RIP Titan

[cowpatz]

Well my trusty GTX Titan graphics card finally turned up it's toes and called it a day
It was a shame as I am not quite at the point of doing a much needed PC upgrade. The current prices for PC parts are just insane ($4500 for a RTX 3090 is just nonsense). Also the next gen of CPUs and GPUs are supposed to coming out soon (aren't they always!).
The Titan was limited in memory and not DX12 capable so it was going to be limited going forward. That coupled with my long suffering overclocked 4770K GPU. It was going to limit enjoying P3Dv5 so that remains uninstalled.
In the meantime I have grabbed an used GTX 1080TI to "fill the void" until upgrading. I will install P3Dv5 and see how it performs. then of course there is MSFS.
The plan is to pass this rig on to my partner for her to use (It will be overkill for her as she is not a gamer or into any intensive graphic programs.
So in the meantime I have to decide where to draw the line in sand as to when to take the "leap of faith' with new products versus timing. Just how long do you hold out and wait and see?
I'm sure we have all been here to some degree.......its a bit like upgrading a mobile phone.

[emfrat]

The current prices for PC parts are just insane ($4500 for a RTX 3090 is just nonsense).

Apparently these prices are being driven by demand from the bitcoin mining crowd. I don't know how that works, and I'm not sure I really want to.
As ever, no matter what you buy it will be superseded in three months and obsolete in six. The only good side is, if you keep an eye on the runout sales, you might score a very powerful card for an honest price. Trouble is most suppliers here in Oz have hardly any stock, due to covid-related shipping delays, so the older models are long gone.

Mike

[cowpatz]

Yes I think the miners were responsible a while ago but new "anti mining cards" slowed that down. It seems to be chip supply now that is the issue.....and as you say the shipping issues.

[cowpatz]

I'm just wondering if my system specs (poor as they are currently) will run MSFS.
4770K OC'd to 4.3 (I didn't win the silicon lottery unlike Michael Basler with his 4770K) 16 GB RAM and the GTX1080 TI

[jpreou]

Here's mine: I'm running MSFS with no problems and happy enough with it. To be fair, I have not visited much in the world than NZ, so none of the historically 'tricky' or 'heavy' areas that cause slow downs. And I do see some slow down when in very heavy clouds but **for me** it is still very usable. I fly only low-to-mid level (altitude) GA (so no complex a/c), usually only in NZ, and typically in real-time weather. I own a few add-on GA planes, and a few add-on NZ airports (ChCh, AKL, Queenstown, Nelson, Tairei).

PBTech Custom Build - Corsair H80i water cooler, Intel i5-9600K @ 3.7GHz, Kingston HyperX Predator 4x8GB DDR4 3200MHz, Asus Prime Z370-P II, Gigabyte GTX1080 8GB, EVGA SupeNova 750WG3 80+ Gold PSU, Samsung 128GB 840 Pro SSD, Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD, Seagate Barracuda 3TB SATA3, LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD writer black, Cooler Master N600 case, Logitech LS21 speakers, Win10 Home ... and a bunch of Saitek panels, TrackIR, cessna trim wheel, pedals and a desktop aviation parking break.
I run SPAD.Next for the Saitek gear, and REX WeatherForce for the ... weather.

So yes, it would work, but 'how well' --- well, that depends entirely on your expectations, type of flying, type of aircraft, additional scenery loaded, etc.
Flight sim really is a YMMV game...

[cowpatz]

Thanks Jeff. I will give it a go and see how it works out. I may need to pop in another couple of sticks of RAM in the interim.
I just dont want to upgrade right now and then find that the next CPUs use a different socket. Plus the next range of Nvidia graphics cards are looking at a significant improvement over the current.
I think it will be a waiting game.....so in the meantime.....

[jpreou]

Yeah I'm waiting too. Partially enforced because I simply can't afford a new PC, plus my spare money (until the fuel and food crisis anyway) was going to renewing my Class 2 Microlight license. Finally, whatever PC I get next needs to be able to run next-gen high-resolution VR ... and that will be expensive. Probably not on the cards for another couple of years for me!

[cowpatz]

I thought that I might extend my system life by doing a small upgrade. I replaced the dead Titan with a 1080TI card but of course the bottleneck now (and always has been I guess) is the 4770K CPU.
I have looked at a i5-9700K Coffee lake CPU as it uses the same LGA 1151 socket, which I thought I could pick up relatively cheaply being an obsolete CPU. I was blown away to see that they are way more expensive than the Alder lake CPUs! Very disappointing indeed. It looks like my mini upgrade (Graphic card, CPU and RAM) may set me back a shade under $2K.
It is tempting to leap into a full new custom rig but I would prefer to wait until later in the year to look at the next offering. I have heard favourable things about the RTX 4000 series cards and I'm sure the CPUs will improve by then too.