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It really is still a good card, but with only that 3.5GB of VRAM
^2:05 - 2:10 demonstrates my experience, but with another game. More VRAM is needed, but it refuses to hit even 3.5GB (3584MB) and instead it drops stuff from VRAM to load new stuff, causing very obvious stuttering as expected when out of VRAM. Since the game allocates more VRAM than it needs, the problem doesn't neccesarily show up when the 980 is only showing ~3600-4096MB allocated, even though there's 3584MB of actual RAM.
The 980 has ~14.3% more, RAM, so if a game allocates 4GB but stays stutter free on 3.5GB, that means the 980 could play it stutter free with ~4.57GB allocated on a Titan or a 290x 8GB.
The lack of performance issues when stuff allocates 3.51-4GB of VRAM to other cards is not really that the extra VRAM is slower (if it's even used) it's just some games allocating more than they actually need.
Since the 970 runs alright on stuff that doesn't need the VRAM but allocates more, some people have taken that for a safety net or the extra VRAM working correctly; but that's obviously false because when you demand the extra RAM and actually use it, it behaves exactly like a 3.5GB card (or even worse, due to a driver issue with the implementation of the two memory pools and when to cache; the system memory won't be used before the VRAM cache in any circumstance, which means that you can overload your 3.5GB of VRAM in a situation that doesn't allow the 0.5GB of cache to be used, which then doesn't allow you to use system memory, so it just hard crashes the application/game.
Some partnership/deal with xfx and discounts for 970 owners but it doesn't seem like a great deal. Even if i had decided to go with a 290, i probably wouldn't take an xfx card just because of a small discount
the only two R9 290 models i would consider would be the Tri-X and the Vapor-X from Sapphire.
That or a GTX 970, which is still a great card if you don't go over the 3.5 Gb of VRAM by the looks of it.
I'm still doing quite well with my 7970 with only 3 Gb of VRAM so I'm fine for now really.
i think maybe my (xfx) 7970 is having some troubles... a shame because i thought it was serving me well.
when i tax it a bit with openCL the computer either dies like i pulled the plug, or screen is freezes to an image, even though i can shut it down, and the logs look like nothing happened. i can run the same stuff perfectly fine on my HD6000M something, with the same driver (14.12) and same CL SDK (3.0.0 beta).
with the xf86 driver and mesaOpenCL it is a bit more stable, but dies just the same when the load gets a bit heavy.
i think i need to get a new card... was looking at the 290 Tri-X, there was a discount at my goto outlet.
Some partnership/deal with xfx and discounts for 970 owners but it doesn't seem like a great deal. Even if i had decided to go with a 290, i probably wouldn't take an xfx card just because of a small discount
the only two R9 290 models i would consider would be the Tri-X and the Vapor-X from Sapphire.
That or a GTX 970, which is still a great card if you don't go over the 3.5 Gb of VRAM by the looks of it.
I'm still doing quite well with my 7970 with only 3 Gb of VRAM so I'm fine for now really.
i think maybe my (xfx) 7970 is having some troubles... a shame because i thought it was serving me well.
when i tax it a bit with openCL the computer either dies like i pulled the plug, or screen is freezes to an image, even though i can shut it down, and the logs look like nothing happened. i can run the same stuff perfectly fine on my HD6000M something, with the same driver (14.12) and same CL SDK (3.0.0 beta).
with the xf86 driver and mesaOpenCL it is a bit more stable, but dies just the same when the load gets a bit heavy.
i think i need to get a new card... was looking at the 290 Tri-X, there was a discount at my goto outlet.
What power supply (model name) do you have? That's very relevant for both your 7970 troubles and future 290.
for example i have a superflower golden green hx 550
even with ~20% underclocking it still breaks down, when the temp creeps up (~80 C) and it starts cranking up the fans after sitting on full load for a while.
It is kinda hot for a 7970 depending on airflow, cooling and the quality of the cooler etc. My 970 uses about 190w or so and i keep that below 65 at all times (usually 50-60), though i use 2.2k RPM on the twin frozr 5 to do that, because there's a 2% performance drop if you let it hit about 68-69c and it annoys me. I don't even have airflow particularly around the GPU area ATM, but it's not enclosed in a super tight space or anything
So I'm starting to look at preliminary upgrades for my rig...like next black friday preliminary, but who knows some random sale too juicy to pass up could happen.
