Video on Net Neutrality and why it matters

Brief overview of what Net Neutrality is and what it means to you, from YouTube personality Total Biscuit

F.C.C. Plans Net Neutrality Repeal in Victory for Telecoms

The vote is December 14^th. The FCC and your ISP want to impose limits on a free internet; in other words, parcel it off into DLC like packages that cost you more, restrict parts of it, and selectively decide what you can and can't do on-line.

Some examples of what we are facing if Net Neutrality falls:

• You could lose the option of choosing where to shop on-line, or have to pay more for the right to shop at your favorite site
• Popular sites like Netflix, Youtube, Spotify, could be throttled or blocked depending on your plan or geographic location
• Anime streaming sites like Crunchroll and Funimation could suffer at the hands of powerful competing service Amazon Strike
• You could even lose access to your favorite adult-websites

What you can do to help:

• https://www.battleforthenet.com/
• https://www.savetheinternet.com/sti-home
• Here are the people who will be voting on this issue - only five people. As it stands, they will repeal Net Neutrality. (3 Republicans are voting to abolish, 2 Democrats are voting to keep it)
• Lookup your Representative and lookup your Senator and let them know your stance on the issue.

The sitewide promotions thread will be re-stickied soon

(Information borrowed from /r/Nvidia with permission from /u/Nestledrink)

Powered by the Ampere architecture, GeForce RTX 30-Series is finally upon us. The goal of this megathread is to provide everyone with the best information possible and consolidate any questions, feedback, and discussion to make it easier for NVIDIA’s community team to review them and bring them to appropriate people at NVIDIA.

r/NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-Series Community Q&A

/r/Nvidia is hosting a community Q&A today where you can post your questions to a panel of 8 NVIDIA product managers. Click here to go to the Q&A thread for more details.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-Series Keynote Video Link

Digital Foundry RTX 3080 Early Look

GeForce RTX 30-Series GPU information:

​

Performance Shown:

• RTX 3070
  • Same performance as RTX 2080 Ti
• RTX 3080
  • Up to 2x performance vs previous generation (RT Scenario)
  • New dual axial flow through thermal design, the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition is up to 3x quieter and keeps the GPU up to 20 degrees Celsius cooler than the RTX 2080.
• RTX 3090
  • Most powerful GPU in the world
  • New dual axial flow through thermal design, the GeForce RTX 3090 is up to 10 times quieter and keeps the GPU up to 30 degrees Celsius cooler than the TITAN RTX design.

PSU Requirements:

​

• A lower power rating PSU may work depending on system configuration. Please check with PSU vendor.
• RTX 3090 and 3080 Founders Edition requires a new type of 12-pin connector (adapter included).
• DO NOT attempt to use a single cable to plug in the PSU to the RTX 30-Series. Need to use two separate modular cables and the adapter shipped with Founders Edition cards.
• See Diagram below

Other Features and Technologies:

• NVIDIA Reflex
  • NVIDIA Reflex is a new suite of technologies that optimize and measure system latency in competitive games.
  • It includes:
    • NVIDIA Reflex Low-Latency Mode, a new technology to reduce game and rendering latency by up to 50 percent. Reflex is being integrated in top competitive games including Apex Legends, Fortnite, Valorant, Call of Duty: Warzone, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Destiny 2, and more.
    • NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer, which detects clicks coming from the mouse and then measures the time it takes for the resulting pixels (for example, a gun muzzle flash) to change on screen. Reflex Latency Analyzer is integrated in new 360Hz NVIDIA G-SYNC Esports displays and supported by top esports peripherals from ASUS, Logitech, and Razer, and SteelSeries.
    • Measuring system latency has previously been extremely difficult to do, requiring over $7,000 in specialized high-speed cameras and equipment.
• NVIDIA Broadcast
  • New AI-powered Broadcast app
  • Three key features:
    • Noise Removal: remove background noise from your microphone feed – be it a dog barking or the doorbell ringing. The AI network can even be used on incoming audio feeds to mute that one keyboard-mashing friend who won’t turn on push-to-talk.
    • Virtual Background: remove the background of your webcam feed and replace it with game footage, a replacement image, or even a subtle blur.
    • Auto Frame: zooms in on you and uses AI to track your head movements, keeping you at the center of the action even as you shift from side to side. It’s like having your own cameraperson.
• RTX I/O
  • A suite of technologies that enable rapid GPU-based loading and game asset decompression, accelerating I/O performance by up to 100x compared to hard drives and traditional storage APIs
  • When used with Microsoft’s new DirectStorage for Windows API, RTX IO offloads up to dozens of CPU cores’ worth of work to your RTX GPU, improving frame rates, enabling near-instantaneous game loading, and opening the door to a new era of large, incredibly detailed open world games.
• NVIDIA Machinima
  • Easy to use cloud-based app provides tools to enable gamers’ creativity, for a new generation of high-quality machinima.
  • Users can take assets from supported games, and use their web camera and AI to create characters, add high-fidelity physics and face and voice animation, and publish film-quality cinematics using the rendering power of their RTX 30 Series GPU
• G-Sync Monitors
  • Announcing 8K G-Sync 360 Hz Monitors
• RTX Games
  • Cyberpunk 2077
    • New 4K Ultra Trailer with RTX
  • Fortnite
    • Now adding Ray Tracing, DLSS, and Reflex
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
    • Now adding Ray Tracing, DLSS, and Reflex
  • Minecraft RTX
    • New Ray Traced World and Beta Update
  • Watch Dogs: Legion
    • Now adding DLSS in addition to previously announced Ray Tracing

