Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate vs. New Graphics Card

[Inthenstus]

Don’t even need ti read this article tbh, graphics card all the way

 

[Hodor]

Can you play any game you wish on Geforce Now? Or just those that are on the list?

If one can't play any game, that's a deal breaker for me.

 

[passingposeidon]

This certainly makes me think about old Klaus every time I read about it. Nvidia would be so happy with this arrangement too. Making these data center GPUs and then renting them out. How many hours a day do you get access? 8 maybe for $20.00 a month. Most people will likely average less than 2 hours a day. I wonder how many subscriptions they average per GPU? My guess is they probably have anywhere from 5-10 subs per available GPU. Now couple that with the prices skyrocketing on these GPUs and it becomes pretty clear that the goal is to push more people to the cloud. Owning a gaming rig will become a luxury that most people will not be able to afford. For $240 a year though, you can have the priveldge of playing on one of Nvidia's own server gaming rigs with some additional lag and hopefully you have an ISP that provides unlimited bandwidth.

Personally I think the lag issues are simply never going to be resolved. I tried to use this service in the UK on a 'normal' connection (I.e. fairly quick internet suitable for all my needs) and it was not viable. Especially if you want to play anything online or competitive. How will that be resolved? Upgrading the entire UK internet system. How long will that take? More than 10-20 years probably.

And then input lag? That requires bending the laws of physics, given data can only travel so fast and having 30-50ms input lag is just not acceptable for anyone who wants a smooth experience. I don't mean multiplayer ping ofc, just the time taken from pressing a button to an action happening.

 

[m3tavision]

This is so stupid.... because you still need a PC and still need a GPU....


And you are still going to get crappy performance regardless. All this is for d0mb people who want to pretend.

 

[mochabean]

Actually you really should consider the whole costs of owning a card when comparing to streaming. No 1 being the power consumption. A PC with a RTX3080 consumes about 320w more than the same PC running on IG. That 320w multiplied by 8 hours and 30 days is about 77kwh at the end of the month which at least in my country is about 15.5$ tax included. So that leaves only 4.5 bucks as the real cost which is also very quickly mitigated by the other very real cost which is depreciation. An 800$ 3080 will probably fetch you some 3-400$ in about 3-4 years from now when you decide to upgrade. That's another some 100$/year of depreciation. Taking all these into account streaming is in fact cheaper than owning a card so the only real debate here is in fact the quality of streaming vs the cost of owning.

The 3080 is only going to be drawing that much power when you're actively playing a game, which is certainly not 8 hours a day for the average user. So your power consumption numbers are quite a bit higher than reality.

 

[godrilla]

I always say if you want your head shot the maximum times definitely game on the cloud but if you want the maximum Kill death ratio then you want a local in network pc with minimal latency like the new 1440p 240hz oled displays or 540hz tn panels. Nvidia shows latency in the in the mid to high 20s with a 4080 in GeForce now at 240 fps if you compare a local pc at 240 fps the latnecy should be 4 times better at 4 ms of latency.

 

[m3tavision]

People who game in the cloud, don't care about performance.... and play games you can pause.


So comparing it against a $600+ gpu is a joke. Cloud competes against iGPU's performance....

 

[alexnode]

I don't think it is a good idea to allow Nvidia and other behemoths to have all the processing power. The 5080 will start at 2K ... etc. I think the best answer is to not upgrade until there is something available at a reasonable cost. Giving $228 per year to nvidia is going to make the situation worse. I usually get a $500 card every three years ... If I have cash. I never had any issue with games. Ok I might not get 230fps at 4K but most games are fine. I got a used 3090 for $700 a few months back which is above my budget but It is an amazing card and I don't think I'll need a new one for many years. AAA will be glued to the console market ... for quite a while.

 

[EdmondRC]

Personally I think the lag issues are simply never going to be resolved. I tried to use this service in the UK on a 'normal' connection (I.e. fairly quick internet suitable for all my needs) and it was not viable. Especially if you want to play anything online or competitive. How will that be resolved? Upgrading the entire UK internet system. How long will that take? More than 10-20 years probably.

And then input lag? That requires bending the laws of physics, given data can only travel so fast and having 30-50ms input lag is just not acceptable for anyone who wants a smooth experience. I don't mean multiplayer ping ofc, just the time taken from pressing a button to an action happening.

I agree, unless you and your local ISP server are right next to the Nvidia servers, input lag is always going to be noticeable. I had Game Pass Ultimate, but I do not have an Xbox, just a PC, so I tried to play some Xbox games that I had access to only through the cloud. It felt awful trying to even play platform games that certainly don't require the kind of speed that shooters would. I was not pleased at all with the experience.

 

[Marco Mint]

Or just buy a console.

No $2000 PC required.

Honestly, I keep seeing that same old comment and don't think it's a serious option for most people out there.
Do I buy a console with no games and sell my PC with 500+ games and I'll be rolling in it? Or...buy a console with 3 games, sell my pc with 500+ games and I'll be rolling in it? Or, buy a console with 500+ games and be much poorer than I would have been before, when I owned a PC?

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Game streaming just won't happen (at least in the States) until datacaps are removed from ISPs.

TPU did a review of Goolge Stadia when it was in the beta stage and getting close to launching. From what I gathered from the info provided the data use was too high for anyone that's an avid gamer, if they have a datacap.

