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[EasyMode]

I recently ordered a new CPU / motherboard to replace what I currently have. Is formatting and reinstalling Windows 7 necessary, or can these parts be swapped without much hassle?

 

[EternalGamer]

Guys, besides being on a tight budget I don't think I will be able to get a new gaming rig for the next few years, so I think I might have to look at upgrades.


Currently I'm on a Corsair 650D and I love it, but it's very noisy(I have 8 fans though running at 100%.. only way to keep the OCed SLI Fermi cards cool enough) but I want to move back into my Fractal R2, with my own Excalibur fans.


Rig;

3,0 Ghz Quadcore 950 i7

12 Gigs of Ram

6 TB Green WD drives

Corsair SSD Force Series 3 120GB x2 (raid0)

2x Gigabyte OCed Nvidia 470 2GB vRam in SLI ( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gv-n470SO-13I-super-overclock-geforce-gtx-470,2713.html )

I am beginning to feel the sluggishness. And I wonder what my options are. If I start saving 6-8 months for GPU in the next generation of Nvidia graphics, like the Nvidia 780, would I get good performance and better temps?
The worst part about Fermi is the high temperatures. I should have gotten a referenced card so it would blow the hot air out the back instead.

But If I get the next generation GPUs, is it likely that my Quadcore i7 950 would be bottlenecking, performance wise? (Im trying to mainly game at 2560x1440... not too fond of 1080p).

Also my SSDs are beginning to feel it. Maybe I should do a Win8 upgrade. I havent formatted in over 2 years.


As for moving back into the Fractal Design R2, what are my options for good cooling when on the budget?

I had a very similar set up. Pretty much the same processor, Corsair SSD and a little less ram with dual Radeon 6870s overclocked (which are a little worse than your 470s). I can't say I noticed it being "sluggish" exactly but I was noticing certain games not running at optimal performance, my system getting louder, random half second hiccups, etc. Last week I eschewed the dual cards for a 7970, which I though would be slightly faster than what I had but it has made huge difference for me in terms of performance. The random half second pauses are completely gone and I run everything I've played thus far at max settings at a constant 60fps.

So my personal recommendation would be to ditch the dual card set up. Sell them and buy a single card. They may do well in benchmark tests but after two years of real world performance, I would say they simply don't add up to what you get at similar benching single card performance rates.

 

[mkenyon]

Replace the fans in the 650D. The 200mm fans it comes with are total garbage.

How many HDD bays do you need? Possible to move the cage to the lower position in order to have unobstructed flow to your cards?

I'd pull off the top and front panel. Then pull off the dust filters. Clip all of the plastic crossbars that hold the dust filters in place aside from a single cross section.

Replace the fans with some decent 200mm ones. The Coolermaster ones are good, as are the Spectre Pros. The Spectre Pros are a bit loud for my liking, so I'd suggest using an in-line voltage limiter if you don't currently have a fan controller.

Replace the top and rear fans with some good 120mm fans. Corsair AF 120 Quiet Editions are hard to beat if you are willing to spend that kind of money. If not, again, look at the Spectre Pro line. The 120s run very quiet at 12v. You could also look at the Cougar Vortex and Arctic Cooling F12.

I can't remember if the 650D has a place for fans on the bottom, but if it does, and that space is not being occupied by an HDD tray (moving the HDD tray to that spot is more important if you can) then put an additional 120mm down there.

 

[n64coder]

Z68 is last generation chipset which is overclockable but PCIe 2.0 and USB 3.0

It's actually USB 2.0. Many Z68 boards do have USB 3.0 but they use 3rd party (non-Intel) controllers.

I have two sticks. I tried to boot with one, but I don't know if it works like that, and I still got the same message. Another odd thing is that when I got into bios and select what to boot from, my main OS SSD doesn't show up? Does that mean there is something wrong with the SSD?

If the OS SSD doesn't show up in the menu, that doesn't sound too good. Is there a way you can put it in a different computer and run some drive verification test on it?

I recently ordered a new CPU / motherboard to replace what I currently have. Is formatting and reinstalling Windows 7 necessary, or can these parts be swapped without much hassle?

What is the old board and what is the new one? I think it will work but you'll likely have to reactivate Windows.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I had a very similar set up. Pretty much the same processor, Corsair SSD and a little less ram with dual Radeon 6870s overclocked (which are a little worse than your 470s). I can't say I noticed it being "sluggish" exactly but I was noticing certain games not running at optimal performance, my system getting louder, random half second hiccups, etc. Last week I eschewed the dual cards for a 7970, which I though would be slightly faster than what I had but it has made huge difference for me in terms of performance. The random half second pauses are completely gone and I run everything I've played thus far at max settings at a constant 60fps.

So my personal recommendation would be to ditch the dual card set up. Sell them and buy a single card. They may do well in benchmark tests but after two years of real world performance, I would say they simply don't add up to what you get at similar benching single card performance rates.

Excellent. You give me hope that there is my life in my system. Do you also have a monitor that runs 2560x1440?