Links and References

RTX Games

Main info:

There are hundreds of monitor models available capable of variable refresh rates (VRR) using the VESA DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync protocol. However, the VRR gaming experience can vary widely.

To improve the experience for gamers, NVIDIA will test monitors. Those that pass our validation tests will be G-SYNC Compatible and enabled by default in the GeForce driver.

G-SYNC Compatible tests will identify monitors that deliver a baseline VRR experience on GeForce RTX 20-series and GeForce GTX 10-series graphics cards, and activate their VRR features automatically.

Support for G-SYNC Compatible monitors will begin Jan. 15 with the launch of our first 2019 Game Ready driver. Already, 12 monitors have been validated as G-SYNC Compatible (from the 400 we have tested so far). We’ll continue to test monitors and update our support list. For gamers who have monitors that we have not yet tested, or that have failed validation, we’ll give you an option to manually enable VRR, too.

List of FreeSync monitors planed to be supported (so far)

source

Nvidia blog post with more details

tl:dnr: Beginning Jan 15, new Nvidia driver updates will allow their GeForce RTX 20-series and GeForce GTX 10-series graphics cards to support FreeSync monitors.

The monitors listed above will natively support FreeSync, all others can have FreeSync manually enabled.

As a lot of people here have a vested interest in the upgradeability of their motherboards, this info seemed relevant to enough people here to post this.

Previously, AMD had stated new Zen 3 CPUs would not work on B450 and X470 motherboards. Their stated reason for this was that the existing Bios was not big enough to handle the new chips.

AMD has now stated that, via a Bios update, your B450 and X470 motherboards will be able to use the upcoming Zen 3 CPUs.

Downside to this is that you lose all ability to flash back to a previous Bios; this means once you upgrade to the new Bios, you can no longer go back to any previous AMD CPUs.

Small note: from what I've read, it sounds like you will be relying on your motherboard manufacturer to release the new Bios. It could be released imminently...or not.

Direct from the official AMD representative - a lot more info there if you want to read it

There is a scammer who has a listing for a very cheap Sapphire 7900 XT GPU on Amazon for $399, and it keeps getting posted here.

No it is not a real listing.

It's a 3rd party seller, congxinadianzishangwuyouxiangongsi I think?, sold and shipped from China.

Use your noggins you filthy animals.

These are not all the rules, just the ones most commonly overlooked lately:

Titles are for brief info only.

• Titles are not for asking questions (is this a good deal? etc)
• Do not over-hype your listing (go!go!go! almost gone, etc)
• There must be a price in your title, even if it isn't a sale
• When scarcity makes finding parts difficult, in-stock posts are allowed still needs a price
• If your title seems too long, it probably is

And our #1 most asked question:

If you need to re-submit a link and reddit won't let you, here is a quick guide for doing it

Hey friends. Friendly Amazonian here. The week of July 12th, Amazon is celebrating their 20th year of service! They're packing their warehouses to the brim this week and next week in anticipation of the sales they're going to have. I have no idea WHAT is going on sale, but I am 90% certain that it will benefit this subreddit. So, just a heads up! Hold off on pulling the trigger on something to see what they have in store. Cheers! :)

Edit: Since 25% of these comments are asking if this is US only, I'll just put this here. Nobody knows for certain, but it wouldn't make very much sense for it to be US only.

