Two bits
If you’re a tech enthusiast, the rest of 2020 is as good as it gets
What a time it is to be a PC enthusiast or a gamer! Between now and the end of the year we’ve got new GPU ranges from Nvidia and AMD and a new CPU platform from AMD. There’s even the possibility of 11th Generation Intel desktop CPUs too, though they’re likelier to arrive in early 2021. Oh, then there’s the small matter of new Playstation and Xbox consoles! It doesn’t get much better.
It all begins in this very issue with our review of Nvidia’s all new RTX 3080. It redefines the top end of the GPU market, and it’s not even the highest tier model! If you’re a 4K gamer, use multiple screens or really want to test out that 240Hz monitor, it’s the card to get – at least until the 3090 arrives on shelves! Don’t forget the likes of the 3070 and 3060 too. These could really shake up the market.
But what about the response from AMD? We’ve been expecting to a see a ‘Big Navi’ ever since the launch of the RX 5700 series a little over a year ago. It’s been teased and teased, and at the time of writing AMD had just revealed its design for a new RX 6000 card. It’s even being teased in-game in Fortnite, too. Is this new RDNA2 GPU enough to take on Nvidia’s best? We can’t wait to find out. Competition is great for all gamers, no matter whether you buy a card from team green or team red.
How about things on the CPU side? The dust has hardly settled on Intel’s 10th Generation launch. They’re strong gaming CPUs but they’re an evolution of what came before. We’re really craving a brand new architecture from Intel. 11th Gen models probably won’t be the almost mythical 10nm CPUs we’ve been hoping for, but a new architecture on 14nm could still hold more than a few surprises. Perhaps will see more revealed in early 2021.
Before that, we’re closing on the reveal of AMD’s Zen 3-based Ryzen 4000 series CPUs and the accompanying X670 motherboard platform. These CPUs are brand new and built from the ground up. AMD is teasing a reveal in October. Will these chips allow AMD to pull ahead of Intel in terms of gaming performance? It won’t be a stretch to assume they will be very very strong under multi-threaded loads.
APC might be a PC tech magazine, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t excited about the new consoles too. They’re very PC-like consoles, too, built with AMD CPUs and GPUs that won’t be all that different from those you’d buy off the shelf. Cross-play is becoming more widespread and they’re using SSD technology as well. Gamers of all stripes should be excited by this console and PC gaming convergence. It means game developers won’t have to use as many resources rebuilding their code to suit unique platform architectures.
2020 hasn’t featured too many exciting moments in the PC space, but holy haberdashery, Batman, that’s about to change! The back end of 2020 is simply chock full of tasty tech releases. We’re excited, and we hope you are too!
“So, is it worth going for RAM at 4000MHz or even higher? Unless you’re a competitive overclocker, the answer is no.”