The Golden Age of X86 Gaming
blog.codinghorror.com
blog.codinghorror.com
The Intel "gaming" NUC is $699 before you put in any RAM and an SSD, so its actual total build cost as a barebones is probably around $899.
The mini-ITX system will be slightly bigger, but also more robust in nearly every way.
Yes it's tiny and slim but it's effectively laptop grade CPU with onboard GPU in a single motherboard.
Disclaimer: Last time I built my own computer was in 2004 or 2005, so I have no idea what to look for and what is considered powerful these days.
How much faster wil this be? Intel's own benchmarks show Iris Pro 580 to be between a 750 and a 750 Ti. The GTX 960 is about twice as fast as a 750 Ti. http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-960-vs-Nvidi...
CPU wise the difference is much smaller, I couldn't find a direct comparison but I found for the 6700HQ but that's just as good because the 6700HQ and the 6770HQ uses the same CPU http://ark.intel.com/compare/88967,93341 and then user benchmarks show the 6700 desktop a 20% performance benefit over the 6700HQ http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6700-vs-I...
Of course because you are not restricted by the integrated parts if you were to spend another $150 then you can get a GTX 970 which is thrice as fast as a 750 Ti and in three weeks when the GTX 1070 lands at the same price as the GTX 970 that'll be four-five times as fast as the GPU in NUC.
For the NUC to be competitive, it would need to be $499 perhaps $549 and the external GPU box $150 tops. Now that'd be a very different ballgame -- at that point we would need to look at the significant size advantage and concede that the much smaller ITX cases are typically small run and tend to be more expensive so then the NUC+GPU box would give them a run for their money when space is at the absolute premium. At the current $699 and $499 prices it's hard to see their niche.
Here's an example for a real small, artisanal :) ITX case for when space is at an absolute premium: http://nfc-systems.com/shop/s4-mini-chassis You could buy this chassis, the necessary accessories as listed on the page, a GTX 960 GPU ITX card for the price of the NUC + Razer Core and end up with a single box barely bigger than the Razer Core still packing a much bigger punch. Here's a forum post http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/post-... mentioning a similar build (i5 6600 vs i7 6700 is the only diff, it might worth the savings actually).
Among the current video cards I believe the Asus GTX 980 Ti STRIX is the longest and even that's only 12" long and 5.5" high. Most video cards are 10.5" or less, even the TITAN X and most 980 Ti cards are only 10.5". You will have other problems: the 980 Ti has a 250W TDP and you probably need a liquid cooler in a case this small. (A few years back Asus had an even bigger card, the MARS II but even that would've fit if only for the length -- the reason it wouldn't fit is because it had a three slot cooling system! For very good reasons, it had 365W TDP.)
>For $699 you can build a Skylake based mini-ITX system that uses a real, PCI-Express 3.0 x16 video card (in the $225 price range for the video card alone) that will kick this thing's butt in every benchmark.
Why 2 SSDs? Is it really needed?
That said, I'm not sure what the NUC gets you over a steam machine. Couldn't Intel sell one with an SSD and RAM in it already and pre-install it with the steam OS?
Nintendo has done this for years with their consoles. You can play Game Boy games on the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance (1989 -> 2001), Gamecube games on the Wii and Wii games on the Wii U. The same was true for Playstation 2 games in the first few versions of the Playstation 3.
There will definitely be games that require a Playstation Neo and will not run on the Playstation 4.
According to leaks Sony doesn't allow that.
We are in a bad valley right now. Modding is getting progressively harder - compare the fan made content for BGII vs MASS EFFECT. Local servers to play multiplayer too - we had them back in doom and starcraft, so there is no excuse from excluding them from new doom and starcraft II. Save at anytime is long past gone - everything is checkpoints, or in the case of XCOM - even if allowed not "real".
There was more to PC gaming than 4K PC master race superiority (guilty of being proud member of said race myself).
Back in the day - you played the game, the ways you liked. Right now you play the game, the ways the developers like in the majority of big games - that is the console way.
Basically after the Amiga died and before the Xbox360 came out (I would say off the top of my hat).
Tobold was a very minor character in The Lord of the Rings (better known as Old Toby), so it's not an entirely original nickname ;)
Games like FTL, The Curious Expedition, Rocket League, Papers Please, Super Hexagon, Crypt of the Necrodancer, Chaos Reborn, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes... bring back the originality and the pure, unadulterated fun that we had gaming in the late 80s and early 90s, which had been mostly lost in the late 90s and in the full 00s decade, where everything seemed to be franchises and iteration on old formats.