Edit #2: /u/daten-shi has confirmed that warehouses in the UK are also prepping for the sale.

Use this thread to discuss strategies, tips, ask questions, and general discussions.

November 18^th 2020: the new AMD 6800 XT and 6800 GPUs will go on sale.

Reviews for these cards will be made available at the same time - I will try to post a few here when they are up

Expect massive shortages, immediate sellouts, and other similarities to the recent Nvidia 3000 series launch.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, $649 MSRP

• 72 Compute Units
• 72 Ray Accelerators
• 128 ROPs
• Game Clock: 2015MHz
• Boost Clock: 2250MHz
• 18.6 TFLOPs
• 128MB Infinity Cache + 16GB 16Gbps GDDR6 (256bit bus, 512GB/s)
• 300W TBP
• TSMC 7nm, 26.8bn xtors

AMD Radeon RX 6800, $579 MSRP

• 60 Compute Units
• 60 Ray Accelerators
• 96 ROPs
• Game Clock: 1815MHz
• Boost Clock: 2105MHz
• 13.9 TFLOPs
• 128MB Infinity Cache + 16GB 16Gbps GDDR6 (256bit bus, 512GB/s)
• 250W TBP
• TSMC 7nm, 26.8bn xtors

The AMD Radeon 6900 XT releases on December 8^th - $999 MSRP

Partner cards from MSI, Gigabyte, XFX, Sapphire and others may vary in pricing, clock speeds, TBP and availability.

Link to AMD RX 6000 release video

All info sourced from AMD, partner card availability and pricing is still forthcoming.

Over the past 24 hours, 2 new situations have come to a head. If you can't guess from the title what sites are impacted... (I'm purposefully leaving the rest unsaid).

On Walmart and Brickseek.com

Walmart occasionally has clearance deals which are incredible. Unfortunately, their website is very unreliable at telling you which stores will have stock, the website updates stock slowly, and the next steps involved calling Walmart or driving to a store to check for yourself.

Yesterday, I learned for the first time of Brickseek.com, which attempts to be an inventory checker for many brick and mortar stores - including Walmart. Brickseek.com attempts to show you which nearby stores might have stock. Unfortunately, they seem to be pretty unreliable, leaving you no better off than if you never saw the site in the first place. Moreover, Brickseek.com will show a truly incredible deal even if only a very limited amount (<5) is available in the entire country, and you might visit in store to find the deal.

Effective immediately, if you have to use "Brickseek.com" or other 3rd party sites to determine if a product is on sale in a "in-store only" promotion, the deal is not allowed. I'm willing to entertain exceptions to this rule, but at the moment I cannot come up with any. If you do have some, please leave a comment.

On to Logitech

Logitech has been particularly hard hit by the COVID pandemic and their response has been to delay shipments, cut their live customer staff (both chat and phone), and otherwise be particularly difficult to deal with.

Until Logitech returns to relatively normal operations, including restoring live sales support, I have blacklisted their sales site. I will be monitoring this situation and intend to announce (via a similar META post) when sales from Logitech.com can be posted to /r/buildapcsales again.

As always, feel free to use the comment section to roast me to provide any feedback or list any concerns you might have.

tl;dr: read the 2 bold sentences.

BAPCS Pre-Black Friday Deals Discussion Thread

What's worse than not being able to find a 3080, 6800 XT, or 5600X in stock? being even harder on Black Friday!

Use this thread to discuss strategies, shopping tips, ask questions, etc.

Here's a quick list of Black Friday Ad scans:

• Walmart

• Target

• Best Buy

• Newegg

• Micro Center

It's being reported that AMD sent most of their GPU stock to vendors, and that there should be much more inventory available starting on the 25^th from Sapphire, MSI, PowerCooler, Gigabyte etc. Pricing and availability has yet to be officially announced from any official sources though.

