard issues have been addressed. On the plus side, it isn't much of a drive to the nearest Apple Store.

As seems to happen almost every time I start to seriously cobble something together towards the end of a year, a very slight wrench got thrown into my Cyber Monday plans with new hardware. This time new offerings from AMD/Intel. Not particularly inspiring at the moment though, and out of my willing range.

At a glance, it very much feels like 10th-gen Intel is just squeezing a bit more out of an older platform and being competed against mightily by the likes of AMD 3900X @$530. i9-10900x @$700, i9-9900x $730, i9 9900k @$490, i7 9700k @$340, i5 9600k @$200. Third gen Threadrippers also out recently are far more than what I want to spend on a hybrid gaming/moderate-productivity.

What the distraction did was remind me that PCIe 4.0 is a thing, and made me look again at the AMD X570. But I'm wary of additional PCIe 4.0 gen iterations existing by the time NVIDIA cards take advantage of it. Apparently the next iteration is a Turing refresh. I don't know if that means RTX 2090s or RTX 30x0, but I don't know if NV would be motivated to rush it out before the end of next year at the earliest. 2070 Super still seems like the sweet spot at the moment.

I've got three options on the table:

• Go ahead with the QVL-checked list I have. (useful links: corsair, gskill)
• Reconsider third-gen Ryzen for PC applications I plan to use, especially in the following case:
• Further downgrade specs to something purely for gaming and add a Macbook Pro onto the list for workstation stuff. Also deactivate CS for PC and move it onto Mac.

I'm certain any modern MBP would safely demolish any game I'm currently playing (with reasonable settings) whether MacOS compatible or through bootcamp. One of the pulls behind having a gaming computer and a workstation separately (apart from not having to balance multipurpose PC specs) is that I can banish all my gaming stuff to another room and not groggily navigate to Steam in the morning at the ol' home office. And also not have to wrestle with bootcamp drivers for maximized game settings.

Interested to know how it turns out for you.

I think even if I end up blowing off most of my shopping cart in disgust, there are still some deep sale components I'll pick up. I need some more storage for photos at the bare minimum. My 4TB drive is being crushed under the weight of work stuff.

uziq wrote:

mobile graphics is in a pretty astounding place tbh.

in isolation, sure

compared to dedicated chips?... hah

uziq wrote:

as i understand it, windows laptops opt for high-power nvidia chips that run very hot, require power bricks, and give about 3.5hr battery as a result.

Gaming laptops sure

uziq wrote:

possibly windows laptops have the energy-efficient versions of the intel chips too? lower performance.

Yes? Obviously? If it exists, it's got Windows running on it, somewhere.

the apple laptops have the full performance intel chips, but opt for lower range and more optimised AMD cards.

because they have long lasting contracts with AMD, absolutely not a decision based on the ability of each company's products in 2019

uziq wrote:

result is you can run them off a seat charger (maximum rated 100W), the batteries last 11-12 hours, and the charger is fairly discreet (single thunderbolt cable to the outlet, basically).

hey look here's a link of a thousand windows/chrome OS laptops that have 11-12 hours battery life and charge via USB C

uziq wrote:

all the options seem to blow the ‘mobile GPU’ options of 5 years ago. i paid a premium for a discrete chip in my 2013 MBP and it was so-so (550M).

hilariously, one of the best solutions to the issues you're having involves buying a laptop with a integrated GPU or an AMD APU, then purchasing an external GPU enclosure for when you need the horsepower.

newbie what's your workload?

uziq wrote:

it runs all the current games just fine at 1440p high settings.

LOL

Finray wrote:

uziq wrote:

it runs all the current games just fine at 1440p high settings.

LOL

as i said ... in my first post ... yes, it'll never be 16x AA, 144hz, 300fps. again, we are talking about a laptop that is one centimetre thick, here. downscaling to 1440p on a 16 inch screen is fine. hooking it up to an external monitor in the 21-24 inch range works fine. this is literally a happy result for the majority of people. not sure what exactly you're not getting there with my use of 'fine'.

we get it, finray, you're taking a BTEC in graphic design or whatever, and all those 100s of hours you spent in your 20s posting about computers on reddit instead of feeling fulfilled in a career or getting an education have well-equipped you to snort at people who under-rate the power of the /pcmasterrace. you don't need to pull the circa-2011 quote train on me, picking apart every single line for my *snort* cluelessness about the utter craptitude of laptops for leet-level gaming.

my point, again, is that mobile graphics are now at a point where mid-range cards are optimised enough to play current games well. as in, it's probably the first ever MBP generation where the stock option, the entry-level option with basic graphics, is still going to be able to let someone thrash GTA V or fortnite or whatever. it's a neat development and raises serious questions, for me anyway, in the sense of building a big desktop with dedicated graphics. laptops are really capable of handling it now for casual gaming.

the new AMD chips are literally 2-3x as powerful as the default options that were used in similar MBPs last year.

again (saying this word a lot here), i'm sure certain windows laptops have been smoking gaming performance for years. good for you if you want to lug-around a laptop the size of a scanner and fax machine that runs out of battery in 3.5 hours and will be RMA'd within a year. AGAIN, i'm talking about totally average consumer-level, all-use laptops now being able to play games without breaking a sweat. i can only see things improving down this avenue. the whole desktop+standalone GPU thing is now looking like a questionable option next to gaming consoles and laptops. the tech is finally growing up.

