We’ve obtained examples of the RTX 3060 Ti, the RTX 3070, and the RTX 3080 and have spent the last two weeks running them through a suite of benchmark tests. In this article, we’ll present our results to you and conclude with some remarks as to what systems and usage cases these cards are best suited to. 

We’ve tested first-person shooters and AAA titles at 1080p, 1440p 1400p Ultrawide, and 4K. Our testing methodology differs from some other sites: We’ve chosen settings that show these games in their best light, and that’s not always ‘ultra’ across the board. We’ve tested most games here on high or a mix of high and ultra settings, allowing the GPUs to shine and giving you a better understanding of how you can expect them to perform in the real world. The settings remain consistent both within each test and across the resolutions.

From the results here, you will be able to tweak settings to obtain higher quality or higher framerates, whichever you prefer, but you can expect performance on a par with our numbers here. Where we identify a clear CPU bottleneck we’ve mentioned it (Hi Warzone!).

The test system is our Ryzen test bench with a Ryzen 7 5800X, 16GB of RAM running at 3600MHz Cl16, and a B550 motherboard.

So, let’s dig into the numbers. 

RTX 3060 Ti vs 3070 vs 3080: Synthetic Tests

3DMark

Firstly, a quick look at some synthetic benchmarks helps us verify our cards are performing correctly, and get an idea of where they stack up overall. We’re just looking at the GPU scores here. We’ve included some popular GPUs of the last generation so you can see how they compare.

Fire Strike uses DX11 which is an older API now, and we get an idea of how closely matched the GTX 1080 Ti and RX 5700XT are, and in this case the RTX 3060 Ti as well.

Time Spy uses The DX12 API and is more representative of current games, here the RTX 3060 Ti fares better but it’s clear the RTX 3080 still has a big lead.

Finally, we can take a looking ‘Port Royal’ helps us assess the relative Ray tracing capabilities of the RTX-enabled GPUs. This test uses DX12’s Ray tracing commands to render out a complex scene full of shadows, reflections, and lighting sources over and above the traditionally rasterised rendering of the core 3D scene. Despite using the last generation RTX cores the RTX 2080 Ti acquits itself well here, and there’s a fair gap between the performance of the 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 commensurate with their RTX core counts and overall rendering ability. The RTX 2060 brings up the rear, the least powerful card with RTX capabilities.

RTX 3060 Ti vs 3070 vs 3080: Gaming Benchmarks

1080p Performance

1080p FPS Gaming

Doom eternal is really well optimised and shows good scaling with GPU power, everything from the RX 5700XT up exceeding 240FPS.

In Call of Duty Warzone, on high settings, we see all the Ampere cards exceed 200FPS average but you’re not gaining a huge amount from the additional cost and power of the RTX 3080. I think we’re seeing the ceiling of the 5800X’s performance here although lows don’t suffer like the can in some titles when CPU bound. There was a hard limit of 250FPS maximum frame rate in all the Ampere GPUs.

Rainbow 6 Siege shows good 1080p scaling but even an entry-level GPU is capable of fairly insane framerates at 1080p in this game.

1080p AAA Gaming

As for the AAA Titles, In Shadow of the Tomb Raider we’re seeing all the GPUs exceed 144FPS average at 1080p with the 3080 nearing 200FPS. Of note here is that the 3070 was 78% GPU bound, and the 3080 was only 50% GPU bound: Even with a Ryzen 5800X, GPU performance is being left on the table in this title with the higher performing Ampere GPUs in this game at 1080p. 

In Red Dead Redemption 2, a more demanding title, the high settings load GPU’s even at 1080p. The 2080Ti and 3080 are the only GPUs to exceed 100FPS average, but in this title we’re really looking for a consistent 60FPS at high settings and everything from a 1080ti and 5700XT upwards is capable of that here. Like Doom eternal, the Vulkan API’s help the 5700XT perform – AMD cards respond well to this API.

1080p Flight Simulator

And finally in Flight Sim 2020, 1080p means the CPU performance is as exposed as GPU  performance, we see minor performance improvements from the higher tier cards but even the 3080 only just hits 60FPS: That’s a function of the demanding nature of this test, flying over New York City at low level. As you’d expect, at 1080p all of these GPUs perform very well and we do see utilisation drop below 100% on occasions as they wait for the CPU to process the game data. Ultra settings sees performance drop about 10FPS across the board.

1440p Performance

1440P FPS Shooters

This resolution is a much better match for these GPUs, and Doom Eternal is really well optimised letting the higher-end hardware shine. Again we see the power of the 3080 compared to the 2080 Ti, and Nvidias claims re the 3070 matching the 2080Ti ring true. Doom has a very well refined settings system: Each graphics preset adds or removes about 10FPS so you can fine-tune the game to your liking but all of these GPUs give a fluid, exciting experience at 1440p and over 100FPS, even the 1660 Super hits 90FPS average. It’s still very enjoyable but you might want to reduce settings a notch or two. 

Rainbow Six Siege shows excellent scaling with the more powerful GPUs, and the RTX 3080 really stretches its legs to deliver a 400FPS average: Even the 3060 Ti exceeds 260FPPS, and we’re well into diminishing returns since we’ve well exceeded even a fast monitors refresh rate and generally this is a title that would be played at 1080p. Note the 2060KO and below are run on a Ryzen 3600 System: That likely accounts for some of the performance difference here, but it’s not a huge difference.

Call of Duty: Warzone we still see them all exceed 144FPS average at high settings. The RTX 2080ti marginally outperforms the Ampere cards here, which could be down to it being an established card with optimised drivers whilst the Ampere cards are newer – but note they don’t scale well. An RTX 3080 isn’t getting you substantially more performance in this title over the much cheaper 3060 Ti.

1440P AAA Titles

Moving on to Triple-A titles, Red Dead Redemption can make the most powerful graphics cards sweat, and we have turned up settings here. That’s for a couple of reasons, firstly because the game should be experienced in all its glory at higher settings, and secondly, because it shows the significant break in performance between the cards that can maintain 60FPS average, and those that can’t. Last generation cards struggle, whilst the 3060 Ti comfortably maintains nearly 70FPS, and the RTX 3070, RTX 2080 Ti, and RTX 3080 all approach 100FPS average. Again, you can tweak settings to get the performance you’re happy with as they are turned right up here, but those GPUs are capable of providing an excellent experience at 1440p.

Looking at Shadow of the Tomb raider, again this title shows where the GTX 1660 Super begins to struggle, although it is still capable of running well optimised titles like this at 1440p. The scaling with the more powerful GPUs is clear with all of the Ampere GPUs exceeding 100FPS average. This is at ‘highest’ settings and we can see that the 3080 is the card that manages to exceed 144FPS average at 1440p in this title with settings cranked. 

In Flight Simulator at 1440p, we’re now becoming much more GPU bound. 50-60FPS average at high-end settings really is a good performance in this test, and it looks utterly gorgeous doing it. All Ampere GPUs exceed 30FPS at all times. 1440p is where Flight Sim 2020 really begins to shine, and the RTX 3060 Ti, in particular, impressed me with its performance here. Lifting settings to ‘Ultra’ adds some nice visual tweaks but still costs about 10FPS across the board. Again, there’s room to tweak here with just a couple of detail settings turned down from ultra getting you most of the performance benefits at almost no detriment to visuals. 

1440p Conclusion

We can see that these cards really begin to come alive at 1440p, significantly outpacing all but the highest-end options from the last generation. It was the 3060 Ti that impressed me most, with performance very much in the same ballpark as it’s bigger siblings. Once you’re up to 100FPS in AAA titles at high settings, you really are getting what you paid for in games, so there’s not much more to be asked for the 3060 Ti. The RTX 3070 also excels at this resolution. 

1440p Ultrawide Gaming

Moving on to ultrawide 1440p, this resolution bridges the gap to 4K and is becoming increasingly popular. We particularly like the versatility of workspace it offers, combined with the immersion in gaming.

1440p Ultrawide FPS Gaming

The first person shooters still record high FPS if they’re well optimised, Rainbow 6 Siege is generating over 250FPS in high settings. COD:Warzone really does seem to be CPU limited – FPS doesn’t really drop much from 1440p so you’re at no penalty opting for ultrawide. Doom Eternal is still generating well over 144FPS on everything except the 1080ti, and we’re at ultra nightmare settings here.

1440p Ultrawide AAA Titles

Moving on to AAA Titles, we’re exceeding 60FPS in Red Dead Redemption 2 on all the Ampere cards at demanding settings. The 3060ti and 3070 are again relatively Close in performance with 10FPS between them, with only the 3080 distinguishing itself 20FPS higher. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is much the same pattern, but with slightly higher framerates. The 3070, 3080, and 2080 Ti all approach or exceed 100FPS. 

And finally, at 1440p Ultrawide, we see the same scaling in Flight Simulator 2020 – But all of these GPUs are approaching or exceeding 50FPS even at this resolution which is impressive, and again you can see you’re paying a great deal in going from an RTX 3060 Ti to an RTX 3070 and on to an RTX 3080 to go from 46 to 60 FPS.

The takeaways here are really how closely the RTX 3070 matches the RTX 2080 Ti so Nvidias claims ring true there. Also, note that the hierarchy of cards is now well established but the 3060Ti really isn’t a bit-part player here: It’s very much keeping pace and in any of these titles you’re not going to see or feel a difference in performance between say 160 FPS and 190Fps, or in just a couple of settings turned down to see it match the performance of the RTX 3070. The 3070 is clearly excellent in 1440p ultrawide, but the 3060ti is more than capable as well. The 3080 holds it’s clear lead.

4K Performance

4K FPS Shooters

Moving on to 4K, we’re now at a resolution that can make these GPUs really work hard. Looking at the shooters, note that we’re still exceeding 100FPS in Doom Eternal and CoD Warzone – and we’re still at high settings here. Likewise, in Rainbow6 Siege we’re exceeding 144FPS meaning you’ll be maximising a high performance 4K monitor, not that this is an ideal set up for competitive play. The RTX 3080 is still pushing past 300FPS, but the 3060Ti and 3070 are much lower here beaten even by the GTX 1080ti and I confirmed this with multiple runs. I can’t confirm exactly why this is.

4K AAA Titles

AAA titles are where you can revel in the detail rendering at 4K gives – but we’re starting to see all of these GPUs struggling to make the magic 60FPS. You’re going to have to turn down settings a little from those we’ve used throughout these benchmarks. Again we see the 3070 shadowing the 2080 Ti closely although the 2080 Ti does come out on top – just – in these three tests. The 3080 has a clear advantage, and if you’re building a 4K focussed gaming PC then it’s really between the RTX 3080 and the RX 6800 XT as to which GPU is right for you.

Conclusions

The RTX 3060 Ti

Firstly, the RTX 3060 Ti was the standout card of this test. It performs excellently, to the point where it’s close to the RTX 3070 in most of these titles at 1440p. In well optimised games and first-person shooters, it’s producing fluid responsive gameplay at high FPS and high settings. In demanding titles, it’s punching well above its weight. The RTX 3060 Ti a great card, and if you’re looking to trade off components in your system to afford a better CPU, monitor, or SSD, you should absolutely consider the 3060 Ti. It won’t feel like a compromised choice at all.

Ampere Gaming at 1080p

Secondly, none of the Ampere cards achieve their potential at 1080p. They’re either exposing CPU limitation in very high FPS titles or else not shining in AAA titles restricted by a lower pixel count. You can make a case for the RTX 3060 Ti in either a very high FPS esports build, or in a PC aimed at playing AAA titles at 1080p and very high settings: But really, We’d recommend that if you’re considering any of these Qmpere cards you start your search with a 1440p Monitor capable of 144Hz and adaptive sync. That’s where you start getting your money’s worth out of these GPUs. 

The RTX 3080

Finally, of course, there’s the RTX 3080. This GPU is an absolute monster. It cleanly wins every benchmark here, and whilst the 3070 has clearly been pegged to the RTX 2080 Ti, and the RTX 3060 Ti massaged to ensure it’s 10% or so slower than that, the RTX 3080 is allowed to stretch its legs and hit the limits of its’ capability. That really comes down to power restrictions but We’ll dig into that more with a specific look at the RTX 3080 in a future article.

Watch out for bottlenecking in aged systems

One note of caution here is if you pair these GPUs with an aging system, they’re all-powerful enough to expose weakness, particularly in CPUs. You may find that whilst you can run at higher settings, you begin to experience stutter and frame time inconsistencies if you hit the limit of your CPUs performance. That’s something we want to investigate and we will be running through some tests with a Ryzen 5 3600 and Intel CPUs from the last-generation to see if they negatively impact performance at all, or if they’re sufficient to maximise the potential of these GPUs. 

Our Recommendations

Best Ampere Card for 1080p FPS Gaming / 1440p All-rounder Builds: RTX 3060 Ti

Based on our results, realistically we’d recommend the RTX 3060 Ti as the high FPS esports GPU at 1080p, or for a 1440p all-round gaming machine.

Related: RTX 3060 Ti Aftermarket Card Overview
Related: RTX 3060 Ti Aftermarket Card Database

Best Ampere Card for 1440p AAA Gaming: RTX 3070 / 3060 Ti

Stepping up in to solid 1440p AAA title performance the RTX 3070 makes a strong case for itself, but cross-shop the RTX 3060 Ti if you’re working to a budget – you won’t feel short-changed with its performance and if it allows you to purchase a high-performance CPU as well then it’s the right choice to make.

Best Ampere Card for 1440p Ultrawide Gaming: RTX 3070 / 3080

At 1440p Ultrawide, the RTX 3070 shines but the additional cost of a RTX 3080 begins to make sense to provide a really remarkable gaming experience. 

Related: Best RTX 3070 Aftermarket Cards
Related: RTX 3070 Aftermarket Card Overview
Related: RTX 3070 Aftermarket Card Database

Best Ampere Card for 4K Gaming: RTX 3080

And finally, at 4K, it’s such a demanding resolution that in high-end titles like Red Dead Redemption or Cyberpunk you will need to lower settings from Ultra to maintain 60FPS performance even on an RTX 3080. There is one ace up the Ampere GPUs sleeve though: DLSS. This technology form Nvidia uses a trained neural network and AI to up-sample the rendered image for display: when it works well it allows you to combine heightened settings with higher frame rates. However, just a handful of titles are using it to it’s full potential, so it’s something we’re looking into and will deliver our impressions on it later.. 

Related: Best RTX 3080 Aftermarket Cards
Related: RTX 3080 Aftermarket Card Overview

I hope you’ve found this roundup of the Ampere GPUs useful: pair any one of these cards with a well-matched monitor (linked below) and you’ll have an absolutely fantastic set up to enjoy the latest games as they are meant to be played.

• Best Monitors for RTX 3060 Ti
• Best Monitors for RTX 3070
• Best Monitors for RTX 3080

The post RTX 3060 Ti vs 3070 vs 3080: Benchmark Comparison (Real World Tests) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Nvidia’s Ampere launch has brought a large step forwards in performance at every price point. The three mainstream cards currently released, the RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 all excel in high resolutions and the most demanding current games. The RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070 are closest in specification and price, with the RTX 3060 Ti priced at around $400 and the RTX 3070 starting at $500 for the various partner cards. In this review, we’ll take an in-depth look at those two cards to find out which is going to be best for your needs. We’ve run hundreds of benchmarks and spent many hours tweaking these GPUs to best inform you of their relative strengths, so let’s dig in!

