GeForce GTX 1080 & 1070 Frequently Asked Questions

NVIDIA’s announcement of the GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 video cards has a lot of folks excited, and I’ve responded to several questions over the last few days regarding these cards. In an effort to help a wider audience who probably have similar questions, I’ve put together a summary of what we know at this point about these upcoming graphics cards.

Gaming Computers: Different Hardware for Different Genres

Computer games often have varying hardware needs – some are more graphically demanding, others need a more powerful CPU, and some need a mix of both. Such requirements often follow the type or genre which games fit into, and this blog post looks at those common genre-based needs to help gamers figure out what sort of computer hardware will best match their playstyle.

Titan X – What is it and who is it for?

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX Titan X isn’t for everyone – no $1000 video card ever will be – but it has some very specific roles where it excels. Click here to read about what the Titan X is and what it does well at!

Gaming Computers: Its All About Balance

We sell all sorts of computers here at Puget Systems, and one of the more popular requests is for a gaming computer. In fact, we have designed one of our main brands around gaming – the Puget Deluge is an excellent system to consider for a gaming rig. Some gamers come to us already knowing what specs they want, but others are seeking more detailed guidance on what processor, video card, and other components to go with. The exact advice we give depends on the situation: the sorts of games they are interested in, the screen resolution they plan to run, their budget, and other preferences. However, a lot of that advice can be distilled down into the following basic principles.

Gaming Performance with Dual Monitors

Many of the computers we sell here at Puget Systems will be used for playing games, and we also get a lot of folks wanting to run two (or more) monitors. Sometimes those goals intersect, and in those situations I have had people ask if they needed to get a second video card so that using additional monitors will not impact their performance for gaming. I myself use two monitors here at work, which has been a great improvement in usability, but I don’t play games in the office. Because of that I’ve had to fall back on anecdotal evidence when this topic comes up, and make educated guesses depending on individual scenarios. Rather than continue in that approach, though, I wanted to get hard numbers to support my advice.

PCI-Express Performance and the NVIDIA Warning

Puget Systems has been in the business of building computers for 11 years now, and we know what we are doing when it comes to assembling top-notch custom computers. It is a bit insulting, then, when a parts manufacturer puts out a warning which appears – on the surface – to indicate something we do is resulting in anything other than the highest performance possible. Yet here I am, to let you know about just such a notice that nVidia’s latest driver software is giving when using their graphics cards in certain configurations.