Out of curiosity I was wondering what I would be best off upgrading first or if I'm pretty much going to have to upgrade the video card and the CPU at the same time to get any real benefit. This is my current pc: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/c79Qf7
There's not going to be a CPU with substantially better performance available anytime soon (this year, next, etc.) unless you're hitting 3+ cores, and you'd need a motherboard and probably RAM upgrade for anything way far out anyway. If you upgrade it in the nearish future, you'd be looking at a Core i5 that just has a couple more cores, which seems like a waste of the i3. R9 270 is still current generation. You won't find spectacularly better performance without upgrading a tier or two up.
This is really soon to be thinking about an upgrade, in terms of when these parts were available. It would feel more justifiable if you originally deliberately chose a $70 Pentium or $100 video card. Now you'd mostly be throwing money into moving up the product stack from somewhere in the middle to somewhere higher, which is cost inefficient.
But if the current hardware can't handle what you need it to do, then you can't worry too much about sunk costs.
hoping I can receive some assistance in upgrading my build. My knowledge of PC is limited but I did build this myself (using youtube). My objective is to play star craft on ultra settings online. See PC build below and thanks in advance!
What is your current build? AMD phenom tm II X6 1075T processor 2.70 GHz 8gb ram Geforce GT 640
What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1080
Why do you want to upgrade? What do you want to achieve with the upgrade? I'd like to be able to play star craft 2 on Ultra settings. I only use this PC for star craft and work so not looking to optimize for other games
What is your budget? My max is $400 but I'd like to purchase on a budget
What country will you be buying your parts in? USA
If you have any brand or retailer preferences, please specify. Microcenter, Newegg, Amazon.
On February 01 2015 02:01 crisperrgk wrote: Hi all
hoping I can receive some assistance in upgrading my build. My knowledge of PC is limited but I did build this myself (using youtube). My objective is to play star craft on ultra settings online. See PC build below and thanks in advance!
What is your current build? AMD phenom tm II X6 1075T processor 2.70 GHz 8gb ram Geforce GT 640
What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1080
Why do you want to upgrade? What do you want to achieve with the upgrade? I'd like to be able to play star craft 2 on Ultra settings. I only use this PC for star craft and work so not looking to optimize for other games
What is your budget? My max is $400 but I'd like to purchase on a budget
What country will you be buying your parts in? USA
If you have any brand or retailer preferences, please specify. Microcenter, Newegg, Amazon.
gtx750 should be fine, maybe even a 750ti or 960 (it's extremely overkill by that point) if you feel super adventurous, but the 960 requires a 6 pin pci-e power connector and a more decent PSU
you won't have more FPS on ultra than you have on minimum settings now, though, it would just allow you to turn up graphics settings and maintain that FPS that you already have. You have low FPS at times now due to CPU performance (sc2 is heavily reliant on singlethreaded performance and phenom II at 2.7ghz is very slow compared to recent CPU's)
On February 01 2015 01:58 Myrmidon wrote: Depends what you use the computer for.
There's not going to be a CPU with substantially better performance available anytime soon (this year, next, etc.) unless you're hitting 3+ cores, and you'd need a motherboard and probably RAM upgrade for anything way far out anyway. If you upgrade it in the nearish future, you'd be looking at a Core i5 that just has a couple more cores, which seems like a waste of the i3. R9 270 is still current generation. You won't find spectacularly better performance without upgrading a tier or two up.
This is really soon to be thinking about an upgrade, in terms of when these parts were available. It would feel more justifiable if you originally deliberately chose a $70 Pentium or $100 video card. Now you'd mostly be throwing money into moving up the product stack from somewhere in the middle to somewhere higher, which is cost inefficient.
But if the current hardware can't handle what you need it to do, then you can't worry too much about sunk costs.
I use it mostly for gaming, I guess I'm starting to worry that a year from now I'm not going to be running the big triple a titles at decent settings anymore. I guess I'd probably be better off waiting more like 2 years and more or less building from scratch.
