Charles S.

The Fornite World Cup Finals were hosted in New York City’s Arthur Ashe Stadium, which seats 22,547 and is coincidentally the same stadium where the 2016 US Open was held. Day one featured two events, the NYC Celebrity Pro-AM and the Creative Finals. Airwaks + RLGRIME beat out the competition taking first place in the celebrity Pro-AM splitting $1 million. Fish Fam consisting of cizzorz, TylerH, Suezhoo and zand took home the $1.345 million prize for the Creative Finals, a trial of five different events based on community creations. On day two Nyhrox and Aqua’s teamwork helped them prevail to be the Duos Winners claiming $3 million. Finally on day three the grand prize went to Kyle ‘Bugha’ Giersdorf, age sixteen, who took home a cool $3 million USD for winning the Solo tournament. In the end each of the competitors left with at least $50,000.

Now let’s take a step back and compare that to the world’s first video game tournament, which occurred on October 19th in 1972 at Stanford University. The tournament featured players competing to win at Spacewar, a simple 2D game which had them fighting gravity and each other until only one winner remained. Many pilots competed and many ships were wrecked, until eventually one champion emerged, Bruce Baumgart. Bruce outmaneuvered all others in the five-man-free-for-all winning the world’s first video game tournament, his grand prize: a year’s subscription of Rolling Stone. Not exactly life-changing. Clearly the world of eSports has taken a huge stride forward between these two tournaments and in this article we will seek to illuminate the path we have taken to get to where we are today.

To understand how truly far eSports has come, we must go back to the birth of computerized gaming in the 1950’s. Not surprisingly, the first game for PC was a copy of an already existing game. Dubbed “XOX” it was created by Alexander Shafto Douglas, a computer scientist working on his PhD at Cambridge, who programmed a PC to play “Tic-Tac-Toe”. While extremely simple this game allowed humans and machines to compete for the first time ever and served as a small step forward in the history of video games. 

Then in 1958, a big shift occurred when we received the world’s first ever multiplayer game, “Tennis for Two”. This game allowed players to simulate, you guessed it, a game of tennis. Using an early version of today’s joystick, players could hit a virtual ball across a virtual net until one player emerged victorious. Definitely not the best game of all time, but it was a start. Most importantly it allowed players to compete against one another, the basis for any eSport popular today. 

After the commercial success of “Tennis for Two” the video game industry continued to grow quickly. In 1962 Spacewar was released, and even with its simple concept the game was a huge hit. In fact, it even made the New York Times list of top ten games of all time in 2007. As discussed earlier, this game placed its players in separate spaceships in 2D space with a limited supply of fuel and ammo. The opponents would then battle to the death all while fighting the gravitational field of the nearby planet. Ten years after its release Spacewar was the first game to host a competitive tournament, and as mentioned above Bruce Baumgart won, ushering in a new era of competitive gaming.

As the 1960’s rolled on into the 1970’s interest in video games continued to grow. Amusement halls across the country became arcades, and home consoles were born. People flocked to arcades to play the newest hit games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders and arcades became a popular American pastime. Even more so when, in 1979, people could immortalize themselves in the new permanent highscore lists on both Asteroids and Starfire. Additionally when the “Magnavox Odyssey” came out in 1972 you could now directly hook up a console to your TV at home and game for hours.

In the 1980’s video game tournaments took off with an influx of investment from gaming companies. Atari kicked this off by hosting the world’s first national video game tournament in 1980. The “Space Invaders Championships” featured 10,000 gamers competing to win a version of “Asteroids”. William Salvador Heineman was crowned the winner on October 10th 1980, becoming the first ever winner of a national video game competition. eSports continued to grow as early leaders in the industry like Walter Day emerged. He founded both “Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard (TGNS)” and “U.S. National Video Team”, the first professional gaming team in the world. TGNS helped to grow gaming by keeping a national scoreboard which only the best could hope to land on and the team gave hope to people that gaming could one day become a profession like any other.

Next in the 1990’s Nintendo jumped on the eSports bandwagon, organizing the “Nintendo World Championships” in the USA which pitted competitors against each other in Nintendo’s best games. The Finals occurred December 7th–9th, 1990  with three World Champion titles given out to Jeff Hansen winner in the 11 and under category, Thor Aackerlund winner of the 12–17 category, and Robert Whiteman who won the 18 and older category. Not only was the tournament more competitive the prizes were better as each winner was awarded with a new 1990 Geo Metro Convertible, a $10,000 U.S. savings bond, a 40″ Rear-projection television, and a gold painted Mario trophy.

These console based companies helped push us in the right direction but it became clear soon their time was almost up. Why? Because later into the 1990’s more people gained access to the internet and increasing innovations continued to drive down the price of PC hardware resulting in a PC boom. Players flocked to PC where they could compete online with friends in games like Doom, Quake, and Counter-Strike all from the comfort of their own home. As these games and their player bases quickly grew PC gaming started being approached more professionally and the the first leagues were formed. For example, the Electronic Sports League which was founded in 1998 and the Korean e-Sports Association in 2000.