RTX 3060 Ti vs RTX 3070

Specifications

	RTX 3060 Ti	RTX 3070	RTX 3080
Design
Price (MSRP)	$399	$499	$699
VRAM	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	10GB GDDR6X
VRAM Bus	256bit	256bit	320bit
GPU Core	GA104-200-A1	GA104-300-A1	GA102-200-KD-A1
Process	Samsung 8N	Samsung 8N	Samsung 8N
Cuda Cores	4864	5888	10496
RT Cores	38	46	68
Tensor Cores	152	184	272
PCie Bus	PCIe 4.0x16	PCIe 4.0x16	PCIe 4.0x16
Pixel Rate	133.2 GPixel/s	165.6 GPixel/s	164.2 GPixel/s
Texture Rate	253.1 GTexel/s	317.4 GTexel/s	465.1 GTexel/s
Base Clock	1410 MHz	1500 MHz	1440 MHz
Boost Clock	1665 MHz	1725 MHz	1710 MHz
TDP	200W	220W	320W
AIB Cards	RTX 3060 Ti Card Database	RTX 3070 Card Database	RTX 3080 Card Database

The main similarity between these cards is in their memory specification: Both have 8GB of GDDR6 Memory operating at 448GB/second bandwidth, across a 256bit bus. They forgo the faster GDDR6X memory specification of the RTX 3080. 

The differences lie in the core. Whilst both use the GA104 core, the RTX 3060ti makes do with a cut down version of it. The RTX 3070 has 5888 shader units, 184 tensor cores, and 46 Ray tracing cores. It boosts to around 1725MHz. The RTX 3060Ti has 1000 fewer shader units at 4864, 152 Tensor cores, and 38 Ray tracing cores. It also boosts slightly lower in reference specification, to 1665MHz. In operation, both comfortably exceed their reference boost clocks.

In real terms, we should see performance commensurate to those key specification differences. 

To test this, we’ve got our hands on an example of each card. The 3060 Ti is a Zotac Twin Edge OC, a twin fan 2 slot model. This card claims a 1695 MHz boost clock but our example self boosts to sustain 1860MHz and is unusual in that it’s a pure 2 slot design and relatively short at just 222mm. Other than that it has the same specifications as any other RTX 3060Ti.

The RTX 3070 is EVGA’s XC3 Ultra model. It’s a 3 fan card with a ‘2.2’ slot thick cooler, and EVGA claims a boost clock of 1770Mhz for this model, but in fact, it itself boosts to 1950 MHz happily and will sustain a 2150Mhz boost when overclocked. 

All tests were conducted on an identical test rig: The System comprises of a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU with PBO enabled, A MSI Mortar B550 motherboard, and 16GB of RAM clocked at 3600MHz Cl16 and operating in dual channel mode. Power Supply is a 650W Gold Antec unit.

‘Real World’ Testing

A note on how we test: These tests are conducted on what we consider ‘real world’ settings. That is, High or Highest unless the very highest settings are a serious detriment to performance. We’re aiming to present to you the cards performance as close as possible to how you will experience them on your own PC, whilst playing the games you love. The tests are completely standardised and identical in each benchmark so the cards are being tested like-for-like. Please see the footnote for details of each benchmark.

Performance

Firstly let’s check out some synthetic benchmarks, to see how the GPUs perform in a standardised test and also to verify that our examples are comparable to other versions. We’ll also take a quick look at overclocked performance just to see how much performance there is on the table, although this isn’t an in-depth look at overclocking these cards. We’ve included the GTX 1080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Ti for reference.

In Firestrike we can see the clear segmentation between these cards – the stock 3060 Ti matches the 1080 Ti in this Direct X 11 test that renders at 1080p. The RTX 3070 makes good its promise of matching the RTX 2080 Ti, whilst the RTX 3080 sits in a league of its own at the top. You can see an overclock adds a little to the RTX 3070 and 3060 Ti, but doesn’t bridge the gap between them and the next card up.

In Time Spy which is direct X12 and renders at 1440p, the Ampere cards come into their own with the 3060Ti clearly beating the 1080ti. The RTX 3070 perfectly brackets the 2080 Ti with it’s stock and overclocked configuration, whilst again the RTX 3080 sits at the top over 2000 points clear. 

To evaluate Ray Tracing performance we can look at the Port Royal Benchmark, which yields a single score based on overall GPU performance. Here again, we see the RTX 3080’s clear lead, but focussing on the RTX 3060ti we can see it is 1000 points short of the 3070, and an overclock does little to help. The 3070 gains a little more from an overclock, but still falls a little way short of the claimed ‘RTX 2080ti beating claim’.

How does this translate into actual gaming performance though? We’ll focus on the two cards in question here to work out the differences between them.

Gaming Benchmarks

Looking first at some fast-paced shooters, COD Warzone shows how capable both of these GPUs are at 1080p and 1440p, and even at 1440p ultrawide, we’re still at around 144FPS making full use of a high refresh rate monitor. We’re using high settings here so you’re not even sacrificing fidelity for speed and you could push framerates higher with lower settings. This game is actually heavily dependent on CPU as well so if it’s the game you care about, you’ll get better results with the 3060Ti and a great CPU than you will with the 3070 and a compromised CPU. By 4K we are struggling to exceed 100FPS so I wouldn’t recommend these GPUs – or playing warzone in 4K on them. Note how close the two GPUs remain across the board with just 10-15FPS separating them.

Rainbow 6 Siege is even faster-paced, and again both GPUs exceed 240FPS at 1080p, 1440p and 1440p ultrawide. They even exceed 144FPS at 4k, and this in on very high settings across the board. Again, we see limited performance improvement from the additional spend on an RTX 3070, and CPU performance is always going to be more important here.

Finally, as an example of a well optimised first-person shooter, Doom eternal on Ultra Nightmare settings shows strong scaling both with hardware and resolution. Again, we see very high framerates of around 300FPs average on 1080p, over 200 for both the 3060Ti and 3070 at 1440p, and well over 144Fps at 1440p ultrawide. Here, about 20FPS separate the 3060Ti and 3070 with settings like for like, but realistically the difference to the player of 205 FPS vs 225 is minimal, both provide an excellent experience and exceed the refresh rates of very high-performance monitors at 1440p and 1440p ultrawide, and it does well at 4K too.

Moving on to more demanding AAA titles, this is where we perhaps see a little more separation between the two cards.

Red Dead Redemption’s inbuilt benchmark gives us an insight into the demands of current games. These have all been run at identical settings, a mix of high and ‘ultra’ and favoring visual quality to best show off the game’s graphics. In reality, you can drop settings for more performance at no real cost to the visual quality of the game. Nonetheless exceeding 60FPS is our target here. Even at 1080p, we see averages below 100FPS: That’s a function of both of the demands of the game but also the fact that the rendering pipelines in Ampere are set up to be more efficient at higher resolutions so you’re not seeing their full potential at 1080p. Moving on to 1440p both GPUs exceed 60 FPS, but the 3070 scores 87FPS to the 3060Ti’s 69 FPS. Both are totally playable, but you can see that you will have to lower settings a bit more on the 3060ti for equivalent performance – manually forcing settings to ‘high’ except keeping textures at ultra sees performance to 81FPS on the 3060Ti, but keeps the games visual flair intact. At 1440p ultrawide again we see that both remain playable but there’s a hit to the performance with 59 FPS on the 3060Ti and 68 on the 3070. Again, moving to high in place of ultra on the 3060Ti equals the 3070’s performance here and both GPUs remain very enjoyable to play.  At 4K, still on ultra, we’re seeing 45 and 50 FPS respectively and this will probably look jarring to many people. We need a mix of medium and high settings on the RTX 3060 Ti, and high and ultra on the RTX 3070, to hit 60FPS average. Getting the very best out of titles like Red Dead 2 at 4K needs more GPU power but if you’re willing to accept some compromise to settings either card plays acceptably well.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is either less ambitious or just better optimised depending on your point of view, but still delivers state of the art visuals. At the highest settings, you’re getting the full effect and at 1080p you can see both GPUs comfortably exceed 144FPS. At 1440p both are just above 100FPS, with the 3070 around 15 FPS ahead, but this is an excellent result for both. Moving up to ultrawide, we’re at 81 and 94 FPS respectively, again close enough to not see a vast difference when gaming, and within reach of a few settings tweaks to equal performance.  At 4K we fall under the 60FPS target with the 3060 Ti struggling a little at 54FPS, but the 3070 managing 63 FPS average. The game will play acceptably well at 4K on these cards, and this is at the very highest settings. 

And finally, Flight Simulator 2020 requires a brutal mix of next-generation graphical and CPU power, and you can see that by the fact we’re CPU limited at 1080p high settings on both cards with GPU utilization rarely exceeding 90%. This test comprises a 3-minute low-level flight over Manhattan and 60FPS is the highest performance possible on this system – not even an RTX 3080 exceeds it. At 1440p and 1440p ultrawide, the 3070 takes a 10% lead over the 3060 Ti and extends it to more like 20% at 4K. Both of these GPUs are exceptionally capable in this title at 1440p and 1440p ultrawide, and you can mix ultra and high settings for stunning scenery and near 60FPS performance. As the first-person shooters, this is a title that actually needs careful consideration of the whole system to get the best performance out of it. See our Flight Simulator Performance Analysis guide for more benchmarks and recommendations for this title.

Cyberpunk 2077

Much of the hype around the Ampere cards has focussed on Cyberpunk 2077, thanks to it’s highly demanding graphics and implementations of both RTX and DLSS 2.0. Whilst we have spent significant time playing it and testing it, we don’t feel it’s ready for anything more than a qualitative assessment at the moment. Performance is changing all the time with fixes and updates – hopefully for the better. Similarly, the complexities of performance variations with RTX on or off, and the various DLSS settings by their nature make it largely a matter of opinion as to what you prefer. DLSS is also somewhat of a ‘black box’ – AI-powered upscaling is by its nature hidden from the user and provides remarkable results but ones that may feel a little strange to players not accustomed to it. We’re planning a more in-depth look at these features soon, but for now, let’s consider it like this: Do these GPUs allow you to play and enjoy the game, and does the RTX 3070 offer a significant advantage over the RTX 3060Ti?

Both GPUs allow 60+FPS  in-game without using RTX or DLSS at 1440p. Using RTX for lighting and reflections means you need DLSS turned on to achieve acceptable performance on either GPU, but even the 3060Ti manages 60FS with DLSS in balanced mode rendering at an internal resolution of 960p and upscaling to 1440p. It looks remarkably good doing this and it’s likely going to come down to personal preference how you want to play the game. The RTX 3070 is powerful enough to also run RTX shadows and higher quality RTX lighting and maintain 60FPS, or simply hit higher frame rates. There’s so much customisation built into just the RTX and DLSS settings that you’re bound to find a compromise that works for you and this goes for either GPU. At 1440p ultrawide, both cards begin to struggle to hit 60FPS, and at 4K you are either looking at maximum assistance from DLSS or unacceptable performance, particularly on the 3060Ti. RTX isn’t viable with frame rates dropping to the 30’s. With RTX off and DLSS set to balanced the 306 0Ti is still capable of 60FPS at 4K though, showing the value of that upscaling technology.

For Cyberpunk 2077, either the RTX 3060 Ti or 3070 provide a more than acceptable experience at 1440p.

At 1440p ultrawide or 4K, we’d recommend the RTX 3080 to experience the full gamut of next-gen graphics this title has to offer. 

Value

Value is of course relative: If you want the higher performance of the RTX 3070 and are prepared to pay for it, then that represents value to you. However, looking at the various performance differences, we see the RTX 3070 is around 10% faster at 1080p, 12-14% faster at 1440p and ultrawide, and 15% faster on average at 4k. However it’s 20% more expensive at suggested retail price. Further, as we’ve shown in these tests the RTX 3060 Ti is just as capable as the RTX 3070 and it’s often just a case of slight settings tweaks to bring the cheaper card up to the same level of performance. Factors like the identical VRAM specification make it even harder to separate them.

If you want the best value then that’s clearly the RTX 3060 Ti.

If you’re prepared to pay for that slightly richer visual experience or extra performance, then the RTX 3070 brings that to the table for around $100 more. 

Conclusions and Recommendations

Best for 1080p High-FPS Gaming

At 1080p you’re not getting the best of these cards – although they’re obviously excellent performers. You’ll want to pair them with a top flight CPU to get as much performance as possible, and a very high refresh rate 1080p monitor. There’s just a 10% average difference here across all the titles, and we’re already achieving high framerates, so if you must go overkill at 1080p the RTX 3060 Ti is the right choice. Nvidia has a new GPU model release imminently and this should better cater for 1080p gaming.

Best for 1440p Gaming

At 1440p again the RTX 3060 Ti is a strong performer, with the RTX 3070 offering slightly higher framerates or visual settings, whichever is your preference. But there’s no night-and-day difference between these cards and if you’re working to a budget the RTX 3060 Ti is the right choice.

Best for 1440p Ultrawide Gaming

At 1440p ultrawide, you do see slightly more performance from the RTX 3070, and if you’re intending on playing AAA titles at that resolution it’s a great starting point. For occasional or more casual gaming the RTX 3060 Ti also does well.

Best for 4K Gaming

And finally, at 4K, either of these cards can provide an acceptable experience but if you’re planning a 4K Gaming PC then that really is still the realm of the RTX 3080. 

Footnote: Game settings used in benchmarks

The post RTX 3060 Ti Vs RTX 3070 Benchmark Comparison: Which is Best for You? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Well, the GeForce RTX 3070 has finally launched and made it out into the wild… Sort of. Nvidia’s Ampere launch has, admittedly, been quite troubled by severe availability issues. Limited stock is usually expected given the nature of new consumer electronics, on top of recent global concerns, but few could have anticipated this much of a drought even in the face of Ampere’s significantly higher demand compared to Turing. The good news for hardcore fans of Team Green is that, with a bit of patience, AMD might have recently helped to alleviate issues with RTX stock thanks to their incredible RDNA 2 reveal. Team Red’s bold claims and testing results still need real world testing with units from the shelves, but things are finally going to start heating up for top-tier graphics cards.

Despite however strong AMD’s Zen 3/RDNA 2 CPU-GPU combo turns out to be, that doesn’t change the fact that there are now two primary choices for 2080 Ti level performance for less than half the price. Regardless of whether features like Smart Access Memory prove effective for gaming in general, AMD still has to contend with builders’ familiarity and brand loyalty. It’s been many years since Radeon GPUs have truly competed for the top spots in games performance and benchmarks, and, there’s no way around this, AMD’s software solutions and driver support have been lackluster compared to Nvidia’s.

