When using this resource, please read the opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly.
On August 11 2015 05:58 Blazinghand wrote: . GTX 970, given your price and brand choice, will be what you want.
If your budget is more like $200, a GTX 960 probably is what you want.
.
Thank you so much. We have a huge mall that has around 40 computer stores all together so that's convenient. Now what confuses the heck out of me is how there are 10 different versions of one card, like the GTX 960. Which one do i go for?
Also would the overheating issue be solved with the new video card's fans or is that wishful thinking.
Also some random reports on the same thing in various forums when googling for L3 cache StarCraft 2. Perhaps this isn't the case for modern CPU's though, I'm not sure if the cache bandwidth has gotten to a point where it's bottlenecked by other things where as before it could have done more. Those benchmarks on the page before this surely doesn't seem to indicate that the i7 outperforms the i5 so..
Seems like a fair point for some CPU's - The benches i saw though seemed to indicate little to no difference between quad core i5 and quad core i7 (of ivy bridge, haswell and skylake) so their 6MB vs 8MB L3 doesn't seem to matter there. Also note for i3 vs i5 difference, the i5 actually runs faster due to having turbo boost - a bit less than 10% though so not huge
for the others comparing 1156 i5's vs 1366 i7, RAM is actually a factor so it's hard to compare those directly. One of the benches shows an 1156 i5 against 1156 i7 and the performance is the same when you correct for small clock speed difference. It's very likely that cache performance/capacity makes some performance difference to sc2, but hard to show exactly where that's the case - i'm just pretty confident saying that it doesn't seem to affect quad core i5 vs quad core i7 in recent gens (ivy, haswell, skylake)
---------------------
Now what confuses the heck out of me is how there are 10 different versions of one card, like the GTX 960. Which one do i go for?
Also would the overheating issue be solved with the new video card's fans or is that wishful thinking.
There are a lot of different brands. They have different warranties and such which you can look up online, some are better than others in what they offer and how good service they give if you have a problem. There are different coolers (usually gigabyte or asus etc will have a couple of different ones each, many names out there) that perform a bit differently but mostly similar, they might have different features and fan speed ranges. For example one might turn off fans entirely when the GPU is cool (many 960's do, but not all) and another might be quite quiet, but not as effective as cooling as some other models.
There are two different styles of coolers, one of them looks like this: they suck air in with a lot of force and expel it out of the back of the case, they are less good at cooling and often noisier but they rely less on case airflow which is good when you have bad airflow or when you have multiple high power graphics cards and wouldn't be able to manage the heat being recycled into the case.
the other style has often multiple fans on an open heatsink, most of the more expensive cards choose that option and it's overall better when you have only one graphics card but it does need better airflow to function properly (or it'll just sit in its own waste heat until it gets too hot and has to use crazy fan RPM's and throttle)
overheating could be caused by a lot of stuff, mainly if your case airflow was very bad in the first place, anything will get hot. Maybe that particular GPU is just really old and has lots of dust stuck in it.
On August 11 2015 05:58 Blazinghand wrote: . GTX 970, given your price and brand choice, will be what you want.
If your budget is more like $200, a GTX 960 probably is what you want.
.
Thank you so much. We have a huge mall that has around 40 computer stores all together so that's convenient. Now what confuses the heck out of me is how there are 10 different versions of one card, like the GTX 960. Which one do i go for?
Also would the overheating issue be solved with the new video card's fans or is that wishful thinking.
Depends on a lot of factors. I live in a cold climate and my case has good airflow, so I don't run into too many overheating issues. If you have bad airflow in your case, it's going to be hard to keep a card cool unless it's a "reference" card which has an enclosure that shoves air out the back of your case. Also, Nvidia Gfx cards produce less heat and draw less power than their AMD/Ati equivalents.
I've always found that MSI makes good cards and their cooler ("twin frozr") does a good job of keeping even my very hot R9 280x cool. My friends have had good luck with EVGA, who has solid build quality but also super solid customer support, at least in the US. If you have issues with your card, EVGA is great.
A non reference card, with a custom cooler, is best for keeping your card cool. They usually look like this:
The fans cause airflow across the heat sink on the front of the card, but rely on your case's airflow to expel the hot air from your case. If your case fan setup alone doesn't do a good job of bringing in new air and expelling hot air, then these will not be able to do their job well.
A reference card, with a standardized enclosed cooler, is best if you have bad airflow. It will take air in one end of it, and expel it out the back of your case, which will work regardless of airflow concerns. These typically work worse for keeping the card cool but in bad airflow conditions are better. They look like this:
You can see the enclosure. This reference card is able to take in air from inside your case, send it across the heatsink, and shove it out the back of your case. The air is routed that way thanks to the enclosure surrounding it. This means even if your case has not-great airflow, it will at least work. Note it only has a single fan, so you'll have one loudish fan instead of two fans, so it's not as good. Still, this may be the way to go for you. Also with the standardized reference setup these are often cheaper.
