First gaming build - Feedback appreciated

Danger781

Ended up being a little more expensive than I intended but I suppose it's worth it.. But when I factor in a new monitor it's going to hurt a bit more.. I've been looking at something like the Qnix or the leapcat or maybe a BenQ monitor.

Any thoughts / feedback / recommendations appreciated.

Amazon is the only site I built this on.. I'm assuming it will work out cheaper after factoring in delivery. (Free devliery on everything I chose).

Only problem being - That seller will not ship the case to Ireland :mad:

Also - As for the graphics card, I know some sites do offers on it or similar cards which include free games. Any sites doing this at the moment?

Thank yoooou

tuxy

Are you sure you will use all the very expensive features that motherboard has? If not you can get the same performance from a much cheaper one.

750 watt is much more power then that system needs, even a good quality 650 watt PSU would power a system with 2 7950s and you only have 1.

tuxy

Here is an example of a build that will give you the same performance as the one you posted but costs much less(about €200 which will help pay for a decent monitor).
A second GPU can be added to this build also, I assume that's what you were going for because of the parts you selected for your build.

Item|Price
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Window, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€79.02
8GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24|€59.35
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950, 3GB GDDR5, PCI-Express|€280.42
Samsung SSD 840 250GB SATA 6Gb/s|€148.00
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.74
Thermaltake Frio|€44.99
Arctic Cooling Wärmeleitpaste MX-4 Tube|€3.77
ASRock Z77 Extreme4, Sockel 1155, ATX|€125.99
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€205.99
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 650W|€75.72
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1099.98

Danger781

tuxy wrote: »

Are you sure you will use all the very expensive features that motherboard has? If not you can get the same performance from a much cheaper one.

750 watt is much more power then that system needs, even a good quality 650 watt PSU would power a system with 2 7950s and you only have 1.

It does seem a bit expensive I won't deny. I just wanted one with simple overclocking that would last. Not sure if I will overclock but I more than likely will.

Yeah a 650W would work fine with the current build, but what if I was to add further compoenets in the future? e.g. a second graphics card, more ram, another HDD, etc. etc.

Simply put, is 650W future proof?

tuxy wrote: »

Here is an example of a build that will give you the same performance as the one you posted but costs much less(about €200 which will help pay for a decent monitor).
A second GPU can be added to this build also, I assume that's what you were going for because of the parts you selected for your build.

Item|Price
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Window, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€79.02
8GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24|€59.35
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950, 3GB GDDR5, PCI-Express|€280.42
Samsung SSD 840 250GB SATA 6Gb/s|€148.00
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.74
Thermaltake Frio|€44.99
Arctic Cooling Wärmeleitpaste MX-4 Tube|€3.77
ASRock Z77 Extreme4, Sockel 1155, ATX|€125.99
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€205.99
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 650W|€75.72
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1099.98

Not a huge fan of the case but that's a minor detail :P Actually on that note - I'd love a case with orange LED's to match my keyboard and mouse..

Other than that everything looks good.. But would that motherboard support a second graphics card if I was ever looking to add a second? I probably won't but the thought occured to me when I was building it that I might as well invest enough now to have that option in the future..

How easy is overclocking the mobo? In the one I linked above you apparently just click a button and it automatically overclocks it for you to optimal settings.

tuxy

Yep like I already said you can add a second GPU with the motherboard I picked. And I included a 650 watt PSU to allow that. If you were definitely staying with a single card I would go for even less watts, anything around 500watt would still allow to overclock that CPU and GPU and add more hard drives.

Those auto overclocks never give optimal settings.

The new Intel CPUs are very easy to overclock manually in the bios. There are loads of goo guide, just search google.

Have a look here for cases, loads to choose from
Either Midi
http://www.hardwareversand.de/631/Midi.search
Or Full tower
http://www.hardwareversand.de/632/Tower.search

Full tower cases are huge btw, I think I would only go for one if I was installing water cooling with big radiators.

Danger781

tuxy wrote: »

Yep like I already said you can add a second GPU with the motherboard I picked. And I included a 650 watt PSU to allow that. If you were definitely staying with a single card I would go for even less watts, anything around 500watt would still allow to overclock that CPU and GPU and add more hard drives.

