Black Friday/Cyber Monday Weekend Hardware Deals

There are many good deals on computer hardware and accessories this weekend.  I have a few linked below.

Memory:
CORSAIR Vengeance RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz C15 Desktop Memory - $124.99
https://amzn.to/2TKryL4
Its RGB and its 3000 MHz for $125.  Its an amazing deal.

Mice:
CORSAIR Dark Core SE - RGB Wireless Gaming Mouse - 16,000 DPI Optical Sensor - $59.99 usually $89.99
https://amzn.to/2zp1snY

CORSAIR Glaive - RGB Gaming Mouse with Interchangeable Grips - 16000 DPI $54 usually $69.99
https://amzn.to/2BvNMsT

CORSAIR M65 Pro RGB - FPS Gaming Mouse - 12,000 DPI Optical Sensor - $29.99 usually $59.99
https://amzn.to/2Kv8ADF

Tier 8 Post 1.0 Matchmaking Analysis

Introduction and Methods:

I noticed previously that tier 8 matchmaking was awful and I wanted to look at matchmaking in general.  I recoded data about my solo pub battles since patch 1.01 in an Excel spreadsheet.  After I started recording the game data, I learned that the community contributors that were at Tankfest were told that the system to make you more likely to be middle or top tier after being bottom tier was not implemented.

I played 1,013 solo pub battles since the release of patch 1.01 until this week.  For every battle, I recorded tank played, tank tier, battle tier, battle type(3/5/7, 5/10, or all the same tier), win/loss/draw, and other information.  Most of the battles were played during 7 to 11 PM East coast time on the US Central server.

Out of those battles, 484 of them were tier 8 tanks.  Of those tier 8 battles, 52 of tier 8 battles were pref matchmaking tier 8 tanks.

Computer Hardware Deals 7/20/2018

Graphics Cards:

MSI RX 580 8G for $229.99. Regular price $309.99
Sale Price of $259.99 - $30 rebate = $229.99
https://amzn.to/2Lde6yz

Hard Drives:

HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5" 8TB 7200 RPM Hard drive $219.99 promo code EMCPWRP26 regularly $299.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822146142

Computer Hardware Deals 7/8/2018

AMAZON

Graphics Cards:

XFX Radeon RX 580 8GB GTS XXX Edition 1386MHz OC+ -  Regularly $339.99 on sale for $289.99
https://amzn.to/2KQb56e
This is one of the lowest prices I've seen on an RX 580 in months!

EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC GAMING 6GB -  Regularly $319.99 on sale for $279.99
https://amzn.to/2u5oQV3

2400g vs i3-3240: Does the CPU matter with a lower end graphics card?

In our previous test, it was shows that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics doesn't have the same in game performance as the RX 460 2GB, which was released in August of 2016 or the GTX 750 ti 2 GB which was released in February 2014.

Other tests have shown that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics doesn't perform as well as a GT 1030 in most games.  Also, other tests have shown that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics can be outperformed in most games by an Intel G4650 and GT 1030.  However, it may be useful to have the 4 cores and 8 threads if you plan to perform a graphics card upgrade in the future to something faster than a GT 1030.

AMD 2400G performance in World of Tanks 1.01

In February 2018, AMD released the 2400G.  At the time, there was a high demand for graphics cards due to crypto currency mining and graphics card prices were elevated.  In the past few weeks, graphics card prices have come down closer to MSRP for most graphics cards.  Also AMD drivers have matured and the initial issues with the 2400G and 2200G that some users experienced were resolved.

After the release of the 2400G and 2200G, World of Tanks 1.0 was released.  Wargaming has had time to work on issues related to the new graphics and game engine changes.  Now that most of the game issues and driver UEFI/BIOS, and software issues are resolved with the 2400G, its a good time to really see how the 2400G performs in World of Tanks.

Some users on the World of Tanks forums have stated that the 2400G and its onboard Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics are perfectly capable of playing World of Tanks 1.0 smoothly on the Ultra graphics preset at 1920x1080 resolution.  Tests with other games have shown that the 2400G's Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics are comparable to the GT 1030 in most games.

WoT enCore vs WoT 1.0 Common Test

Last year Wargaming tested the new maps on the Sandbox server.  The WoT enCore app was made available in December 2017.  The WoT 1.0 test server was made available earlier this year.  After players tried the WoT enCore app to test their system performance, many wondered how that correlates into WoT 1.0 game performance.

In our previous article, we tested WoT enCore with FRAPS to determine how the score converts to real FPS.

Methods:

For a comparison of WoT enCore and WoT 1.0 common test, we used a 1.0 test server replay on the Abbey(monastery) map.  The replay did not use the same exact path through the map that is used in the WoT enCore app.  However, some of the battle took place around the Abbey in the center of the map and there was also sme of the battle on the 1 and 2 lines of the map.  Both started from the south spawn.

In both the enCore test and WoT 1.0 replay tests Fraps was used to measure average and minimum FPS.  In WoT enCore, the FPS measurement was started at 2:40 on the clock and stopped at 0.02 on the clock.  In the WoT test server replay, a longer measurement period was used starting 15 seconds after the countdown timer reached 00:00 and stopped 3 minutes and 25 seconds later.

The FPS results and the WoT enCore score results are the average of two measurements.

A variety of graphics cards were tested along with two different CPUs.
Graphics cards used:
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid Gaming 11G-P4-6698-KR
EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SC Gaming 04G-P4-6253-KR
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1050 Mini ZT-P10500A-10L
EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 02G-P4-3751-KR
PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 460 AXRX 460 2GBD5-DH/OC

CPUs used
Intel i7-6700K at 4.6 GHz water cooled.
Intel i3-3240 at stock speed and air cooled.

What does your WoT enCore score really mean?

Wargaming released the enCore app in December of 2017.  The app gives you a result score and a general idea if WoT 1.0 will run well on your current computer hardware.  Many World of Tanks players wanted to know what the results really mean and how they relate to in game FPS.

Wargaming states on the WoT enCore FAQ, "World of Tanks enCore is a demo app and not a benchmark, and that’s why points are used. They reflect your PC performance adequately, and let you compare it to other scores. 10 000+ points is an excellent score, meaning that World of Tanks with Core will run extremely smoothly on your PC, precluding any FPS drops. A score of 8001+ (“gold”) is an excellent one. Anything between 3001 and 8000 (“silver”) is good, and a score below 3000 (“bronze”) is passable."

I had a theory that the scores relate to FPS. A test was developed to see if there is a correlation between WoT enCore scores and actual FPS.