On February 01 2015 01:58 Myrmidon wrote: Depends what you use the computer for.
There's not going to be a CPU with substantially better performance available anytime soon (this year, next, etc.) unless you're hitting 3+ cores, and you'd need a motherboard and probably RAM upgrade for anything way far out anyway. If you upgrade it in the nearish future, you'd be looking at a Core i5 that just has a couple more cores, which seems like a waste of the i3. R9 270 is still current generation. You won't find spectacularly better performance without upgrading a tier or two up.
This is really soon to be thinking about an upgrade, in terms of when these parts were available. It would feel more justifiable if you originally deliberately chose a $70 Pentium or $100 video card. Now you'd mostly be throwing money into moving up the product stack from somewhere in the middle to somewhere higher, which is cost inefficient.
But if the current hardware can't handle what you need it to do, then you can't worry too much about sunk costs.
I use it mostly for gaming, I guess I'm starting to worry that a year from now I'm not going to be running the big triple a titles at decent settings anymore. I guess I'd probably be better off waiting more like 2 years and more or less building from scratch.
We're still kinda on the 2012 GPU gen. There's some 28nm maxwell GPU's out (Nvidia hasn't released the high end chip yet) and prices have dropped but it's mostly the same stuff. Same architecture and manufacturing process for AMD, just wait until there is actually new stuff.
Building a pure gaming rig. I don't want anymore then it would take to run sc II/any other competitive game on Ultra\Highest settings minus reflections, physics, effects @ 1920x1080 144mhz with only cpu overclock.
I would rather stay in the 680, 780, 980 linear, just standard flagship gpu release, the same with the rest of the components, just standard flagship release from whichever component manufacturer.
I did wonder about single core vs single threaded speed and if it meant anything, but if the i5 is the cheapest way toward a competitve gaming rig then whatever. Every other component should fall in line with the "best in class" line of thought. And to be honest, I truly wanted to put faith into the g3258/gtx 750/1600 memory, I mean it's a dream come true a good chip that can run competitve games at that resoulation and monitor frequency. Is that combo not at all the way to go for serious hardcore competitve gaming, is it at all in the leagues of the i5/970/2133c9? the i5/980/2400c10?
gaming rig cpu mb gpu psu ssd hdd memory case air cooling soundcard/headset
and if you would please, your recommendation for this system as well
workstation rig mostly photography, video, image, text, similar to the gaming rig
cpu mb gpu psu ssd hdd memory case air cooling soundcard
no real price range just go the gold standard, hardest hitters in the class
On February 01 2015 02:01 crisperrgk wrote: Hi all
hoping I can receive some assistance in upgrading my build. My knowledge of PC is limited but I did build this myself (using youtube). My objective is to play star craft on ultra settings online. See PC build below and thanks in advance!
What is your current build? AMD phenom tm II X6 1075T processor 2.70 GHz 8gb ram Geforce GT 640
What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1080
Why do you want to upgrade? What do you want to achieve with the upgrade? I'd like to be able to play star craft 2 on Ultra settings. I only use this PC for star craft and work so not looking to optimize for other games
What is your budget? My max is $400 but I'd like to purchase on a budget
What country will you be buying your parts in? USA
If you have any brand or retailer preferences, please specify. Microcenter, Newegg, Amazon.
gtx750 should be fine, maybe even a 750ti or 960 (it's extremely overkill by that point) if you feel super adventurous, but the 960 requires a 6 pin pci-e power connector and a more decent PSU
you won't have more FPS on ultra than you have on minimum settings now, though, it would just allow you to turn up graphics settings and maintain that FPS that you already have. You have low FPS at times now due to CPU performance (sc2 is heavily reliant on singlethreaded performance and phenom II at 2.7ghz is very slow compared to recent CPU's)
Thanks! I think I'll go for the 960 and update my power supply as well. I don't suffer slow FPS at the moment so this should be fine. If at some point I'd like to update my CPU what would you suggest I purchase to replace the phenom II? Also, do you think getting a solid state drive would also assist with regards to performance?
On February 01 2015 02:01 crisperrgk wrote: Hi all
hoping I can receive some assistance in upgrading my build. My knowledge of PC is limited but I did build this myself (using youtube). My objective is to play star craft on ultra settings online. See PC build below and thanks in advance!