On August 11 2015 06:23 darkness wrote: I don't know how good this benchmark is, so take it with a pinch of salt
It's one of the best, actually. You see the bench run right on screen and they have great way of displaying performance. Usually easiest to see at the FPS display on bottom right.
Still few of the classically CPU bound games tested, though. RAM is also not great - ~2666c15, but they might be using 1600c9 for the other systems. If i bought today, i think i'd get something like ~3200c16 as it's only ~£65/8GB.
Keep in mind that this is when GPU bottlenecks are more or less removed; for people at or below a 970/390 tier the performance of those CPUs are still going to be similar
Thank you very much Blazing Hand and Cyro. Final Question - how much should i worry about GB size of Graphic Card .You guys have been a lot of help - can't wait for the weekend to purchase my GFX CArd
On August 11 2015 06:49 Kupon3ss wrote: Keep in mind that this is when GPU bottlenecks are more or less removed; for people at or below a 970/390 tier the performance of those CPUs are still going to be similar
If you're shooting for graphical settings on games that are at least moderately GPU heavy and you have a lower end GPU, you're much more likely to be GPU bound.
You can easily be CPU bound with weaker GPU's than a 970 or 390 if you're playing CPU heavy games or going for FPS over graphics - yea, it might not make a difference for you at all - but it also might be really important to you with the same hardware and games, just depending on the person.
These GPU's are still very fast - faster than a stock original titan. If you said "a titan isn't good enough to show a 25% improvement in CPU performance" then it wouldn't be true 2 and a half years ago and it's still not really true now, the only difference is that if you have a weaker GPU and still want to raise settings, you'll be lower FPS in more modern games which means you won't encounter the CPU limits as easily unless you lower settings again to get your FPS back.
On August 11 2015 06:51 MarwanBaki wrote: Thank you very much Blazing Hand and Cyro. Final Question - how much should i worry about GB size of Graphic Card .You guys have been a lot of help - can't wait for the weekend to purchase my GFX CArd
More VRAM is good, 2GB isn't a huge amount - but it's usually uneconomical to buy the same card with VRAM doubled up when it's available (like a 4GB 960) because adding VRAM doesn't improve the performance at all, it just allows you to turn up some settings more. Most of the time, the VRAM on the card is fairly suitable for the performance level and it costs too much to increase it to be worth it - better to spend money on another card which would give more FPS (and probably naturally have more VRAM as well) like a 970 (which can effectively use 3.5GB.. long story)
On August 11 2015 06:51 MarwanBaki wrote: Thank you very much Blazing Hand and Cyro. Final Question - how much should i worry about GB size of Graphic Card .You guys have been a lot of help - can't wait for the weekend to purchase my GFX CArd
The amount of VRAM on the GTX 970, with is 3.5gb, is easily appropriate for your needs. If you end up going for a GTX 960, It will have 2gb of VRAM, but "amount of VRAM" isn't the main factor for how effective your graphics card is. A GTX 960, for example, should still be able to run CoD at max settings on a 1080p60hz monitor, despite having "half" the VRAM of a GTX 970.
You're best off looking at benchmarks for the graphics card and making your decision based on that and the price.
Edit: With a price range of 350 and a preference for Nvidia cards, you're best off going for a GTX 970. It's a great card in that price range and will do what needs to be done.
with phantom pain around the corner, i really want to get it for pc if possible and not on my ps4.
i have a i7 920 and hd 7870. i can't play arhkam knight in the lowest setting possible. it freezes up a lot when moving around, 60fps when not moving. (at lowest setting). i would imagine getting a gtx 970 on my current mobo wont help much.
long question short; skylake worth it within the next 3 month or get a 4970k when price drops? my budget is around 1000 with few hundred bucks more for skylake. just wondering if spending a few hundred bucks on skylake would be better long term. i'd like my next system last me as much as i7 920 i got on release.
Nobody can play Arkham Knight i mean literally, it was taken off store shelves and steam (full recall) because it was too buggy and broken performance-wise on any hardware setup.
4790k prices won't drop much for new parts (mostly retailers trying to clear stock) and even if it did, buying new you'd probably want a 6600k or 6700k.
it was for a long while but ran into some instability issue. set it back to stock for trouble shooting and havnt changed it since then, ~ 1.5 years ago.
i just want to play newer games with all the settings on like MSAA and whatnot. currently, i turn all of them off
Stock speed on a 920 can be very far from potential speed. Depending on the CPU setting and your luck with CPU, they could run around 3.4 - 4.2ghz. That's about ~10-40% faster than stock speed + turbo boosts, so quite significant when considering a CPU upgrade and how fast a new CPU would be relative to yours etc
freezing on arkham knight will happen to everyone, turning up settings is mostly about GPU. You can do a lot with way less than $1k - though on some games, 920 especially at stock is far inferior to a current gen CPU
so, gtx 970 would be worth it with a pcie2.0 slot and oc'ed 920?
highest stable i got was 3.2ghz, ran into problems at 3.4ghz.
for example if i can get gtx 970 and play phatom pain on high settings, i'll be content with that. i can put that gtx 970 on a new computer in the future. i just thought it would greatly throttled with my current set up.
highest stable i got was 3.2ghz, ran into problems at 3.4ghz.
How was you OCing? Well, they're actually pretty complex compared to a few of the newer CPU gens so user error is more likely to be problem than the CPU itself not being able to do higher. Cooling matters too and the motherboard used was at least a little relevant
pcie2.0 slot
not sure why so many people think it's relevant for these GPU's, pci-e 2.0 x8 shows basically 0 performance change from 3.0 x16 (and 2.0 x16 is twice as fast as 2.0 x8)
as for the OC maybe im not remembering correctly, its been awhile. i messed around with a lot of oc'ing when i first got the system but i didnt mess around with it for long.
i'm going to read up on some i7 920 + gtx 970 reviews and go from there. thanks for your input.
i was just in shock of how arhkam knight ran on my computer and was devastated by the prospect of how phantom pain might run. good to hear the game was the problem.
edit: doesnt look like gtx 970 dropped in price much since its release. i've always wanted a nvidia card, been using ati since 9800xt as my first computer build. was really torn between r9 290, r9 390, and gtx 970.
ordered msi gtx 970. feels weird getting a 1 yr old card but pascal so far away.
should i get r9 390? i dont plan on getting a new monitor, i've been wanting to tryout the 3d vision ever since i got my monitor a year ago, it was on sale and i just wanted a 144hz monitor above all else. persuade me if i made a wrong choice, i'll cancel my amazon order :3
On August 11 2015 07:09 jinorazi wrote: with phantom pain around the corner, i really want to get it for pc if possible and not on my ps4.
i have a i7 920 and hd 7870. i can't play arhkam knight in the lowest setting possible. it freezes up a lot when moving around, 60fps when not moving. (at lowest setting). i would imagine getting a gtx 970 on my current mobo wont help much.
long question short; skylake worth it within the next 3 month or get a 4970k when price drops? my budget is around 1000 with few hundred bucks more for skylake. just wondering if spending a few hundred bucks on skylake would be better long term. i'd like my next system last me as much as i7 920 i got on release.
I have a friend who has GTX 970 and some AMD CPU which is crap compared to my i7-5820K and he says he can run Arkham Knight fine. I don't believe him that it's completely fine because of that AMD CPU but I have no stuttering in Arkham Knight. It just forced me to upgrade from 8 GB RAM to 16 GB. The game is poorly optimised though and the reason it runs ok on my PC is because it's better than average computers at home.
Cyro you're very lucky if you can get 3200 speed ram at that price, after 2400 around here it ramps heavily up in price at the 2x8 kits. I settled for 2133cl15 because the 2400cl16 weren't in stock, it'll cost me an FPS or two here and there but I'm not too concerned. I'm pretty sure a 6700k with gtx980 will run things just fine.
Actually most moderately priced 2400+ in the store I buy from was out of stock, not too weird as I'm sure there's so many buying DDR4 atm with Skylake being out.
The 16gb of 2133 ran for $175. But it's just RAM it doesn't do too terribly much, you're like the first person I've seen that places heavy concern over speed on these. However next time I buy something it might just be a 32gb kit of quicker memory once the prices go down, I'm guessing as demand rises the prices will go down and closer match DDR3 eventually.
I'll probably want to get an M.2 SSD(with NVME) at some point as well.
once the prices go down, I'm guessing as demand rises the prices will go down and closer match DDR3 eventually
It already pretty much did here
RAM isn't hugely important, it just does make a difference in many games that run poorly and are not GPU limited, especially if you make a huge change to RAM performance. Often as much as adding 100-400mhz to the CPU core clock, depending on the application/game
The 16gb of 2133 ran for $175
That's not a very abnormal price in GBP/Euro. A little high, maybe. It's very common for UK and Europe to pay 1.5x more for the same hardware than US, especially if you consider americans not paying taxes on online purchases
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/images/b3193.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yfWQCZ3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://s15.postimg.org/xuh1pbgrf/new.png)
i mean literally, it was taken off store shelves and steam (full recall) because it was too buggy and broken performance-wise on any hardware setup.