Many gamers are likely going to stick with what they know even if they’ve boarded the Zen 3 hype train, and for many good reasons. Chief among them, the RTX 3070. You might point to the RTX 3070 having only 8GB of VRAM compared to the 16GB available for all of AMD’s currently announced 6000 series cards, but you don’t particularly need any more than that if you’re below 4K resolution at max settings, which the vast majority of gamers are.

There’s no denying that builders, at least those not frantically searching for an available Ampere card, face a tough choice this generation; but for gamers determined to fly the Green flag, we’re here to help you determine which 3^rd party RTX 3070 is right for your next upgrade.

Best RTX 3070 Aftermarket Cards – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model	Boost Clock	Length
Best Extreme Overclocking RTX 3070 Card		EVGA RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra Gaming	1815MHz	300mm
Best Overall RTX 3070 Card		Asus ROG Strix RTX 3070	1755MHz	319mm
Best MSRP AIB RTX 3070 Card		Zotac Gaming RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC	1755MHz	232mm
Quietest RTX 3070 Card		MSI RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio	1830MHz	323mm

Best Extreme Overclocking RTX 3070 Card

The RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra Gaming has entered the arena to carry on the FTW3 flagship legacy for EVGA. Aside from their renowned customer service and warranty support, EVGA has built its reputation on the build quality, performance, and over-engineering of their GPUs, especially with the FTW3 series.

Housing EVGA’s best binned silicon, the FTW3 is aptly named (“for-the-win” with a triple-fan cooler). As is custom with FTW3 cards, the 3070 FTW3 Ultra Gaming has a custom VBIOS and PCB in tandem with a chunky heat sink and triple-fan cooling solution which allow for the additional overclocking headroom. All of these improvements over reference for the FTW3 3070 mean EVGA is able to push the power budget between 300-320W, allowing for even higher boost clocks above the already tuned 1815MHz.

The two most important considerations when it comes to the FTW3 series are cost and your interest in overclocking. If you don’t plan on playing with programs like MSI Afterburner or EVGA’s own Precision X1 to overclock and benchmark your card to get the most performance possible, then you’re much better suited by a Founder’s Edition reference model directly from Nvidia rather than the FTW3, or many other top-tier custom cards. Although, if an extra $120 for one of the most capable RTX 3070s available sounds like a good deal, then the FTW3 Ultra Gaming is a phenomenal choice. If you enjoy testing how you fared in the silicon lottery by seeing how much free performance you can pull from your GPU, especially with liquid (or subzero for competition) cooling, the RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra Gaming might just be the card you set some records with!

Best Overall RTX 3070 Card

If not for the FTW3’s superior ability to handle more extreme overclocking methods, the Asus ROG Strix RTX 3070 would arguably the best custom RTX 3070 card, but it’ll simply have to settle for being the best overall AIB .

Perhaps not quite able to compete in the extreme overclocking department, the ROG Strix RTX 3070 goes toe-to-toe with the FTW3 in out-of-the-box overclocking features and performance, while also having a slightly higher power target of around 340W. In addition to the Strix’s equally hefty cooling solution compared to EVGA’s, Asus’ design brings a 1755MHz boost clock speed with an impressive amount of headroom to find your most stable OC.

Asus also decided to offer the only RTX 3070s, including the ROG Strix, with more than a single HDMI output, which is a welcome benefit to multi-monitor gamers who have yet to acquire units with DisplayPort inputs. Outside of these quality of life and engineering upgrades, the only potential downside for some builders would be the massive triple-slot design. At 319mm, the ROG Strix 3070 is one of the longest RTX 3070 cards which might lead to compatibility issues with more compact cases or front-mounted radiators for you liquid cooling enthusiasts.

Regardless, Asus may not top the charts for default boost clocks with their premier RTX 3070 entry, but they’ve got one of the sharpest looking and most well-rounded cards, hands down.

Best MSRP AIB RTX 3070

Perhaps the primary reason the RTX 3070 may end up being Nvidia’s hottest ticket this generation is the amount of performance 3^rd party manufacturers can now pack into much more space-friendly cards. One of the most compact 2080 Ti killers, that also happens to offer some of the best performance as close to MSRP as possible, is the Zotac Gaming RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC.

For $570, even many ITX systems can now enjoy incredible performance in games well into 144Hz+ 1440p or 60Hz 4K resolutions! For a dual-slot/dual-fan card only 232mm in length to reliably boost up to 1755MHz is quite the feat from our friends at Zotac, and one they should be proud of. Considering the exponential growth in popularity of SFF (small form factor) gaming PCs, the Twin Edge OC 3070 might end up being one of the most difficult Ampere cards to get your hands on!

Despite its size, the Twin Edge OC doesn’t skimp in the cooling department with improved fans and direct contact heat pipes which Zotac has dubbed “Ice Storm 2.0.” Whether you’re a fan of shoebox PCs or not, heat kills performance, and the extra attention paid to keeping the RTX 3070 nice and cool is nothing but a boon no matter what case you decide to build in.

Now, you can try your hand at overclocking this little guy even more than Zotac already has with their included Fire Storm software, or programs like MSI Afterburner, but most of the work has already been done before you even open the box. Unless you’re lucky enough to have gotten an ultra-high-quality piece of silicon, don’t be disappointed if you’re not able to get more than a few extra MHz for your trouble. Depending on whether we see smaller Radeon models appear from our favorite add-in board partners, the Zotac Gaming RTX 3070 Twin Edge OC might very well be a given for anyone considering “budget” performance, particularly those looking to build the smallest gaming powerhouse they possibly can.

Quietest RTX 3070 Card

If you’re looking for a RTX 3070 that not only has exceptional performance, but is able to perform quietly under load, then look no further than MSI’s RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio. This card is the latest generation of MSI’s renowned Gaming X Trio series, and for this latest triple-cooler iteration, it is one of the quietest AIB graphics cards ever benchmarked, matching the RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio for its total noise under pressure, measured at 34 decibels. For reference, the RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio Founders Edition performs 4 DbA higher at 38 decibels, but features a lower factory boost clock and up to 3% increased performance over the FE edition.

Summary

It’s important to remember that both Nvidia and AMD are likely to announce even more reasonably priced next-generation GPUs as we pass their Ampere and RDNA 2 launches, respectively, especially with how intense the competition is shaping up to be. But for now, the RTX 3070 series looks to offer legendary 1080p and 1440p games performance to more builders than ever, and more than likely thanks to AMD holding their feet to the fire.

Are you excited for the RTX 3070? Are you waiting to see how it stacks up in the real world against the RX 6800? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below, and as always, thanks for reading!

The post 4 Best RTX 3070 Aftermarket Cards for 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD has just announced the RDNA2 line up of GPUs. Finally, there’s competition at the top of the GPU market with AMD’s new offerings claiming to go head to head with the Ampere GPUs from Nvidia at each key market segment and price point.

The RX 6800 is pitched directly at the RTX 3070. Both of these cards aim to provide excellent 1440p gaming performance and 60FPS at 4K resolution. Both claim to exceed the capabilities of last generations range-topper the RTX 2080 Ti. 

The RX 6800 is slated for launch on the 18^th November so let’s dig into the specs and see which card will be best suited for your next build or upgrade.

RX 6800 vs RTX 3070: Specifications

	RX 6800	RTX 3070
Design
Price	$579	$499
Process	7nm TSMC	8N Samsung
VRAM	16 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6
Bandwidth	512.0 GB/s	448.0 GB/s
Pixel rate	202.1 GPixel/s GPixels/s	165.6 GPixels/s
Transistors	26.8 billion	17.4 billion
Die Size	536 mm2	392 mm2
Power	250W	220W
Additional technologies	DX12 ray tracing, Variable rate shading, Direct storage API, Smart Access memory (Zen 3), 128MB Infinity Cache	DLSS 2.0, RTX, NVENC, Direct Storage (RTX IO)
Aftermarket Cards	RX 6800 AIB Database	RTX 3070 AIB Database

Performance: Winner unclear but very promising for the RX 6800 

Whilst we now have confirmation from AMD that the RX 6800 possesses 3840 Shader units, 96 ROPS and 60 compute units and RT cores, we haven’t included them in the comparison chart above because they aren’t directly comparable to Nvidias Ampere architecture. As such it’s impossible to speculate about ‘relative’ performance based on those numbers. Similarly, ‘boost clocks’ are meaningless in isolation because what each architecture can achieve in each clock cycle differs so massively. We can’t make assumptions about these numbers. What we can base our analysis off, for now, is the claims made by AMD in the announcement itself.

AMD showed their own metrics comparing the RX 6800 to the RTX 2080ti – we can take this as a proxy for the RTX 3070 since both perform very similarly.

At 4K AMD laid out their market stall with the slide heading ‘4K60’ meaning they intend this card to achieve 60FPS in 4K gaming. The precise settings they used to generate this graphic aren’t clear, but using the RTX 2080ti as a yardstick we can see that the RX 6800 appears to deliver around $80 worth more value than the RTX 3070, beating it in all titles under test and achieving at least 60FPS. One interesting detail here is the ‘+smart access memory’ footnote – these results are achieved using a Zen 3 CPU allowing better communication between CPU and GPU VRAM over PCIe 4.0. Nonetheless these results are impressive and show that if you’re a 4K gamer on a budget, the RX6800 deserves serious consideration. 

At 1440p and again with ‘smart access memory’ the RX 6800 really does shine achieving well over 100FPS across the board even in demanding titles like Battlefield V and Borderlands 3 and with settings at ‘Ultra’. At this resolution, you’re getting the full benefit of detailed rendering at high visual settings along with high FPS. Given the price point of this GPU, we consider 1440p or 1440p ultrawide the best resolutions for the RX 6800 providing a fantastic balance of framerate and visual fidelity. 

Memory configuration: RX 6800 in a clear lead

The RX 6800 has a huge 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM, doubling the amount of it’s competitor the RTX 3070. There’s also 128MB of what AMD call ‘Infinity Cache’ which is very fast memory directly accessible by the GPU core. This memory can hold frequently accessed data critical to processing performance and accelerate the GPU’s overall capabilities. Whilst the core specifications of the VRAM are the same with both using GRRD6, AMD has achieved higher bandwidth and claim this Infinity cache has triple the bandwidth of the conventional memory. 

The utility of 16Gb VRAM for gaming is arguable: So long as there’s enough VRAM the game won’t perform any better with more, it simply goes unused. However, the RTX 3070 certainly looked a little miserly with ‘just’ 8GB on a $500 current Gen GPU and AMD have taken this opportunity to clearly beat that metric by doubling available VRAM. If you’re looking to game at 4K or wish to modify games with higher resolution textures there’s no doubt you’ll want as much VRAM as possible and the RX 6800 offers that at the most affordable price point yet. It’s likely that this doubling of VRAM accounts for much of the price difference between the RX 6800 and RTX 3070.

Additional technologies: RTX 3070 has the edge

It’s perhaps a little unfair to directly compare emergent technologies when one of the competitors is unreleased: We haven’t had an opportunity to evaluate any of AMD’s technologies first hand yet. Nvidia, however, has demonstrated the utility of DLSS 2.0 and are now on their second iteration of Ray Tracing support whereas the RX 6000 series is the first AMD GPUs to incorporate hardware Ray tracing.

DLSS 2.0 is a very interesting technology that allows Nvidia GPU’s to draw on a trained neural network to upscale resolution in real-time. The effects are impressive with graphical fidelity AND framerates improving markedly over a non-upscaled image. It’s a technology that works well with real-time ray tracing, offsetting the large performance penalty that feature imposes. The primary downside is that to take advantage of DLSS 2.0 Nvidia have to train the AI on super-high-resolution images generated In the game engine and then include that information in driver updates. To date, this encompasses very few games. Meanwhile, AMD is sensibly focussing on raytracing via the DXR API which is a much more widely adopted protocol supported in DX12. RTX cores will also be able to use this feature and in the coming years, we should see ray tracing becoming a standard part of game engines and new releases. AMD do also have supersampling algorithms which allow upscaling, but they’re not shouting their benefits from the rooftops and this leads us to believe they’re not a key part of AMD’s roadmap for the future like DLSS 2.0 appears to be for Nvidia. Finally, Nvidia also offers the now well-established NVENC hardware stream encoder to generate streams from live gameplay with minimal overhead. AMD can’t compete with the quality or efficiency of this at present, so we’ll have to see if RX 6000 series cards offer any improvements for streamers. Also in this vein, RTX voice and RTX broadcast use AI algorithms on Nvidia GPUs for noise reduction and live video processing for streamers. For those that need them these are nice to have features.

It seems like in this iteration AMD has concentrated on closing the gap to Nvidia in raw gaming performance rather than ‘value-added’ technologies and we absolutely can’t blame them for that particularly if the results are GPU’s that actually surpass Nvidia’s raw performance at each price point. But if you do want or need those additional features then it may be a reason to favour the RTX 3070 over the RX 6800.

Power and efficiency: A draw

AMD have always valued efficiency in their products and their use of the 7nm process allows them to capitalise on this. In gaming we perhaps don’t care about efficiency as much as we should: Not only is saving energy a laudable goal in itself, but efficiency means more performance because less heat to dissipate means a GPU can run faster without overheating. Both the RTX 3070 and RX 6800 offer very manageable power requirements with the 250W RX 6800 only drawing 30W more than the RTX 3070. Either of these GPUs will slot into an existing system and need just 2 8 Pin PCIe cables. Almost any reputable power supply at 550W or more will have these connectors already making these GPUs a one-step upgrade incurring no additional cost. With current CPUs drawing around 100W maximum we don’t foresee any problems using existing power supplies. Whilst the RTX 3070 draws less power, the RX 6800 looks like it should be marginally better performing so the extra energy is being put to good use – AMD wouldn’t be making strong claims about ‘performance per watt’ if it was otherwise. 

Availability: Unknown

Unfortunately one of the primary disappointment with Nvidias Ampere launch wasn’t pricing or performance – it was the fact that even a month later it’s still proving somewhere between difficult and impossible to actually buy any variant of the graphics cards. It’s now clear that between low yields on the Samsung ‘8N’ process, Low availability of the GDDR6X memory on the 3080 and 3090, and general supply and distribution issues partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic supply issues will likely last well into 2021.

We obviously can’t judge the availability of an as-yet-unreleased product but we’re hopeful that whilst it’s facing the same challenges it should have the measure of some of them. For one it’s been able to witness Nvidias problems and hopefully take steps to alleviate them. Secondly, the TSMC 7nm process is now a mature and well-defined process with known yields and capacity. Thirdly the RX 6000 series cards use more widely available GDDR6 VRAM, albeit buckets of it with 16GB required for every GPU. Finally, Consumers now have a choice at the high end, meaning that demand is split across more potential products. We still expect these competitively priced and high performing GPU’s to sell out fast, but we hope that another option eases the demand-side pressure on the high-end GPU market as a whole.

