Building a gaming PC

[Sardukhar]

I was satisfied with my GTX 970 but considering the Witcher 3 graphics I think I will just sell it and revert to my old GeForce 2 MX400. That should be enough.

Does anyone else smell cow shit?

I always do. Makes eclairs really horrible.

ANyway.

I almost regrest getting my twin 290x, since they can't do HDMI 2.0, necessary for 60hz 4K. At least until a good adapter comes out. No, none is out yet.

So that's one argument for timing your hardware buys. If only I'd waited another month or two. Curse my overwheening need for POWAH NOWAH.

 

[Garrison72]

Never ever try to have the best GPU and never ever try to max out every game.
It may sound ridiculous but it'll set you on a dark path that leads you to lose a lot of money and not enjoy your games at the end. There is always a newer GPU coming out that outperfprms yours, and there are always games that you cannot run on highest settings with 8Xmsaa. If you do not keep it under control the games that you cannot max out become unenjoyable, because you want to and you have to max them out. This leads you to buy more and more expensive graphics cards. This trend will become an obsession, where you are never satisfied.
970 is a beast of a card, enjoy it. You may have to drop the AA a bit, but try to enjoy the game and not the maxed out graphics.

While that sounds practical, I plan to go in balls deep. Good bye money.

 

[shawn_kh]

While that sounds practical, I plan to go in balls deep. Good bye money.

I went balls deep, and left my nuts hanging out. My second Titan X is on it's way
Just joking, but Witcher 3 is a very tempting game. My GTX 580 died 6 months ago, but I decided to wait and get a new GPU after Witcher 3's release.
Everything worked out for the best, since I've heard you get a free Witcher 3 copy with the purchase of a GTX 980. I've already pre-ordered the game, but I figured I'll give it to my cousin on his birthday.

 

[EliHarel]

While that sounds practical, I plan to go in balls deep. Good bye money.

Don't just tease and go. Whachoo getting?

 

[tahirahmed]

Never ever try to have the best GPU and never ever try to max out every game.
It may sound ridiculous but it'll set you on a dark path that leads you to lose a lot of money and not enjoy your games at the end. There is always a newer GPU coming out that outperfprms yours, and there are always games that you cannot run on highest settings with 8Xmsaa. If you do not keep it under control the games that you cannot max out become unenjoyable, because you want to and you have to max them out. This leads you to buy more and more expensive graphics cards. This trend will become an obsession, where you are never satisfied.
970 is a beast of a card, enjoy it. You may have to drop the AA a bit, but try to enjoy the game and not the maxed out graphics.

So far I don't regret my decision of getting 2x GTX 980's except that they asked for a new PSU other than that it's awesome and pretty much every game shows great SLI scaling. The fear of running dual card setup for the first time also went away (I heard a lot of mixed bag things about dual GPU setup) but that's not the case at least for all the games I have tried so far, If TW3 turns out supporting SLI properly then I'd be satisfied with my investment, despite all this it's true that sometimes I feel the guilt of spending too much

 

[volsung]

Now I'm curious about what you all do for a living.

 

[sidspyker]

Work at a GPU fab plant and steal GPUs obviously

 

[tahirahmed]

Now I'm curious about what you all do for a living.

I am an IT Administrator in an advertising agency and a part time / freelance Microsoft ASP.NET Developer. Most of the savings I make from part time development goes to my PC.

Work at a GPU fab plant and steal GPUs obviously

If I had that job I should have owned R9 390X by now

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

Hey guys, quick update.
Got my MB replaced and my PSU and Case have been refunded, only thing to do is order a new PSU and Case and then I'm ready to go.

I'm also saying the GTX970 is the way to go for now.
It has enough power to run TW3 on high I think, with the right Processor, MB and RAM maybe even on ultra or at least somewhere between high and ultra.
It ran really good when I tried it originally and it was very low temperature throughout the performance tests.

Also, it supports G-Sync and DX12, so that's a plus.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

My take is that a GTX 970 is still an excellent buy for the price, especially if you are playing at 1080p. Maxwell is really a powerful and efficient architecture, with good compute performance so it has no real weaknesses.

The only time I would caution against buying a GTX 970, is if you are playing at higher resolutions; specifically 1440p and above. If you are playing at 1440p and above, I would definitely get a GTX 980 instead.

Why? Well it's not just because of the VRAM issue. Due to the deactivated crossbar, the GTX 970 has a 224 bit bus instead of the full 256 bit bus on the GTX 980, so bandwidth to the 3.5GB is actually 196 GB/s compared to the GTX 980's 224 GB/s access to it's 4GB.. This can make a big difference at times in bandwidth limited circumstances. On average the GTX 980 is 15 to 19% faster than the GTX 970, but in bandwidth limited circumstances (ie higher resolutions, more AA or lots of compute shaders), the performance gap can rise to 30% and even greater in some cases..

The biggest strength of the GTX 970 lies in it's ability to overclock. Since it has such a low TDP, a well designed aftermarket GTX 970 usually has no problem overclocking to 1500 MHz with no voltage adjustment (and sometimes no fan adjustment), which is basically free performance.. At that speed, it's nearly on par with a stock clocked GTX 980..

So yes, the GTX 970 is still a great option and a very capable GPU

 

[eskiMoe]

This leads you to buy more and more expensive graphics cards. This trend will become an obsession, where you are never satisfied.

 

[Manpants]

Can anyone recommend a solid Seasonic psu to go with gigabyte gtx 970 g1 gaming? I am forced to order one online due to limited options in stores here.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

Can anyone recommend a solid Seasonic psu to go with gigabyte gtx 970 g1 gaming? I am forced to order one online due to limited options in stores here.

What kind of specs do you want? Is SLI support a factor? Here is a link towards Newegg's Seasonic PSU lineup in the platinum category..

 

[Manpants]

Not planning to SLI.Simply need a good quality psu that will support a single gigabyte gtx 970 g1 gaming and i5 4460(gtx requires a min of 550w psu).Everyone i asked said seasonic was the way to go but if u know of any other psu that will do the job im open to suggestions as long as its not above 150e.

 

[prince_of_nothing]

Do you plan to overclock? If you do, I would look at getting at least a 750w supply with no less than 50A on the +12V rail.

Something like this. I don't live in the E.U so I don't know how much it would cost where you live, but you can always look for it by the model number.

 

[Manpants]

I am planning to overclock.Seasonic SS-750KM3 seems great but its about 220e which is sadly little out of my price range

 

[prince_of_nothing]

Holy shit, thats a huge price difference from what we can get here in the U.S!! O_O

In the U.S, that same model is only 119e using Google to convert..

 

[Luxorek]

I am planning to overclock.Seasonic SS-750KM3 seems great but its about 220e which is sadly little out of my price range

How about ANTEC True Power Classic 550W? It's based on the Seasonic S12G. Besides that, I can vouch for it personally - I use with MSI GTX 970 and i5-4690K OC.

 

[GuyNwah]

How about ANTEC True Power Classic 550W? It's based on the Seasonic S12G. Besides that, I can vouch for it personally - I use with MSI GTX 970 and i5-4690K OC.

It's enough for any single GPU. Seasonic-made PSUs are generally good for continuous full rated load for years.

 

[Manpants]

I admit im not the expect on psu which is why i asked for help here but isnt 550W cutting it a bit close? i mean its the minimum requirement for GTX 970 G1.If not its price is more than affordable(75e which is find a bit strange)