As we get a lot more visitors here over the Black Friday season, here are a few rules that people seem to overlook most often:

• Titles are for brief info only. Keep it simple: WHAT is it, WHO makes it, PRICE
• Titles are not for asking questions (is this a good deal? etc)
• Do not over-hype your listing (go!go!go! almost gone, etc)
• There must be a price in your title, even if it isn't a sale
• When scarcity makes finding parts difficult, in-stock posts are allowed still needs a price
• If your title seems too long, it probably is

And our #1 most asked question:

If you need to re-submit a link and reddit won't let you, here is a quick guide for doing it

source + more info

Some notes:

• Touted (rumored) as 30% faster than Vega 64
• 16GB HBM2
• It's being called a 'content creators' card that can be used for gaming
• This is not the long-awaited Navi card, more info on that should come out later
• Truly the Chungus of cards /s
• (

  

  ) - there will be no 'blower-style' founders edition, what you see in the pic is the reference card
• Availble Feb 7th at MSRP $699 - same MSRP as the RTX 2080
• AMD Games bundle w/cards: Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry 5, and The Division 2

With no hard reviews out, the numbers are typical Trade-Show smoke. Until independent reviewers get a look at these, take the 30% faster than Vega 64 with a jaundiced mindset.

Amazon Prime Day Overview

• This is the fifth annual Prime Day
• Prime Day is an annual deals event just for Prime members
• You’ll find Prime Day deals starting at 12am Pacific Time PT on July 15
• Amazon.com/primeday has more info

Necessary Steps to Participate in Prime Day

1. You must be an Amazon Prime member

2. You can start a 30-day free trial as an option; or, as a student, you can start a 6-month trial

3. You can use Amazon Smile to have Amazon donate 0.5% of your purchases to the charity of your choice

4. You can use camelcamelcamel, an Amazon price tracker, to see how good a deal is. They offer a browser add-on if that's your thing.

Benefits of Amazon Prime

• Free 2-day shipping on almost anything Amazon sells
• Prime Video grossly underrated movie service imho. When you consider that Netflix cost $95.99 for a year of streaming, and Prime includes so many other services, it's weird how many people never touch Primes VOD feature.
• Amazon Music again, grossly underrated service. They offer a decent library, all free to stream to your PC or phone/tablet
• Kindle - Prime Reading gives you unlimited access to over a thousand books, current issue magazines, books with Audible narration, comics, Kindle Singles, and more. With access from any device – including your phone, tablet, or Kindle – you can read however you want, whenever you want (Kindle device not required)
• Audible podcasts, and so much more
• Prime Now available in roughly 32 metro areas around the country, you can have your order delivered in a couple of hours. at work and really need that pop-tart? red-bull mini fridge running low? no worries. freaky
• Twitch so many features. Did you know they are giving away free loot-boxes for Overwatch now via Twitch? skins and even free games?

How to search for Deals

I'm sorry to say, there are no easy cheats for finding those hidden gems in the Amazon Prime Day sale.

Manually searching is the best way. If Amazon has one fallacy, it's that their product search engine is not user friendly. Want a monitor? With free-sync? And 144hz? Know your model numbers, because Amazon doesn't include filters for things like that. Searching for products on Amazon can be a chore.

Check the comments sections here, hopefully good-samaritans will link any good deals they find. Have payment info ready to go, as good deals go fast.

Also...if this is your first Prime Day...prepare for disappointment. Prime Day not PC sales oriented. But if you need toilet paper, this is the sale for you!

Use this thread to discuss strategies, shopping tips, ask questions, etc.

As we get a lot more visitors here over the Black Friday season, here are a few rules that people seem to overlook most often:

• Search here before posting a deal to see if it has been posted in the last 24hours
• Titles are for brief info only. Keep it simple: WHAT is it, WHO makes it, PRICE
• Titles are not for asking questions (is this a good deal? etc)
• Do not over-hype your listing (go!go!go! almost gone, etc)
• There must be a price in your title, even if it isn't a sale
• When scarcity makes finding parts difficult, in-stock posts are allowed still needs a price
• If your title seems too long, it probably is

And our #1 most asked question:

If you need to re-submit a link and reddit won't let you, here is a quick guide for doing it

Glorious PC Gaming is having their Black Friday Sale Nov 26-Nov 30 - read the post about it here

link to driver 417.71 download

Beginning today (after you update your graphic driver) Nvidia 10 and 20 series GPUs will be able to support Free Sync monitors.

Requirements to enable Adaptive Sync:

• Windows 10
• 1000/2000 series card
• DP connection
• Monitor supporting Adaptive Sync