Last edited by uziq (2019-11-28 13:38:28)

uziq wrote:

as i said ... in my first post ... yes, it'll never be 16x AA, 144hz, 300fps.

Totally agree. It's not going to be 1440p high settings though. At least not above 30FPS.

uziq wrote:

again, we are talking about a laptop that is one centimetre thick,

Would it be different if it was 2cm? Laptops are thin. They are portable. Going from 3cm to 1cm does not make a huge difference.

uziq wrote:

downscaling to 1440p on a 16 inch screen is fine. hooking it up to an external monitor in the 21-24 inch range works fine. this is literally a happy result for the majority of people. not sure what exactly you're not getting there with my use of 'fine'.

Yeah I have no problems with the res downscaling, because Apple makes screens that have DPIs past the point where humans can tell.

uziq wrote:

we get it, finray, you're taking a BTEC in graphic design or whatever,

HNC Computer Games Design

uziq wrote:

and all those 100s of hours you spent in your 20s posting about computers on reddit instead of feeling fulfilled in a career or getting an education have well-equipped you to snort at people who under-rate the power of the /pcmasterrace.

Nah actually I fell WAY out of this shit and am woefully out of date, but even with my lack of up to date knowledge I just *HAD* to jump in on you peddling your uninformed shite.

uziq wrote:

you don't need to pull the circa-2011 quote train on me, picking apart every single line for my *snort* cluelessness about the utter craptitude of laptops for leet-level gaming.

I love doing this shit. I've missed it so much.

uziq wrote:

my point, again, is that mobile graphics are now at a point where mid-range cards are optimised enough to play current games well.

no they're not

uziq wrote:

as in, it's probably the first ever MBP generation where the stock option, the entry-level option with basic graphics, is still going to be able to let someone thrash GTA V or fortnite or whatever.

Wow, a 6 year old title (that won't run well on it is my guess, but I'd have to google some benchmarks) and a game designed to have such a low performance impact in order to garner as many players as possible... astounding.

uziq wrote:

it's a neat development and raises serious questions, for me anyway, in the sense of building a big desktop with dedicated graphics. laptops are really capable of handling it now for casual gaming.

! Totally agree! Very interesting. I think the problem here is "casual" gaming, you're trying to apply this to mean "will be able to play 2019 titles at high settings and 1440p" which is just bullshit and you know it.

uziq wrote:

the new AMD chips are literally 2-3x as powerful as the default options that were used in similar MBPs last year.

2-3 * 0 = 0

uziq wrote:

again (saying this word a lot here), i'm sure certain windows laptops have been smoking gaming performance for years. good for you if you want to lug-around a laptop the size of a scanner and fax machine that runs out of battery in 3.5 hours and will be RMA'd within a year.

I DON'T. GAMING LAPTOPS SUCK ASS AND ARE A WASTE OF MONEY.

uziq wrote:

AGAIN, i'm talking about totally average consumer-level, all-use laptops now being able to play games without breaking a sweat.

They've been doing this for TEN YEARS, we used to play CS:S on John's MBP 2013 (and I bet CS:GO would run on that still)

uziq wrote:

the whole desktop+standalone GPU thing is now looking like a questionable option next to gaming consoles and laptops. the tech is finally growing up.

No, it's definitely not, whatsoever lol.

Last edited by Finray (2019-11-28 13:57:45)

Finray wrote:

uziq wrote:

as i said ... in my first post ... yes, it'll never be 16x AA, 144hz, 300fps.

Totally agree. It's not going to be 1440p high settings though. At least not above 30FPS.

uziq wrote:

my point, again, is that mobile graphics are now at a point where mid-range cards are optimised enough to play current games well.

no they're not

uziq wrote:

as in, it's probably the first ever MBP generation where the stock option, the entry-level option with basic graphics, is still going to be able to let someone thrash GTA V or fortnite or whatever.

Wow, a 6 year old title (that won't run well on it is my guess, but I'd have to google some benchmarks) and a game designed to have such a low performance impact in order to garner as many players as possible... astounding.

uziq wrote:

it's a neat development and raises serious questions, for me anyway, in the sense of building a big desktop with dedicated graphics. laptops are really capable of handling it now for casual gaming.

! Totally agree! Very interesting. I think the problem here is "casual" gaming, you're trying to apply this to mean "will be able to play 2019 titles at high settings and 1440p" which is just bullshit and you know it.

have you really just spent 3 posts and an hour arguing when you haven't even watched a basic video? even with beta drivers they are pulling that 'impossible' performance.

i spoke about GTA V and fortnite as examples of what average gamers would want to play (i dunno lol, current gaming is shit). not that they're supposed to be major benchmarks of performance. anyway looks like you're absolutely wrong and full of shit lol?

Last edited by uziq (2019-11-28 14:09:21)

Here's a current title that's not built off the back of an engine from 1999



Tomb raider is a true current title. CoD:MW is a current title in the same way Fifa 2019 is a current title.