Those auto overclocks never give optimal settings.

The new Intel CPUs are very easy to overclock manually in the bios. There are loads of goo guide, just search google.

Have a look here for cases, loads to choose from
Either Midi
http://www.hardwareversand.de/631/Midi.search
Or Full tower
http://www.hardwareversand.de/632/Tower.search

Full tower cases are huge btw, I think I would only go for one if I was installing water cooling with big radiators.

Okay, I'll drop the PSU down a bit so.. I'll have to check the PSU calculator again..

Does the case really matter too much? As in, I assume they're all roughly the same size inside and out? (In terms of midi cases) Is it more about the aesthetics? I know some will have better cable management options and more optimal air flow.

BloodBath

If planning on 2 cards, especially ati ones I'd get a 700w psu minimum. While you might run on less it will be pushing the psu to it's limits. Psu's degrade over time and you don't want to be pushing them to their limits, they lose efficiency and may eventually not be able to provide the power. For normal use the 650w super flower should be fine though but peak power with overclocked cards and processor would be pushing it especially with ati cards.

Saying that if you are for sure going dual gpu I'd go with Nvidia cards. Sli has less issues than crossfire for multi gpu setups and uses less power.

Danger781

BloodBath wrote: »

If planning on 2 cards, especially ati ones I'd get a 700w psu minimum. While you might run on less it will be pushing the psu to it's limits. Psu's degrade over time and you don't want to be pushing them to their limits, they lose efficiency and may eventually not be able to provide the power. For normal use the 650w super flower should be fine though but peak power with overclocked cards and processor would be pushing it especially with ati cards.

Saying that if you are for sure going dual gpu I'd go with Nvidia cards. Sli has less issues than crossfire for multi gpu setups and uses less power.

I'm not sure about dual GPU - It was just a thought that occured to me when putting together the build. It's just more of a what if situation, rather than actually going through with it.. :rolleyes:

With a single GPU and an overclocked CPU the 650W should be perfectly fine I assume. If I went and overclocked the GPU as well would I still be okay or would it be advised to push up to 700W?

Also, not sure if this is important but my setup will involve one 24" - 27" monitor as well a 32" TV hooked up to my PC.

BloodBath

A 450-500w would be plenty for an overclocked single gpu system.

Danger781

Okay after reading up a bit on SLI and Crossfire I think I've had the completely wrong impression of what this does.

I know it essentially meant that two or more cards could work together but I thought this would allow things such as having a dual monitor setup with the game running on one screen, and the map being displayed on the other, for example.

Yet, the guide I read kept mentioning how only one monitor can be active while either Crossfire or SLI are turned on.

What kind of setup am I thinking of? Or am I dreaming?

BloodBath

There's lot's of different setups. Some games, not many, will support features like that, say having the map on a screen and the game on another. Last game I remember having this was company of heros I think.

You don't need multi gpu for multi monitor setups. You can split the game across multiple monitors. Higher end cards can manage 3 normally but the higher res strain of this would be tough work for 1 card. A single large 1440p monitor would be a better choice but again this is tough for 1 card to keep up with at high settings.

I wouldn't go 1440p without sli.

Danger781

BloodBath wrote: »

You don't need multi gpu for multi monitor setups. You can split the game across multiple monitors. Higher end cards can manage 3 normally but the higher res strain of this would be tough work for 1 card. A single large 1440p monitor would be a better choice but again this is tough for 1 card to keep up with at high settings.

I wouldn't go 1440p without sli.

I was just having this exact conversation with a friend of mine. Deciding if it was worthwhile getting dual GPU's with a 1440p screen, or getting two decent monitors with one GPU..

I was saying that a single GPU wouldn't be able to reach the potential of a 1440p monitor.

Danger781

Okay, now I'm divided.

Part of me is tempted to go for the 1440p monitor with just one GPU even if I will more than likely be limited 30 - 40 FPS. Ideally I would like the second GPU but I doubt I can afford that realistically. As far as gaming goes, I'm not an intense gamer. Heck I haven't even been able to play any games at all on my computer for a consderable amount of time now. Point being - It may not be an amazing gaming experience, but it would be amazing compared to what I currently have.