Conclusion: The RX 6800 is an exciting  GPU for high end gaming

Overall, AMD has really impressed with the RDNA 2 announcement. Not content with slaying one behemoth with Zen 3 trumping Intel’s performance, they’re waging war on two fronts in tackling Nvidia simultaneously. For the last 2 generations, AMD has struggled to challenge NVIDIA and whilst they’ve had good mid-range options in the shape of the Vega 56 and Radeon RX 5700XT, the RTX 2080 tier has had free reign. Now, we can see the fruits of AMD’s hard work in the RX 6000 series. As the entry-level model at $579 the RX 5800 offers a compelling option for 1440p high FPS gaming or a very competent 4K GPU. With the information available at the time of this announcement, we’d recommend you pairing this GPU with a 1440p monitor and high-performance CPU for high FPS gaming, or else moving towards 1440p ultrawide and a mid-tier CPU for fantastic AAA gaming. 4K being as demanding as it is will benefit from the additional power of the RX 5800XT.  You can see our recommended CPUs and builds using this new GPU here.

The post AMD RX 6800 vs Nvidia RTX 3070: Which GPU is Best Value for 2021? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD’s Ryzen CPUs have come to redefine what we expect from a processor in terms of performance and value. Using higher core counts to achieve versatile CPU whilst pricing them competitively saw AMD build a strong market. They still excelled in-game though, with more than enough performance for all but the most demanding competitive players. This month AMD made a bold statement with their Zen 3 release. They’ve announced that they’re out-performing intel across the board but especially in gaming which was traditionally Intel’s strongest suit. The six core ‘Ryzen 5’ CPUs have always been the mainstay of this line of products and the 5600X looks like it will continue this trend offering top-drawer gaming performance and versatility too. In this article, we’ve built a PC that takes full advantage of this $299 high-performance processor. This PC will excel in high FPS gaming, but also has a powerful enough GPU to allow glorious AAA titles to shine at 1440p. However, the strength of the 5600X will be in its value, so the build is carefully balanced to keep performance high but costs under control. Every part represents the best value component for this class of build, so let’s dig in!

Best Ryzen 5 5600X Gaming Build – The Parts List

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X

AMD claim to have made big strides with this generation of their Zen Architecture. The CPU core layout has been redesigned for better access to the cache memory on the CPU and reduced memory latency overall, as well as slightly higher clock speeds. The Ryzen 5 5600X is a 6 core 12 thread CPU with a boost clock of 4.7Ghz, 300Mhz higher than the outgoing Zen 2 parts. It still uses AMD’s ‘PBO’ technology that opportunistically raises boost levels to take advantage of thermal and power delivery headroom and maximise the potential of your chip. All of this adds up to a CPU that should exceed the capabilities of the current gaming value champion, the $279 Intel i5-10600K but at a much lower power draw. This CPU will excel in fast-paced shooters and more complex titles alike, whilst the six cores mean it’ll be perfectly capable in tasks like occasional video editing or photo processing. It supports the latest specifications such as PCIe 4.0 so you can adopt these technologies as they mature. The Ryzen 5600X is set to become the standard core of mid-range gaming systems owing to its touted performance advantage and lower platform costs over an equivalent Intel CPU.

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition

Whilst AMD includes a stock cooler with the Ryzen 5 5600X, it’s a noisy affair and not really suited to getting the most out of the CPU. We’ve opted to include a more appropriate aftermarket cooler for the 5600X, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition. This tower cooler uses a 120mm fan and four heat pipes to pull heat away from the 5600X with minimal noise. Lower temperatures equate to higher boost clocks and the ability to sustain them for longer, improving the performance of your CPU. With PBO on hand to take advantage of a better cooler, the $35 outlay is easily justified for both performance and quality of life via lower noise levels. 

Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M AORUS Pro

There is no motherboard revision for the Zen 3 CPUs and they will all work on B550 and X570 motherboards –although has the specification of the CPU is unreleased, if you buy prior to the CPU release you may have to flash the BIOS to gain compatibility. In terms of Value B550 is more than enough for almost all gamers. This chipset offers PCIe 4.0 support for the GPU and one NVMe SSD, along with a full suite of CPU and RAM overclocking facilities and multitudes of USB connectivity options. We’ve selected the Gigabyte AORUS B550M owing to its well-judged balance of features and pricing at just $130. It has a strong voltage delivery configuration with 10+3 phase design to ensure that the Ryzen 5600X is able to perform optimally and boost to those high clock speeds. There are two M.2 slots with the main slot offering PCie 4.0 compatibility direct to the CPU. The audio codec is a high-quality ALC 1200 chip, and gigabyte Ethernet is plenty for almost all home settings. There are 5 fan headers and a suite of 6 temperature sensors to allow you to monitor the thermal performance of your build and tweak adjustments if needed. Overall this motherboard is an excellent backbone to the system and keeps costs down with an attractive $130 price point.

RAM: Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory

Whilst we will have to wait for performance testing of RAM on Zen 3 CPUs, what we know about the design allows us to make informed decisions. The IO chip that acts as an interconnect between the CPU cores and the outside world remains unchanged, axnd it’s this that dictates the infinity fabric speeds and optimal RAM specification. Therefore it seems very likely that 3600Mhz RAM with tight CAS timings will be optimal, and given our testing it will certainly remain the price to performance sweet spot for this new processor with 3600MHz RAM being relatively affordable. We’ve chosen this Crucial Ballistix 2X8GB kit with RGB highlights for a little extra visual flair. It offers good timings and uses Micron E-die chips which are high quality and overclock well if you want to try your hand at optimising speeds and timings further. 16GB is plenty of RAM for almost every game, and there are 2 slots left free for a hassle-free upgrade should you need more RAM in future. 

Storage: Western Digital SN550 1Tb NVME SSD

2020 has been a great year for SSDs and we’ve seen storage prices drop making high capacity SSDs affordable for all. There’s also been competition for performance however the benefits for gaming and general-purpose PC’s really aren’t made out. There’s minimal difference in boot or loading times and only really specialist usage cases need to consider the higher performance SSDs for tasks such as high-resolution video editing or manipulation of large files. We’ve used the Western Digital SN550 in our test bench for over 3 months now and remain impressed with its performance. This SSD offers 2400MB/s sequential read and 1950MB/s write speeds and uses 3D TLC NAND for good endurance and sustained write speeds. It lacks DRAM but doesn’t let that put you off: WD uses an SRAM cache combined with their proprietary controller to ensure performance doesn’t suffer.  It ships with a 5-year warranty and at $105 represents excellent value for money. 

Graphics Card: Nvidia RTX 3070

We’ve gone out on a limb here because this is an unreleased GPU featuring in a build for an unreleased CPU – however, we’re confident that the October 29^th release of the RTX 3070 will be the best price to performance offering for a mid-range PC. Listing at around $499 the RTX 3070 has 8GB VRAM but Nvidia tout performance equalling the RTX 2080 Ti. We’ll have to wait and see exactly how that stands up to scrutiny but nevertheless, we can expect at least RTX 2080 Super class performance at a much-reduced price. This combines with Ray tracing and tensor cores to leverage AI technologies. Chief amongst these is DLSS 2.0, a super-sampling process whereby AI is used to upscale images using a library of super-high-resolution 16K renders from games. This allows for dramatically improved visuals and performance and is a game-changer in the way GPUs process in-game graphics. At $500 this GPU represents the current best in class 1440p solution, with ample power for the most demanding titles. Be warned: Demand is likely to be high and supply limited, so get in the queue early to secure yours!

PC Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB311L ARGB

We’ve opted for a slightly more compact mATX form factor for this build and chosen the excellent value Cooler Master MB311L. This case comes with 2 pre-installed 120mm Fans with RGB lighting behind the mesh front panel. The PSU shroud hides the uglier bits of the build whilst a tempered glass side panel displays the rest of the components to best effect: Your RGB Ram and the motherboard heatsinks will look great. We’ve also opted to add another 120mm fan matched to the front to act as an exhaust. Meanwhile, there’s a pair of additional front panel USB ports and the usual flexibility of a drive cage in the ‘basement’ of the case. At $60 this case is a great way to keep costs lower without reducing performance, and also keeps the size of the PC manageable being mATX mid-tower format.

PSU: Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro 650 W 80+ Gold

The PSU market is still reeling from supply troubles in 2020, but this unit from Antec represents a great buy. With 650W output and Gold efficiency rating it’s more than up to the task of powering the efficient components in this build without overspending. It’s semi modular so you only need to use the cables essential to the build, keeping clutter to a minimum. We use this PSU in our test bench and can vouch for its capability and stability as well as quiet operation and good build quality.  It uses high quality Japanese capacitors and ships with a 7 year warranty for your peace of mind. This PSU is an excellent choice for a mid range gaming build and rounds out the components for the PC itself.

Recommended Monitor: Gigabyte G27QC 

A PC of this calibre demands a monitor capable of showing its capabilities to best effect. Gigabyte has recently released the excellent G27QC at a very attractive $280. This 1440p QHD monitor has a 165Hz refresh rate and uses Freesync premium adaptive sync to eliminate screen tearing and give a smooth consistent gaming experience. 165Hz allows lighting quick reactions in first-person shooters, whilst the monitor has fast response times and low input lag so it’s crisp and responsive. The VA panel gives vibrant colours and deep blacks. This monitor is specified to excel in almost all gaming situations and take maximum advantage of the high refresh rates that this Ryzen 5600X and RTX 3070 gaming PC is capable of. 

Conclusion

This PC uses carefully selected parts to allow the Ryzen 5600X to achieve its full potential. It will give exemplary performance across a broad range of titles for years to come. We hope you’ve found this build inspirational, and we know you’re as excited as we are about the new Zen 3 CPU’s and Ampere GPU’s on the horizon. 

The post $1400 Ryzen 5 5600X Gaming Build – The Best Value PC Build for 2021? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

So you’ve decided that you want to start streaming. You want to work from the comfort of your room, doing what you love most and interacting with people all over the world. To become successful and make it your primary income source should be excellent motivation to put in a concerted effort. Which is something you’re going to need to do considering more people than ever are trying to get into live streaming. However, many might be getting discouraged by the complexity of a full streaming setup as they realize it takes a lot more than just a beefy PC.

The point we’re trying to make is that you don’t need a huge budget to get into streaming, but you will need to invest some time and money to customize your live streaming experience and show yourself more professionally to your viewers. You do not require a super high-end PC, a top of the line microphone or a DSLR camera to start broadcasting. If anything, it’s a smart move to skip such expensive things if you don’t have them already and focus on getting into streaming as quickly as possible!

There’s a limit to what reading about streaming on the internet can do for you. Experience is critical here. If you don’t start streaming as soon as possible with the minimum requirements you can afford, you’re losing valuable time and enthusiasm. Now is the time to decide whether this is a medium you want to try, instead of concentrating on getting the best kit. Run a few test streams and determine whether you like all that streaming involves, from controlling all the devices, joining in the discussion, experiencing all the tension of going online, and becoming a personality. If you’re unlucky and things don’t work out, at least you’re not sitting on gear worth thousands of dollars that would otherwise accumulate dust.

We’re here to portray to readers our idea of what comprises a full streaming setup. We’re also very aware that things like this quickly become time and wallet consuming. Thus, in true PremiumBuilds fashion, we’ll mainly focus on value and performance by only recommending what we think is of utmost importance; you’re always welcome to customize further and splurge! If you’re serious about streaming, here’s our guide to the key items you’re going to need right now to create the streaming rig of your dreams.

The Ultimate Streaming Setup: What you’ll need.

1. A sufficiently strong internet service

Believe it or not, before any other hardware to talk, you’ll need to make sure that your internet speed allows enough bitrate for your favorite streaming service to hit the most popular broadcasting resolution and frame rate. All other variables aside, people will be compelled to stick with your stream if the visual and sound quality is pleasing to them, so a good internet connection needs to be the first step on your checklist.

A 100 MB/s download and upload internet connection should be an excellent starting point. You’ll be able to stream even to YouTube’s 40K 60 FPS broadcasts comfortably, and if you’re looking for a steady 1080p 60 FPS Twitch experience, then you’ll also have a lot of bandwidth left for other activities during the stream. Bear in mind that it’s great to have a buffer in your promised internet speeds since you can still eat through your upload space for the other computers on your network. A 100 MB/s connection should be very accessible price-wise everywhere globally, which is why we recommend it if a 1 GB/s connection is still expensive in your country.

Suppose you’re a little north of 100MB/s, fantastic! If not, to have your bitrate lower than your upload speed, you’re going to have to make compromises to your consistency settings, which will involve downloading or lowering the bitrate to as little as 1MB/s at 480p. While far from optimal, it may be appropriate to test the waters to start. Consider changing your broadband package with an emphasis on increased upload speed until you have a grip on downloading and intend to go forward. That said, we understand that choices might be restrictive in your region. Know at least what kind of upload rates you get and configure your stream to that!

2. Broadcasting software

For the world to see your beautiful face, you’ll need broadcasting tools to prepare your footage to go live. Since it’s (FOSS) free and open-source software, we prescribe OBS at all times since it has strong backing from companies such as Twitch and Nvidia. We won’t be getting too much into the actual stream settings considering how dependant they are on your specific network capabilities and setup. Still, there are many excellent resources and videos on YouTube, like the “Stream Doctor,” Harris over at Alpha Gaming. They have tons of content on specific broadcast software settings, A/V, and networking specifically for new streamers looking to become the next big thing.

Now even though we highly suggest OBS, other options include Streamlabs OBS, a mainline OBS fork with built-in alerts and overlays from Streamlabs, or XSplit with some additional features, but it charges a subscription. You can also try utilizing Twitch Studio, built predominantly with fresh streamers in mind, and completely free. There’s no immediate reason to waste cash at this point on streaming apps; there are other far more important places to spend parts of your budget to get you up and running!

3. Microphone and AMP

• 16bit / 48khz recording sampling rates
• Stereo, Omnidirectional, Cardioid and Bidirectional polar patterns
• 20Hz–20kHz frequency response

In your streaming toolkit, besides your sparkling personality (or persona ), the microphone is your single most essential piece of equipment. Your voice and the words you say go a long way to turning your stream from a gameplay feed to something you and your viewers can relate bond over. You’re going to have to get comfortable using a mic and continuously speaking into it; the sooner you get comfortable finding your voice, tone, and communication style, the better for your popularity and your viewers. Microphones could potentially cost thousands of dollars at the top end with some insanely high build quality and cutting edge noise cancellation technologies. If you are on a strict budget, start with what you have on hand unless your microphone causes a lot of distortion or constant ringing. Rest assured, microphones included with most gaming headsets are good enough for a streamer that’s just starting. Whether your mic’s mounted to your head, your desktop, or in your webcam; it’s necessary to get comfortable being on the air if you want to be a booming voice.

Our microphone recommendation for Streaming, the HyperX Quadcast

The HyperX Quadcast is a very intriguing option and one that punches well above its price point. Its snazzy style and the amount of functionality it packs into its compact, modern frame makes it a great option, especially for those who prefer a real gamer aesthetic. It might just be the only microphone you need for your streaming journey.

Thanks to the various interface options you will usually have to pay extra for, the HyperX Quadcast is instantly appealing. It comes with a shock mount integrated into its shell, a pop shield installed within its core, and a lovely robust stand to support it on your desk. You can even install it with a wall or monitor mount arm to better control its position and orientation.

