Maximum PC - UK (2020-01)

maximumpc.com JAN 2020 MAXIMUMPC 95

people dive in, paying

these outrageous prices,

it will charge what it likes.

I say it’s time for a wallet

protest, to let Nvidia know

enough is enough, and

let’s get back to realistic

pricing. A high-end video

card should not cost as

much as an entire high-end

system. Take the reins,

Maximum PC, and lead the

revolt! Anything costing

double what it should

for only 9 percent more

performance only gets a

5 review, not a 9 Kick Ass!

–B.J. Koho

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN

DEXTER, RESPONDS: This

may surprise some, but I

agree. The higher echelons

of Nvidia’s Turing cards

are frankly terrible when it

comes to value for money—

the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

still costs over $1,100, and

yet can’t guarantee 60fps

playback in all games at

4K, which for us is a deal-

breaker. I was rocking

an overclocked 2080 Ti

for most of the year, and

while it was nice in theory

to max the settings for

every game, there were

enough moments when

the frame rate dropped

below that to leave a bad

taste in my mouth. Throw

in the fact that there has

only been a handful of

ray-tracing titles, and that

they definitely don’t run

smoothly at 4K, and you

are left wondering why

you’ve dropped so much

cash on it.

That said, it’s easy to

see why this has happened:

Nvidia has no competition

at the high end, and so

a) it can charge pretty

much want it wants, and

b) this breathing space

has enabled it to invest

in ray tracing while it has

the leeway to do so. If

things were much more

competitive, it would have

been a much more risky

proposition. An extension

of this latter point is

that we’ll need to wait

for the second- or third-

generation iterations of

ray-tracing hardware

before it really becomes

widespread. Nvidia has

actually done a relatively

good job of getting

developers to try out ray

tracing, and it’s definitely a

technology for tomorrow, if

not quite today.

As for your particular

setup, you have a decent

system, and the GeForce

GTX 1080 Ti is a great

graphics card for the vast

majority of today’s games.

We still use them in the

office, and while we do

sometimes hanker after

the new-shiny-thing, we’re

not at a critical point just

yet. And to be fair, it isn’t

like we gave the 2080 Ti

a Kick Ass review, so we

called that one pretty well.

Dollar Differences

I read with great interest

your review of the Acer

ProDesigner BM320, on

page 81 of the December

2019 issue. You had two

American flags, which

fundamentally I do not

object to, but you also

mentioned England, where

the price is lower. Not so

here in Canada. Maybe in a

corner you might display a

Canadian flag, as I believe

there’s a number of faithful

readers here. And speaking

of this very issue, I put

together your “$500 Build It

Challenge.” Your final price

was $590 US; not so here—

total ingredients price:

$785. A premium must be

paid for a much smaller

market. So sad!

–Murray McCullough

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN

DEXTER, RESPONDS:

Unfortunately, the

economies of scale often

mean that the US gets the

best deals, while “smaller”

territories tend to be hit

with elevated pricing.

Sadly, we can’t really print

pricing for every territory

where Maximum PC is sold,

as we’re sold worldwide,

but we do try to highlight

where there unusual

disparities, as was the case

with the Acer screen. Just

be thankful that you don’t

live in Australia, where the

smaller market and costs

of transportation often

mean that components can

be double what they are in

the States.

Home Security

While doing research for

a home security system,

I realized I couldn’t use

my go-to resource for

computing. In fact, I don’t

recall an article in the

mag on the subject going

back to the days of boot. So

many wired systems are

IP cameras with the same

concerns as a monitor,

but in reverse. And they’re

connected to an NVR, which

is just a specialized PC. I’m

curious: Why no content on

this category of computing?

–Brett Pichon

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN

DEXTER, RESPONDS: A

few members of the team

have experience of setting

up and using security

cameras, both NVR and

DVR systems, but we’ve not

done much in the magazine

because it is a bit niche,

and also it’s always felt

as though it’s an industry

that needs to settle down

a little on the standards

front—we’re also seeing

a shift as the Internet of

Things takes hold, with the

hope of making everything

somewhat easier to use.

Even so, it is probably

high time we produced a

feature on the state of play,

and we’ll pencil it in for a

future issue.

[NOW ONLINE]

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

SETTINGS GUIDE,

BENCHMARKS, AND MORE

Red Dead Redemption 2 is finally here on PC, and it

has a ton of graphics settings to play with. It also has

stability issues and requires a fast CPU (or a workaround

to help eliminate stuttering)—it’s been a rough launch

on PC for many players. Your PC might be in need of an

upgrade to run it well. There’s also the important choice

between DX12 and Vulkan graphics APIs, not to mention

performance across popular CPUs and GPUs. It’s a lot to

cover, so let’s get to it.

Looking at the PC features, the list of graphics settings

is good, if perhaps a bit overkill. Resolution support is

good—we were able to select widescreen, ultrawide, and

doublewide resolutions, as well as old-school 4:3 stuff,

such as 1024x768. Except RDR2 doesn’t properly handle

those in full-screen mode. Borderless windowed and

windowed modes are fine, but in full-screen mode, RDR2

just stretches whatever your monitor’s native aspect ratio

is to the chosen resolution.

Read the full article: https://bit.ly/2DjxZOd

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