Author Topic: HBS Battletech Technical Discussion thread (Read 47427 times)

jackpot4 · « **on:** 15 March 2018, 01:58:44 »

Hi guys, I am looking to upgrade my computer's graphics card as it is a bit old being a GeForce 9800 GT. I am looking at the recommended GTX 950/960/970 for the game (and future games) and I am seeing some insane prices at 250+ dollars. Am I missing something? That is outrageously insane.

elf25s · « **Reply #1 on:** 15 March 2018, 07:09:32 »

ok the prices are insane due to crypto currency rigs that use those cards. it had been like this for about 2 years...pcgamer has at least 3 articles about it.
but due to few factors prices are due to a drop toward the end of this summer.

jackpot4 · « **Reply #2 on:** 15 March 2018, 11:11:09 »

I am still brand new to upgrading PC components as the person that built this machine ripped me off. Is there any tips to looking for a new graphics card I could get that is reasonably priced? I was expecting a base level, close to base level graphics card to be in the 100 to 150 range. Is this such a huge difference because of cryptocurrency or was I just in the wrong ball park for my guess?

pheonixstorm · « **Reply #3 on:** 15 March 2018, 17:17:17 »

What site are you shopping from and have you looked at any reviews from mags such as Maximum PC?

jackpot4 · « **Reply #4 on:** 16 March 2018, 00:32:26 »

Not really. Like I said, I am brand new to manually upgrading PC components. Do you have some guidelines to go by?

Bedwyr · « **Reply #5 on:** 16 March 2018, 01:00:54 »

It will be very hard to find anything around MSRP for graphics cards due to the mining craze. One thing you might try is to look up eGPU enclosure bundles. These things use the Thunderbolt 3 (over USB C) connection to provide graphics power to otherwise underpowered computers like laptops. I think you can find an enclosure/card combination that's still over MSRP but possibly a lot closer than just trying to source a card over Amazon.

Now regarding your budget, I think you should consider going up. Try for a card that has at least 4GB for a little bit of future proofing. I'm seeing 2GB GTX 1050s at just a hair over your budget. A 1050ti will have 4GB and is a fair bit faster. A 1060 would be better, but I think that unless you get lucky, the demand for miners start to overwhelm supply and the price goes up. A 1070 is absurdly expensive (too much in the mining sweet spot for power demand and performance for them).

Even if you try to source a 900 series card, your budget most likely needs to be in the $200-300 range. Personally, I think that's money well spent as games increasingly reliant on GPU rather than CPU. I'm still running an old Haswell CPU that's solid as a rock and combined with a GTX 1060 (before the current bitcoin rush), I get really good performance even on modern games. Not 4K performance, but I'm perfectly satisfied gaming at 1080p.

I hope that helps somewhat.

BATTLEMASTER · « **Reply #6 on:** 16 March 2018, 05:53:34 »

I did an upgrade a couple years ago for MWO, first upgrading my obsolete and refurbished MSI Twin Frozr GTX 260 up to a refurbished MSI Twin Frozr GTX 760. Both were factory-overclocked, and both cost me less than $200, and I haven't had any issues with them. The upgraded graphics card helped a lot, but I found that my largest improvement came from the CPU upgrade. I went from an AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition that was overclocked to 3.7 GHz to an Intel i5 6600k at 3.5 GHz stock. With this combination, I'm running MWO at a combination of high and very high settings and I get between 60 and 90 FPS.

With that being said, it might be worthwhile to pursue a CPU upgrade first. You may need a new motherboard for compatibility reasons, but with the newest boards, you will be able to make upgrades to your machine for awhile.

I highly encourage you to learn how to build a computer. It isn't really hard as long as you understand where compatibility between components matters. YouTube helped me a lot when I built my first machine. It kind of goes together like a Lego set :)

snewsom2997 · « **Reply #7 on:** 16 March 2018, 10:34:57 »

Also don't forget that when upgrading an older computer that your Front Side Bus (integrated on the Mother Board) will be the bottleneck for SSD Drives, Large amounts of High Res Video, etc. The FSB is the Front Door to the computer, so everything will be limited by that. You should be fine with PC's 5 years old or less, but when you get older than 5 years, some of the components are faster than the mother board.

mechnut450 · « **Reply #8 on:** 22 March 2018, 10:28:13 »

the Gpu market sucks right now, I know a r9 580 card with 8 gigs as about 500 bucks currently at Bestbuy. the problem has been keeping them in stock all the 1070 and higher are gone specially with more than 4 gig ram. I am waiting until the market drops this summer ( if my job hours increase more). If not I won't be upgrading for a 2 years, unless I get lucky and bitcoin market goes into space lol.. by then windows 11 or what ever comes next will be out and it time ot rebuild lol.. current system can't handle Mwo on the newer display i have.

