Building a gaming PC

[Ljesnjanin]

For anyone who still wants to jump on a 970 despite the stuff that's been going on with them as of late, Newegg is doing $20 off the MSI Gaming GTX 970.

Damn, it's about 280€...Where I live price is 370€ :realmad::wallbash:

 

[GuyNwah]

Guys, what do you think about the gtx 960? I have been considering it for my new rig, but still not sure how it compares to the gtx 770 and haven't found a good comparison yet. Is the gtx 770 somewhat better? (its only advantage I know of for now is that it has a bigger bus) Also, what do you think would the difference be in TW3? (yeah, I know that nobody can really tell till the game is out, but still, even some technical predictions would be nice)

960 is heavily cut down from the 970 and 980: 32 ROPs, 128-bit bus. I'd like to see more about its real-world performance before recommending it. I don't think it will be superior to the 760 and 770.

 

[PrincessCiri]

For anyone who still wants to jump on a 970 despite the stuff that's been going on with them as of late, Newegg is doing $20 off the MSI Gaming GTX 970.

omg £216....... so cheap

 

[eskiMoe]

@Guy N'wah

Just out of curiosity, if I decided to overclock my dual 970s, do you think my AX760 could handle it?

And I wouldn't touch the voltages. Just increase power limit by 10%.

 

[GuyNwah]

@Guy N'wah

Just out of curiosity, if I decided to overclock my dual 970s, do you think my AX760 could handle it?

I'd say you are fine. I certainly wouldn't go with less. Overclocked 970's have been measured at as much as 280 watts (yikes!) Leaves you looking at a load of about 700 watts full power.

 

[eskiMoe]

I'd say you are fine. I certainly wouldn't go with less. Overclocked 970's have been measured at as much as 280 watts (yikes!) Leaves you looking at a load of about 700 watts full power.

Well, apparently hardocp tested this:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/09/29/msi_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_4g_video_card_review/8#.VNOvGZ2UdWh

The total system peak when overclocking by raising the power limit to 110% without increasing voltage was 359W though.

But even if my PSU could handle this, would it still iyo put too much stress on it? Even though it's rated platinum plus?

 

[GuyNwah]

Well, apparently hardocp tested this:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/09/29/msi_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_4g_video_card_review/8#.VNOvGZ2UdWh

The total system peak when overclocking by raising the power limit to 110% without increasing voltage was 359W though.

But even if my PSU could handle this, would it still iyo put too much stress on it? Even though it's rated platinum plus?

Yeah, that's the article that attributed 279 watts to the overclocked (and overvoltaged) GTX 970. I don't think a mild overclock (to me, if it doesn't involve deliberate overvoltage, it's "mild") is going to do that.

As for running the power supply at something that might amount to 90% load for a sustained run, that's what first-class power supplies are made to do. The AX760 (Seasonic-made Corsair) is only running 9-10C over ambient and 92% efficiency at 700 watts. It could do that for the life of its warranty.

 

[eskiMoe]

So decided to give overclocking a go and ended up at around 1470mhz core and 3795mhz memory. I probably could have gone even higher but these clocks already gave me a noticeable boost in graphics intensive games that I didn't feel the need to try reach the limit of these cards. And everything seems to work like a charm, even after playing games for a few hours.

@Guy N'wah

Ran Fire Strike while running HWMonitor in the background. Anything wrong with the voltage levels iyo? Frankly I don't know how accurate HWM is but figured it's better than nothing. That maybe it could pick up some anomalies if there was something funky going on with the voltages..

 

[GuyNwah]

So decided to give overclocking a go and ended up at around 1470mhz core and 3795mhz memory. I probably could have gone even higher but these clocks already gave me a noticeable boost in graphics intensive games that I didn't feel the need to try reach the limit of these cards. And everything seems to work like a charm, even after playing games for a few hours.

@Guy N'wah

Ran Fire Strike while running HWMonitor in the background. Anything wrong with the voltage levels iyo? Frankly I don't know how accurate HWM is but figured it's better than nothing. That maybe it could pick up some anomalies if there was something funky going on with the voltages..

HWM can't measure ripple, which is important, but those voltages are rock solid. Your +12V is no more than 1.6% out of tolerance. The Vin3, Vin4, and Vcore voltages are notoriously uncertain (as in, nobody is quite sure what HWM is really measuring), with the best guesses I know of being:
Vcore is really Vccin, which is normal at 1.8V
Vin4 is really Vcore, which changes in operation, and can hit 1.2V or more at full performance
Vin3 is I'm not sure but looks like a 1V reference.

 

[volsung]

I'll be receiving my 970 back from MSI soon. It was shipped THE day the status changed to "NG buffer for repair run" so I assume I won't be getting the same card. What does that status mean though?