In the following years video game tournaments continued their assent to where they are today. In 2000, the first World Cyber Games were held in Seoul, South Korea. Next came the 2003 Electronic Sports World Cup in Poitiers, France. Then the Cyberathlete Professional League(CPL) World Tour in 2005, the first million dollar tournament, which was a huge success. The CPL finale was even live broadcast by MTV, marking eSports emergence into the mainstream. As these tournaments grew and spawned more tournaments around the world, eSports entertainment value grew rapidly. Now, as more and more people compete to be the best at their favorite game, the industry continues to expand. Whether your game of choice is Halo, Counter-Strike, or Fortnite, you can compete for entry into these tournaments with the professionals and win extremely large cash prizes for playing video games. Isn’t it crazy how things can change?

Even crazier, eSports is poised to have an even bigger year in 2020. The sport has fully emerged into public view, with huge cash tournaments and streaming deals on platforms like Twitch and Youtube. eSports is even headed to the Olympics, as it will be added to the 2024 program. Additionally, they were to be included in the 2018 Asian Games! In the coming years you can expect to see even more players and games. It is an exciting time for eSports and we can’t wait to see what comes next!

Last week, NVIDIA shook up the PC gaming world once again with the announcement of its brand new line of graphics cards – the RTX SUPER series. Due to hit shelves a mere nine months after the launch of the massively successful Geforce 20-series, the RTX SUPER GPUs arrive boasting high performance, sleek design, and low cost. In this article, I will discuss what sets the SUPER cards apart from the rest of the field.

You might be wondering what kind of performance boost a RTX SUPER graphics card will give you vs a regular RTX GPU. The answer, in short, is a big boost. Referencing the chart below depicting some recent scores from FurMark tests we ran, let’s take a look at the performance between the RTX 2060 SUPER and the original RTX 2060.

The RTX 2060 SUPER is an upgrade over the RTX 2060 in seemingly every specification category including processing cores (2,176 vs 1,920), base clock (1,470 MHz vs 1,365 MHz), video memory (8GB vs 6GB), memory interface (256-bit vs 192-bit), and more. In fact, the RTX 2060 SUPER shares many similarities performance/spec-wise with the original RTX 2070 and scores closely. Similarly, the RTX 2070 SUPER is on par (slightly lower performance) with the original RTX 2080. In addition to the performance boost, the SUPER GPUs all run NVIDIA’s Turing architecture which means that they’ll all be capable or real-time ray tracing and support other advanced gaming features like NVIDIA adaptive shading, mesh shading, deep learning super sampling, and more.

While the RTX 2080 Ti still reigns king over the growing field of PC gaming GPUs, the RTX SUPER series cards serve to fill in the gaps between the current tiers of performance. If you’re looking to get a little more out of your current GPU, upgrading to a SUPER series graphics card could provide you with a significant boost.

When AMD announced its new NAVI 5700 GPUs, it seemed like they were in a real position to secure the low-mid level pricing tier of graphics cards. Within days, NVIDIA announced the pricing for the RTX SUPER cards and all of a sudden, AMD was worried. In fact, the pricing on these new SUPER GPUs was so competitive for the performance that AMD had to lower the prices on their new NAVI cards. So what will it cost you to get your hands on one of the new SUPER cards?

Available July 9th, pricing for the RTX 2060 SUPER starts at $399.99 (vs $349.99 for the regular 2060), and the RTX 2070 SUPER starts at $499.99. Later in the month on July 23rd, the RTX 2080 SUPER will be available starting at $699.99. That means that you can get a RTX 2070 SUPER and a RTX 2080 SUPER for the same price as their regular RTX counterparts!

So how do the NVIDIA SUPER cards compare to the AMD RX 5700 cards? We already discussed price (and the fact that AMD had to lower their pricing to compete NVIDIA’s own aggressive pricing model) in which AMD has a slight edge over NVIDIA, but is the performance worth the price?

Taking a look back at the graph of FurMark scores we referenced earlier, we can see that the RX 5700 outperforms the 2060, and that for the same price of $399.99, the RX 5700 XT outperforms the RTX 2060 SUPER. So if you’re looking for a card in that $300-$400 range, the AMD cards are very nice pickups if your looking to buy or finance a graphics card with solid performance. However, if you take a the leap and spend that extra $100, the RTX 2070 SUPER provides a significant performance leap over both AMD cards. If we go to the RTX 2080 SUPER tier, none of the other cards even come close.

In conclusion, the NVIDIA RTX SUPER series cards package considerable PC gaming performance at a reasonable cost. If you’re one of our members who recently leased a RTX 2060, 2070, or 2080 – don’t worry – we’ll have the SUPERS soon and you can always upgrade at any time!

Over the course of the video gaming industry’s nearly four decade history, video games – and the companies that produce them – have diversified in their uniqueness and creativity. As the popularity of video games has grown, so has the number of mediums on which they are played. Today, gamers have a wide range of choices to consider when selecting the best platform most suitable for enjoying their favorite games: Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, & more. In addition to theses well-known, more traditional home-entertainment consoles, PC gaming has grown significantly in recent years. The growing selection of gaming platforms has led to a schism among gamers centered around one integral question – which is better: console or PC gaming? Some extremely passionate debate has spread throughout the gaming community regarding this topic, and in this article I will discuss some of the similarities and differences that makes PC and console gaming truly unique experiences.

