Upgrades

[Saxman]

With the pending AH update, I figured it's long past time to upgrade my PC. However upgrading my board/CPU/memory is beyond my means for now. But there WAS one avenue open...



Finally caught it in-stock at NewEgg, so hope to have this within a week or two depending on shipping.

I think the most impressive thing I've seen about it is that it's outperforming the Titan series cards, but at half the price, and much more energy efficient, to boot (requiring only the two 6-pin power connectors)!

Hopefully it will fix the cooling problems I have on the old 295 (I've got the dual-PCB version. I can't run ANYTHING without it overheating, even after freshly blowing out all the dust from my PC).

[MrRiplEy[H]]

With the pending AH update, I figured it's long past time to upgrade my PC. However upgrading my board/CPU/memory is beyond my means for now. But there WAS one avenue open...

(Image removed from quote.)

Finally caught it in-stock at NewEgg, so hope to have this within a week or two depending on shipping.

I think the most impressive thing I've seen about it is that it's outperforming the Titan series cards, but at half the price, and much more energy efficient, to boot (requiring only the two 6-pin power connectors)!

Hopefully it will fix the cooling problems I have on the old 295 (I've got the dual-PCB version. I can't run ANYTHING without it overheating, even after freshly blowing out all the dust from my PC).

There's a slight possibility that you won't get full benefit from the 980 if your computer is low powered. So don't be underwhelmed if you don't see a huge improvement - that will change once you upgrade the rest of the box.

[Saxman]

I know. It's a matter of "What upgrades are currently within my means?" But so much is built around the GPU in gaming now that upgrading the graphics card should be enough punch to hold me for a while.

ESPECIALLY if it has better on-board cooling than my old card. :-P

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I know. It's a matter of "What upgrades are currently within my means?" But so much is built around the GPU in gaming now that upgrading the graphics card should be enough punch to hold me for a while.

ESPECIALLY if it has better on-board cooling than my old card. :-P

If you're not swimming in money the 970 would have been a much more cost effective option. It's nearly as fast as the 980 but almost half the price.

[Rob52240]

I got the 970, from what I've read all of the 9 series cards use a lot less power than last year's cards.

[LePaul]

The Tom's Hardware write up on that card was quite interesting.

[Saxman]

If you're not swimming in money the 970 would have been a much more cost effective option. It's nearly as fast as the 980 but almost half the price.

The 980 (EVGA, 1266 core clock with 1367 overboost) was about $580 including shipping. A 970 would have been about $400, so no, not nearly half the cost.

The Tom's Hardware write up on that card was quite interesting.

I looked over a couple comparisons before pulling the trigger on the order. What surprises me is that it's putting out this performance despite a narrower memory bus (256-bit vs. 384)

[Spikes]

What are your current computer specs?

[Saxman]

Kinda crap. Been a while since I've upgraded

ASUS M4N82 Delux main board
Silverstone ST1000-P PSU
AMD Phenom II X4 940
4GB Corsair CM2X2048-8500C5D (I have enough for 8GB, but the board I have has known issues running all four channels at 1066. And I think my second memory channel kit may be bad on top of that).
nVidia GTX 295
Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 1TB drive

[guncrasher]

Kinda crap. Been a while since I've upgraded

ASUS M4N82 Delux main board
Silverstone ST1000-P PSU
AMD Phenom II X4 940
4GB Corsair CM2X2048-8500C5D (I have enough for 8GB, but the board I have has known issues running all four channels at 1066. And I think my second memory channel kit may be bad on top of that).
nVidia GTX 295
Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 1TB drive

I sense an upgrade in your future .  and that fricking hitachi hd that you have I swear it is indestructible.  I dropped it when it was brand new, have broken pieces of the casing and it still works.


semp

[Saxman]

I sense an upgrade in your future .  and that fricking hitachi hd that you have I swear it is indestructible.  I dropped it when it was brand new, have broken pieces of the casing and it still works.


semp

Yeah, I've got a new build planned:

Corsair Graphite Series 780T case
ASUS X79 Deluxe main board
Intel Core i7-4960X CPU with Noctua NH-D15 for the cooler (for whatever reason, Newegg doesn't include a cooler with that CPU).
32GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3 2800
Samsung 850 Pro SSD for my OS drive (I'll keep the Hitachi TB drive for my programs and data)
Pioneer BDR-2209 for optical drive
nVidia GTX 980 (on order, hope to have it within the next two weeks)

I'll just transfer the Silvertone PSU to the new system.

The problem is that minus the GPU, the whole build comes to about $3200 which I don't have to spend up front (depending on if I get a bonus at work this year, and how much it is. I THINK I'll be there long enough to qualify) so I'll have to build in stages. I'll probably get the SSD next and clone my current OS partition to the new drive (really don't want to deal with reinstalling most of my stuff, especially because I don't want to have to find all the damn install files again :-P ). I know I won't get the full speed on my board (Sata II) but it'll do for now. I could get the case fairly early too, though I'd store that until I can get the board, CPU and memory (I really don't want to deal with the hassle of moving my current setup into the new case, only to have to tear it all down AGAIN to put the new stuff in).

[guncrasher]

saxman 3200 is way too much to spend.  I think i have spent that much in all my upgrades with 3 monitors.  sometimes the most expensive things arent really the best. 



semp

[Saxman]

OTOH it means not having to upgrade as frequently (and depending on WHAT upgrades, arguably cheaper in the long run).

[Gman]

Saxman, do you do a lot of video editing or other such work, or is this mainly a gaming PC with other regular sort of home PC doo dad tasks?

Check your PM.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

The 980 (EVGA, 1266 core clock with 1367 overboost) was about $580 including shipping. A 970 would have been about $400, so no, not nearly half the cost.

I looked over a couple comparisons before pulling the trigger on the order. What surprises me is that it's putting out this performance despite a narrower memory bus (256-bit vs. 384)

The 980 is 31% more expensive but only about 10% faster in BF4 for example. Since the OPs system will most likely be choked by the old cpu/board even with a 970 the extra bucks spent to a 980 would be a total waste. Even if he upgrades later and gets the full fps out of a single 970 his best upgrade option is then to either wait for a next gen card or SLI since the 970 is so cheap compared to the 980 and other high-end cards.

A single 970 performance is more than enough for AH2 so at that stage the bad SLI profile problem doesn't affect AH gameplay. Situation would be totally different if he would SLI a lower end card. Then AH performance might remain bad and he would get playable fps only on games that scale well with SLI.

The 970 is currently capable of running any game well in a single display full-hd setup. For triple screen or 4K users a single 970 may produce below 30fps in some games so that's the point where I'd consider a SLI (or consider doing something else with my time instead).