Yeah, I agree with eskimoe, overclocked RAM isn't going to have much impact on your game. It won't hurt either, but that money could be spent elsewhere for better improvements - SSD, better card, better processor. That being said, NewEgg has a deal for 10% off desktop memory right now. 8 gb of quality RAM should only end up running about $60-75 at that point.
Yeah, I agree with eskimoe, overclocked RAM isn't going to have much impact on your game. It won't hurt either, but that money could be spent elsewhere for better improvements - SSD, better card, better processor. That being said, NewEgg has a deal for 10% off desktop memory right now. 8 gb of quality RAM should only end up running about $60-75 at that point.
^ Seconded. The important thing about RAM is to have enough, because more RAM means fewer repeated disk reads. Once you have enough, and for anything that isn't a server, 8 or 16 GB is enough, your money is better spent on other upgrades.
Memory latency has been stuck at 7.5 to 10ns for years. Newer RAM technologies and faster clocking have been achieved by multiplexing and more clocks per cycle, so faster RAM is not as faster as all that.
Just get enough RAM, and don't make a big deal about the speed.
Gone sign on that, rather have 8gigs normal ram than 4GB faster ram. Rather have 16GB normal ram then 8GB faster ram. and rather spend 60-80bucks more on anything else than spending it on faster 16gb ram. (more than 16GB is something I'll care about when I really need it in a few years.)
Yeah, I don't pay much attention to RAM speeds these days, except may be getting the one which is dual channel. Just get reasonably priced 16 GB (either in 2 or 4 sticks) and it will be good enough for a long time.
Thanks for the replies on the RAM everyone. I'll go with the standard RAM and put that money to use elsewhere on the PC.
Received my Seasonic SSR-650RM and it looks wonderful. It's semi-modular in that it has motherboard power cables and 2x PCI-E 6+2 pre-attached, but everything else (SATA power, etc.) comes separate, in a nice cloth bag. The box includes nice looking cable ties.
Will install tomorrow, I am expecting sudden shutdowns to stop. Also this will enable me to upgrade to a Haswell CPU in the near future.
Just out of pure curiosity, how feasible would be to run two GTX 970's with this 650 watt Seasonic?
Will install tomorrow, I am expecting sudden shutdowns to stop. Also this will enable me to upgrade to a Haswell CPU in the near future.
Just out of pure curiosity, how feasible would be to run two GTX 970's with this 650 watt Seasonic?
Ha!Damn it @eskimoe, what do you need a 970 SLI for?
But anyways. 650W could work but it's cutting it close.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-970-sli-review,4.html
Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:
GeForce GTX 970 or 980 - On your average system the card requires you to have a 400~500 Watt power supply unit.
GeForce GTX 970 or 980 in 2-way SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have an 700~800 Watt power supply unit as minimum.
That power supply can run all day at 100% load and 88% efficiency, unlike, say, lesser Corsairs, so it's a better risk than you might think. http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=348
Two GTX 970's in a high-performance system are in total about a 475-550 watt load. So you don't have a lot of capacity to spare, but it would not be overloaded.
Probably the main thing I haven't decided upon for my computer-to-be is the screen. I chatted with someone about building a computer and how to decide between a 1080p screen and a 1440p, and he said that he just finds 1440p uncomfortable due to their size. Since you usually play on a desk (or am I missing something here?), you end up relatively close - and in that case the difference in size makes 1080p screens more comfortable on the eye. According to him.
Do you agree? What's your experience? Is this a weighty consideration or did he make it to be more than it is?
Do you agree? What's your experience? Is this a weighty consideration or did he make it to be more than it is?
Well I said it was just curiosity
You know, thinking about the future and whatnot. One should be enough for TW3... I hope.From what I understand many PSU's are overrated so a proper 650w might as well be somebody else's 750w. Still it would be very tight, so probably not a good idea.
Thanks! I'm just curious about the limits of this new PSU. It would make sense to have some extra power to spare in a SLI setup, but for now (and years to come) this Seasonic should work just fine.
Just had another sudden shutdown while playing a different game (not AoW3), and the 12v rail went down to 11.6. I'll report tomorrow with the new PSU.