Graphics in video games have come a long way over the years. Gone are the days of block-y pixelated landscapes and textures, and in are the hyper-realistic real world simulations. Most modern gaming platforms are capable of outputting amazing graphics, but what sets them apart? While the Nintendo Switch can produce some good-looking games, it prioritizes quality games and playability over graphics. Leading the consoles in terms of graphics output is Microsoft’s Xbox One X and Sony’s Playstation 4 Pro. Of the the three main home-entertainment consoles, these are the most powerful machines. Both consoles are capable of producing producing high quality textures and details at high resolutions while also possessing the capability of outputting in 4K. Of the two, the Xbox One X is the more powerful machine. It doesn’t suffer from dynamic scaling issues that the PS4 Pro has been known to suffer from, and it often runs the same games at higher resolutions. So to recap, Microsoft’s Xbox One X is the most graphically capable gaming console, but how does it compare to a PC with a high-end graphics card?

Some of our members who’ve been able to lease one of our new RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards will tell you that nothing can compare graphically to NVIDIA’s new series of ultra powerful GPU’s. With this new line of GPUs, video game graphics have reached never before seen heights. Real-time ray tracing has paved the way for the most realistic simulations of light in video games to date. DLSS ( an edge-smoothing technology that uses AI to boost performance and output the highest possible resolutions) support has taken graphics even further. Gaming seamlessly in 4K, gaming on a PC with a high-end graphics card edges out what the big three consoles can do in terms of graphics output.

Probably the most significant factor impacting a gamer’s platform decision is price. In terms of price, Nintendo has always been the most affordable option. The Nintendo Switch has a huge selection of great titles available on its platform, and you can pick up a Switch for only $300. Compared to Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony’s consoles are a bit more expensive. The Xbox One X retails for $499.99 and the Playstation 4 Pro will cost you $399.99.

But how does the PC stack up price-wise against the other home entertainment platforms? Simply put, not good. While PC gaming has many advantages, it is often the most costly option for playing your favorite games. Graphics cards alone can cost upwards of $2,000 – and that’s without the entire rest of your PC build! Many PC enthusiasts turn to services like ours here Cutting Edge Gamer to lease a GPU, essentially financing a graphics card with monthly payments. So if you’re looking to game affordably without having to finance a graphics card, the Nintendo Switch is the platform for you!

There’s plenty of reasons to prefer one gaming platform over the others. Maybe you like  Xbox over Playstation because of your controller preference. Maybe you like the Switch for its affordability and portability. Maybe you prefer Playstation’s exclusive game titles over the others. With PC, you have the ability to bridge many of these preferences. You can use a wide array of different controllers (including Xbox and Playstation), keyboard and mouse, joystick, etc. You can play games available on Steam, Origin, Epic, etc. Not to mention you can customize the hardware within the PC itself far more than the consoles. Simply put, gaming on a PC offers more diversity and customization. Of course there are console exclusives that aren’t available on the PC too, however. At the end of the day, like all things, your gaming selection will come down to comfort and preference.

NVIDIA’s flagship new GPU, the RTX 2080 Ti, has stumbled out of the gate. Multiple reports of issues with this new launch exist on Reddit and Nvidia’s own forums. Different users are claiming to have the following issues: “blue screens, artifacts, card then suddenly stops working, artifacting issues, black flicking lines on occasion”.  And even after RMA, some are claiming the same issue reoccurring with their replacement cards.

While these reports are concerning there are several factors to consider before calling the launch a failure. For one, there is the possibility these are unreliable reports. Additionally, just as the squeaky wheel gets the grease, those with issues are going to be the loudest even if they are a small minority of actual purchasers. Finally all purchasers are still guaranteed a working card through RMA, though it may take some time. However with a price tag up to $1,899.99, and multiple delays before the actual release, consumer worries about receiving a bad card are justified.

Nvidia has responded to these complaints and their comments are reassuring. They claim that “it’s not an increasing number of users” affected and that they are working with users to resolve any issues. Additionally there do not seem to be a huge percentage of returns, retailer Overclockers UK claim a return rate of 3.5% for RTX 2080 Ti  cards, barely above their normal 3.34% return rate for their other two highest selling cards.

As more time has passed, it seems the expensive new Turing architecture RTX 2080 Ti cards did have a small manufacturing issue with some of their early production run. The cards were reported to have bad screw connections on the cooler and cold solder joints, causing some issues. Additionally the current RTX 2080 Ti cards now ship with new memory cards as they replaced the original GDDR6 memory from Micron with new Samsung memory, indicating that the old memory was unreliable.

These small changes seem to have had the intended effect, as we are starting to see less RMA’s with all of our recent batches of RTX 2080 Ti’s. While we certainly had our share of defective cards, Nvidia seem to have stepped up and resolved the issue. Now all of our new cards are running great!

Lease a new RTX 2080 Ti (with Samsung memory) from us today!