However since 1440p isn't widely implemented yet at the moment (correct me if I'm wrong) part of me is thinking that a 1080p monitor would be more sensible and it would allow me to save a bit of money too. This also leaves me open to the option of hooking up a second 1080p display since connecting a second 1440p seems like overkill in terms of how much screen space you have, and in terms of how much strain your GPU would be under. Although I suppose I could do one 1440p and one 1080p, or something along those lines.

Could I keep my 32" TV hooked up to the computer as well as a 1440p gaming monitor? In terms of movie / series watching I usually go for 720p and I'm guessing that will look fairly blurry on a 1440p. Even 1080p on a 1440p might look a bit weird. Whereas 720p looks fine on my 32". Is that putting too much strain on my GPU?

On a side note - I need a new desk..

MagicIRL

My younger brother has the HAF case and it is a loud bit of kit under full load, and he still has all the stock fans in his machine incl. stock CPU fan.

Danger781

Yeah I may end up changing it. Might go for one with some orange LED's instead just to stick to the colour theme of everything else.

Tea_Bag

Just to comment on the monitor thing, dual screen is excellent, but 2560*1440p is by far the best gaming experience youre going to have. honestly, everyone who tries it loves it. and 1080p movies etc scale perfectly, as its 16:9 aspect ratio. my advice, given the money, would be to get a catleap or equivalent, and a cheap €100 1080p screen as your second.

BloodBath

Agreed, dual monitors are **** for gaming. The central borders are going to ruin most games.

Tea_Bag

yea. second screen for browsing/movies etc is lovely though.

Danger781

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Just to comment on the monitor thing, dual screen is excellent, but 2560*1440p is by far the best gaming experience youre going to have. honestly, everyone who tries it loves it. and 1080p movies etc scale perfectly, as its 16:9 aspect ratio. my advice, given the money, would be to get a catleap or equivalent, and a cheap €100 1080p screen as your second.

Tea_Bag wrote: »

yea. second screen for browsing/movies etc is lovely though.

That is most likely my plan.. I could easily just stick to my current Samsung 32" TV / 19" Monitor as a second monitor if I wanted but might end up investing in a good 1080p monitor instead.. or maybe going for another 1440p

Which leads onto my next question - Realistically, is it necessary to have a second graphics card for a 1440p monitor. I'm looking at the HD7950 or perhaps the Nvidia equivalent.

BloodBath

It's not necessary but you will have to drop settings on games to get decent frame rates if they are reasonably graphically demanding.

Danger781

BloodBath wrote: »

It's not necessary but you will have to drop settings on games to get decent frame rates if they are reasonably graphically demanding.

Okay, in that case it sounds like it may be worth it.. Not much point getting a 1440p monitor if I can't enjoy the eye candy as well as a good frame rate..

Considering the 7950's are ~€280 each, what's your opinion on downgrading slightly? Or am I better off investing in good cards.

If I went with tuxy's build, add a second card, and the 1440p monitor it works out at ~€1650. Bit over what I'd like to spend..

How would one card handle a 1080p with high settings?

marco_polo

Taking tuxy very nice build as a base, this would be one possibility to get dual GPUs into the build for around €50 more, aside from the processor change, slightly bigger PSU, the only other major one is a downgrade to 120GB on the SSD.

Item|Price
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Window, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€79.03
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€79.99
ASRock 970 Extreme4, AM3+, ATX|€81.89
8GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24|€60.73
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€143.16
Thermaltake Frio|€44.94
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.42
2 x MSI N660Ti-2GD5/OC, GeForce GTX 660Ti, 2048MB DDR5|€503.98
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1152.12

Danger781

marco_polo wrote: »

Taking tuxy very nice build as a base, this would be one possibility to get dual GPUs into the build for around €50 more, aside from the processor change, slightly bigger PSU, the only other major one is a downgrade to 120GB on the SSD.

Thanks, looks good

I was considering downgrading the SSD anyway to reduce the cost. I will mainly use it only for the operating system and possibly a couple of games. Only ones that need faster response times like FPS games such CS:GO. So 120GB should be sufficient for my needs.

As for the processor, I think I want to stick to Intel. I've read on many, many ocassions that they handle games better... Unless you can convince me otherwise.

Edit: On the other hand I've also heard that the full potential of AMD 8-core processors can't be utilised quite yet because there's no AMD compatible motherboards with PCIe 3.0 yet.. ?

marco_polo

Danger781 wrote: »

Thanks, looks good

I was considering downgrading the SSD anyway to reduce the cost. I will mainly use it only for the operating system and possibly a couple of games. Only ones that need faster response times like FPS games such CS:GO. So 120GB should be sufficient for my needs.

As for the processor, I think I want to stick to Intel. I've read on many, many ocassions that they handle games better... Unless you can convince me otherwise.

Its a question of good enough rather than better, and if there are budget constraints and you intend playing at 1440p, the GPU is where you you want to be biasing the cash towards.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-scaling-bottleneck,3471.html

Danger781

Also, there's the issue that since most console games are ported to PC - Now that the two next gen consoles will have 8 cores - Surely game programmers will be progressing more towards 8 cores rather than 4?

Edit: Also with the upcoming Haswell processors, won't be 1155 socket be obsolete?

marco_polo

Danger781 wrote: »

Also, there's the issue that since most console games are ported to PC - Now that the two next gen consoles will have 8 cores - Surely game programmers will be progressing more towards 8 cores rather than 4?

Edit: Also with the upcoming Haswell processors, won't be 1155 socket be obsolete?

The socket will be EOL, but in terms of performance an overclocked i5-3570K certainly wouldn't be obsolete for a very long time.

The FX series do fine in any recent highly multithreaded games.

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/670-metro-last-light-performance/page6.html

Performance is lesser in older games and games that are less well multithreaded support and are more sensitive to single core performance (Like Starcraft 2, Skyrim, RTS games for example ).

All the same I think it is definitely an option worth considering if you go down the 1440p SLI route and need to keep the cost down.

Danger781

marco_polo wrote: »

The socket will be EOL, but in terms of performance an overclocked i5-3570K certainly wouldn't be obsolete for a very long time.

The FX series do fine in any recent highly multithreaded games, performance only drops its only in certain games that have more limited multithreading support and are more sensitive to single core IPC (Starcraft 2, Skyrim for example ).

All the same I think it is definitely an option worth considering if you go down the 1440p SLI route and need to keep the cost down.

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/642-crysis-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/670-metro-last-light-performance/page6.html

After doing more research online, I'm definitely looking at that route now. Every comparison I'm seeing is that newer games favour the extra cores of AMD, and as I said with the upcoming consoles sporting 8 cores as well, games will likely head that direction across platforms. Older games will be a little sluggish, but I doubt it will even be noticable.

Besides, I have the PS3 for older games :pac:

Edit: With a second GPU I doubt the drop will affect me at all

marco_polo

The best thing to do really is to have a good think about the games you will be mostly playing, research the pros and cons of the various build option for those games, and decide from there which one would give you the best performance more often.

Danger781

marco_polo wrote: »

The best thing to do really is to have a good think about the games you will be mostly playing, research the pros and cons of the various build option for those games, and decide from there which one would give you the best performance more often.

There's no games in particular I will play more often than any others. Perhaps some FPS like CSS or CS:GO will be fairly regular. Or some RTS games with friends.

Other than that, I buy random games that are on sale.

marco_polo

Few more benchmarks here of a i7 @4.8GHz vs FX 8350 @4.8GHz + 2 X 7970s. It all at 1080p so its a pretty good CPU test, and while it is soundly beaten in all benchmarks, it is soundly beaten while maintaining very playable frame rates in pretty well everything.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-fx-8350-vs-intel-core-i7-3770k--4.8ghz--multi-gpu-gaming-performance/17494-1.html

If you need a fairly good 8320 sample to get up to that range, but with decent motherboard and cooler like the Extreme4 and Frio, you should be able to get at least 4.5GHz with practically any chip, and a good bit beyond with the best ones.

Danger781

marco_polo wrote: »

Few more benchmarks here of a i7 @4.8GHz vs FX 8350 @4.8GHz + 2 X 7970s. It all at 1080p so its a pretty good CPU test, and while it is soundly beaten in all benchmarks, it is soundly beaten while maintaining very playable frame rates in pretty well everything.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-fx-8350-vs-intel-core-i7-3770k--4.8ghz--multi-gpu-gaming-performance/17494-1.html

If you need a fairly good 8320 sample to get up to that range, but with decent motherboard and cooler like the Extreme4 and Frio, you should be able to get at least 4.5GHz with practically any chip, and a good bit beyond with the best ones.

Comparing it to a high end i7 seems a bit biased. What I'd like to see is the 8320 against a similar priced intel. Most reviews will do it against an intel i5. I doubt the intel would match it.

Yeah it does perform at more than more playable rates at 1080. However, I'd be concerned at how it does 1440.

Either way, I'm quite happy with AMD now.

Danger781

What's the difference between the 660 and 660Ti? How come there's so much of a price difference..

£235 vs £160 on Amazon..:eek:

marco_polo

Danger781 wrote: »

Comparing it to a high end i7 seems a bit biased. What I'd like to see is the 8320 against a similar priced intel. Most reviews will do it against an intel i5. I doubt the intel would match it.

Yeah it does perform at more than more playable rates at 1080. However, I'd be concerned at how it does 1440.

Either way, I'm quite happy with AMD now.

What is useful about tests like the above is that because they are all done at maximal quality settings, the only way to make the test more demanding is to increase the resolution, which puts a much greater load on the GPU but relatively little on the CPU. So it serves a nice baseline for judging CPU performance at maximal quality setting even at higher resolutions.

IMO they are more useful than benchmarks on low quality, low resolution settings because they leave two variable unaccounted for resolution and quality settings (Some of which have a greater impact on the CPU, some on the GPU depending on the engine and the setting).

EDIT: You could pretty much directly replace the i7 with the i5 in the link above, as clock for clock they perform almost identically in almost every gaming benchmark. Hyperthreading has little benefit in games.

Danger781 wrote: »

What's the difference between the 660 and 660Ti? How come there's so much of a price difference..

£235 vs £160 on Amazon..:eek:

Despite a seemingly innocuous two letters the GTX 660 is in the same GPU class as a HD7850/7870 (Probably somewhere in the middle of the two with them all at stock speeds), whereas the GTX 660Ti is in the same GPU class as the HD7950.

BloodBath

The 7870xt is more in line with a 660ti.

A 7950 is more line with the 670gtx.

What is the phase power delivery like on that Extreme 4 board. I wouldn't go for anything less than 8+2 for an 8320 when overclocking. Those chips are power hungry.

marco_polo

BloodBath wrote: »

The 7870xt is more in line with a 660ti.

A 7950 is more line with the 670gtx.

What is the phase power delivery like on that Extreme 4 board. I wouldn't go for anything less than 8+2 for an 8320 when overclocking. Those chips are power hungry.

It's just a 4 + 1, although the extreme 4 is about the only such board I would use with a Fx 8320. I do accept your point about 8 + 2, but a good quality 4+1 arrangement such as on the extreme4 ought to be enough for reasonable overclocking results. One of the reasons I picked it is that I was reading the Gigabytes owners thread on overclock.net last week, and saw a number of complaints about the latest rev 3.0 version of the Gigabyte 970 UD3, specificaly in relation to vrms warping the board and throttling issues which surprised me.Although I don't necessarily want to give too much weight into a handful of posts on an internet forum, it has put some doubts in my mind about the UD3, which on the face of it should be a better choice at the same price.

Of course if you are looking at the very highest overclocks of 4.8+, and pumping the maximum 1.55v into the chip a board like the extreme4 is probably not the board for the job, but say something in the region of 4.5 should be attainable on voltages around the 1.45v mark, and for something like thatI would be very comfortable using the extreme4.

Even in the the absolute worse case scenarios, practically any FX8320 should at least able to hit the turbo speed of the FX8350 of 4.2 GHz with still reasonable voltages, and a 20% increase of 700MHz wouldn't be a terrible result for a €140 CPU.

There is a pretty comprehensive vrm database here, and there doesn't look to be any reason to be two concerned about the extreme4.

http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database

Danger781

marco_polo wrote: »

Taking tuxy very nice build as a base, this would be one possibility to get dual GPUs into the build for around €50 more, aside from the processor change, slightly bigger PSU, the only other major one is a downgrade to 120GB on the SSD.

Item|Price
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Window, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€79.03
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€79.99
ASRock 970 Extreme4, AM3+, ATX|€81.89
8GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24|€60.73
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€143.16
Thermaltake Frio|€44.94
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.42
2 x MSI N660Ti-2GD5/OC, GeForce GTX 660Ti, 2048MB DDR5|€503.98
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1152.12

Since it's almost impossible to find a case with Orange LED's I will probably end up going with the HAF912. Doesn't matter if its matching I guess.

Regarding the PSU, is there a reason you chose that specific one? I've seen Super Flower being mentioned here a couple of times. How does this compare? Considering it's almost €17 cheaper..

I changed the RAM to this set as the set you linked was out of stock.

As for the mobo, the Gigabyte GA-970-UD3 is similaraly priced and is 8+2. It's also €3 cheaper. Any reason the ASRock is better? Alternatively, the next step up would be the Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 which will apparently allow me to run SLI at x16/x16 - Would it be worth the extra €15 or so? I doubt I will find a reasonably priced PCIe 3.0 board?

Graphics card - Thoughts on spending the same amount on a single GPU? How about the HD7950 vs 660ti?

BloodBath

Fair enough Marco. I guess it depends on whether the cooling can get it that high as well. I don't have experience overclocking those chips so I don't know. The GA-970-UD3 doesn't have sli support though.

You would have to go with the 990x. It's worth the extra €10 imo.

As with the possible issues with vrm warping I would say those big heatsinks can potentially store a lot of heat. If you don't have good airflow to remove this heat it could cause that issue maybe. I still think it's unlikely. I've baked a graphics card in the oven before for 10 minutes at 200c and it didn't warp. I know a mainboard is a lot bigger with more weight on it but they are designed to take a lot of heat. Either way it's a non issue with good airflow.

The 7950 is the better card but Amd cards still have issues in crossfire. It won't work at all in some games and other's the frame latency is really high. I'd stick with Nvidia cards for multi gpu setups.

That cheap super flower is crap btw. It would never output 700w and doesn't have the connections for 2 cards.

Danger781

BloodBath wrote: »

Fair enough Marco. I guess it depends on whether the cooling can get it that high as well. I don't have experience overclocking those chips so I don't know. The GA-970-UD3 doesn't have sli support though.

You would have to go with the 990x. It's worth the extra €10 imo.

As with the possible issues with vrm warping I would say those big heatsinks can potentially store a lot of heat. If you don't have good airflow to remove this heat it could cause that issue maybe. I still think it's unlikely. I've baked a graphics card in the oven before for 10 minutes at 200c and it didn't warp. I know a mainboard is a lot bigger with more weight on it but they are designed to take a lot of heat. Either way it's a non issue with good airflow.

The 7950 is the better card but Amd cards still have issues in crossfire. It won't work at all in some games and other's the frame latency is really high. I'd stick with Nvidia cards for multi gpu setups.

That cheap super flower is crap btw. It would never output 700w and doesn't have the connections for 2 cards.

I think the 990X does look like the better board, for a small price increase. I will more than likely go for that one.

Funnily enough, after a bit of googling most people seem to be recommending the 7950 dual GPU setup over the 660ti. Multiple times I've read that the 7950 is overclocked extremely easily, and the 384 bit bus is a better choice over the 192 bit bus of the 660ti. Maybe I will have to do some more investigating.

BloodBath

That's because they will output higher frames but the latency is so high in some games that it's still going to feel laggy. Frame latency testing is pretty new. Most people don't know about it. They are basing their opinions on raw frame rates.

The 7950 I'd recommend to anyone over a 660ti, 670gtx, 7970 or 680gtx anyday but not for crossfire,.

Danger781

Item|Price
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Window, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€79.03
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9|€59.13
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€143.16
Thermaltake Frio|€44.94
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.42
Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3, AMD 990X, AM3+, ATX|€93.02
2 x MSI Radeon HD R7950 3GD5/OC BE, 3072MB DDR5, PCI-Express|€564.86
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€79.99
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1222.53

So I've gone a little bit higher than the build posted by marco..

Ended up putting in two 7950's but I might end up changing it back to two 660ti

Then, throw in this monitor for €250.

Happy enough for €1500 :rolleyes:

BloodBath

Well they are the better cards. Amd are working on reducing frame latency in crossfire at the moment anyway. It should be improved with driver updates.

marco_polo

BloodBath wrote: »

Fair enough Marco. I guess it depends on whether the cooling can get it that high as well. I don't have experience overclocking those chips so I don't know. The GA-970-UD3 doesn't have sli support though.

You would have to go with the 990x. It's worth the extra €10 imo.

As with the possible issues with vrm warping I would say those big heatsinks can potentially store a lot of heat. If you don't have good airflow to remove this heat it could cause that issue maybe. I still think it's unlikely. I've baked a graphics card in the oven before for 10 minutes at 200c and it didn't warp. I know a mainboard is a lot bigger with more weight on it but they are designed to take a lot of heat. Either way it's a non issue with good airflow.

The 7950 is the better card but Amd cards still have issues in crossfire. It won't work at all in some games and other's the frame latency is really high. I'd stick with Nvidia cards for multi gpu setups.

That cheap super flower is crap btw. It would never output 700w and doesn't have the connections for 2 cards.

Knew I left something else out, my other main reason was that the Extreme4 is the cheapest board (and only 970 board AFAIK) with sli support. I think a mid budget board with a FX 8320 is a decent way to get a free FX 8350 at the very least.

My philosophy in general is that if you were to pair say an FX8350 and a really good 110-120 euro+ board for absolute maximum overclock potential, why not just get a z77 pro + i5-3570K anyway when its about the same price (Although in this specific case the SLI requirement would need a better board than the pro3 for an intel build as well)

Danger781 wrote: »

Item|Price
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Window, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€79.03
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9|€59.13
AMD FX-8320 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€143.16
Thermaltake Frio|€44.94
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€81.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€57.42
Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3, AMD 990X, AM3+, ATX|€93.02
2 x MSI Radeon HD R7950 3GD5/OC BE, 3072MB DDR5, PCI-Express|€564.86
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€79.99
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1222.53

So I've gone a little bit higher than the build posted by marco..

Ended up putting in two 7950's but I might end up changing it back to two 660ti

Then, throw in this monitor for €250.

Happy enough for €1500 :rolleyes:

Looks good, no harm to go with the HD7950 I guess, AMD are due to roll out the latency fix drivers in one of the June/July anyway, so even if they don't perform perfectly you won;t have to wait too long and alot of the major recent releases have temporary CAP profile fixes as well.

Danger781

Okay now that I have the build done - What else am I going to need in terms of tools, pieces, etc.

tuxy

Danger781 wrote: »

Okay now that I have the build done - What else am I going to need in terms of tools, pieces, etc.

A phillips screwdriver

Danger781

Sorry to resurrect a slightly old thread.. I have purchased most of my parts while they're on offer on different sites.

All I need is a PSU, Mobo, and Graphics card(s).

Anyway, I'm looking at purchasing the Never Settle Bundle for the HD7970 as a single card solution. Will cost me £328 from Dabs UK for the Vapor-X. Do you think I'll get a better deal than that on any other card?

In terms of bang for buck am I better off in crossfire?

Am I better off getting one of the new Nvidia cards instead? How about waiting for the 8000 series?

Any thoughts at all appreciated :-)

BloodBath

If going dual cards I'd go with 2 x 660gtx which would be around the same price as the 7970. Great price/performance ratio and a pair of them will give you around 780gtx performance using around the same power.

If going single card then that's a decent price for a vapor-x with the games bundle.

Danger781

BloodBath wrote: »

If going dual cards I'd go with 2 x 660gtx which would be around the same price as the 7970. Great price/performance ratio and a pair of them will give you around 780gtx performance using around the same power.

If going single card then that's a decent price for a vapor-x with the games bundle.

I don't mind spending more than the price of a 7970 if it is worth the performance gain. I'm just debating the advantages of crossfire / sli vs. A single GPU setup for 1440p while maintaining a good fps.

Dual 7950 seems fairly future proof, to an extent obviously. Albeit very pricy.

BloodBath

Crossfire has bad latency problems especially at 1440p. Amd are working on improving it with drivers but afaik it's still bad.