This mic has four polar patterns, rendering it handy for streaming, voice-overs, podcasting, or any other way you may want to integrate Audio streams into your broadcast. The recording efficiency is outstanding, and coupled with the built-in pop protector and the anti-vibration shock mount, this device holds the unwanted noise at bay.

Every part of this microphone is cleverly designed for simple access; quiet features, gain controls, and touch to mute surfaces make it easy to adjust your sound without thumps, clicks and knocks altering your recording or live stream.

The Quadcast is full of kit and available at a reasonable price. If it suits your taste, then this bright beacon microphone that is rendered desirable by its aesthetics and impressive sound accuracy might just be the best choice for your upcoming streaming setup!

Our AMP recommendation for Streaming, the Go XLR Mini

The Go XLR Mini is a hybrid piece of gear that makes mixing on the fly a breeze with its four faders for audio modulation, mute buttons, and censorship buttons to keep your broadcast easily accessible and customizable. This device guarantees excellent audio quality on the fly thanks to its dedicated optical input and MIDAS preamp XLR input. Four 3.5 mm ports for line-in and line-out, mic in and headphone out are also notable features of the Go XLR Mini. One factor that makes this a must-buy for live streamers is that what you hear is the exact stream outputted to OBS or your favorite streaming site, letting you precisely listen to what your viewers are hearing. No playing around with the stream to figure out what is wrong or what is right or why is there no audio at all on it!

4. Camera: Viewers will want to see your reactions and get to know you better

Are you camera shy? We get it, not everyone is prepared to become a streaming superstar, but your portrait, actions, gestures, and reactions are so important to your audience. Since the inception of live streaming, cameras became a mandatory feature on streaming setups as people always want to see the person behind the screen. You can be gaming, vlogging, cooking, or just mowing your backyard. Regardless of the content, people want to see your reactions to hype times, the authenticity in your expression when you tell a serious story, and all the exciting decorations in your streaming space. Sometimes, even your undeniably good looks. Without a video of yourself somewhere on the screen, success would be even more challenging and would require you to compensate by being impeccable on your voice acting heavily.
If you are just entering the streaming world, there may be no need to splurge a huge amount of money on a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In the short term, while you figure it out and get comfortable with streaming, you can use what you have now; your notebook’s camera or any old webcam you got around will do for the first few days or weeks. Construct your virtual streaming environment and build onto that!

Using your smartphone as a streaming camera is another potential option. This choice would be more CPU intensive, but it will allow you to use a great camera that you already have for free. If you are going this route, then there are a few excellent software pieces that will allow you to capture video streams from your smartphone and use them in combination with your other broadcast sources. We recommend the Elgato Screen Link, but there are various ways for this to work.
We are assuming your streaming setup will be indoors, and for that, we have two great recommendations at different price points.

Best Budget Webcam for Streaming: The $70 Logitech C920

The Logitech C920 is undoubtedly one of the most popular webcams on the market today; you might also want to check out their updated version of it, the C920S. It’s easy to set up through a USB connection, and you can start compositing your face onto the stream for just $70. We like it very much thanks to how simple it is, and its performance didn’t let us down. If you plan on going the famous route of having your face overlaying the stream on the side, then the Logitech c920 is the best entry-level webcam out there.

Characteristics:

• Native 1080p (Full HD) capabilities
• Good autofocus and light correction in harsh conditions
• Stereo audio with dual mics (even though you’ll use a microphone for your voice input)
• Compatible with tripods
• 78° Diagonal Field of View
• Its glass lens allows for crisper and video quality when compared to other plastic lenses.

Best Overall Webcam for Streaming: The $200 Logitech BRIO Webcam

The Logitech BRIO offers the most polished look that you will receive from a webcam device. You get a camera with a high dynamic range for a fair value price of $200, ensuring the colors and lights are accurate, even in darkness and harsh lighting situations. It has good stabilization and changes exposure and contrast dynamically to compensate for light and backlighting. If paired with a good lighting source, the difference between this device and a professional DSLR is hardly noticeable. You’re only able to record in 4k (think YouTube videos or announcements based on your Twitch channel), but its 1080p streaming performance is still excellent.

Characteristics:

• 1080p60 native streaming resolution
• Great integration with broadcasting software
• 90° Field of View
• 5x Digital Zoom
• Comes with an included Clip and Tripod Mount
• Clear, crisp, and vibrant image
• Great autofocus

5. Lighting (Optional but pretty necessary)

If you are going to use a camera, lighting is incredibly important if you want that professional look. Without sunlight, even incredible cameras will look grainy and have a hard time focusing; in other words, the image will seem inconsistent, and the money you spent on a good camera will seem not a good investment. To begin with, you don’t need a costly lamp either. Simply opening up a window and streaming will function wonderfully throughout the day. You can get away with some artificial lighting through the night, but it will never match a carefully set up lighting area.

Look for what kind of lamps you have lying around if your budget doesn’t allow for lighting expenses. Heck, you could even do a DIY! Basically, for those just beginning out, any light is significantly better than zero lights. Your picture will be more consistent and, when correctly lit, suffer from fewer frame drops and grain. If you are determined to have excellent lighting from the get-go and are ready for the investment, then certain products on the market will help with professional lighting your setup.

The Elgato Key Light Air lighting panels

If your lighting is all over the place, there’s no sense in wasting your budget on a great camera that will perform poorly. Adequate lighting means that the stream has a precise webcam feed that looks professional and lets viewers see what’s going on at all times. Moreover, the best quality image can help you heaps when going for a green screen style feed as the software behind it will have a much easier time separating the background from the back wall.

A perfect option is Elgato’s Key Light Air LED panels. These are precisely engineered compact light sources that can max out at 1400 lumens and accommodate a full cool to hot color spectrum from 2,900 to 7000 Kelvin. Better still, you can control their behavior from your PC, from the app on your phone or an Elgato Stream Deck (which we’ll talk about it in a moment). With a tiltable head and height adjustable pole, it lets you quickly bring them into the correct position, no matter what you’re doing. They’re quick to set up, easy to handle, adjustable, and don’t blind you thanks to the several layers of diffusers; these ensure that when you stream, you have a pleasant and gentle light on your face that does not tire you. It will be like you’re working in natural daylight!

After all, if your face is bathed in colors from your phone and a dim light elsewhere in the room, things will get dirty during the darker scenes. Make sure to adjust your cameras manually to fit better with your lighting setup; a few minutes of trial and error will go a long way!

6. Capture card: The Elgato HD60 S

A high-quality capture card is one of the significant investments you’ll need to make if you don’t have one already. The capture card lets you transfer your HDMI signal through USB to your PC. The new game capture unit from Elgato, the HD60 S ($179.99), uses the unencrypted HDMI video signal up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, enabling you to record it to your computer or stream it to the internet. It is intended for gamers who want to broadcast their games on platforms such as Twitch or post videos to YouTube sites. Its USB 3.0 connectivity and video processing are quick enough to enable you to play through your capture program instead of depending on a video signal to move through. It is exceptionally functional and accurate, and we’re recommending it to everyone who wants to mess around with their broadcast, not just stream their screen.

The Elgato Game Capture HD60 S is a lightweight, capable game capture system for streaming and recording your easy to set up and use games. 1080p60 content can be managed with ease and be used for both content pass through to your TV or live video on your PC. A lack of traditional or analog video choices is the only real drawback, but it has become a ubiquitous feature of HDMI capture devices. Suppose you’re trying to capture or broadcast your games with much more freedom and capacity than your PC’s streaming capabilities alone. In that case, you can pay some careful attention to the HD60 S. It is a valuable and reliable gaming streaming and recording platform.

7. Green Screen: The Elgato collapsible green screen

If you already made up your mind on a decent camera and ample illumination, then a green screen is the reasonable next move – with our recommended Green Screen being the Elgato Green Screen. This is something you do to cover the mess in your space or to improve the harsh background conditions for the sake of your camera image and focusing quality.

You can use a Chroma Key Filter with a green screen to make everything green transparent and, therefore, clearly show you the chair and everything else you choose to bring between you and the green wall behind you. It can help many specific effects and actions that you may want to improvise during streaming. The Elgato collapsible green screen can be easily stored or moved, and it essentially creates a small streaming room without much effort; the viewer doesn’t need to know or focus on other items in your room.

Green screens may typically be a bit of a faff since you need to have the illumination correct and make sure that the green screen panel is crease-free for the best results. The collapsible green screen from Elgato is a perfect option. It’s massive, but it can be folded back into a heavy base that can be held while it is not in service, out of the way. This green screen style ensures that you do not have to think about pinning up a content screen or doing anything dramatic, like painting a wall.

It’s tall enough to stand in front of and wide enough sufficient to fill the view of your frame while still robust and robust. Convenience is our favorite aspect of this piece of equipment because it’s so easy to set it up or take it away when you’re done streaming and need the extra space in your room.

8. A gaming headset

A headset for gaming is almost necessary. You don’t want to be gaming on speakers and allowing up all the sound from your mic to be pushed into your broadcast. A good headset will often make you look even better and keep things interesting with your chat and listeners. If you don’t have a separate microphone already, a good pair of headphones can be a pleasant and cheaper solution for your broadcast’s voice aspect. Many current headsets include a decent microphone, so if you don’t want a dedicated

microphone system yet, it’s an excellent choice.

Best Gaming Headset for Streaming: The Steelseries Arctis 1 Wireless Headset

If you’re the kind of gamer who loves playing on a multitude of different computers, then you could find the wireless Steelseries Arctis 1 extremely attractive. Its a portable headset for gaming that not only fits on a PC but is also compatible with your computer, console, or Nintendo Switch. You get all this flexibility with a single pair of headphones, plus the Arctis’ sound range is rich for such a fantastic price.

This wireless headset has lots of connectivity possibilities. You can either plug it in via Micro-USB (which also doubles as the charging cable) for PC gaming or use the wireless USB-C ultra-low latency dongle. The same dongle fits into tablets, Android smartphones, the Nintendo Switch, and even the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X (via an accompanying connector cable). There’s even a 3.5 mm socket for other gadgets that you may use for your entertainment means.

A detachable microphone, mute mic button, and volume controls on the left ear cup are also included in this headset’s feature set. The power button also serves as a key for media access, a single click for audio play/pause, double press for skipping, triple press for rewind. It is very smartly engineered for ease of use. This headset also sounds fantastic in the game and on calls thanks to its crisp audio. We’ve tested a variety of different games, and it’s surprisingly powerful. Its integrated microphone does background noise mitigation, but a slight amount of ambient pollution appears to be picked up. Hence, we still advise you to use the microphones we’ve recommended earlier for truly professional results.

It’s a relatively inexpensive headset that’s well worth considering, easy to use, and feature-packed. Steelseries is a massive name in this industry and if you want a headset that can attach to many different devices, has a decent battery life, and powerful audio, then this is pretty much it!

9. Comfy Chair: You will likely be sitting for many hours at a time so that a comfy chair will go a long mile

If you are serious about streaming and it all goes well, you’ll want an excellent chair to entertain your viewers for many hours comfortably. To ensure you can keep going without getting back pain or fatigue, it is indeed pretty necessary to have some decent seating. If you are using a green screen, gaming chairs will also be captured in the frame, so you want yours to be snazzy enough to make a good impression on stream. If you are sitting on a wooden chair or a stool, then your body might hate the extended hours on stream. If this makes sense for you and is willing to invest in ample seating, then we have a good recommendation for you!

Recommended Gaming Chair for Streamers: The Secretlab 2020 Titan ($399)

Since they are built to appeal to various body sizes, Secretlab’s chairs come in three distinct versions. The Omega, Titan, and Titan XL variants cater to anybody size from the lightest to larger people; for us, the middle ground Secretlab Titan is a great sweet spot. For various factors, the Titan is a great pick thanks to its incredible building quality, smooth NAPA leather, and SoftWeave cloth. Multiple color options and combinations mean that you can customize it to match a theme or, better, to your heart’s desire. We were impressed by this chair’s exquisite stitching, quality fabrics, and superb lumbar support.

Its 4D armrests offer plenty of adjustment and can easily tilt and rotate to any angle suitable for any streaming conditions. The head pillow used is also insanely soft. It’s a very soft comfort memory cushion cleverly filled with soothing gel to hold your head secure and relaxed in your seat as it encourages good eating habits. Little additional details make this chair perfect for us as its design language screams premium. The 5-year warranty is also icing on the cake, and you can be sure this chair won’t get unstable or begin screeching just in a few months of use.

Its 4D armrests offer plenty of adjustment and can easily tilt and rotate to any angle suitable for any streaming conditions. The head pillow used is also insanely soft. It’s a very soft comfort memory cushion cleverly filled with soothing gel to hold your head secure and relaxed in your seat as it encourages good eating habits. Little additional details make this chair perfect for us as its design language screams premium. The 5-year warranty is also icing on the cake, and you can be sure this chair won’t get unstable or begin screeching just in a few months of use.

10. Adequate and easily accessible streaming controls

Once you have mastered the fundamentals of streaming, you will quickly want to spice things up by including alerts, sequences, changes, emotes, and all kinds of other items to keep the viewers amused. You may also be delighted to know that you can make all this work far more easily than you may think, without Alt-Tabbing out of the game or having to mess with the broadcasting software or app commands manually. It can be tough to realize how easily a stream deck can improve your streaming experience before actually using one.

Best Stream Deck: The Elgato Stream Deck

The Elgato Stream Deck is a tiny control box that connects with your PC and helps you allocate various shortcuts to the adjustable LCD buttons that fill the deck’s front. With a little bit of tinkering and adjusting for your needs, you will shortly start using these buttons to control functions such as stream starts, pauses, highlights, or even elements on your broadcast.

Flipping between scenes, playing videos, controlling chat, or even interacting with your other gear such as the camera, lights, or microphone has never been easier. Thanks to its multi-action buttons, all the settings and bling you may want to adjust on the fly are made easy with the 15 available buttons. For example, you can bind a switch to turn on the lights, camera, OBS, and Discord. This way, you’ll never have to do this ever again manually.

With many other variants starting from light and thin six-button Stream Deck Mini to a vast 32 button Stream Deck XL, there’s a Stream Deck for everyone!

11. Finally, you will need a high-performance PC; the heart of your streaming setup

What’s an elaborate lighting setup or an excellent streaming deck without someplace to plug them in? Here at PremiumBuilds, we specialize in giving our users the absolute best performance for their money. Those flashy pre-built computers you may have seen in advertisements or low effort lists from sponsored sources? You may as well forget about those because they almost always disappoint in crucial areas and cost well over the actual price of the components. Our system recommendations are drafted by people with great expertise who have built their PCs and have gone through the process countless times. The systems you are getting from us are lists that we would use for our rigs.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced builder or someone willing to build their computer from scratch for the first time; we’ll take the absolute most accessible route to provide you with very well researched and compatible components that will take your streaming experience to the next level. A gaming and streaming PC will need both CPU and GPU horsepower to function correctly in the most intense situations. We need to care about bottlenecks and carefully balance the processing power with the graphical rendering power. Particular emphasis needs to be put on the CPU performance since we will be building a streaming PC where every frame will pass through the processor; it needs to handle all the stress you’re going to put on it for every little effect, overlay, or transition. The GPU is also vital for actually providing excellent gaming performance and accelerate the stream encoding process.