In some games I simply have to drop down to 1080p but I dont think it looks good on my monitor. Its almost like it looks much worse than on a regular 1080p monitor. I guess thats what they are talking about when they tell you to game at your native resolution?


my monitor is a Dell u2711, and I love it with all my heart.

 

[Tattooth]

If the OS SSD doesn't show up in the menu, that doesn't sound too good. Is there a way you can put it in a different computer and run some drive verification test on

I've only got the one windows machine. Would I be able to put the SSD in an enclosure and just format it and reinstall windows, since I don't really know what else I can do.

 

[EasyMode]

What is the old board and what is the new one? I think it will work but you'll likely have to reactivate Windows.

Old MB: Biostar TP55 (LGA1156)
New MB: ASUS P8Z77-V Lk (LGA1155)

I'm going from an i5 750 to an i7 3770K. Time for some emulation!

 

[EternalGamer]

Excellent. You give me hope that there is my life in my system. Do you also have a monitor that runs 2560x1440?

In some games I simply have to drop down to 1080p but I dont think it looks good on my monitor. Its almost like it looks much worse than on a regular 1080p monitor. I guess thats what they are talking about when they tell you to game at your native resolution?


my monitor is a Dell u2711, and I love it with all my heart.

I have a Dell IPS too but mine is only 1920x1200. If you are trying to run games at 2560x1440 then I now understand why you think your system is "sluggish." Gaming at that resolution is crazy talk to me.

My system is pretty quite but I also have a liquid cooling system in it. It was clearly the graphics cards that were causing all the noise because when I ditched them it is quite all the time now.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

Replace the fans in the 650D. The 200mm fans it comes with are total garbage.

How many HDD bays do you need? Possible to move the cage to the lower position in order to have unobstructed flow to your cards?

I'd pull off the top and front panel. Then pull off the dust filters. Clip all of the plastic crossbars that hold the dust filters in place aside from a single cross section.

Replace the fans with some decent 200mm ones. The Coolermaster ones are good, as are the Spectre Pros. The Spectre Pros are a bit loud for my liking, so I'd suggest using an in-line voltage limiter if you don't currently have a fan controller.

Replace the top and rear fans with some good 120mm fans. Corsair AF 120 Quiet Editions are hard to beat if you are willing to spend that kind of money. If not, again, look at the Spectre Pro line. The 120s run very quiet at 12v. You could also look at the Cougar Vortex and Arctic Cooling F12.

I can't remember if the 650D has a place for fans on the bottom, but if it does, and that space is not being occupied by an HDD tray (moving the HDD tray to that spot is more important if you can) then put an additional 120mm down there.

Hmm. I have 3 2TB Western Digital drives. Two Blue and one black (has my games on it)

And two SSDs. so thats five drives. I wish I could mount the SSDs somewhere else.



I am going to remove my optical blue ray drive. I've used it like once. can I remove the entire 3,5 inch bay caddy?



Ive never used a fan controller. Are they difficult to deal with?


Something that has impressed me with this case: no freaking scratches in the chassis. Ive put it through so much already!

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

I have a Dell IPS too but mine is only 1920x1200. If you are trying to run games at 2560x1440 then I now understand why you think your system is "sluggish." Gaming at that resolution is crazy talk to me.

Ok. I think I am going to lower my Guild Wars 2 resolution then.


I just wish I could find a better way to scale the performance of some games. they just look off at 1080p!

 

[mkenyon]

Hmm. I have 3 2TB Western Digital drives. Two Blue and one black (has my games on it)

And two SSDs. so thats five drives. I wish I could mount the SSDs somewhere else.



I am going to remove my optical blue ray drive. I've used it like once. can I remove the entire 3,5 inch bay caddy?



Ive never used a fan controller. Are they difficult to deal with?


Something that has impressed me with this case: no freaking scratches in the chassis. Ive put it through so much already!

You can put the SSDs anywhere. Just get some extreme mounting tape from 3M and stick them on the back side of the motherboard tray. Easy peasy.

If you use the in-line voltage regulator, then you don't need to mess with a fan controller. Its just an extra cable that goes in there to reduce voltage, and therefore, reduce the speed of the fans.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

You can put the SSDs anywhere. Just get some extreme mounting tape from 3M and stick them on the back side of the motherboard tray. Easy peasy.

If you use the in-line voltage regulator, then you don't need to mess with a fan controller. Its just an extra cable that goes in there to reduce voltage, and therefore, reduce the speed of the fans.

Ok.

I saw bitfenix offers alachemy custom sleeved cables. Besides looking really neat in a clean system does these type of sleeved cables offer any benefits when it comes to airflow?

I suck at cable management with my large hands. fortunately I have a modular power supply but its still bad!



Alchemy: http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/premium-modding/alchemy-cables

 

[scogoth]

It's actually USB 2.0. Many Z68 boards do have USB 3.0 but they use 3rd party (non-Intel) controllers.

You are correct. Sorry that was a typo I'm on my iPad, still can't get used to keyboard.

 

[scogoth]

Cheers for the opinions and info guys. Think I'll go with the X79 with a i7 3820.

