I am thinkg to buy new GPU and I was wondering if I should buy NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8GB the desktop version which has RTX and DLSS support, or just go with slighlty cheaper one, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super which doesn’t have RTX and DLSS support?
I am buying mainly for gaming, the later one would suffice, but since I am experimenting with games programming, is it worth spending few more denars and get the RTX enabled card?
Or if I want to experiment with RTX and DLSS those more expensive cards are better, meaning, don’t bother with the entry RTX card and get the basic GTX 1660 card?
Neither. In fact I wouldn’t buy any graphics cards right now. NVIDIA has a new series that should be launching soon but it’s not the new series that is important. It’s the existing cards that have not been able to sell. Companies will dump their stock of new cards on eBay for a discount.
For example back when the RTX 20 series launched I was able to pick up a GTX 1080 for $400 which was about $200 below MSRP and $100 below the RTX 2060’s MSRP when it finally launched half a year later.
A few months ago I would have agreed with you, but that was when cryptocurrency was going strong. Worst case even if you are correct what you described takes time to happen. A new series doesn’t just come out, sell out, and then everything else becomes more expensive in five minutes. If it does that means the sell out didn’t cause it.
I wondering how much crypto really played a roll in that, just because ethereum is supposed to be moving away from mining very very soon, so if you were buying a 3000 series card for that, you were pretty much guaranteed to lose money
Ethereum isn’t the only currency. One of the Discord communities I’m in is largely using NiceHash. I don’t remember what it covers but it covers a few different ones.
They’ve been moving away from mining for three years and it literally doesn’t matter regardless. The reason the prices are equalizing is because crypto has been in a sustained downward turn since November, with many currencies having dropped in value 60-70% since then.
It’s definitely more complicated than just “cuz crypto”. Console shortages and gaming in general getting way more popular is to blame too. The gaming market started to slow way down as gpu prices started coming down at the same time, nvidia lost 7% off their stock price when they announced that in may, after have a crazy boom for a few years.
From the ceo of nvidia in 2021
“So in order to talk about supply, we first have to discuss the demand. We did have an exceptional overall holiday season. Gaming demand is off the charts. Our overall Ampere architecture and ray tracing are really a true success. This demand has remained stronger for longer. Okay? So, supply does remain tight at this time.”
To be honest I’ve heard that it is possible to actually contact a factory and have a GPU ordered at non-insane price. Currently wondering if it is worth attempting or not.
3050 is listed as “not recommended for VR”. Which is one of the reason to get anything higher than that.
Hmm ok, I am not intending on experimenting with VR or either mine bit coins. I was just wondering if utilizing the ray tracing power of the GPU is possible in Unity i.e playing with 3D, HDRP to give myself some reason to buy it.
Or those a magnitude more expensive cards with ray tracing are more worth it for developing?
But then, I don’t want to spend so much money. Will wait for better times when the ray tracing tech becomes more affordable to develop with.
Judging by the recent comments, nobody knows the answer.
Specifically i just want to play Doom Eternal, needs 3GB VRAM min. to run smoothly.
But I already have GTX 1050 2GB, so kind of not worth buying GTX 1050 TI with 4GB VRAM
SLI no longer a practical solution, but even if it was, would need a motherboard with SLI. Currently I have AMD Crossfire enabled board.
Raytracing is useful if you’re modeling/rendering in blender, as it is used to speed up Blender’s renderer.
When it comes to gaming, I’m of opinion that raytracing is largely a gimmick.
Personally, I’m interested in having larger amount of VRAM, because that would allow me to run more complex neural networks, but then again, I do not do that often .
Let’s ignore raytracing for the moment. The best reason to choose the RTX 3050 over the GTX 1660 (other than performance) is DLSS. While it’s associated with raytracing it’s a great feature by itself that enables you to run higher resolutions and/or settings than you might have previously been able to due to budget constraints.
A 4K monitor is not that expensive but a 4K capable card was until they introduced DLSS.
Just be aware that aside from Minecraft the games he chose to showcase it are very poor examples of it and even then he chose poor scenes in Minecraft. If you want to get an idea of what it can bring to a traditional game just look at Cyberpunk which in my opinion is one of the best showcases of it in action.
While I’m at it here is Minecraft. If it isn’t obvious from the thumbnail the most impressive aspect of Minecraft is not the water but the lighting. If I had to guess he showed the water because lighting would’ve been a dead giveaway.
Ignoring the problems in his video the conclusion he came to is incorrect. Raytracing as a technology has been in use now for decades. It’s not at all in the early stages. It’s just that the techniques we use now are likewise not in their early stages.
What he was correct on is the reason why the technology will ultimately be successful. It greatly reduces the load on the developer. Currently advanced lighting involves smoke and mirrors, expensive middle-ware, and many long baking sessions. Raytracing eliminates all of that.
