granitescout said:Hey everyone, I'm looking for some advice on picking out a gaming monitor. My playtime is roughly 75% Call of Duty and 25% Battlefield V on my Xbox One (plus a few other console titles here and there). My GPU is a GTX 1080... so, given my setup, would it be better to go with 1080p G-Sync or jump to 1440p G-Sync? Though, 1440p might end up being too pricey. My budget is around $500. Ideally, a 1440p 144Hz G-Sync setup would be the sweet spot. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
edit: Something like an Acer predator XB271HUAbmiprz for about $540—is that overkill for what I'm doing?
Look, if you're running a GTX 1080 and want G-Sync, 144Hz, and 1440p, then that's exactly what you should aim for. Whether you actually *need* all of that is really up to you. If you're playing multiplayer Call of Duty, that 144Hz will definitely give you an edge, and 1440p is the perfect resolution to pair with a card like yours. The only catch is whether you insist on G-Sync; that feature tends to drive the price up significantly and really limits your options when it comes to specific monitors and panel types.
That GTX 960 is a solid deal, but honestly, you might want to consider some slightly lower-end GPUs too (like the GTX 660, 750Ti, HD7850 2GB, R7 265 2GB, or even an R9 270), especially if you stumble upon one that's noticeably cheaper.
There's absolutely no excuse for those kinds of frame drops. Look, just grab MSI Afterburner—head into settings and then monitoring—so you can track your CPU and GPU temps, clock speeds, NVIDIA usage, and RAM consumption while you're actually playing.
It could also be a software issue. If it’s a fresh install, macOS might be throwing a fit in the background, like running updates or something, which can definitely impact performance, though usually not to this extent.
"Tax-free" pricing at Best Buy. You can grab an Asus Strix Radeon RX570 OC 4GB for just $411 if you use the code SKOLA18 . Click here. The only real downside to this whole deal is the one-year warranty click. If they offered the standard 3-year coverage, I probably would have pulled the trigger immediately.
Otherwise, the exact same card on Amazon.com ends up costing about $215 once you factor in our local sales tax and shipping. I think they offer a 2-year warranty there, right? It isn't clearly listed on the product page.
But at that price point... Honestly, I don't think there's such a thing as a "good" or "bad" product—it really just comes down to whether you got a killer deal or not. A buddy of mine actually scored a second unit through a warranty replacement, and it’s still running perfectly 😁
Right, I also forgot to mention that NVIDIA used to manufacture chipsets for AMD processor motherboards—I actually had one myself until recently. On this current AM4 board I'm running (an ASUS Prime Pro), for instance, I've got Intel's LAN
They actually used Intel hardware for the preliminary testing of their GPUs before sending them out to reviewers (take the Fury, for example). They did this because Intel chips yielded higher FPS—the FX series was just a massive bottleneck, and obviously, they want their GPUs to look as impressive as possible). Fast forward to today, and they even have a joint product click, following their previous click, click collaboration. It’s nothing surprising; at the end of the day, it’s all just business 🤷
Thinking of them as sworn enemies is just something found in the heads of childish fanboys. In reality, money moves wherever it needs to move, and companies cooperate whenever it serves their interests. I’d even bet that AMD and NVIDIA have colluded on GPU pricing (at least when they occupied the same market segment)—a classic cartel tactic designed to squeeze as much cash as possible from consumers. There is a huge amount of talent shuffling between Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA. For instance, NVIDIA's founder and current CEO used to work at AMD, and Roy Taylor served as a marketing director for both NVIDIA and later AMD (not a great guy, if you ask me). Then you have people like former AMD architect Jim Keller, who designed those legendary Athlons and the current Zen architecture, Raja Koduri, the former Radeon director (who worked on Polaris, Vega, and the upcoming Navi), and even the Radeon marketing chief, all of whom moved over to Intel. Word is, those last two will be working on Intel's upcoming discrete GPUs. Even the current leadership at AMD mostly hails from places like IBM and HP
Exactly. We're talking about public procurement here, not gamers who spend their weekends hand-picking individual components to build custom rigs. These organizations likely just buy massive fleets of Dell or HP OEM PCs through government contracts—wherever the discount is deepest, that's who wins the bid. It’s highly improbable that AMD developed Ryzen using FX chips; they were almost certainly using high-end Xeon setups during development. Of course, a typical secretary or an accountant isn't running a Xeon or an i7 at their desk; they're probably just using some newer AMD APU or similar. While they might be transitioning to more competitive processors nowadays, they haven't replaced everything yet. Those older workstations equipped with Xeon or i7 chips can still get the job done for a while longer.
Why on earth would you need 32GB of RAM just for gaming? Most titles have only recently started making even a dent in more than 8GB, and even then, it’s a small minority of games. In my opinion, 2x8GB is plenty... You could also look into a newer, slightly more compact case (like a Fractal R6), or if you're into that flashy aesthetic, grab one with a tempered glass side panel. Besides, new GPUs are dropping in about a month—they'll be officially unveiled any day now.
For the motherboard, you could go with the Z370 Extreme 4. It's top-tier stuff, yet almost $100 cheaper, and honestly, you won't notice a difference. Unless you're planning to overclock, you can just enable all-core turbo and sit pretty at 4.7GHz. BTW, where do people usually shop over in the Australian Office?
I think there might be some kind of flaw with the image quality—I can’t quite recall the specifics—but honestly, it isn't anything major enough to complain about given this budget. Once you start looking at high-end monitors with ultra-fast refresh rates, you realize they all have their own little quirks too.
Regarding the CPU, don't hold your breath for a price drop—it's never actually happened. Even the Core i7-7700K is still sitting around $2300-$800 and up... An Intel Core i8 might land at maybe $1333 +/-, but if he picks out some badass 6K monitor, his budget could get hit hard 😬 and honestly, he doesn't even need it.
Like I mentioned before, since NVIDIA hasn't officially dropped their next generation of GPUs yet, you’d be much smarter to just hang tight for a bit (rumor has it they're coming out this month)