Wrangler · « **Reply #9 on:** 27 March 2018, 15:36:22 »

I'm broke and i got a GForce 8600 GT graphics card. I hope it runs on my old rig.

Sapphirus · « **Reply #10 on:** 27 March 2018, 17:26:09 »

I have a Geforce GTX 1050 Ti, I hope it runs the game just fine. Good thing I have a custom built rig :)

Bedwyr · « **Reply #11 on:** 27 March 2018, 17:36:41 »

I think you're most likely fine.

mechnut450 · « **Reply #12 on:** 28 March 2018, 10:56:53 »

3 weeks guy can't wait
I only got a 4 gig 380x gpu ( got it before the market went nuts lol) but still want to get a better card at some point myself i might just have to wait and see what I can do over summer or after next year taxes

Carlson793 · « **Reply #13 on:** 28 March 2018, 14:12:09 »

<snerk> In the roughly three years since the Kickstarter, my system's gone from having being "more than ample" (based on early reported specs) to "woefully inadequate". ;) Might be time to get a newer system.

Nicoli · « **Reply #14 on:** 03 April 2018, 23:13:42 »

In many cases its cheaper to buy a pre-built as builders are often contractually locked into a price for their cards.

Tyrchon · « **Reply #15 on:** 05 April 2018, 15:01:45 »

If you are looking to build or even just upgrade an existing component I would suggest using the build tools over on PC Part Picker.

https://pcpartpicker.com/

I've been building computers as both a hobby and side business for a nearly a decade and I love using the build tools on PC Part Picker. It will show you extensive lists of parts, pricing from a number of mainstream purchasing sites, any sales or deals that are occurring for a particular part, as well as compatibility with the other parts you are looking at using or are already using.

Netzilla · « **Reply #16 on:** 05 April 2018, 16:02:07 »

I second the recommendation of PC Part Picker. I've used it for building & upgrading a few different machines as well.

elf25s · « **Reply #17 on:** 09 April 2018, 13:04:24 »

i was about to suggest that
https://pcpartpicker.com/
but some folks beat me to it.

guardiandashi · « **Reply #18 on:** 11 April 2018, 22:27:26 »

I usually shop newegg and or frys

looking at newegg nvidia 1050's are currently running from ~150 to 230ish, 1060's start at around 250-260
that's in us currency.

now I would say those prices are a little higher than I would like but not totally unreasonable especially if there is a coin mining craze going on.

Bedwyr · « **Reply #19 on:** 11 April 2018, 23:38:04 »

That's down from what it was. It may be that the supply is catching up or the price decline is dumping demand.

jackpot4 · « **Reply #20 on:** 14 April 2018, 10:02:16 »

Wow, if PC Parts picker's prices are right, the cards for basic and recommended settings on the Battletech game are over $400 with 1 at $300. This must be why consoles are so popular. I could get into RC Car Racing or Archery if I wanted to for less than that. This is absolute madness to think those prices are reasonable. I cant justify $400 to play 1 PC game. Wow, that is pathetic. I don't know if I am more infuriated at the insult that manufacturers think that's ok or that I now will probably not be able to play the game and even if I can the quality will be very low and slow.

Bedwyr · « **Reply #21 on:** 14 April 2018, 10:42:28 »

Quote from: jackpot4 on 14 April 2018, 10:02:16

Wow, if PC Parts picker's prices are right, the cards for basic and recommended settings on the Battletech game are over $400 with 1 at $300. This must be why consoles are so popular. I could get into RC Car Racing or Archery if I wanted to for less than that. This is absolute madness to think those prices are reasonable. I cant justify $400 to play 1 PC game. Wow, that is pathetic. I don't know if I am more infuriated at the insult that manufacturers think that's ok or that I now will probably not be able to play the game and even if I can the quality will be very low and slow.

Ok, I guess they haven’t gone down enough.

This is historically unusual. Normally you could expect to get a GPU to do mid-level gaming for around $150. Mining screwed up the demand and the GPU manufacturers are stuck in a difficult spot as crypto-coin prices are so volatile that long term demand (enough to reliably expand manufacturing capability) can’t be depended on.

I don’t blame nVidia and AMD. Mostly I blame speculators buying up video card stocks to chase after a “gold rush” of sorts. I fondly call Bitcoin “electronic beany babies”.

Jayof9s · « **Reply #22 on:** 14 April 2018, 11:02:07 »

Quote from: jackpot4 on 14 April 2018, 10:02:16

Wow, if PC Parts picker's prices are right, the cards for basic and recommended settings on the Battletech game are over $400 with 1 at $300. This must be why consoles are so popular. I could get into RC Car Racing or Archery if I wanted to for less than that. This is absolute madness to think those prices are reasonable. I cant justify $400 to play 1 PC game. Wow, that is pathetic. I don't know if I am more infuriated at the insult that manufacturers think that's ok or that I now will probably not be able to play the game and even if I can the quality will be very low and slow.

