Upgrade of current rig: €500

OmegaRed

1. What is your budget? [€500]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming: Far Cry 3/4, Battlefield 3/4, BioShock Infinite, Dragon Age Inquisition. Looking to run everything at a minimum 60FPS

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?

Current Rig looks like this:

- Case: Antec Nine Hundred, ATX
- PSU: Corsair TX750W 750 Watt
- MoBo: MSI P67A-GD55 (B3), Intel P67, ATX, DDR3
- CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155
- Cooler: Corsair A70
- GPU: Club 3D Radeon HD 7970 royalQueen, 3GB GDDR5
- RAM: 8GB-Kit Corsair DDR3 PC1600 C9 Classic
- HDD 1: Crucial M4 128GB SSD
- HDD 2: Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB

5. Do you need a monitor? No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? 2560x1440, not upgrading anytime soon

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? No, everything.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? All. I have bought from HWV before and would like to buy from there again.

9. When are you purchasing? In 30 days time

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Dub city centre but should be ok to build on my own

So I am mainly looking to upgrade my graphics card as I have overclocked my current card to the point where I can’t get any more juice out of it. I would like to be able to use 90% of my existing parts but by the looks of the 290’s and 290x’s, they are all PCI express 3.0 and my board, while still a great board, is only PCIe 2.0. Change the board is obviously a pretty big deal but I am hoping I can keep the CPU and RAM that I currently have. I was thinking of this board: http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/DDR3/79666/Sale%3A+MSI+Z68A-GD55+%28G3%29%2C+Intel+Z68%2C+ATX%2C+DDR3.article

Also looking for recommendations on a new graphics card.

Ideally I wouldn't like to spend more than 500 on both. If I need additional parts, I’ll have to re think the budget. I probably won’t be ordering till mid to end of September, so if I am better off hold off for awhile due to a significant price drop or new cards coming up, please let me know.

Thanks for any advise you can provide.

TheBandicoot

I'm not sure you need to really worry about that PCI 3.0 thing. From what I can tell it is only going to make a performance difference in the region of 1%, if even that.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

OmegaRed

TheBandicoot wrote: »

I'm not sure you need to really worry about that PCI 3.0 thing. From what I can tell it is only going to make a performance difference in the region of 1%, if even that.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

woop! So its just the card I need to worry about the... brilliant!

TheBandicoot

Maybe consider http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/4096+MB/167684/Sapphire+Vapor-X+Radeon+R9+290X+Tri-X+mit+MANTLE+und+Gaming+Evolved+Client%2C+4GB+GDDR5%2C+2x+DVI%2C+HDMI%2CDisplayPort%2C+full+retail.article for the card, I know it is overbudget, but from what I have read it will respond very well to overclocking. Your 7970 is still a very decent card, so if you were to upgrade you should jump to the top of the current tier with a model that you can OC into the future.

Note that it is fairly long, and apparently requires 2x8pin PCIe power.

Ninjah Tigah

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Maybe consider <Where the URL used to be :P> for the card, I know it is overbudget, but from what I have it will respond very well to overclocking. Your 7970 is still a very decent card, so if you were to upgrade you should jump to the top of the current tier with a model that you can OC into the future.

Note that it is fairly long, and apparently requires 2x8pin PCIe power.

The Radeon R9 290X Tri-X is a card that most people would do best to stay away from, the RMA rate on that card is something extraordinary.

For references look at the Reviews on the NewEgg page Can't post URL's -

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202103

TheBandicoot

To be honest, a lot of those problems might be caused by people using inadequate PSUs. They recommend at least a 750W model, and my research into buying a similar card led me to believe you will have trouble if you don't have a 12v rail that can supply at least 30A.

Edit: also, that Newegg card is not the one I linked- I linked a 290x, that's a 290.

Ninjah Tigah

TheBandicoot wrote: »

To be honest, a lot of those problems might be caused by people using inadequate PSUs. They recommend at least a 750W model, and my research into buying a similar card led me to believe you will have trouble if you don't have a 12v rail that can supply at least 30A.

Oh, I know that's an issue but the chances are, if you're capable of affording a decent power-supply and with the high-percentage of people saying it, chances are that not all of them have a skimpy power-supply.

Also, considering that many people RMA on the first one they receive, then get a new one and it works fine, I doubt it's the power-supply.

