Fall 2021 Loose Ends Reader Mail

What do you think about NFT's creeping their way into games? first ubisoft announced it who quietly seems to have canned it and now stalker 2, who also just announced theyre keeping it.

Uwhm

Question: Does this move to multi-die GPUs mean that multi-GPU setups could make a comeback? With the Infinity Fabric (or other data fabric) connecting the cards together across the PCIe bus, and making the multiple dies on all the cards appear as a single one to the OS?

Vignesh Balasubramaniam

Hey Tom, on GNs Video "Intel Integrated Graphics Benchmark" it became apparent, that the upgrade to DDR5 didn't play a big role in performance for the Alder lake iGPU. Do you estimate DDR5 to make a bigger difference for Rembrandt? What is the new IO-die capable of? Tom, will cache size or the RDNA2 cores carry harder? I want to know the EXACT performance improvements over Cezanne PRECISELY to the second decimal place, NOW!

UwUThatOneGuy

So I was wondering what your current PCs contain? Between Dan, editor and yourself which games do you play do you all run 4K panels. And what do you think all your upgrade paths might be to stay up to date in the future? Say next year's upgrades and so on? Happy holidays everyone.

matthew saltzberg

I know quadro cards are super binned gaming cards tht use less power but as the nex gen is going to use so much more Watts that this. Do you think Nvidia should be worried about annoying data centres (as they use so many cards ) with their newer less efficient cards?

Alex

Hello Tom, regarding next gen GPU pricing; Any word on what data sets are being used to determine pricing for any launches in the GPU sector, either up coming in early 2022 or late 2022? Is there a way for companies by using onboard software, registration or other means they can use to determine if a GPU has accessed gaming networks or software providers (like Steam)? Is there anyway for them guesstimate use of them for mining? I think there is little doubt pricing will increase at launch next gen at least 25-35% gen-over-gen (considering some of the absurdity in the 2nd hand market). I understand nothing is set in stone, but, any grumblings?

Sarcastro

Do you think with the market demand of video cards and the recent release of the 2060 that GPU manufactures may sit on this current generation of cards for longer than normal? What is the real drive to continue to push their architecture other then to compete with each other since everything sells?

Hello Tom, do you have any insight on desktop graphics card production numbers? You already warned us that Nvidia would throttle production Q4 ‘21. I bought a 3070 last month at ~190% MSRP, but now it’s close to 300% MSRP, at the same time Radeon cards have seen a similar price hike. Is this because of strong demand from miners, high overall consumer demand, higher production / logistics costs or are Nvidia/AMD, AIBs and everyone else in the supply chain becoming increasingly more greedy? Will the prices ever come down?

Guntis Paeglis

Hey Tom. I just have a simple question; with the end of 2021 (q8 2020) approaching, what would you say about this year in reflection as we look on to q9 2020? Appreciate the content as always.

Hi Tom. In a recent podcast with a game dev, you mentioned how you have played a wide variety of games and put in thousands of hours. You felt that experience provides a reasonable basis to critique games on availability of features and their implementation in said games. I think your statements are more important than the listeners may realize. I’m finding that if a person is willing to experience a broad selection of games, on multiple systems, with various hardware, they are the best people to talk to. I own all systems, and sometimes buy multiple copies on various systems. I find it very challenging, when speaking to a gamer or self-proclaimed PC tech, that only plays or works with one system type or even more limiting, one genre of game. Conversations quickly degrade into, the others ultimately ranting about Microsoft or games like Halo or some other Xbox/PC game that is the best in HDR, open world, gameplay or story design or has the best hardware, which for the record I think is largely false. When talking more specifically about PC hardware, it gets worse as there are more nuances to the tech, with specifics in CPU, GPU, Motherboard design, types of chipsets, heat, pwr and cost. It seems the vast majority simply ignore those facts as their limited experience doesn’t translate into overall understanding of what can or will occur. Looking at how Microsoft & Nvidia can dominate with blind faith and marketing, how do you really think Intel will fair in the GPU market?

Clint Hoffman

What are your thoughts on the laptop market late Q1, early Q2? Nobody's strategy makes sense. Nvidia appears set to refresh models that don't need refreshing, they look to be the only game in town with supply after being that for pretty much all of 2021. AMD is allegedly refreshing RDNA 2 mobile on 6nm, when they had like 3 skus all of 2021 (I think one laptop got the 6600m, 6700m, and 6800m, not even from the same oems). And intel seems poised to launch alder lake laptop with. . . No arc mobile until q2. Maybe they'll try for a premium thin & light with 128 eu at launch but a paper launch of a new architecture doesn't seem very intel unless they're planning to turn around and launch battlemage mobile with Raptor lake at CES next year. Please help me make sense of this because right now, I can't.

B. Fish

Will Nvidia ever stop the selling directly miners? It seems it's a win win for them to not stop because they can charge miners alot more . And for gamers it means gpus are going to always be scarce so street price always is jacked up to roof! So we the consumer get fucked by their shenanigans....anyways my hope is intel and amd combined can deliver enough high volume for us so Nvidia doesn't get their way of screwing us.

Falto

What do you think the probability of pcie 5.0 being implemented on Zen4 mainstream socket is? And if there is support what do you think the probability is of nvme 5.0 support is?

Doron Loula

Is there anything concrete regarding the state of Intels drivers for gaming? Now that we know a lot about the hardware and it seems capable, that is still my biggest hesitance and doubt that Intels GPUs will be a good choice for gaming.

dj5k

Hi Tom. This question isn't exactly about performance/numbers, and more about the industry situation, so I understand if you are going to be just guessing but I'm curious about your opinion. We have seen Nvidia destroy a lot of good will among companies in the industry over the years, so much so that governments are blocking their ARM acquisition and the gaming crown and brand recognition seem to be the only reasons why gpu partners, OEMs and SIs are still bothering with them. Over a year ago nobody was even thinking about picking Intel GPUs over Nvidia and now everyone is looking forward to Intel GPUs and it seems that given the option OEMs and SIs are going to go with Intel because of either the CPU + GPU combo, or because Intel GPUs will simply be affordable, even if not high end. Considering all that, do you think Nvidia will reflect on its dubious practices and try improve their relationship in industry, or will they just double down? Is this intolerance problem only in the leadership of the company or do you have sources suggesting it's ingrained in the company culture as a whole? Thanks for the amazing year and get some rest. Happy holidays.

As far as Intel GPUs go (Alchemist and Battlemage)...any word on the real time encoding performance? Worse, as good, or better than Nvidia's NVENC or AMD's VCE/AMF? I'm curious to see if it will end up being a popular choice for game streamers, whether in a single PC or a dedicated streaming rig. Thanks Tom. Happy holidays buddy.

theRemedy

Thoughts on Alder lake sales? Seems like it's been going quite slowly and there's already tons of discounts right, left and centre. Also seems that there are lots of people complaining about the Z690 DDR4 motherboards throwing a fit with memory...

qhfreddy