Without further ado, let’s get into the parts list and component descriptions!

Recommended Streaming PC Build – The Parts List

CPU: The Ryzen 9 3900X

We’ve been previously talking about how important a suitable CPU is for a streaming setup. When just gaming, you’ll likely be using your processor resources for that game alone, and nothing else will disturb that. Because of this, six-core CPUs are still the most popular choice for people who just want to game—introducing the 12 core 24 threads Ryzen 9 3900X, an excellent processor selection for streamers and content creators alike. It has enough horsepower to handle a gaming session while streaming without breaking a sweat; it’s tough to max out this CPU. We bet you’ll never be able to do it without some heavy rendering added on top of gaming streaming. And because it’s built on a cutting edge 7nm fabrication process, it stays cool and silent even during heavy utilization.

We’re fortunate to be living in a time where we can get such a capable processor for a little over $400. Not so long ago, we would be forced to splurge upwards of $1500 on such a CPU or have to resort to two PC setups, one for gaming and one for streaming. The 3900X takes it to the next level, and it might just be the only CPU you’ll need for your streaming journey, and that’s for many years to come.

You can do everything with the 3900X from efficiently powering through even the most intensive game scenes thanks to its stellar single-core performance coming from its high 4.4GHz clock speed and class-leading IPC (instructions per clock), to streaming in parallel with high quality presets and using the footage generated by your broadcast to edit and render high-quality videos for your YouTube channel. On a side note, you can get away with the eight-core Ryzen 7 3700X, but you might just cut it too close if you plan on offering your viewers the best stream presets and quality. The ~$430 Ryzen nine 3900X easily deserves its money, and its value for a content creator is undeniable.
It may not hold the crown for the fastest FPS numbers in pure gaming (it’s within 5% of the best), but when it comes to gaming and streaming at the same time, few CPUs handle that heavy load like the 3900X. If we were to go with a similarly priced Intel Core i7 10700K or an Intel Core i9 9900K, those CPUs would rapidly lose their gaming performance lead due to the impact game streaming has on them; the 3900X isn’t affected that much thanks to its additional four cores and eight threads. In our experience, it never dropped frames on the highest bitrates making it a truly smooth experience for your viewers.

We got the CPU part sorted out and explained; let’s go ahead and discuss what CPU cooler and motherboard we’ll be pairing this processor with!

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4

The Noctua NH-U12S is an excellent air cooler and a great pairing with the Ryzen 9 3900X. In terms of pure cooling efficiency, it may not be the greatest, but it’s high up there, and its silent operation is a great selling point. The cooler is brilliant for its performance on both stock and overclocked clock speeds, performing exceptionally well against far more costly rivals. When you look at the noise, it makes, or the lack thereof, the fact that it works as well as it does is astonishing. This cooler is quiet for the most part. The NH-U12S is the right option if you care about microphone sound quality during streaming as the NH-U12S will never be louder than your case fans. Keeping noise levels down is imperative for a streaming setup since you’d never want to annoy people with ambient sounds besides those you intend for them to hear.

As another fan improves the cooling power of the NH-U12S much further, the option to install a second fan to boost cooling efficiency is also an excellent option to have. Best of all, with a dual-fan, noise levels barely rise, rising by only 1-2 dBA at most. Noctua is famous for its sturdy and straightforward way of mounting hardware; it makes it quick to build, and the excellent design also adds additional value to this component. The only way to fully appreciate the difference between a Noctua NH-U12S and its competition is to keep the cooler in your hands and see it for yourself. It may sound as we’re sponsored, but we can pretty much guarantee you’ll be using a Noctua cooler for the rest of your builds.

Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI)

Although the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WiFi) might not be a flagship giant of a motherboard, functionality and features are not missing. Extra features have been introduced by ASUS to give this a gamer vibe, without including anything that you don’t need and thus bumping up the price. You may be inclined to go out and buy a much more expensive X570 motherboard for the Ryzen 9 3900X in hopes of better performance or far better features. Still, the truth is, the TUF Gaming X570 WiFi has an excellent value and everything that you would need for successfully putting together your streaming setup. Its PCIe 4.0 technology granted by AMD’s X570 chipset future proofs the motherboard, and its I/O is sufficient for additional devices you may want to connect to your PC. Plus, the VRM and cooling systems are capable enough to allow for extended hard usage or overclocking. Memory support has given us no issues.

This motherboard scores similarly to other more expensive motherboards in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark. Its also a motherboard that has been repeatedly praised for its consistent performance in games, proving that you don’t need north of $300 motherboard for a high-end desktop system to extract the most performance from your other components.

ASUS didn’t pack everything they can with this motherboard, but there’s no single feature that we feel is missing for the price. Plus, the motherboard has surprisingly good audio thanks to the excellent Japanese capacitors and S1200A chipset; bonus points for your streaming experience. You can go ahead and choose other more expensive motherboards if you need more superior features but consider the TUF Gaming as its an overall excellent package.

Graphics Card: RTX 3070

Nvidia’s latest launch included the RTX 3070, a competitor in the gaming graphics sector’s mid-high end sector. It will be available during October and is advertised as a graphics card that will match the performance of RTX 2080 Ti, which is the top-end GPU from one generation ago. We have no benchmarks of the RTX 3070 yet, but if we were to believe Nvidia’s claims, this would be a significant performance leap, a $499 card that can give you the performance of an $1199 GPU is nothing to slouch at. The 3070 will likely be okay in 4K and excellent in 1440p. It’s based on the GA104 die; it’s built on Samsung’s latest 8nm process, features hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and variable rate shading. In other words, it will be able to easily handle any popular Twitch game that you might want to get into, and it’s capable of accelerating the streaming performance by taking over some of the encoding overhead from the CPU.

The power connector for this GPU has been redesigned for this generation. The majority of PSU manufacturers will include the adapter needed for the RTX 3070; Nvidia also will, in the RTX 3070 package, so PSU compatibility will not be an issue. It draws power from a 1 x 12 pin connector with power draw ratings of up to 220 W. Display outputs include 1 x HDMI, 3 x DisplayPort, and 1 x USB-C on some models.

This card supports and prefers PCI Express 4.0 interfaces on motherboards like the B550 and X570 chipsets. AMD offers support for PCIe on their AM4 socket, and you will be able to fully take advantage of that with our CPU and motherboard of choice. It is unknown yet if the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 will affect performance, but early benchmarks will surely test this. What’s important to know is that if it affects performance in any way, you will be covered anyways. Available October 15th, 2020, the RTX 3070 is truly a step forward in price/performance, equaling the RTX 2080Ti for a fraction of the price. It will come in both Founder’s Edition and AIB models, but availability won’t be excellent, especially at launch.

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16

If you could get away with a 16GB memory kit on gaming-focused systems, a streaming PC needs many more resources to function correctly and with no freezes caused by a lack of RAM capacity. Similarly to a workstation build, your streaming PC will need to handle the applications that are necessary for the looks and feel of your broadcast; those consume system resources, especially in an encoding environment, and thus, 32GB of RAM is almost mandatory for a high end oriented and professional streaming build.

Besides the actual streaming process, a large memory capacity like 32GB will allow you to quickly process the clips you need for your other social media channels or video platforms. People with 16GB often run into issues when editing, previewing, and rendering not because of CPU or GPU speeds but because the editing software doesn’t have enough memory capacity to perform smoothly. The total we’re recommending here is a sweet spot for such a build as it can easily handle a rendering or content creation machine. Still, more specialized applications may go well over that.

This kit also has a low 8.889 memory latency thanks to its DDR4-3600 CL16 specifications. The general application and gaming performance, primarily gaming 1% lows, improves a lot for a CPU like the Ryzen 9 3900X, which loves great quality memory. If you feel like these memory kits’ stock performance is not enough, you can further tweak them by increasing voltage but know that the overclocking headroom may vary with such RAM.

We can’t stress this enough, but Dual Channel memory is also mandatory at this budget and performance level. Shy away from single DIMMs because you’ll be losing half the bandwidth of a Dual Channel memory kit, and applications will not be happy about it. If you want even more RAM for your streaming setup, 64GB or even 128GB kits are supported on the X570 motherboard chipset, and its best to achieve those capacities with 2 x 32GB or 4 x 32GB.

Storage

We will be using a very fast M.2-2280 NVME for the OS drive to give your system the speed it needs to open and multitask through any main applications in no time. The secondary SSD is a SATA drive used for other secondary applications or rapid file storage while editing or rendering any footage. In some cases, if you need a lot of extra storage for all your videos and footage, you can buy some big capacity HDDs and use them in combination with these two fast SSDs.

The Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB

To leverage the availability of PCIe Gen 4 on the motherboard, we chose the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 that is compatible with Gen4 motherboards like the ones with the X570 chipset. With speeds above 4GB/s read and write, this SSD often scores higher than many other more expensive drives like Samsung’s 970 lineups. It brings a performance edge and a sense of snappiness to your system as you’ll never be forced to wait for anything to happen when you launch an application or make big transfers. Even at low queue depths, the massive performance uplift for random writes is due to a DRAM chip available as speedy temporary storage for the drive’s internal mapping tables. This drive works well, even in the most hardcore usage scenarios. The throttling aspect over long periods of utilization time is handled by a copper foil-based heat spreader with thermal dissipation; it helps the drive run at max speed four times longer than without any heat sink.

The Crucial MX500 1Tb

A prevalent device from Crucial, the MX500 1Tb assures you have enough storage over the primary NVME drive capacity. It’s still high-speed, double the capacity, and never slows down due to its DRAM cache implementation. You will be able to reliably access resources at a constant pace while rendering or accessing big files or applications. If you feel like you’ll need more storage than this, we recommend splurging towards the 2Tb version of this drive or getting some separate HDDs like we already mentioned. We can’t know your full storage needs, so we’re just recommending what most users will use for a high-end streaming setup.

PC Case: Fractal Design Meshify C

We have previously mentioned and argued about the importance of a silent build in your streaming room. You don’t want unwanted ambient noise in your room that will interfere with your microphone clarity, so we’ve chosen a case with outstanding airflow ratings to ensure your components are cooled very well. We are especially interested in creating a balanced pressure inside the case to aid the CPU cooler and GPU to have lower fan speeds; the lower the rates, the lower the decibel levels emitted by your case. The Meshify C is one of the best airflow solutions on the market thanks to its cleverly placed vents and meshes front side. The Meshify C will tidily fit the Noctua NH-U12S, the upcoming RTX 3070, and any type of cable management you plan to do. It also looks good, and its well thought for any maintenance and upgrades.

Together with the set of case fans included in our building list, you will achieve shallow levels of sound coming from your case even in the most intense gaming, streaming, or rendering situations.

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 650W

We have estimated the total max power that this build can pull at 450W during 100% CPU rendering and full GPU utilization, so it’s safe to say that a 650W PSU will easily handle this streaming setup with the additional headroom. And it, not any other 650W PSU; its a top tier power supply coming from EVGA, a very trustworthy company with a long history of great products and excellent customer support. The G1+ 650W is a modular power supply that allows you to use the cables that you need for the build to manage the wires better away from the front of the case. Its premium sleeved cables scream quality, and you will have an easy time setting it up and powering your components. The G1+ ranks S tier (the highest tier) in PSU ranking lists for its excellent protection against surges and excellent build quality.

Conclusion

This has been a long journey, and we thank you for still being with us. We’ve gone over the main components you need for a professional streaming setup and how they will impact your streaming experience. You can be sure about the compatibility of all the products we’ve listed here, and it’s also not mandatory that you order everything at once. We’ve also described why and how you can benefit from all the products in this full streaming build, and if you, for example, already have some of the components, you can just get the ones you don’t already have.

Starting streaming is not as hard as some people make it seem, but there’s a steep curve to becoming a professional in this business. You can refer back to this list anytime you want additional information, or anytime you have a budget on hand and upgrade the experience you are creating for your viewers. From our perspective, every product in this list is an investment since successful streamers start making a very respectable income early on, which can entirely cover the initial investment.

As a short recap, the perfect streaming setup includes a quiet room with access to stable internet and great lighting sources. A comfortable seating product like the gaming chair we’ve recommended will go a long way in assuring you won’t hate the time you spend in front of your audience. The high-end camera and microphone combination will make sure your viewers will see you and hear you without any latency or distortion issues. The powerful system in this article will be totally in charge of using the resources you’ve invested in creating and delivering the best content that you’ll be able to make creatively. In other words, the only pressure will be on you and your ideas, not the gear you have because that will get totally up to any task and load. That is a great thing to have since you won’t have bad times being bottlenecked by your gear.

With the mindset that this product list can also be our streaming rig, PremiumBuilds has created this article and buying list suited for aspiring content creators aiming for excellent performance and working conditions. We love to answer in the comments box below to address any questions or suggestions you may have!

The post Building the Ultimate Streaming Setup: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Ampere is here and pushing graphics performance even higher. If you’re looking to snag one of these GPUs to upgrade your system, you’ve probably asked yourself the question ‘will it bottleneck my PC’? You might even have found some sites that claim to put a figure on the degree of ‘bottleneck’ you’ll encounter.

On the face of it this seems a simple question but the reality has some depth to it. But don’t worry – in this article we’ll help you understand what ‘bottleneck’ actually means in the context of your PC’s performance, and we’ll describe two simple tests you can do right now to understand if your PC is up to the task of getting the best from an Ampere GPU – including the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. We’ll also explain why you should ignore any site that presents a bottleneck as a simple percentage. 

What is ‘a bottleneck’?

A ‘bottleneck’ is commonly referred to when a CPU isn’t deemed powerful enough to allow a graphics card to reach its full potential. People often comment as if a bottleneck is both a fixed situation and also a major detriment to performance in a system. Neither of these is always the case. In reality, some component of your system will always limit its ultimate performance. It may be the CPU but in most games, it should usually be the GPU. Additionally, many game engines simply won’t allow a game to run to full potential either due to current hardware limitations or simple speed capping in the game engine itself. The factors dictating performance limitations actually change all the time, and it can swing between being the CPU, GPU and engine all in the same game depending on the situation. Resolution and settings are also of key importance because a GPU heavily loaded driving a 4k monitor will limit performance much more than the same GPU at 1080p with just a quarter the rendering load to complete. This is why you’re actually much more likely to encounter the CPU limiting performance on a PC running at 1080p than a higher resolution, particularly if you buy a high-end GPU like an RTX 3070 or 3080.

In most games, most of the time, we want the GPU to be fully utilised. This means you’re getting full value out of the GPU and that performance will be smooth and frame times consistent. If you do run into a situation where you are CPU limited that’s when performance becomes inconsistent with frame drops, stutters and inconsistent frame times. It’s the fear of this happening that leads people to consider whether a GPU upgrade might cause them to be ‘bottlenecked’. 

So, how can you tell if you’ll run into issues after a GPU upgrade?