 

[GuyNwah]

I'll be receiving my 970 back from MSI soon. It was shipped THE day the status changed to "NG buffer for repair run" so I assume I won't be getting the same card. What does that status mean though?

I think that's MSI jargon for "A fault was found [NG], assigned to the queue for repair." Others have been confused by the same language.

 

[Kinley]

So my girlfriend wants to upgrade for Witcher 3, and since her old PC is pretty out of date we decided to go with an entirely new rig.

Specs:

Mobo: MSI H97 PC Mate
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
RAM: Kingston HyperX 8 GB DDR3 1600MHz
GPU: MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G
PSU: Seasonic G Series 450W
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 120GB
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
Case: Corsair Graphite 230T

Do you guys have any suggestions? This is currently priced around 1100€, but that doesn't mean she's not willing to go over if it benefits the rig. I really trust you guys so I'd really want to know what you think.

 

[shinobi2u]

So my girlfriend wants to upgrade for Witcher 3, and since her old PC is pretty out of date we decided to go with an entirely new rig.

Specs:

Mobo: MSI H97 PC Mate
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
RAM: Kingston HyperX 8 GB DDR3 1600MHz
GPU: MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G
PSU: Seasonic G Series 450W
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 120GB
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
Case: Corsair Graphite 230T

Do you guys have any suggestions? This is currently priced around 1100€, but that doesn't mean she's not willing to go over if it benefits the rig. I really trust you guys so I'd really want to know what you think.

Might be worth making it a 4690K. Price between the two is pretty small, but you get an extra bit of performance. Other than that, should be a pretty solid rig.

 

[Kinley]

Might be worth making it a 4690K. Price between the two is pretty small, but you get an extra bit of performance. Other than that, should be a pretty solid rig.

In that case I'd have to change the mobo as well. And I'm not sure if the OC would warrant the extra cost, when it comes to game performance that is.

 

[Sana_mia]

@Kinley I'd suggest going a little more future proof and grab a 240GB SSD. At least if you want to install the OS on the SSD and have enough space for more than a single game.

120GB is nice, but only really works if You use it as a pure games/programs drive otherwise you'll be swapping games all the time. Especially seeing how many games already want 30GB and more.

 

[shinobi2u]

In that case I'd have to change the mobo as well. And I'm not sure if the OC would warrant the extra cost, when it comes to game performance that is.

Ahhhh, missed that. Yeah, another bump there then to go to a Z97, but still not too bad. And @Sanamia is right, you may want to go up on that SSD. You could drop from a 850 to an 840 EVO and still have great performance, but go up in size to make sure you can run some games on it.

 

[GuyNwah]

Difference between H97 and Z97 is overclocking and SLI. H97 doesn't do either, but it's not clear that you need either one. The price difference can be enough to take note of:
(Newegg US prices. Prices in the neighborhood of your den will probably be higher.)
ASRock H97 Pro 4 $84
ASRock Z97 Pro 4 $110
Core i5 4690 $210
Core i5 4690K $240

The difference should be more than enough to pay for a bigger SSD, and in SSDs, bigger is also faster.

"Future proof" doesn't exist, because Broadwell is the last CPU for LGA 1150 and may not even be a performance improvement when they finally get it shipping.

 

[eskiMoe]

So my girlfriend wants to upgrade for Witcher 3, and since her old PC is pretty out of date we decided to go with an entirely new rig.

Specs:

Mobo: MSI H97 PC Mate
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
RAM: Kingston HyperX 8 GB DDR3 1600MHz
GPU: MSI GTX 970 GAMING 4G
PSU: Seasonic G Series 450W
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 120GB
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
Case: Corsair Graphite 230T

Do you guys have any suggestions? This is currently priced around 1100€, but that doesn't mean she's not willing to go over if it benefits the rig. I really trust you guys so I'd really want to know what you think.

There could be a couple of benefits if you decide to postpone the upgrade.

1) If she's getting it solely for The Witcher 3 I'd wait until AMD's R9 300 series is released. The leaked info looks promising. And even if she's not a fan of AMD, Nvidia will still most likely cut prices to compete with AMD.

2) And in a few months you can probably find those refurbished GTX 970 "3.5GB" cards everywhere dirty cheap.

Something to think about. I wouldn't pull the trigger just yet.

 

[Aaden]

I second the larger SSD. I've had a setup with a 120GB SSD and it indeed was annoying to only fit one large game and maybe a small one or two onto it.

 

[Kinley]

Thanks a lot guys.

I doubt AMD will bring their new line of GPUs before W3, but we'll see. A bigger SSD does indeed seem like a good option. Still not sure about the z97 and 4690k upgrade though, would it really be worth it in games? Would a 212 Evo be able to handle an OCed 4690k?