1x Geforce 680 or 2x GeForce 660 Ti

Generic Dreadhead

Hi All,

I'm looking at getting a new build PC and don't really want to go above the €500 mark by too much.
Just wondering what people think is the best value for money
I'm primarily building the PC for Starcraft 2 HotS and the New (free to play) C&C
Models and prices below.

Asus GeForece GTX 650 Ti 136
Asus GeForece GTX 660 231
Asus GeForece GTX 660 Ti 265
Asus GeForece GTX 670 362
Asus GeForece GTX 680 468

Perfomance Info
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680/performance
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/build-a-starcraft-ii-heart-of-the-swarm-pc-for-less-than-450

Gumbi

7770 is more than enough for HOTS. The game engine is at least 5 years old, and in any case, it's a veeery CPU bound game. I'd get a 7870 XT, cheaper than a single 660ti and better if overclocked. This should keep you ticking over for 1080p gaming for more than a while.

Generic Dreadhead

Cheers for the advice. It should be noted that they have indeed updated the game engine though. I could run Wings of Liberty at pretty much highest graphics, now HotS I have to run on Lowest graphics.
See below:

In the three years since Wings of Liberty Blizzard has also upgraded StarCraft II’s engine, adding “Extreme Physics” that make battles more dynamic and spectacular through the introduction of physics-based death animations, such as those that see marines tossed around like ragdolls by rampaging Ultralisks. Combined with Creep upgrades and other, less noticeable changes, Heart of the Swarm is a much more demanding game when all options are enabled and maxed out.

Serephucus

He wants to play at 2560x1440, so he'll need something quite a bit stronger than a 7770. I'd get a 660 Ti, they're one of the best value cards out at the moment. Just make sure you pair it with a strong CPU.

ShadowHearth

If you do want to go nvidia, then go for 670. 680 is not worth that extra cost.

SC2 did grew a pair since WOL, so a good beefy card would be handy. It's a lovely looking game on highest settings and those new physics are really nice. I am not sure if nvidia benefits a lot more from physX in sc2 over ATI stuff.

Gumbi

Serephucus wrote: »

He wants to play at 2560x1440, so he'll need something quite a bit stronger than a 7770. I'd get a 660 Ti, they're one of the best value cards out at the moment. Just make sure you pair it with a strong CPU.

Oh, I didn't see that. Fair suggestion in that case.

@ OP, AFAIK, the game is better optimised than WoL. I've been getting better frames on it. It has the same minimum specs. I think there's more than a little hyperbole at play here when you say you've gone from absolute max to minimum settings...

Gumbi

ShadowHearth wrote: »

If you do want to go nvidia, then go for 670. 680 is not worth that extra cost.

SC2 did grew a pair since WOL, so a good beefy card would be handy. It's a lovely looking game on highest settings and those new physics are really nice. I am not sure if nvidia benefits a lot more from physX in sc2 over ATI stuff.

It's a vastly CPU bound game. The graphics card spefic settings aren't particularly taxing. I can get some benchmarks when my motherboard is fixed, I'm RMAing it in a few days, so my system is currently out of action.

marco_polo

Pretty sure SC2 used Havok for physics.

Generic Dreadhead

Gumbi wrote: »

Oh, I didn't see that. Fair suggestion in that case.

@ OP, AFAIK, the game is better optimised than WoL. I've been getting better frames on it. It has the same minimum specs. I think there's more than a little hyperbole at play here when you say you've gone from absolute max to minimum settings...

Maybe a litte
Going from Mid-High to Low-Mid would probably be a better assessment.
Plus I believe my PC is just overall worse than it was when WoL was released... Driver issues all over the shop.

For what it's worth, here are the other components I'm considering

Intel 3rd Gen Core i5-3570K CPU (4x 3.40GHz Turbo) processor
Windows 7 Home Premium
Corsair 16GB RAM
Asus Sabertooth Z77 MoBo
NZXT Phantom 410
Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5 inch SATA (for Windows... 1TB HDD for archiving)
Corsair HX750 Professional Series 750W Modular
LiteOn BD-ROM Drive

alex1997123

Any reason for 16gb, 8gb is enough for gaming

Serephucus

Sabertooth is overkill go for an Extreme4/6 (single/SLI) instead.
Go for the 840 Pro, regular 840 isn't great (830 is better)
Looks good otherwise.