A simple test can determine broadly whether your CPU is fit for purpose, and you can do it now without spending any money.

Using a game that is representative of the games you enjoy playing, just turn settings and even resolution down to medium or minimum, and resolution down to perhaps half your normal screen resolution. Yes, this will look terrible, but that’s not the point! Now, play for a while. Consider the fluidity of the gameplay, whether there is any stutter or lag, and if the frame rate you perceive is acceptable to you. If the game plays smoothly and at a good frame rate then your CPU is capable of running the game engine well enough when not bound by the GPU. This is indicative of it being capable of supporting a more powerful GPU without issue. However, it is possible that you artificially create a CPU limitation doing this test giving poor performance when in fact the CPU will cope just fine with a graphics card upgrade. If so the next test can resolve that for you. 

A more advanced method:

Find a game that’s representative of the games you enjoy playing or just your favourite game, and has representative benchmarks available online with the GPU you’re considering buying. Install MSI Afterburner. Click the settings ‘cog’ icon and under the ‘benchmark’ tab you’ll find 2 fields for ‘start’ and stop’ keybindings and a location to save a text benchmark file. Set the key bindings to keys that work for you and set your preferred file location. With afterburner minimised, again turn settings down as before and start playing the game. Benchmark for a minute or two over a representative section of gameplay using the ‘start’ and ‘stop’ keys that you assigned. You can do this more than once and Afterburner will append new sections to the .txt file so long as you don’t have the file open otherwise Afterburner is unable to write to it. Now, open the benchmarking text file and take a look at your results. Don’t worry too much about the 1% and 0.1% lows – those are the numbers that can be negatively impacted if you’ve hit a CPU limitation. Check the average framerate figures. Now go and look at the benchmarks of the game on the GPU you’re considering, at your target resolution. So long as your CPUs’ average frame rate exceed those benchmark numbers, your system is capable of supporting the GPU you’re considering. 

Some general guidelines around Bottlenecks:

We’ve explained how CPU limitations occur owing to a number of variables, so let’s discuss whether they may apply to you.

Resolution:

By far the biggest factor is the resolution you run: 1080p is much less demanding on the GPU than 1440p or 4k, and so you are much more likely to run into a CPU limited situation at this resolution. Given the high FPS that even mid-range GPU’s can generate at 1080p you need a fast CPU to keep up – and this is counterintuitive because 1080p rigs tend to be the entry-level to PC gaming and utilise lower-cost components. Thankfully current affordable CPUs like the Ryzen 3600 are plenty capable of running titles to high framerates but older CPUs may not be.

It may be that a better solution than a CPU upgrade is actually a monitor upgrade: If you’re looking to move to an Ampere GPU then they really aren’t able to use their full potential at 1080p and many systems will struggle to support them. Rather than spending $300 on a new CPU and motherboard to try and increase frame rates, you may find more satisfaction in moving to 1440p and enjoying higher graphical fidelity – you CPU will likely be much happier running moderately high framerates in a GPU bound situation. You can see our recommendations for monitors for Ampere RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 builds here.

Game Genre

Game type is also important: e-Sports and fast paced first person shooters tend to have simpler graphics and are more likely to be CPU limited than AAA titles that push the boundaries of Graphics capabilities. You are more likely to be CPU limited in this kind of game.

Simulators are also often very demanding of the CPU with complex physics models running in the background. Flight Simulator 2020 is a classic example of a game that is heavily CPU limited, and you can read more about our analysis of it here. If you’re building a sim rig you need to allocate sufficient budget to get a high-performance CPU and upgrading to Ampere may be the catalyst to refresh your platform. 

Settings

We all want to experience the best that games have to offer but turning every setting to Ultra can be a serious detriment to performance. It’s perhaps a shame that GPU benchmarks usually concentrate on ‘ultra’ settings to best demonstrate the difference between GPUs when that means you can’t accurately gauge expected performance on high settings. This is further complicated with Ampere owing to a number of RTX and DLSS 2.0 enabled titles. These settings can dramatically alter performance for better (DLSS) or worse (RTX) and usually work best hand in hand – but comparatively few titles employ these technologies meaning we fall back to basic rasterization performance. 

The great thing about GPU performance is that it’s fully within our control. You can decide to trade performance for visual fidelity until you arrive at a balance that’s right for you so don’t be scared to dig in and see if you can tweak things. Remember: If you’ve got a powerful GPU and are experiencing stutters from a CPU limitation it’s possible that raising graphics settings may actually improve the performance of the game!

Conclusions:

We hope this article has given you a better understanding of the factors that can lead to a CPU ‘bottleneck’ in your system, and given you a couple of tools to help your purchasing decisions. If you have a 1080p monitor and play high FPS E-sports then it’s likely an Ampere GPU may cause a CPU limitation. You can look for a more suitable GPU pairing or perhaps consider upgrading your monitor alongside the GPU purchase.  You have a Ryzen Zen+ or Zen 2 CPU, or an Intel 14nm CPU with at least 6 cores and play at 1440p or higher resolution then in all probability you will not suffer any CPU limitations with an Ampere GPU and you can upgrade with confidence. If you have an older CPU (Ryzen Zen 1, Intel from Pre 2016) or a 4-core CPU and play at 1080p or 1440p then there’s a good chance you may experience some CPU limitations as modern games overwhelm your CPUs capacity. Consider running the tests described in this article to gauge your system’s performance and help you decide whether to upgrade.

Finally, if you’re planning a whole new build to take advantage of an Ampere GPU then consult our build guides for recommendations of great CPU pairings with these new top tier graphics cards.

• Best CPUs for RTX 3070 Builds
• Best CPUs for RTX 3080 Builds
• Best CPUs for RTX 3090 Builds

The post Ampere Bottleneck Guide: Will my CPU bottleneck the RTX 3070/3080? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Ampere is here and it’s brought a huge uplift in GPU performance. But make no mistake: these high-end graphics cards are wasted at 1080p. If you’re looking to upgrade or to build a PC around the Ampere GPUs then you need a monitor that lets them show their full potential. The RTX 3070 matches RTX 2080 Ti performance and is aimed squarely at high FPS 1440p resolution and stunning AAA gaming. It’ll also run 1440p ultrawide well and give good results at 4k. The RTX 3080 finally fulfils the promise of bringing 4k gaming into the mainstream with it the ability to run AAA titles at 4k and high FPS. It will also do an excellent job at 1440p ultrawide.

Monitor technology is advancing all the time but it tends to be at a slower pace than the relentless improvements in GPU power. Technologies that have crept in in recent years should now be considered essential for any gaming monitor. Adaptive sync is a vital feature that synchronises the monitor refresh rate to the frame rate the GPU is outputting, eliminating tearing and smoothing our perception of motion on screen. It has been complicated by numerous competing systems and specifications however you don’t need to worry too much as Nvidias has included AMD’s Freesync into its driver compatibility. Whilst G-sync is technically a superior solution with the GPU able to dictate the monitor refresh directly via a module in the monitor, Freesync monitors perform almost identically in practice. With the adoption of the ‘G-Sync compatible’ specification, you can be assured of great performance without paying the premium price of a full G-Sync equipped monitor. All of the monitors we recommend here are ‘G-Sync Compatible’.

IPS and VA panel technology has evolved to the point where TN panels really aren’t worthwhile particular for a premium gaming experience. You can enjoy fast response times without the trade off in colour vibrancy and viewing angles a TN panel imposes.

So let’s check out the best monitors available to pair with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. In this article, we’ll round up the best options for each GPU at the resolutions they’re intended for.

Best Monitors for RTX 3070 & 3080 Builds – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model	Panel	Size
Best Value Monitor for RTX 3070		Gigabyte G27QC	VA	27"
Best 1440p Monitor for RTX 3070		Asus TUF VG27AQ	IPS	27"
Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3070		Viotek GNV34DBE	VA	34"
Best 1440p Monitor for the RTX 3080		Viewsonic Elite XG270QG	IPS	27:"
Best Budget 1440p 144Hz Monitor for RTX 3080		Dell S2719DGF	TN	27"
Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3080		MSI Optix MPG 341CQR	VA	34"
Alternative 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3080		LG 34GN850-B	IPS	34"
Best 4K Monitor for RTX 3080		Acer XV273K	IPS	27"

Best Value Monitor for RTX 3070

The G27QC is a recent release from Gigabyte and sets a new standard in features and performance at the price. It uses a VA panel for vibrant colours and deep blacks, and whilst response times aren’t cutting edge they’re plenty for AAA gaming and general use. It has 165Hz refresh rate and is ‘Freesync Premium’ and G-Sync compatible, meaning that you’ll get great adaptive sync performance with the Nvidia GPU.  This eliminates screen tearing and smooths out frame delivery for a fluid gaming experience even if you’re not quite hitting 144FPS. As for physical features, there’s a 2 port USB hub, handy for moving your headphones and other peripherals to be closer to hand. The stand is basic but functional with height and tilt but no twist. A curved vs flat panel is a matter of personal preference but for gaming and general use the 1500R curve enhances immersion, whilst thin bezels look slick and make a multi-monitor set up seamless. 27” display size is the sweet spot for pixel density for this resolution, making text easy to read without pixels becoming individually visible at standard viewing distances.

Overall this monitor offers a host of great features at the price and pairs excellently with the capability of the RTX 3070. 

Best 1440p Monitor for RTX 3070

The Asus TUF VG27AQ is part of the TUF gaming product range. One of its key features is very low input lag meaning your actions take minimal time to be represented on screen – making it an exceptional gaming monitor for the RTX 3070. This monitor boasts 144hz refresh rate overclockable to 165Hz and is certified G-Sync compatible. It has an IPS panel which combines the benefits of vibrant and accurate colours and fast response times.

Physically the monitor is quite staid in appearance and has minimal features with no speakers, and just one DisplayPort and two HDMI sockets. However, the stand allows a full range of adjustment and has cable management built in to keep things tidy. Thin bezels allow near seamless multiple monitor setups, and it’s flat which suits some peoples’ preference. 

This monitor offers a fantastically responsive option for all types of gaming but it’s particularly well suited to first-person shooters thanks to the low input lag. Combined with solid specification all round, it’s the best pairing with an RTX 3070 if you want a fast capable 1440p panel.

Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3070

If you’re interested in ultrawide monitors but don’t want to break the bank then this $400 option from Viotek, the GNV34DBE, should be high on your list. 1440p ultrawide resolution is an excellent option for both productivity and gaming. The screen real estate allows for multiple documents or windows on screen, and the flexible workspace means you can move windows around as best suits your work without the bezels of a multi-monitor set up getting in the way. In gaming a curved ultrawide monitor wraps around you and fills your peripheral vision, making it ideal for AAA games and simulators. It’s less ideal for competitive first-person shooters since the increased pixel count does impact your frame rate but the RTX 3070 is well up to the task of driving this resolution even in demanding titles. 

This Viotek monitor brings all the essential specifications for gaming down to an affordable price point, making it an exceptional pairing with the $500 RTX 3070. The 34” curved screen wraps around you with a 1500mm curve radius.  It has 144hz refresh rate and freesync allowing control from 48hz to 144hz. This will work with Nvidias G-Sync and acts to eliminate tearing and smooth out frame delivery. The response time is a quick 4ms and overall input lag is remarkably low at around 26ms.

It has a VA panel meaning good vibrant colours and deep blacks. Colour accuracy is acceptable at the price but calibration is recommended if you do any colour critical work like photo editing. 

It has 2 DisplayPorts sockets and 2 HDMI ports as well as a headphone jack so it’s well equipped with input options.

At $400 this monitor offers huge value and great performance. It’ll allow you to lose yourself in games but also double as a versatile workspace if you need to do more with your PC. We consider it the perfect ultrawide pairing with the RTX 3070.

Best 1440p Monitor for the RTX 3080

When you’re looking for a best in class GPU such as the RTX 3080, it makes sense to pair it with a high-end monitor that will ensure you get the most from it. At $600 the Viewsonic Elite XG270QG isn’t cheap but it does boast impressive build quality and features for the price.

This monitor uses a 144hz IPS panel but that refresh rate is overclockable to 165Hz. Full G-Sync implementation means that a G-Sync module in the monitor is directly controlled by the Nvidia GPU, instructing the monitor when to draw the next frame. This allows the widest possible adaptive sync range and completely eliminates stutter and screen tearing since the monitor only refreshes when there is a complete frame ready to display. The IPS panel is vibrant and high quality with minimal input lag and excellent response times – so your actions appear on-screen instantaneously. Indeed it beats the popular competitor the Asus PG279Q ROG Swift in this respect. 

As for ergonomics this monitor has a fully adjustable stand with inbuilt cable management, and is also VESA mountable if you’d prefer it on an arm. It even comes with a monitor hook and mouse cable bungee. 

The G-Sync module actually limits this monitors connectivity options to just one DisplayPort and one HDMI input, and to make use of G-Sync you need to use the DisplayPort option. There’s a USB 3.0 hub built-in, however, very useful to tidy up headphone and other accessory USB cables. This high-end 1440p monitor will ensure you’re seeing the very best your RTX 3080 can do. 

Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3080

MSI pulled out all the stops with this 34” ultrawide – the Optix MPG 341CQR. Using a VA panel with 1800mm curve radius, this monitor has 144Hz refresh rate and Freesync which has been tested as compatible with Nvidia’s G-Sync implementation. The panel is vibrant and high quality with good contrast ratio and black levels and response times are good. Contrast surpasses that possible with an IPS panel. Additional features include a USB-C input so you can hook up a laptop with ease and an inbuilt webcam, which is useful in the new ‘work from home’ era (I’m totally not playing Flight Simulator 2020 in this meeting, I promise). This is a monitor that excels in gaming and is well suited to general use, and isn’t as expensive as the G-Sync options from Acer (X34P) and Dell (Alienware AW3418UW). It’s perfectly placed to show the RTX 3080 off to best advantage.

Best 4K Monitor for RTX 3080

The RTX 3080 is the first GPU capable of really pushing 4K gaming past the 60FPS barrier in demanding games, and to enjoy that capability that you’ll want a top tier 4K monitor.
The Acer XV273K is a 144hz 4K monitor with adaptive sync – which means it will use Freesync via G-sync compatibility to smooth framerates below 144fps – vital at 4K even with a GPU as powerful as the RTX 3080. The panel is a top-quality IPS unit with excellent colour accuracy and good contrast and brightness. Response times are good and input lag is minimal so it’s suitable for fast-paced shooters as well as general gaming. To fully exploit the RTX 3080 at 4K, this monitor hits the spot perfectly. It’s not cheap – but then 4K gaming remains an expensive hobby despite the newfound power of Ampere GPU’s. 

The post 6 Best Monitors for the RTX 3070 & 3080 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Nvidia has announced its Ampere GPUs and it’s clear they’re going to be a massive step up in performance. Despite a new more efficient chip design they are also going to be power-hungry. Nvidia state that the RTX 3070 draws 220 Watts and requires a 650W power supply, whilst the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 both state that a 750W power supply is required.

There’s a little more to it than raw power though, and for a top tier build using these new GPU’s you’ll want to ensure you’ve got a high quality, stable and quiet power supply. In this article, we’ll give you our recommendations for the best power supplies available for your Ampere RTX build.