Of course if you look at AAA games it's still mostly rehashes, grindfests and simplified remakes of classics, but I'd argue you're looking at the wrong place.
The only company that so far repeated the Bioware/Id story is CD Project RED - although I do have high hopes for Croteam, Klei and Flying Wild Hog making it big too.
An ecosystem in which we have only rough diamonds and polished turds is not healthy. I hope that we will get more polished gems soon.
This is a case of lazy lazy ui design and management!
Also when I did rivals first in Forza 6 it gave me a target of 41min for Nurburgring!
It's like he's arguing against PC gaming.
> The CPU and disk performance on offer here [in the latest NUC] are hilariously far beyond what's available on current consoles ... But most importantly, its GPU performance is on par with current consoles.
> Zero games are meaningfully CPU limited today
Why would I pay over $1000 for a game machine that is basically identical to current consoles in the most important aspect of hardware?
Because you have access to thousands more games than on consoles? And you know, you can do about everything with it, not just gaming.
It used to be that you would have a PC for FPS, and a home console or three for all of the niche Japanese stuff. Then almost all of the niche Japanese devs packed up shop and started developing for handhelds, so you'd get a PC for FPS and a DS/3DS/PSP/Vita for the niche stuff. Now they're finally catching onto the fact that most of the "niche gamers" in the west are on Steam, and we've arrived at the bizarre reality that there are more interesting JRPGs being released on PC these days than on there are for PS4. The bizarre reality where I am literally more interested in the PS4 as a Netflix machine than as a gaming device.
This was more or less my point. He's trying to shoehorn the NUC into a place where other options fit better.
For what it's worth this build and many previous builds are focused on HTPCs. Having a quiet, power efficient, and capable box is the aim. That is the theme. I personally don't see the value in this particular build, but this isn't trying to be an ultimate gaming rig. Just compareble to current gen consoles, with upgrade potential, while still being the quiet, small, power efficient HTPC box sitting under the TV.
I also nearly took offense to this setup being presented as future-proof.
I'll admit it's pretty cool, but until there is a better GPU interconnect and a GPU case that doesn't alone cost more than a very good video card.. I'll stick with the mini-ITX build I'm planning.
You can browse the Steam store on the web: http://store.steampowered.com
More like thanks to Valve. I have not see ANY indication that the Steam Machines marketed by Alienware or other vendors are selling well at all. Most of them are massively underpowered for some of the best games available on Steam for Linux.
There's no "porting" going on, not like in previous gen systems, which were Weird.
Console exclusives are exclusives because the console manufacturer paid for them to be so, and not because the hardware is special, because it just isn't.
Yes, Steam is great for indies, but that's completely irrelevant here.
If you really want a name, just call it "the architecture that Intel made in te 70ies, with a lot of weird stuff (like 20 bits addresses) and that Intel, itself, tried and failed to kill with Itanium."
At least developers are forced to fine tune games for a very specific platform when it comes to consoles. Sure, the PC can look better, but at least the console plays better most of the time.
A decent build could last a console generation with a GPU upgrade in the middle.
Only if you make bad choices buying hardware, like the obsolete stuff that comes with consoles (even on release)
> console plays better most of the time
PCMasterRace plays real 1080@60 for over a decade
Enjoy your PS4K/Neo/neXt
It provides an unified device, which lasts around 8 years, which permits to play recent titles, which is simple to setup up and which is comparatively cheap.
The PC I'm typing this message is a 9 years old thinkpad, and I would not attempt to play any "less than 5 years old games" on it.
Some people don't give to much of a shit about highly impressive graphics and just want to play the fucking game without checking the "minimal configuration required".
However if consoles tend to be like PCs (same or worst hardware, same or worst upgrade process, etc), they will just become meaningless.
However, my build totally not competitive in the PC scene. I don't mind: it achieves 1080/60 at competent quality and that's all I care about.
In the next year I'll be replacing it outright only because of VR. I could have kept this build for at least another 2 years.
The treadmill only applies to those who want to run max settings all the time, matching console is as cheap as chips.
And they don't have to upgrade for all VR[1], just top end VR. The PSVR has lower specs than the Oculus Rift to compensate for the performance constraint of the platform, which already meets its limits in native gaming.
Besides the only games you can compare across platforms being developed with the lowest common denominator in mind, there are a multitude of tricks in play to homogenize the experiences between them, like dynamic resolution, level of detail, and depth of field. It's kind of like saying you're advantaged by avoiding the burden of ever needing to buy a 1440p 144Hz or 4k display and high end GPU because your games are all capped at 1080_60.
[1] http://www.wareable.com/headgear/the-best-ar-and-vr-headsets