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

He wants to play at 2560x1440, so he'll need something quite a bit stronger than a 7770. I'd get a 660 Ti, they're one of the best value cards out at the moment. Just make sure you pair it with a strong CPU.

I don't know if I actually will play at that Reso (just trying to build a PC that will last a few years so trying to future proof a little)
Maybe I'm wrong but would all the units not be teeny tiny at that Reso :pac:

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

Sabertooth is overkill go for an Extreme4/6 (single/SLI) instead.
Go for the 840 Pro, regular 840 isn't great (830 is better)
Looks good otherwise.

Prepare thyself for the most newbie question in existance (sorry but this is my 1st build), but i didn't realise there would be any difference in types of SSDs?
If I am wrong, please recommend one... cause i practically typed in 250Gb SSD in amazon and went for what had good reviews and was cheap enough (I do that a lot).... Correction, that's not "Practically what I did"... It's what i Actually did

Gumbi

Cormac... wrote: »

Maybe a litte
Going from Mid-High to Low-Mid would probably be a better assessment.
Plus I believe my PC is just overall worse than it was when WoL was released... Driver issues all over the shop.

For what it's worth, here are the other components I'm considering

Intel 3rd Gen Core i5-3570K CPU (4x 3.40GHz Turbo) processor
Windows 7 Home Premium
Corsair 16GB RAM
Asus Sabertooth Z77 MoBo
NZXT Phantom 410
Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5 inch SATA (for Windows... 1TB HDD for archiving)
Corsair HX750 Professional Series 750W Modular
LiteOn BD-ROM Drive

Any reason for that mobo? I am not well versed in these, but I do know you can get a capable board for overclocking for less than half the price of the sabertooth.

16GB of RAM is waaay overkill, 8GB is plenty. I recently upgraded to 8GB, and honestly, it was unnecessary. I'm an efficient user, I'm not the kind of guy who has a million tabs open in Chrome while gaming and having half a dozen other programmes running in the background. I don't think I've even gone near 4GB to be honest.

TL; DR 8GB is plenty unless you have a specific reason for it (gaming is not one of them).

Gumbi

750w is likely overkill depending on our GPU setup, too. Grab a nice cooler for your 3570k, too, and overclock it to 4.6ghz. That's where the FPS is in SC2. Huge gains to be had from overclocking the CPU.

Serephucus

Cormac... wrote: »

I don't know if I actually will play at that Reso (just trying to build a PC that will last a few years so trying to future proof a little)
Maybe I'm wrong but would all the units not be teeny tiny at that Reso :pac:

I've got horrible eyesight, and am looking into a 27" 19x10 monitor, so I'm probably the wrong person to answer that.

Cormac... wrote: »

Prepare thyself for the most newbie question in existance (sorry but this is my 1st build), but i didn't realise there would be any difference in types of SSDs?
If I am wrong, please recommend one... cause i practically typed in 250Gb SSD in amazon and went for what had good reviews and was cheap enough (I do that a lot).... Correction, that's not "Practically what I did"... It's what i Actually did

Yup, newbie question, but that's grand. :P Yes, there are differences. Will this (sometimes pretty big) differences (according to reviews) be seen in day-to-day usage? Difficult to say, but there's not much difference in price, so you might as well. You should look for reliability first. Samsung has a good track record with its 830 SSDs, and the 840 Pro comes with (AFAIK) a five year warranty.

Fill this out and post it back here, then we can help you better.

Generic Dreadhead

Gumbi wrote: »

Any reason for that mobo? I am not well versed in these, but I do know you can get a capable board for overclocking for less than half the price of the sabertooth.

16GB of RAM is waaay overkill, 8GB is plenty. I recently upgraded to 8GB, and honestly, it was unnecessary. I'm an efficient user, I'm not the kind of guy who has a million tabs open in Chrome while gaming and having half a dozen other programmes running in the background. I don't think I've even gone near 4GB to be honest.

TL; DR 8GB is plenty unless you have a specific reason for it (gaming is not one of them).

Just trying to future proof a little in respect of the Mobo and Ram. Don't mind paying 1,500 now (not including monitor, keyboard or mouse) if it'll last me 3 years. Ram is cheap so it's only the difference of 50 quid between 8 and 16. I don't mind the 50 extra now, just dont want to be in a position where I am spending like 250-500 a year on upgrades

Serephucus

Spending extra on a motherboard is a really bad way to futureproof something. Socket 1155 has no upgrade path. Socket 1150 will be launching over the Summer, which would be a much better option. What are you currently playing on, as a matter of interest?