Prices are still up from what they were due to the bitcoin-mining craze. For at least the last 10 years before that you could pretty easily build a 'more than good enough' gaming PC for about $500 that would run anything for several years. Of course a big part of that price has always been the video card, so with those inflated you're probably adding an extra $100 or more. (Edit: And when I built a PC for that much, I think I already had the OS so add another $100 for that.)

If you have NO OTHER USE for a PC than a single game - the price looks a bit ridiculous. That's really not something that can be avoided. You can make the same comparison for consoles, if there's literally only one game you want to play on them they're ridiculously priced as well. Unfortunately they don't run in a vacuum.

Also, I'm seeing at least a few video cards that hit the 'recommended' (not minimum) specs or better for $200. Admittedly most of these actually have a list price in the $120-150 range and would be available for that if prices weren't screwy right now. People already mentioned the 1050s above and those perform (a bit) better than the recommended 950.

Tyrchon · « **Reply #23 on:** 14 April 2018, 11:41:52 »

Quote from: jackpot4 on 14 April 2018, 10:02:16

Wow, if PC Parts picker's prices are right, the cards for basic and recommended settings on the Battletech game are over $400 with 1 at $300. This must be why consoles are so popular. I could get into RC Car Racing or Archery if I wanted to for less than that. This is absolute madness to think those prices are reasonable. I cant justify $400 to play 1 PC game. Wow, that is pathetic. I don't know if I am more infuriated at the insult that manufacturers think that's ok or that I now will probably not be able to play the game and even if I can the quality will be very low and slow.

Which cards are you looking at exactly? There are a number of GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 cards that are under $275 (U.S.) and those would meet the recommended needs to the game easily. Also, you should try to look for bundled deals. A number of Videocards are being bundled with RAM stick, Motherboards, etc. in an effort to try and control price inflation from cryptocurrency mining.

jackpot4 · « **Reply #24 on:** 14 April 2018, 16:10:18 »

Quote from: Tyrchon on 14 April 2018, 11:41:52

Which cards are you looking at exactly? There are a number of GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1060 cards that are under $275 (U.S.) and those would meet the recommended needs to the game easily. Also, you should try to look for bundled deals. A number of Videocards are being bundled with RAM stick, Motherboards, etc. in an effort to try and control price inflation from cryptocurrency mining.

I am a bit of n00b in this area, do you have any links to suggested places to look?

Tyrchon · « **Reply #25 on:** 15 April 2018, 13:59:09 »

A lot of it is clicking on/through the various cards and seeing if they list a bundle, mail-in rebate, etc. However, even if they aren't listed there on PCPartpicker you can check a number of the major sites to see if they have a special bundle listed. Newegg, SuperBiiz, OutletPC and a few others often do that.

Another option, that is limited by area, is Micro Center.(http://www.microcenter.com/) They offer decent part pricing through their website, but if you happen to live not too far from one of their stores then you can often find even better deals and bundles there. Their store staff are often pretty knowledgeable and pc building enthusiasts; better than the staff at Best Buy by a country-mile.

pheonixstorm · « **Reply #26 on:** 15 April 2018, 19:53:10 »

http://www.tigerdirect.com
http://www.newegg.com

I have ordered from both of these companies over the past decade and have always been happy with the deals from them. The Gfx 960 I am using now I ordered from Amazon and haven't had an issue with it yet.

If you really want a high end card on a budget you can look for refurbished cards on newegg. When my old 5700 crapped out it was replaced by a refurbished card and it has been chugging a long far longer than the busted card I sent it. If you don't want bleeding edge go with a 1050 or 1060 or even an older 960. Mine came with a free copy of Witcher 3 when I bought it, so that could be a bonus ;)

Rorke · « **Reply #27 on:** 19 April 2018, 04:11:22 »

I read an article on PC Gamer yesterday, stating that NVidia has stock
of it's own cards at Manufacturer Recommended Prices on it's website.

There was also a story that Amazon had stock of 1060s, for what
sounded like a reasonable price. Hope either are of some help.

I built a new system about three years back, the 970 still does all
I need quite admirably. Much as I slaver over a newer card, I'm
planning to wait until prices on the 1070 return to a more
reasonable level.

NeonKnight · « **Reply #28 on:** 20 April 2018, 19:12:34 »

Awwwwww Yeah!

pensiveswetness · « **Reply #29 on:** 20 April 2018, 20:14:47 »

I'm waiting until Tuesday night, since I still have to work in the mean time... :D