What new card should I get?
Now that the system requirements are revealed, it's time to consider a new Graphics card. I got an R9 270 4gb card an found It runs W2 without any AA at 60fps 1080p. So I knew I'll need new one for Witcher 3. Here's the kicker, I've go very strict budget. Can anyone suggest which 4GB card I should get under $350?
I don't care at all for AA. So as long as I get 60fps with no AA and everything else maxed out, I'm happy. My current card may be able to run it but it will surely force me to compromise with graphics in my estimation. So, I'm looking to sell my current card since it's fairly new and get a card from abroad which my brother can bring since he's visiting this March. So, I can't really try the game and then get a card upgrade. Cards here cost about $100 more than base price and that's not for taxes but importer monopoly.
I don't know if the devs are allowed to comment on a thread like this, but I sure would appreciate feedback from those who actually tested the game in addition to the community.
Additionally, I'd like to share what I know and why I suspect I should get a new card. I read somewhere that 256-bit is not able to take advantage of 4GBs of RAM to get good fps on open world games, which is what my current card has. Is this true? Comparing specs, it looks like AMD cards priced around $350 have 512-bit compared to 256-bit on similarly priced nvidia gtx cards but NV cards win in terms of clock speeds and get better benchmark scores. Which contributes more to achieving better performance on Witcher 3, data width or clock speed? If 256-bit of my current card is good enough however, do I even need an upgrade?
Additionally, currently I'm getting 60 fps in Assetto Corsa with no AA and medium shadow, reflection and smoke gneration but 30 fps at all max, no AA. Dragon Age Inquisition at over 40 without AA. Will getting an R9 290 or GTX 970 help improve performace in Assetto Corsa as well as Witcher 3? Maybe prove helpful to provide better advice.
Thank in advance to all.
Now that the system requirements are revealed, it's time to consider a new Graphics card. I got an R9 270 4gb card an found It runs W2 without any AA at 60fps 1080p. So I knew I'll need new one for Witcher 3. Here's the kicker, I've go very strict budget. Can anyone suggest which 4GB card I should get under $350?
I don't care at all for AA. So as long as I get 60fps with no AA and everything else maxed out, I'm happy. My current card may be able to run it but it will surely force me to compromise with graphics in my estimation. So, I'm looking to sell my current card since it's fairly new and get a card from abroad which my brother can bring since he's visiting this March. So, I can't really try the game and then get a card upgrade. Cards here cost about $100 more than base price and that's not for taxes but importer monopoly.
I don't know if the devs are allowed to comment on a thread like this, but I sure would appreciate feedback from those who actually tested the game in addition to the community.
Additionally, I'd like to share what I know and why I suspect I should get a new card. I read somewhere that 256-bit is not able to take advantage of 4GBs of RAM to get good fps on open world games, which is what my current card has. Is this true? Comparing specs, it looks like AMD cards priced around $350 have 512-bit compared to 256-bit on similarly priced nvidia gtx cards but NV cards win in terms of clock speeds and get better benchmark scores. Which contributes more to achieving better performance on Witcher 3, data width or clock speed? If 256-bit of my current card is good enough however, do I even need an upgrade?
Additionally, currently I'm getting 60 fps in Assetto Corsa with no AA and medium shadow, reflection and smoke gneration but 30 fps at all max, no AA. Dragon Age Inquisition at over 40 without AA. Will getting an R9 290 or GTX 970 help improve performace in Assetto Corsa as well as Witcher 3? Maybe prove helpful to provide better advice.
Thank in advance to all.
@anklax
With 350$ budget you can get GTX 970 which can easily run TW3 (judging from official system requirements). If you want to spend a little less then R9 290 is also a good option and it's recommended one for TW3 so it will certainly give good performance.
If you go for R9 290, consider getting Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X which is an excellent card. No heat issues, no noise that is usually associated with reference R9 290. I am using it myself and absolutely love it.
