UserBenchmark

The RTX 4080 is based on Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture. It features 9,728 cores with base / boost clocks of 2.2 / 2.5 GHz, 16 GB of memory, a 256-bit memory bus, 76 3rd gen RT cores, 304 4th gen Tensor cores, DLSS 3 and a TDP of 320W. Performance gains will vary depending on the specific game and resolution. With a 4080 tier card 1080p in-game fps will often get CPU bottlenecked which prevents the GPU from delivering higher fps. At higher (often sub-optimal) resolutions (1440p, 4K etc) the 4080 will show increasing improvements compared to lesser cards. When fps are not CPU bottlenecked at all, such as during GPU benchmarks, the 4080 is around 60% faster than the 3080 and 25% faster than the 3090-Ti, these figures are approximate upper bounds for in-game fps improvements. The 4080 has an MSRP of $1,200 USD. Since PC gamers rarely buy AMD GPUs, Nvidia only have themselves to compete with. AMD continue to burn their credibility with PC gamers. Following a series of over-hyped releases which were heavily promoted on youtube, forums, reddit and twitter, consumers have little interest in the Radeon brand. As time goes on, AMD’s “Advanced Marketing” has a decreasing impact on consumers. Meanwhile, Nvidia remains focused on novel goals such as better graphics (RT/DLSS), frame consistency, game compatibility and driver stability. Consumers looking for better value should wait a few more months for the 4060 / 4070 models by which time AMD's 7900 series will also probably be heavily discounted. ^{[Nov '22 GPUPro]}

Intel’s 13th gen. Raptor Lake CPUs offer around 10% faster gaming and 45% faster multi-core performance than their predecessors. The new CPUs are backwards compatible with DDR4 memory and Z690/B660 ($150) motherboards. New gaming builders need look no further than the 13600K. The 13600K beats AMD’s flagship 7950X in gaming and almost matches the 7900X in multi-core performance. Extreme workstation users may find value in the 13700K or 13900K. PC builders looking for the best possible value should wait until early 2023 when Intel will launch their mid-tier CPUs (13100F, 13400F etc.). Although Ryzen 7000 has weaker multi-core, weaker single-core, higher platform costs and higher unit prices AMD have a 3D joker up their sleeve (7800X3D est. 2023). Via “advanced marketing” on youtube, forums, reddit, and twitter AMD will demonstrate that their upcoming CPU is the “best in the world” and offer “proof” by way of a small handful of obscure workloads. Games that few people play e.g. (Factorio, SOTTR) will be cherry picked, video footage of the gameplay/settings won’t be provided and frame drops will be conveniently ignored. This playbook has easily outsold Intel in recent years but with every overhyped release, consumers continue to lose trust in AMD. Based on the volume of social media/press coverage, you would never guess that the combined market share for all of AMD’s Radeon 5000 and 6000 GPUs amongst PC gamers is just 2.12% (Steam stats). Meanwhile Nvidia’s RTX 2060 alone accounts for a whopping 5.03%. Largely thanks to marketing incompetence, Intel is existentially motivated to deliver material annual performance improvements. Consumers can look forward to Meteor Lake (14th gen) in less than a years time. ^{[Oct '22 CPUPro]}

Within minutes of the first, pre-release, 7000 series results appearing on userbenchmark, AMD’s advanced marketing machinery declared a 20% victory over the 12900K whilst simultaneously slandering userbenchmark via hundreds of “news” outlets and thousands of supposedly disinterested twitter, reddit, forum and youtube accounts. Buying new AMD products is like buying used cars: it takes time, experience and a taste for sales hype. It’s difficult for consumers to make rational choices because AMD completely dominates “news” and social media channels. Ten years ago, when AMD was the underdog, this type of marketing was understandable. Today, with a capitalization of $150 Billion USD, it’s disrespectful to AMD's own users. Even with Intel's marketing department permanently asleep at the wheel, If these practices continue, Ryzen will quickly end up in the same state as Radeon. Following a series of overhyped releases, consumers have little interest in the Radeon brand. The combined market share for all of AMD’s (discrete) Radeon RX 5000 and 6000 GPUs (Jun ’22 Steam stats) is just 2%. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s RTX 2060 alone accounts for 5%. Although the new 7000 series Zen 4 CPUs are around 15% faster than their predecessors, they have hefty cooling requirements (TDP +60% vs 5000 series), 30 second BIOS post times, expensive DDR5 RAM requirements and only work with expensive motherboards. Intel’s 13th gen. (Raptor Lake) is scheduled to launch over the next few weeks. Smart shoppers will do well to wait until then, before considering a purchase. Despite AMD’s Neanderthal marketing techniques, it’s hard not to admire the speed of their technical progress. AMD-Raptor-4 and Intel-Zen-13 would be better fitting product names. ^{[Sep '22 CPUPro]}

The RTX 4090 is based on Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture. It features 16,384 cores with base / boost clocks of 2.2 / 2.5 GHz, 24 GB of memory, a 384-bit memory bus, 128 3rd gen RT cores, 512 4th gen Tensor cores, DLSS 3 and a TDP of 450W. Performance gains will vary depending on the specific game and resolution. With a 4090 tier card 1080p in-game fps will often get CPU bottlenecked which prevents the GPU from delivering higher fps. At higher (often sub-optimal) resolutions (1440p, 4K etc) the 4090 will show increasing improvements compared to lesser cards. When fps are not CPU bottlenecked at all, such as during GPU benchmarks, the 4090 is around 80% faster than the 3090 and 60% faster than the 3090-Ti, these figures are approximate upper bounds for in-game fps improvements. The fact that the 4090 is currently the fastest performing graphics card available is reflected in its jaw-dropping MSRP of $1,600. Since PC gamers rarely buy AMD GPUs, Nvidia only have themselves to compete with. Surprisingly, $1,600 is actually reasonable value for money compared to previous gen flagship cards. Prospective buyers will need a top of the line system to extract maximum performance from the 4090 and because of its monstrous dimensions, many will also need a new PC case. ^{[Oct '22 GPUPro]}

The RTX 3060 Ti is Nvidia’s latest 3000 series GPU. Assuming it (ever…) comes into stock at $400 USD, it will take the crown as the best value for money graphics card. Nvidia’s new Ampere architecture, which supersedes Turing, offers both improved power efficiency and performance. The 3060 Ti features 4,864 CUDA cores, 152 Tensor cores, it has a boost clock of 1.665 GHz, 8 GB of memory and a power draw of just 200 W. Nvidia’s entire 3000 series lineup offers once in a decade price/performance improvements. The 3060 Ti beats the previous generation’s 2060 Super by 35% in terms of effective speed at the same MSRP. Given the widespread issues AMD users are facing with 5000 series GPUs (blue/black screens etc.), AMD’s 6000 series GPU’s will have to see substantial price cuts and a huge marketing effort in order to gain any traction. Meanwhile, Christmas has come early for PC gamers who can look forward to an unparalleled gaming experience in class leading titles such as Cyberpunk 2077. At ultra settings, with ray tracing enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 redefines the boundaries of immersive gaming. It makes GTA5 look like Tetris in comparison. The combination of RTX+DLSS delivers stunning graphics that are several tiers higher than both AMD's best discrete GPUs and the upcoming consoles. In terms of real world performance, Nvidia’s 3000 series has more or less put AMD’s Radeon group in checkmate. Nonetheless, AMD’s marketers are capable of delivering elaborate BS albeit whilst struggling to keep a straight face. Their marketing infrastructure outsold Intel in the CPU market despite a 15% performance deficit. Without an appropriate social media marketing strategy, Nvidia will probably lose considerable market share, for all the wrong reasons. ^{[Dec '20 GPUPro]}

The GTX 1660 Super has a launch price of just $230 USD with comparable performance to the $280 USD 1660 Ti. The 1660 Super has 14 Gbps GDDR6 (versus 12Gbps GDDR6 for the 1660 Ti and 8Gbps GDDR5 for the 1660). The 1660 range of cards sit in the sweet spot for many gamers because they offer superb 1080p EFps in popular titles and they are relatively hassle free in terms of noise, compatibility and stability. The 1660S also features Turing NVENC which is far more efficient than CPU encoding and alleviates the need for casual streamers to use a dedicated stream PC. Shop prices will determine which 1660 series card represents the best value over time but at today's prices the 1660 Super effectively undercuts the 1660 Ti by $50 USD thus challenging the RX 590 in terms of overall value at 1080p. The next step up from the 1660S would be to the $325 RTX 2060. ^{[Oct '19 GPUPro]}

The 970 Evo Plus offers excellent sustained write performance both in and out of cache. This results in consistent performance even when the drive is nearly full. Samsung also have a great track record for reliability, this drive will likely last a lifetime. The larger capacity drives (1TB+) offer even better write performance and may be more appropriate for some users. We use this drive (and its larger siblings) extensively in our EFps Lab at UserBenchmark. ^{[Feb '20 SSDrivePro]}

The new 3TB Seagate Barracuda 2016 (ST3000DM008) replaces its hugely successful predecessor, the 3TB Barracuda 7200.14 2011 (ST3000DM001). Comparing performance between the two models shows that the newer drive has 12% faster sequential speeds, comparable 4K speeds, improved mixed sequential speed and reduced mixed 4K speed. Overall, the effective speed is 12% faster on the 2016 model. Since there is normally little price difference between the two models the 2016 version is the clear winner especially for use as a backup drive with its impressive sequential read and write speeds of nearly 200 MBps. See the current value leaders here. ^{[Feb '17 HDrivePro]}

The 1TB Seagate Barracuda 2016 (ST1000DM010) has an impressive performance profile. With Sequential read/writes averaging 173 and 159 MBps respectively, the Barracuda can make short work of even moderately large backups. The small file (4K) performance profile is less impressive but still adequate with average read/writes coming in at 0.87 and 1.53 MBps respectively. For use as OS drives, rotational disks are quickly loosing market share to SSDs which offer orders of magnitude faster 4k read/write speeds. On the other hand cheap TLC based SSDs often have slower sustained write speeds than their rotational counterparts. Reasonably good overall performance can be achieved by using a TLC SSD to host the OS and a larger rotational drive such as the Barracuda for backups and media files. Larger capacity variants of this drive offer both better performance and better value for money. ^{[Feb '17 HDrivePro]}