You just can't afford to blow through all your data within a week or two. Now you're left paying more money to your ISP to cover the stupid overage charges they will tack on. Or, you simply just avoid doing anything online until the your billing month starts over and your datacap is restarted.

If you dabble in gaming, a handful of hours a week, a streaming service might really suit you well if you don't want the hassle of spending money on a console or gaming PC.

But, not if you compare it to buying a new GPU every 2-4 years. At $240/year, you could run for 4 years for under $1,000 whereas a new GPU, like a 7900 or 4080 is going to cost you $1,000 in hardware not to mention utility bills.

The problem some people run into is they absolutely believe they need to upgrade because for some reason they think 4K is the bee's knees and if they can't have that 4090 or whatever other crap card to push a game with RT on and software to downscale and then upscale to give playable frames, then the world is melting and their lives are ruined!

4K - it's niche, those people can freakishly spend their money and constantly panic about fps
1440p - it's a nice spot to be and most cards, even from the 1080/1080Ti era can still operate games at acceptable levels (sure, some setting tweaks may be needed for settings and clearly you won't be pulling 500 fps+! Oh noes!).
1080p - still a great way to play games. Lots of older cards will still crush 1080p.

I ran my 980Ti for 6 years. I used it across 1920x1080p and 5670x1080p (as long as the game supported that wide resolution well). 1920x1080p, even towards the end of it's life with me, ran games exceedingly well. 5760x1080, as time went on I had to tweak settings to keep around that 60fps mark, but it still played games well.

With that aside, the cost to run a computer really isn't that much, but that does depend on where you live.

My city charges $0.119 per kWh.
If my gaming system draws 600W per hour and even if I gamed 8 hours a day, that means 4800W or 4.8kW used a day.
4.8 * 7 = 33.6kWh per week
33.6 * .119 = $4 a week
That's just shy of $208 in a year or if you want to look at per day cost, that would be $0.57 per day
($4 a week, that's less then one of those stupid fancy coffees folks like to buy nearly every day. That's about the price of an energy drink that people love to drink)

400W per hour, 8 hours a day, 52 weeks = $138.61 ($0.38 a day)

750W per hour, 8 hours a day, 52 weeks = $260 for a year. ($0.71 a day)

1000W per hour, 8 hours a day, 52 weeks = $346.53 for a year. ($0.95 a day)

If an extra quarter or more a day is too much to pay for your gaming needs on a high end system, then clearly the high end gaming system isn't geared towards someone like you.

 

[mcnabney]

Honestly, I keep seeing that same old comment and don't think it's a serious option for most people out there.
Do I buy a console with no games and sell my PC with 500+ games and I'll be rolling in it? Or...buy a console with 3 games, sell my pc with 500+ games and I'll be rolling in it? Or, buy a console with 500+ games and be much poorer than I would have been before, when I owned a PC?

I think the idea is to keep your existing PC that plays those 500+ games you already have and add the console and buy AAA games for the console going forward (but keep buying indie games for your outdated PC since they don't need modern horsepower).

 

[Endymio]

My city charges $0.119 per kWh.
If my gaming system draws 600W per hour and even if I gamed 8 hours a day, that means 4800W or 4.8kW used a day.
4.8 * 7 = 33.6kWh per week
33.6 * .119 = $4 a week

You're forgetting one potentially large factor. In a cold environment, your system is pumping free heat into your home ... but in a hot climate, that waste heat is going to cost to remove, in the form of a higher A/C bill. If your home isn't zoned, the heat in one room alone may require you to cool the entire house several degrees lower, potentially costing several times that figure.

 

[Gastec]

Or just buy a console.

No $2000 PC required.

Are we still comparing gaming consoles to DIY powerful personal computers in 2023? I thought it was quite clear why some of us want to build such computers.

 

[JrFoz]

It's not 8 hours a day. It's sessions of max 8 hours straight, so people don't stay logged in indefinitely. You can log right back in for another 8 hour session.

You are correct, but I wasn’t talking about GeForceNow… I was talking about a previous poster who made up his own energy calculations. He factored running the PC with GPU at 8 hours a day at 100%.

 

[m3tavision]

Honestly, I keep seeing that same old comment and don't think it's a serious option for most people out there.
Do I buy a console with no games and sell my PC with 500+ games and I'll be rolling in it? Or...buy a console with 3 games, sell my pc with 500+ games and I'll be rolling in it? Or, buy a console with 500+ games and be much poorer than I would have been before, when I owned a PC?

Hunh...?
Your post makes ZERO sense. You still need your PC for the GeFarce now + the Subscription fee...! Without the subscription fee you can just buy an Xbox.

Why do you have to sell anything..?

 

[waclark]

This is the end goal, cloud everything. You will own nothing and you will be happy...

Do you own your own power generation facility? How about an ISP to connect to the Internet? Have your own cell tower?

Some things make sense to be a service and compute and storage resources, in some cases, can make sense too. When you think about sustainability, cloud providers are working hard to not only be carbon neutral but carbon negative. MS says they will get there in 7 years. Is your home carbon neutral? I suspect not.

Cloud is not a one-size-fits-all solution but I do believe that we can transition more services into the cloud and the end result of that is we have less hardware at home, less need to upgrade every 2-3 years and overall better services. Not to mention it will be better for the planet. When cell phones first came out they were large and bulky, expensive and coverage was very limited. Now, everyone has one. I see cloud the same way. It's still maturing and getting better every day.