Personally, I would go for:

hardwareversand.de/en/4096+MB/127873/EVGA+GeForce+GTX+770+Superclocked+ACX+Cooler%2C+4GB+GDDR5%2C+2x+DVI%2C+HDMI%2C+DisplayPort.article

Not as powerful as the 290 but a lot cheaper, very very reliable and will run most games on High.

Edit: Ah, sorry, didn't see that. ^^

TerrorFirmer

A GTX770 is a pointless upgrade from a 7970.

He needs to look at R9 290 minimum really for a decent upgrade. The non-x r9 290 is incredibly good value for the money.

Ninjah Tigah

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

A GTX770 is a pointless upgrade from a 7970.

He needs to look at R9 290 minimum really for a decent upgrade. The non-x r9 290 is incredibly good value for the money.

overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-219-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1750

overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-341-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

Also, the version I was suggesting of the 770 was the 4Gig edition of the above link. For the same price as the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC.

Don't see how upgrading from a 7970 to the above is pointless.

TheBandicoot

Ninjah Tigah wrote: »

For the same price as the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X OC.

But the R9 290(either of them) have a better benchmark score, so why would you get the 770 for the same price?



I think that is the point TerrorFirmer was making, the difference in performance between his overclocked 7970 and a 770 doesn't really justify the purchase.

TerrorFirmer

Suggesting a GTX770 for the same money as an R9 290 is madness. The r9 290 is much faster, competing with GTX780.

That RoyalQueen 7970 is almost as fast as a GTX770, it's one of the fastest 7970's you can get - way faster than the regular 7970. It wouldn't be much of an upgrade.

Ninjah Tigah

TheBandicoot wrote: »

But the R9 290(either of them) have a better benchmark score, so why would you get the 770 for the same price?

I think that is the point TerrorFirmer was making, the difference in performance between his overclocked 7970 and a 770 doesn't really justify the purchase.

Ah, yeah, I was looking at that benchmark before, thing was I couldn't find any benchmarking for the Gtx 770 Superclocked. I assumed that it would push the benchmarking up for it since it was an improved version of the card.

Sorry, I assumed that with the Superclocked edition, it had improved the 770 by a small but noticeable amount (Enough to rival the 290 in terms of benchmarking). My bad. ^^

Ninjah Tigah

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Suggesting a GTX770 for the same money as an R9 290 is madness. The r9 290 is much faster, competing with GTX780.

That RoyalQueen 7970 is almost as fast as a GTX770, it's one of the fastest 7970's you can get - way faster than the regular 7970. It wouldn't be much of an upgrade.

Ah, didn't know that the RoyalQueen was that big an improvement, looked for Benchmarking but couldn't find any.

However, as you said, the RoyalQueen isn't the base 7970 and the Superclocked is the same as the base 770. I thought that the Superclocked was an equal percentage increase to base 770 as the RoyalQueen to the base 7970.

TerrorFirmer

Still not really worth the upgrade, the only way I could see it being worthwhile if someone had the old original model 7970 from release rather than the Ghz model.

Plus the R9 290 is the same price and much faster. Not sure where that benchmark above is coming from but it seems off. It has the GTX690 and 7990 ranked low for example, when both of those cards are much faster than the GTX780 or R9 290.

Ninjah Tigah

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Still not really worth the upgrade, the only way I could see it being worthwhile if someone had the old original model 7970 from release rather than the Ghz model.

Plus the R9 290 is the same price and much faster. Not sure where that benchmark above is coming from but it seems off. It has the GTX690 and 7990 ranked low for example, when both of those cards are much faster than the GTX780 or R9 290.

Ah, I just didn't know the 290 was more powerful than that model I posted, thanks for the information.

OmegaRed

So get a 290x?

Ninjah Tigah

OmegaRed wrote: »

So get a 290x?

If you can afford it, definitely yeah if you can afford the 290x. Just make sure that you don't go for a graphics card that says "290 Tri-X" as it's a 290 not 290x (the mistake I made above in the thread by not reading the name properly ) lol

TerrorFirmer

The price to performance ratio is better with the regular 290, but goes without saying that the 290X is a great card. I was in the same situation myself and I ended up going with the R9 290 because it was only €349 for the Tri-X model.

Just make sure that you don't go for a graphics card that says "290 Tri-X" as it's a 290 not 290x

That's not too bad, the worst offender is the VTX R9 290 X-Edition....which has caught quite a lot of people out.