A note on the 12 pin power connector

Nvidia Founders Edition RTX 3080 and 3090 GPU’s have a new 12 pin PCI-E power plug design which mounts at the middle of the card. The reason for this is they have a truncated circuit board inside that allows the cooling fins to extend beyond and air to blow right through them: This compact design doesn’t allow space for the standard PCIe power connectors. Don’t worry though: All the other manufacturers’ versions of the cards have retained the standard PCIe power sockets, whilst the Nvidia cards will ship with a power adaptor to allow you to connect standard PCIe cables to their proprietary connector. You will not require custom cables or a new power supply to run these latest GPUs in your system.

Best PSUs for RTX 3070 / 3080 / 3090 Ampere Builds – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model
Best PSU for RTX 3070		Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro 650W
Best High-end PSU for RTX 3070		EVGA SuperNOVA GA 650 W 80+
Best SFX PSU for RTX 3070		Silverstone SX650-G 650W
Best Budget PSU for RTX 3080		Seasonic Focus Plus 750W Gold
Best High-end PSU for RTX 3080		EVGA SuperNOVA GA 850W Gold
Best SFF PSU for RTX 3080		Corsair SF750 Platinum
Best PSU for RTX 3090		Corsair AX 850 Titanium

Best PSU for RTX 3070

This Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro PSU is a rebranded Seasonic Focus Gold design. It may be semi-modular but that’s no disadvantage since you need the ATX, EPS and PCIe cables as a minimum anyway. You can connect up to four PCIe cables if required, though the RTX 3070 will use just two. It’s gold-rated for efficiency and operates with minimal noise thanks to its smart fan operation – the fan runs at exceptionally low RPM until the power supply is really loaded up, so you won’t hear it in normal operation. It uses DC-DC topology for maximum stability and efficiency. There’s also the full suite of protections in place. The power supply is capable of running power-hungry GPUs: we use one in our Premium Builds test bench and it’s happy powering our 320W draw RTX 2080 Ti so it will have no issues with the 220W RTX 3070. It’s backed with a 7-year warranty. With competitors now well over $100, this is an excellent value power supply that is well up to the task of powering your RTX 3070 build. 

Best High-end PSU for RTX 3070

If you’re looking for a PSU that’s easier to customise with cable sets, moving up in price a little at $115 we have EVGAs SuperNOVA GA power supply for the RTX 3070. This PSU is EVGA’s latest revision and includes all the features you’d expect of a high-end power supply: It’s Gold efficiency rated and fully modular and has 100% Japanese capacitors. It has a zero fan mode at low workloads so it’s silent until the PC is working hard, at which time you’ll hear the case and GPU fans more anyway. The dual ball bearing fan ensures both long life and minimal noise. This PSU ships with a 10-year warranty and EVGA’s stellar reputation for customer service, so you’ve got decade long peace of mind. This PSU forms a rock-solid basis for any RTX 3070-based build.

Best SFX PSU for RTX 3070

SFX builds need careful planning, and if you’re on the lookout for a 650W power supply in SFX form factor your options are limited – this is, even more, the case since trade wars and the global pandemic combined to hit production and supply lines. For the best SFX option at present, we’ve picked the Silverstone SX650-G. This potent little power supply packs 650W output and 4 PCIe connectors into its tiny chassis. There’s a silent running 92mm fluid dynamic bearing fan and all Japanese capacitors. Silverstone boasts of the class-leading single +12V rail meaning it will happily power the most demanding GPU’s, and also that is has a very low ±3% voltage regulation. The modular cables are flat for easy routing and packaging in compact cases. Dual EPS 8 Pin cables support the latest Z490 and X570 chipset motherboards allowing you to fully populate an 8+4 pin CPU power socket. The warranty is a little disappointing at 3 years but that doesn’t impact the quality of the actual product at all. At the time of writing, this is our recommended 650W Power supply if you need an SFX build with an RTX 3070.

Best Budget PSU for RTX 3080

Budget is, of course, relative when you’re talking about a build including an $800 GPU. The Seasonic Focus Plus Gold is the minimum we’d specify for such a build and the extensive feature list warrant its slightly higher price. 

This power supply has everything you need: The recommended 750W power output with Gold efficiency for lower heat output and energy bills. There is zero fan mode for silent operation at under 30% load and it’s a high-quality unit with a fluid dynamic bearing. Seasonic use a neat PCB based socket arrangement which should make this PSU more robust. It’s also only 140mm deep maximising the space in your PSU shroud. It has 2 EPS power connectors to fully support power-hungry CPUs on the X570 and Z490 motherboards. There’s also an industry-leading 10-year warranty on this unit. Combined with Seasonic’s excellent reputation in the manufacture of power supplies this is the best option for the RTX 3080 and a strong supporting system.

Best High-end PSU for RTX 3080

The EVGA SuperNOVA GA 850W is our recommendation for a higher-end option for more demanding systems based around the RTX 3080. If you’re considering powering high-end CPU’s like the Intel i9-10900K alongside this GPU you’ll want a little more overhead and this power supply offers that without breaking the bank. EVGA has adorned this latest version of their gold-rated power supply with all Japanese capacitors (Chinese capacitors gained a bad reputation after failures) and of course fully modular design so you can make your build super-clean. As with other PSUs in the series, there’s a 135mm dual ball-bearing fan for low noise and high durability, with zero fan mode below 40% load so it’s silent. There’s also a 10 year warranty and EVGA’s solid customer service reputation for your peace of mind. 

Best SFF PSU for RTX 3080

If you’re looking to shoehorn an RTX 3080 into a build requiring an SFF power supply your options become very limited. Thankfully the Corsair 750W Platinum has an excellent reputation and is capable of powering the highest-end hardware despite its diminutive size. The platinum efficiency rating is indicative of the quality of the design and components. The PSU has a 92mm fan that stops under low load for silent operation. Unfortunately, pricing and availability are crazy at the moment, with the combined rise in popularity of SFF PC’s increasing demand, and trade wars with China and the global pandemic hitting supply. If this is the PSU for you, you may have to wait for a price drop or bite the bullet and accept it as a cost of having the best. 

Best PSU for RTX 3090

If you’re building an all-out powerhouse around the RTX 3090, you’ll want a very robust power supply capable of running power-hungry components with overclocks. The PSU we’re chosen here is capable of all that and will last a decade to boot: the Corsair AX 850. This power supply adopts a ‘best of the best’ philosophy to justify the premium price tag. It has 100% Japanese capacitors, a 135mm fan with zero fan mode for silent operation under low load. It supplies 3 PCIe Cables and a pair of 8 Pin EPS cables, and Corsair offers their own custom cables too if you want a manufacturer guaranteed customisation options. Finally, there’s a ten-year warranty to ensure you don’t have to worry about your PSU until 2030. This is a power supply that you can have faith will run your RTX 3090 build with ease. 

Featured Ampere Builds

The post Best Power Supplies for Ampere RTX 3070, 3080, 3090 Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The end of the summer was met with Nvidia’s long-awaited announcements for their new RTX Ampere 30 series GPUs that PC gaming enthusiasts are eager to get their hands on. The least expensive of the three GPUs announced, though still very powerful in regards to its speculated performance, is the RTX 3070. Despite its $499 price tag, this GPU is looking to have an overall performance similar to the flagship RTX 20 series, $1200 priced, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. It may lack in comparison to the RTX 2080 Ti in regards to VRAM capacity (8 GB vs 11 GB) and memory bandwidth (448 Gbps vs 616 Gbps), but it makes up for it with its 5,888 CUDA cores and 20 TFLOPS of FP32 computing power – a 35% and 49% increase respectively; not to mention the improved Ampere architecture, the new and improved 8nm node, and the next generation ray tracing and tensor cores. The release of the RTX Ampere 3070 will mark a new era, where mid-range GPUs have the power to run next-generation games at 144 Hz on 1440p resolutions, and at maintain least 60 FPS on 4K resolutions consistently. So, if you’re looking to purchase the RTX 3070, now is a good time to compare the aftermarket options that will be available when the GPU releases, sometime in October, so you can choose the option you prefer and get the most bang for your buck. That is why we’ve compiled a list of all recently announced RTX Ampere 3070 models, along with any information that has been released by the manufacturers about their boost clock speeds, cooling, exterior designs, and price range.

• Related: RTX 3080 Aftermarket Card List
• Related: RTX 3090 Aftermarket Card List
• Related: Best CPUs for RTX 3070 Builds

RTX 3070 Aftermarket (AIB) Card List

EVGA RTX 3070 FTW3 & XC3

First up, we have EVGA with the ICX3 series GPUs, set to release for all three announced RTX Ampere 30 series options. Sadly, EVGA has only announced two models for the RTX 3070, versus the five models for the RTX 3090 and four models for the RTX 3080. These two models include the FTW3 and the XC3. The former is EVGA’s premium tri-fan model which includes four ARGB lighted displays: one in the front, one in the back, one lengthwise, and one on the side, opposite to the DP and HMDI ports. These ARGB displays will be customizable via EVGA’s new Precision X1 software, which will also feature in-gaming overclocking, fan controls, and GPU monitoring. The XC3 is almost identical to the FTW3, with the only exception being the lack of all ARGB lighting. Both these models will use asynchronous fans with hydro-dynamic bearings (second only to magnetic levitation bearings in both lifespan and low noise emissions), a heatsink with through-hole fins for better ventilation, a unified copper block that covers both GPU and VRAM, seven heatpipes, an air-through PCB, and a ventilated backplate with two additional micro-thin heatpipes. Price and boost clock speeds are yet to be confirmed, but these models are definitely some of the best in regards to stylish ARGB displays and efficient cooling solutions.

Galax (KFA2) RTX 3070 SG

Another value option in the custom AIB market for the RTX 3070 is Galax’s (KFA2) SG. This aftermarket card will feature a slightly higher boost clock speed of 1,740 MHz, up from the reference boost clock of 1,725 MHz, which can be activated via the 1-click overclock feature of Galax’s Xtreme Tuner software. Another great aspect of this software is that it also comes in the form of a mobile application, so you can overclock your GPU without having to minimize your game. If the GPU is mounted face-forward, the KFA2 SG has a very robust RGB lighting display, as it’s the only RTX 30 series model, so far, with translucent fan blades that utilize RGB lighting. If you prefer to mount it the old fashion way, it does have an RGB lighted quote on its side as well. In terms of cooling, this GPU has three 92mm, 11 bladed, fans (bearings unannounced – “Wings” designed fan blades for optimized static pressure), plenty of ventilation on the sides and through the backplate, and it even comes with an extra 80mm clip-on fan that can be attached on the ventilated area of the backplate in order to assist in expelling hot air from the heatsink. The KFA SG will also include three DP 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 ports, and will likely cost the baseline reference card price of $499.

Inno3D RTX 3070 iChill X3 & iChill X4

The next contender, Inno3D, is set to release three RTX Ampere 3070 models, two of which are the similarly modeled iChill X3 and iChill X4. Both models feature an extravagant RGB display that covers the front and the side of the GPU, and will be compatible with Aura Sync, Mystic Light, RGB Fusion, and Inno3D’s native TunnelIT. The iChill X3 features additional RGB flare with its optional “tail fins”, which are acrylic modules that can be attached to the RGB side display for extra lighting. Two such tail fins are included, one with the X3 logo, and one blank that can be customized. These tail fins don’t seem to be included with the iChill X4, but it holds an advantage when it comes to the cooling the GPU, and particularly the MOSFETs. It does so with the addition of a fourth, 45mm fan attached to the side of the GPU, on the edge of the RGB display. Other than that, both modules feature three 90mm fans, a 1,881mm long heatsink with ultra-thin cooling fins and a copper base, and a ventilated, studded surface, backplate. Prices and boost clock speeds are yet to be announced by Inno3D.

Inno3D RTX 3070 TWIN X2 OC

A more bare-bones and less costly version of the aforementioned iChill models, Inno3D will also be releasing the Twin X2 OC – named after its two 90mm fans and perhaps higher boost clock speed. This model has no RGB displays, a smaller, 1,517mm lengthwise heatsink, and smaller heatpipe count of seven. Additionally, it appears that the fans on this GPU will not be PWM controlled, as Inno3D mentions that their quality bearings (type unknown) will allow the fans to work 24/7. It is also stated that “Scythe” design fan blades maximize airflow, though it would probably be better if they optimized static pressure. The Twin X2 OC will most likely cost slightly above the base, reference card price of $499.

Palit RTX 3070 Gaming PRO & Gaming PRO OC

Set to release four models (for each of all three announced Nvidia 30 Series GPUs) is Palit. Two of these are the GameRock and GameRock Pro, though nothing has been announced for these models other than that they exist and a few pictures. The pictures show that they are looking to be three-fan GPUs with plenty of RGB lighting on the front face of the card. The models we have a bit more information for is their Gaming Pro and Gaming Pro OC variations – the only difference between the two being that the latter will have an increased boost clock speed that is yet to be announced (most likely 1,740 MHz). These Gaming Pro variants of the RTX Ampere 3070 will feature an ARGB display running across the middle of the three -fan design, across the front plate, that can be customizable through Palit’s ThunderMaster application. The cooling solution includes: double ball bearing fans with PWM controls called “TurboFan 3.0” and IP5X ratings, double-U shaped heatpipes, two aluminum alloy casted plates covering the circuit board, and a ventilated backplate with a honeycomb design. The prices are yet to be announced, but the Palit RTX 3070 Gaming Pro will most likely cost near the baseline $499 price.

PNY RTX 3070 XLR8

PNY has also recently released information about their RTX Ampere 30 Series GPUs, which for now include only the XLR8 Gaming-X RGB GPU. This model will have the reference card boost clock speed of 1,725 MHz, and an RGB display which will be featured solely on the front plate of the GPU (in between the center and the two side fans). Though PNY has given very limited information about this model, they have released some specifications from where we can see that the XLR8 Gaming Epic-X will have three DP 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 ports, a length of 294mm (compatible with most full-sized GPU SFF cases) and a height of 2.7 slots. More information should be released the closer we get to October, such as details for the cooling solution and the final price.

ZOTAC RTX 3070 Twin Edge

Hailing from Hong Kong, ZOTAC is a quality GPU manufacturer that is also primed to release an RTX Ampere 3070 option: the Twin Edge. This model will have a white LED-lit logo on the side and on the backplate (non-RGB compatible) and will feature a dual-fan layout with its IceStorm 2.0 cooling system. The cooling fans will both have 11 blades, a “FREEZE” PWM mode, and each fan can be controlled independently via ZOTAC’s FireStorm software. The heatsink will be all aluminum, while the heatpipes will be five in count, and copper in material, arranged in a custom layout for more direct GPU contact. The boost clock speed will be identical to the reference card, and the length of the card will be 232mm. Four ports will be included: three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1. The price for this option is yet to be announced, though it will most likely be similar to the cost of the reference card at $499.

Featured Ampere Builds

The post RTX 3070 Aftermarket Card List – 10 AIB Models Compared appeared first on PremiumBuilds.