On Dragon Age Inquisition, I get 60 fps with max settings and 2x MSAA at 1080p (with Mantle). If I use AMD VSR and downscale from 2560x1440 at max settings I still get 45+ fps, it gives amazing image quality (even better than MSAA).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...BESTMATCH&Description=GTX+970&N=-1&isNodeId=1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ATCH&Description=R9+290+Tri-X&N=-1&isNodeId=1
With 350$ budget you can get GTX 970 which can easily run TW3 (judging from official system requirements). If you want to spend a little less then R9 290 is also a good option and it's recommended one for TW3 so it will certainly give good performance.
If you go for R9 290, consider getting Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X which is an excellent card. No heat issues, no noise that is usually associated with reference R9 290. I am using it myself and absolutely love it.
On Dragon Age Inquisition, I get 60 fps with max settings and 2x MSAA at 1080p (with Mantle). If I use AMD VSR and downscale from 2560x1440 at max settings I still get 45+ fps, it gives amazing image quality (even better than MSAA).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...BESTMATCH&Description=GTX+970&N=-1&isNodeId=1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ATCH&Description=R9+290+Tri-X&N=-1&isNodeId=1
This is purely a subjective matter. I've used a 27" 1440p monitor and a 32" 1440p monitor and found the former to be very comfortable to use and appreciated the extra sharpness and screen real estate brought by the higher resolution (especially the increased vertical resolution in day to day use) but the latter was just too big. Or too tall to be precise. Also, the advantage of using higher PPI monitors when gaming is that you can disable AA and still have a smooth image without excessive jaggies.
@anklax
You can't really go wrong with GTX 970. Low TDP and lots and lots of performance at a very reasonable price. And it's well above the recommended GPU specs for TW3. And regarding that 256bit bus:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...orce_gtx_980_video_card_review/4#.VLEUciuUcwI
Last edited:
Shitty day.
Brought my computer to my tech guy, we replaced the PSU and now there's no video signal, not even with the old PSU. Tried a crappy video card he had lying around and it worked. Left my comp there and hell try a few more things but it seems the GPU might be the issue. It's been more than 30 days which is Newegg's replacement policy.
If it is the GPU, what do I do? Contact MSI directly for RMA?
Could it be a dying motherboard?
The symptoms were these: random shutdowns, mostly while gaming. Driver crashes under Wasteland 2 with artifacting, with both my old 560 Ti and my new 970. Constant shutdowns on Age of Wonders 3. Last night I noticed some flickering in Far Cry 4 and some pop ins, but I assumed it was the game.
The crashes and artifacting in WL2 were on both cards. The shutdowns only on the new one.
What do you think? This is very frustrating.
Brought my computer to my tech guy, we replaced the PSU and now there's no video signal, not even with the old PSU. Tried a crappy video card he had lying around and it worked. Left my comp there and hell try a few more things but it seems the GPU might be the issue. It's been more than 30 days which is Newegg's replacement policy.
If it is the GPU, what do I do? Contact MSI directly for RMA?
Could it be a dying motherboard?
The symptoms were these: random shutdowns, mostly while gaming. Driver crashes under Wasteland 2 with artifacting, with both my old 560 Ti and my new 970. Constant shutdowns on Age of Wonders 3. Last night I noticed some flickering in Far Cry 4 and some pop ins, but I assumed it was the game.
The crashes and artifacting in WL2 were on both cards. The shutdowns only on the new one.
What do you think? This is very frustrating.
Last edited:
@.Volsung.
Have you tried changing the PSU and putting load on it ? I mean you replaced PSU and tried one crappy card he had but didn't tried putting load on new PSU by running a game or something right ?
It could be a dying PSU, I faced similar problems long time ago when I tried to run my HD 4870 on a cheap 550w PSU, the initial issues were random artifacts and driver crashes and as the time passed, the whole system began to restart. Eventually I figured out it's PSU and replaced it with OCZ GameXtreme 850w, since then didn't faced any issue, so it wasn't GPU in my case.
Since you're saying that both of your cards are having issues and now the new one stopped giving display altogether, it could be a faulty PSU that damaged your new card (GTX 970) while the old one (560 Ti) is still struggling with it so I suggest stop using the old one on that PSU immediately before it gets damaged as well.
Now in order to check motherboard and everything else, put a new PSU and use your old 560 Ti with it and see if it works, stress it by putting some load like games or benchmarks. If it keeps working fine then it's not your mother board but if it cause similar issues even with new PSU then there is something wrong.