What is your current build? AMD phenom tm II X6 1075T processor 2.70 GHz 8gb ram Geforce GT 640
What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1080
Why do you want to upgrade? What do you want to achieve with the upgrade? I'd like to be able to play star craft 2 on Ultra settings. I only use this PC for star craft and work so not looking to optimize for other games
What is your budget? My max is $400 but I'd like to purchase on a budget
What country will you be buying your parts in? USA
If you have any brand or retailer preferences, please specify. Microcenter, Newegg, Amazon.
gtx750 should be fine, maybe even a 750ti or 960 (it's extremely overkill by that point) if you feel super adventurous, but the 960 requires a 6 pin pci-e power connector and a more decent PSU
you won't have more FPS on ultra than you have on minimum settings now, though, it would just allow you to turn up graphics settings and maintain that FPS that you already have. You have low FPS at times now due to CPU performance (sc2 is heavily reliant on singlethreaded performance and phenom II at 2.7ghz is very slow compared to recent CPU's)
Thanks! I think I'll go for the 960 and update my power supply as well. I don't suffer slow FPS at the moment so this should be fine. If at some point I'd like to update my CPU what would you suggest I purchase to replace the phenom II? Also, do you think getting a solid state drive would also assist with regards to performance?
I've recently bought an SSD, and I can tell for sure that it helps with performance. For example, Windows 8 (Windows 7 should be fine too) starts faster and programs also load faster. It also helps antivirus scanners as they do a lot of reading.
If at some point I'd like to update my CPU what would you suggest I purchase to replace the phenom II? Also, do you think getting a solid state drive would also assist with regards to performance?
Anything Haswell, i5 if you don't want to lose multithreaded performance. Skylake should release later this year and be better
Building a pure gaming rig. I don't want anymore then it would take to run sc II/any other competitive game on Ultra\Highest settings minus reflections, physics, effects @ 1920x1080 144mhz with only cpu overclock.
I would rather stay in the 680, 780, 980 linear, just standard flagship gpu release, the same with the rest of the components, just standard flagship release from whichever component manufacturer.
I did wonder about single core vs single threaded speed and if it meant anything, but if the i5 is the cheapest way toward a competitve gaming rig then whatever. Every other component should fall in line with the "best in class" line of thought. And to be honest, I truly wanted to put faith into the g3258/gtx 750/1600 memory, I mean it's a dream come true a good chip that can run competitve games at that resoulation and monitor frequency. Is that combo not at all the way to go for serious hardcore competitve gaming, is it at all in the leagues of the i5/970/2133c9? the i5/980/2400c10?
gaming rig cpu mb gpu psu ssd hdd memory case air cooling soundcard/headset
and if you would please, your recommendation for this system as well
workstation rig mostly photography, video, image, text, similar to the gaming rig
cpu mb gpu psu ssd hdd memory case air cooling soundcard
no real price range just go the gold standard, hardest hitters in the class
regards
Depends which games you consider competitive but banking on a dual core long term is asking for trouble already with many titles. I won't list specific products and exact links to pricing now because it looks like you're just planning now or getting an idea. The first price is what I would usually recommend; the second is closer to best in class or at least premium.
Gaming: Core i5-4690k ($220) Z97 motherboard ($125 / $200) -- better than lowest end, to support decent overclocking R9 290 / GTX 970 or better ($250-325 / $525) reputable 500W power supply ($60 / $120) SSD if wanted ($60+ for 120 GB / $170 for high-end 250 GB that won't help for gaming) hard drive of enough capacity ($50+) 2 x 4GB DDR3 at say 2133 MHz or higher ($70) -- the rate actually doesn't matter much at all but more if overclocking reasonable case ($50+ / $150) reasonable heatsink for CPU overclocking ($30 / $80) soundcard ($0+ / $150) headset ($30+ / $300)
Workstations depend heavily on the exact software and workflow. For some, 16 GB of RAM is plenty. For others, 64 GB might not be enough. Getting 6 or 8 cores may not be worth the extra hundreds of dollars or not. Fast storage with backups may be more important than compute power. You need to know what you need and what's holding you back now.
EPT