Generic Dreadhead

1. What is your budget? [€2,000 including monitor, mouse and keyboard]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming, HD & Blu Ray video playback, Internet] (SC2 HotS, Civ 5, Whatever the new C&C is called, basically RTS and TBS... no shooters, I play these on xbox)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [Need is such a strong word but yes Windows 7 please.. Xp has served me well]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [I can... but I don't want to... want to make a clean break and give the old PC to my GF, going to take the 1TB HDD out of it though and the Surround sound system too] (No idea... just some generic 1TB HDD)

5. Do you need a monitor? [Don't NEED one... but I want one... use an Apple Cinema display in work, and as a result feel cheated when I go home ideally 2560x1440 at a cost of around €300 with HDMI in]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [25"+ etc.]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [No]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Going to get the Razer licensed Starcraft 2 Mouse and Keyboard... because I'm a sucker like that The only other thing I have already is a Dell 5650 Surround Sound system... have no idea if I can reuse this.. but i would love to... really need some advice on this ]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [I don't know anything about this]

8. How can you pay? [Visa Card]

9. When are you purchasing? [in 5 days]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Cork Suburbs]

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

Spending extra on a motherboard is a really bad way to futureproof something. Socket 1155 has no upgrade path. Socket 1150 will be launching over the Summer, which would be a much better option. What are you currently playing on, as a matter of interest?

A Dell 5150 from around 7 years ago. With a Asus GT240, 1TB HDD, 8GB Ram, Windows xp, No idea of MoBo, processor etc (i'm not on it at present sorry)

Gumbi

Cormac... wrote: »

A Dell 5150 from around 7 years ago. With a Asus GT240, 1TB HDD, 8GB Ram, Windows xp, No idea of MoBo, processor etc (i'm not on it at present sorry)

The HDD can definitely be salvaged, the rest, not so much I would think.

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

Spending extra on a motherboard is a really bad way to futureproof something. Socket 1155 has no upgrade path. Socket 1150 will be launching over the Summer, which would be a much better option. What are you currently playing on, as a matter of interest?

I don't know what any of this means. LOUD NOISES!
What would you recommend given the specs i've suggested. Possibly to support 3 Hard Drives and 2 GPUs. The Sabertooth was simply recommended to me, I'm not married to it yet.

Serephucus

Right, let's see if we can't fix this a bit...

The reason I asked about what you're currently running is that socket 1155 - the type of connection the CPU uses to sit in the motherboard - doesn't have anything new coming. That's to say, that in three or four or five years time, if you got a 1155 board now, there wouldn't be anything new to put in it. Socket 1150 on the other hand, that's due for release around June, will have two lines of CPUs for it. One launching with the motherboards, and another later on, probably a year later.

Now, that's not to say that that's the be all and end all. If you get a 3570K now, or something similar, a 4770K or 5770K isn't going to double your framerates, and you could still pop a new GPU in three years down the line if you want.

Sorry, the end point I was trying to make there was that I was trying to see if we could eek a little more out of your current setup to get you by until Haswell (socket 1150) launches, but it's pretty knackered, so I'd say no.

Before I spec you something:

How are you with movies, TV, and music? Do you want to include speakers in that budget? I'm a bit of a sound snob, and I'm generally of the opinion that whoever manufactured those Dell speaker should be shot in the face, so I'll always recommend dedicated sound cards and good speakers to anyone who'll (forgive the pun) listen. Not everyone cares though. You've already said you want a 27" 25x14/16 monitor, and there aren't any real bad options there, so that's not as much of an issue.

Do you want it to be really quiet? Do you want to overclock like crazy? I'm trying to figure out if water cooling is a possibility or not as well.

/headwreck. Hope I haven't overloaded you. I tend to go on a bit...

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

Right, let's see if we can't fix this a bit...

The reason I asked about what you're currently running is that socket 1155 - the type of connection the CPU uses to sit in the motherboard - doesn't have anything new coming. That's to say, that in three or four or five years time, if you got a 1155 board now, there wouldn't be anything new to put in it. Socket 1150 on the other hand, that's due for release around June, will have two lines of CPUs for it. One launching with the motherboards, and another later on, probably a year later.

Now, that's not to say that that's the be all and end all. If you get a 3570K now, or something similar, a 4770K or 5770K isn't going to double your framerates, and you could still pop a new GPU in three years down the line if you want.

Sorry, the end point I was trying to make there was that I was trying to see if we could eek a little more out of your current setup to get you by until Haswell (socket 1150) launches, but it's pretty knackered, so I'd say no.

Before I spec you something:

How are you with movies, TV, and music? Do you want to include speakers in that budget? I'm a bit of a sound snob, and I'm generally of the opinion that whoever manufactured those Dell speaker should be shot in the face, so I'll always recommend dedicated sound cards and good speakers to anyone who'll (forgive the pun) listen. Not everyone cares though. You've already said you want a 27" 25x14/16 monitor, and there aren't any real bad options there, so that's not as much of an issue.

Do you want it to be really quiet? Do you want to overclock like crazy? I'm trying to figure out if water cooling is a possibility or not as well.

/headwreck. Hope I haven't overloaded you. I tend to go on a bit...

No not at all, I really appreciate the advice, thats why I came on here. I'm actually a sound freak too (I play in a band and we do recordings... And I actually thought the 5650 Surround Sound speakers were pretty good... Maybe it's one of those things where I've never used other speakers on the PC so don't know what I'm missing. I got some Eridrol Monitors too that I use for my laptop and Ipad... Maybe I should draft them in, this is them i think http://www.roland.com/products/en/MA-7A/. I would like to get really good sound if it doesen't bannkrupt me.

Monitor wise, the 2560x1440 or Apple Cinema Display equivalents dont seem suitable for my budget (of €300 or so, I'm willing to compromise on this) as i probably won't play games on 2560x1440 as everything would be tiny

I'm don't know enough about computers to over clock any thing. So hence why I chose the above graphics cards. they should be able to run the game on High graphics without overclocking I believe

Gumbi

Overclocking is simple(y) (awesome) . It's easy and safe as long as you just read up a few things beforehand.

Serephucus

I actually haven't used them. I just sort of assumed that Dell branded speakers for that cheap can't be worth much, but of course I could be completely wrong.

If you take the build I specced what's-his-name in the other thread (I fixed the original, so don't take one of the quoted ones, they have two CPU coolers in them. :P) and add this to it, replace the monitor with this (If you want. I know you said you didn't want 25x14 for games, but you can always lower it, etc.) you should be pretty well set.

Generic Dreadhead

Serephucus wrote: »

I actually haven't used them. I just sort of assumed that Dell branded speakers for that cheap can't be worth much, but of course I could be completely wrong.

If you take the build I specced what's-his-name in the other thread (I fixed the original, so don't take one of the quoted ones, they have two CPU coolers in them. :P) and add this to it, replace the monitor with this (If you want. I know you said you didn't want 25x14 for games, but you can always lower it, etc.) you should be pretty well set.

Eeek that is an expensive monitor.
Do I really need i7? Would Intel 3rd Gen Core i5-3570K CPU (4x 3.40GHz Turbo) processor not be better for my type of usage?
Any recommendations on Surround Speakers?

Serephucus

It's true, the 3570K has been the go-to processor for a long time now. I'm thinking though that since you have the budget, a 3770K would be a good investment, given that it's looking very much like when the next generation of consoles hit, games will be developed for PC first, then ported down, and since both the Xbox and PS4 both have eight-core processors, I think we can expect newer games to take advantage of cores a lot more going forward.

As for speakers, I use the Z906s from Logitech. While at lot of people will scoff, when used with a Dolby capable sound card, they actually do a very capable job. I still need to get my hands on a good mic to get the EQ sorted out though.

I was considering these as well before buying the Z906s. Good reviews, but I couldn't find them anywhere.

Gumbi

Cormac... wrote: »

Eeek that is an expensive monitor.
Do I really need i7? Would Intel 3rd Gen Core i5-3570K CPU (4x 3.40GHz Turbo) processor not be better for my type of usage?
Any recommendations on Surround Speakers?

Not really, unless you're doing particular kinds of media work. For gaming the difference is negligible.

Generic Dreadhead

Gumbi wrote: »

Not really, unless you're doing particular kinds of media work. For gaming the difference is negligible.

So this bad boy would do the job and can be over clocked yes?
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Socket+1155/56296/Intel+Core+i5-3570K+Box%2C+LGA1155.article

Gumbi

Cormac... wrote: »

So this bad boy would do the job and can be over clocked yes?
http://www.hardwareversand.de/Socket+1155/56296/Intel+Core+i5-3570K+Box%2C+LGA1155.article

Yes, indeed.