About MSI, yes of course try contacting them and see what they say about RMA.
An advice for future is to stop using your system and get it checked immediately when you see issues like random artifacts, restarting and crashes for no apparent reason. A bad PSU can cause a lot of harm if you keep using it.
Have you tried changing the PSU and putting load on it ? I mean you replaced PSU and tried one crappy card he had but didn't tried putting load on new PSU by running a game or something right ?
It could be a dying PSU, I faced similar problems long time ago when I tried to run my HD 4870 on a cheap 550w PSU, the initial issues were random artifacts and driver crashes and as the time passed, the whole system began to restart. Eventually I figured out it's PSU and replaced it with OCZ GameXtreme 850w, since then didn't faced any issue, so it wasn't GPU in my case.
Since you're saying that both of your cards are having issues and now the new one stopped giving display altogether, it could be a faulty PSU that damaged your new card (GTX 970) while the old one (560 Ti) is still struggling with it so I suggest stop using the old one on that PSU immediately before it gets damaged as well.
Now in order to check motherboard and everything else, put a new PSU and use your old 560 Ti with it and see if it works, stress it by putting some load like games or benchmarks. If it keeps working fine then it's not your mother board but if it cause similar issues even with new PSU then there is something wrong.
About MSI, yes of course try contacting them and see what they say about RMA.
An advice for future is to stop using your system and get it checked immediately when you see issues like random artifacts, restarting and crashes for no apparent reason. A bad PSU can cause a lot of harm if you keep using it.
My usual way to find out what's broke would be:
Test a old GPU (like a 8600gt, something without power cables) if this works ->
Test GPU in different PC. To make sure the card is okay.
If the GPU behaves in another PC and old cards behave in your PC then it's time to check PSU's rip one from a working PC and see if your card behaves in your PC with a confirmed working PSU.
If all that fails it's time to check the main-board and CPU.
Test a old GPU (like a 8600gt, something without power cables) if this works ->
Test GPU in different PC. To make sure the card is okay.
If the GPU behaves in another PC and old cards behave in your PC then it's time to check PSU's rip one from a working PC and see if your card behaves in your PC with a confirmed working PSU.
If all that fails it's time to check the main-board and CPU.
Yes, a faulty mother-board can cause all sorts of problems. I've had laptops shutting down at random because a screw was causing pressure. And hard-drives problems because of broken CPU's. A lot is possible and without the parts to test everything it's sometimes hard to find. Even with them you can spend months of weird behavior just to find out it has more than one cause.
Worst case I've seen two years of troubles with a PC random shitty behavior from sudden shutdowns to not wanting to boot without pressing the button a couple dozen times. EVERY part worked fine in a different PC. But whatever I put in that one it just was all wonky... Yeah the start button on the case was flaky and sometimes it just wasn't pressed properly. Just using the reset button for power on worked for that one in the end.
Weirdest case was the I do blue-screens at my owner's place but never when at my place. months of dragging that PC between his place and mine. All kinds of weird shit happened but whenever it was at my place it behaved... Took 5 months before I did a long time test on his power lines (I was desperate to find the problem) and observed... The main electricity in the basement is delivering between 240v and 200v sometimes it's even gone for half a second. The PC couldn't handle it and a uninterruptible power source was needed to avoid that his PC crashed. Sure a better PSU could have handled it better but not the sudden outages we linked those to trucks driving through the street. Really weird stuff.
Yes a faulty motherboard or slot can cause this but I'll check everything else first (specially PSU) before going to motherboard. Out of all devices motherboard is the one that lasts much longer and endure more though that can change if your PSU is already bad so make sure the PSU is good and then check other stuff. Basically you just need to put a new PSU and check system for errors, if you don't see any then it's just the PSU.
Looks like Nvidia is moving ahead with producing 16nm chip based GPU:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20141202PD203.html
Not sure though if it will make it in time for their next iteration of cards. But either way I'm not buying a new card until 16nm chips are out.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20141202PD203.html
Not sure though if it will make it in time for their next iteration of cards. But either way I'm not buying a new card until 16nm chips are out.
Last edited: