Holiday Rigs and AMD's Retired GPUs: Community Roundup

News
By Tom's Hardware Community
published

The Tom's Hardware Community is constantly busy. Whether our members are discussing the site's latest articles and reviews, providing tech support and building advice or playing the latest PC Games, we have so much great stuff going on that it could make your head spin! Not to worry -- Community Roundup is here to let you know the best of what's going on in the Tom's Hardware forums on a regular basis.

We gave away three copies of Just Cause 3! There will be a new Steam giveaway next week, too! Keep an eye on our PC Gaming section for more contests!

If you're building a new rig or gifting one for the holidays, you may have to work with Windows 10. Be prepared with the Tom's Hardware community's Windows 10 tutorials! (And submit your own!)

Busy Comments Section of the Week: AMD is putting its legacy GPUs out to pasture. Going forward, the company will support GPUs using only Graphics Core Next (GCN) technology. Will this force you to upgrade? Or to switch? Our community has a lot to say. Put in your two cents here!

Our forums often have a lot of question about building PCs for gaming, but what about game development? User Ikenaija listed the tools they use and their budget in this thread. Have ideas to help? Tell them here!

Our community comes from all over the world. Are you looking to find deals in your country? Check out this international buying guide by user and moderator g-unit1111 to find stores and deals wherever you are (or may be!).

Know of something awesome going on in the Tom's Hardware community? Brag about it in the comments!

Tom's Hardware Community
Tom's Hardware Community

The Tom's Hardware forum community is a powerful source of tech support and discussion on all the topics we cover from 3D printers, single-board computers, SSDs, and GPUs to high-end gaming rigs. Articles written by the Tom's Hardware Community are either written by the forum staff or one of our moderators.

See more GPUs News
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • BulkZerker
    Read the news about AMD and it only spurred me upgrading from a pair of 6850s to a R9-380 by a few days. I'm gonna keep on with team red. nVidia burned their bridge with me long ago and they have stayed the cource of underhanded tactics, only now is it biting them in the ass with AAA games being made unstable thanks to their "let's fax applejuice to each other" works.
    Reply
  • neonneophyte
    might spur me to pick up a nvidia gpu. at least they still support their older gpus.
    Reply
  • mitch074
    Again with the AMD bashing... We're talking 4 to 7 years old hardware here! Do you really think they could optimize it any more? Whatever isn't handled through the generic profile will be community-supported, or will require too much juice to matter anyway!
    They did wait until Windows 10 and Windows Display Driver Model 2.0 was final before pulling the plug, meaning that you get DX12 support with these old cards from now until Windows 10 dies, and if history is any indication, they'll release the odd bug-fix beta driver in case of serious security trouble or system crash! So, active support is out, but you can still run your games on them.
    The biggest let down here is that they pulled the plug before Vulkan was final, but Windows gamers could care less and Linux gamers will get it (if it can be supported on that old silicon) through the open source driver.
    On the other hand, it means AMD only has to validate GCN 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 when they get a driver out - that means better drivers for more recent hardware.
    Reply
  • jdwii
    yet nvidia still supports the 480
    Reply
  • neonneophyte
    new games need new tweaks. there is no "finished." fact is, theyve stopped supporting many cards that are completely capable of playing new games and are unwilling to do the fine tweaking to optimize the card for the new round of games.

    nvidia is not. it's a big deal to me whether you think so or not.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    nvida really needs to retire some of their gpus I mean they still have support for the GeForce 8000 series!
    Reply
  • Avus
    17086433 said:
    nvida really needs to retire some of their gpus I mean they still have support for the GeForce 8000 series!

    can you give me a reason why is it a bad thing??
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    17088092 said:
    can you give me a reason why is it a bad thing??

    Thank you. Like many of Tom's members, I have a lot of spare/older computer components laying around. Occasionally I get hit up to put together one for someone who is in need (friend or relative with a kid who need a basic PC for school, etc.) and I save them money by using components I no longer use.

    There is nothing wrong with the GPU power of an 8-year old GeForce 8800GT card for basic computer needs and even 720p gaming in some of the more recently released games of the last few years.

    Reply