I don't like the fact that the i5 3rd gen seems to run hot and has no hyperthreading. Plus the SLI support on the X79 chipset motherboards seems to be better - most are Tri SLI capable (nice to have the option for the future I guess...).

Just to give some perspective on where I'm coming from, I've currently got a Phenom 965 and a 480 GTX. I can deal with the GPU's giving off heat and noise but if the CPU has a tendency to run hot as well... then I've got a problem with that!

Will be getting 2 3GB 660's (not decided whether I'm going with the Ti versions or non Ti versions yet...) to SLI with it. And before anyone suggests I just SLI my 480, no I will not consider it!

This is the case I'm gonna go with as well:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-304-CM&groupid=2362&catid=29&subcat=

It make so much sense. All components lay flat, less stress on sockets/slots and all heat goes up directly out of the case! Plus, this will look a lot better next to my entertainment center than my current obvious tower case.

I second mkenyons comments. Go for a 680 or 670 not two 660s. The price/performance ratio is worse for 660SLI because scaling is not perfect and SLI profiles are not always the best. Only reason to do SLI is if you want to go multiple 680s/670s for 120hz, 3D or triple screen.

 

[sorijealut]

Pretty happy about the PSU I just bought, saved a lot of money.

XFX Core 550W $40 - same platform as Seasonic S12II

Seasonic

XFX

 

[GHG]

I second mkenyons comments. Go for a 680 or 670 not two 660s. The price/performance ratio is worse for 660SLI because scaling is not perfect and SLI profiles are not always the best. Only reason to do SLI is if you want to go multiple 680s/670s for 120hz, 3D or triple screen.

The thing is, if I go for the 670 or 680 I would be looking at the 4GB versions which would be ~£350 or ~£450 respectively. I can get 2 3GB factory overclocked 660's for ~£360 and net anywhere from a 30% - 60% increase in performance over the 670 or 680. Of course, that is best case scenario when SLI is working, but from what I can see SLI support seems to be very good these days (I kinow its a lot worse on the AMD side). People talk about Bandwidth on the 660's being pants. Yes, this is true, but when paired in SLI this seems to negate this and they become completely different animals.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/10/31/galaxy_geforce_gtx_660_ti_gc_3gb_sli_review/ - 660ti SLI review - look at the conclusion page for their take on SLI vs Crossfire in terms of smoothness/micro-stuttering.

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3129/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-review-incl-sli-kepler-for-p179

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/kfa2_geforce_gtx_660_ex_oc_review,24.html - 660 (non - Ti) SLI

http://lanoc.org/review/video-cards/5953 660 (non - Ti) SLI

I've also looked at the AMD 3GB cards but I don't want to give up Physx, CUDA and the per-game IQ options Nvidia gives through drivers rather than having to use ridiculous hacks or 3rd party software.

The thing is, if I'm going to be spending £300 + on a new GPU, I want the increase in performance to be substantial over my 480GTX, not just slight. Looking at reviews, PC enthusiast forums and youtube videos, a pair of 660's seem like a sure bet. I've not seen anyone who actually has them say a bad word about the setup, only surprisingly pleasant things.

Keep in mind that NVIDIA doesn't officially support PCI-E 3.0 on X79. It is a crapshoot on whether or not the board will flash to it. Mine did not.

With 3820s, you will need to overclock via BCLK as well as multiplier, as the multiplier is capped at 43. This requires a few things to make sure it is working well. For one, you need to hit the silicon lottery in order to get a good IMC (internal memory controller). Two, you need RAM that clocks well. Three, you need a motherboard that handles all of this fairly well. Worst case scenario, you'll be stuck at 4300MHz. Good case scenario, with a good cooler, you can maintain a 5.0GHz 24/7 clock.

Additionally, I'd really suggest going with a single good card over two 660s. They are extremely limited in memory bandwidth compared to the 670 or any 78xx/79xx AMD card. This means when you start using a decent amount of VRAM, performance completely tanks. Beyond that, you have the constant hassle of making sure you have the latest SLI profiles, or even using multiple workarounds to create your own for games. To give you an idea, I had to spend about 3 hours troubleshooting BLOPS2 to get SLI to work, and even then, it was really poorly optimized. This same instance will be repeated for most new releases.

Finally, for the case, check out the Fractal Node 605 as well. It's p'sweet.

That case does look interesting indeed. The thing that irks me is the optical drive apparently interfering if you have a full ATX mobo... Plus the cooling in the coolermaster (heh) seems much better with a top exhaust fan installed.

Thanks for the advice on the CPU, seems a bit more complex than I thought to overclock that chip. I need to do more research on this upgrade path. If it comes to it then I'll have to go 3rd gen i5/i7.

Can someone recommend me a good Z77 motherboard (between £100 and £150) that is SLI capable?

 

[iavi]

Does anybody have a recommendation of good 120mm fans that'd be fit to replace the stocks that come with the Corsair H100i?

 

[scogoth]

The thing is, if I go for the 670 or 680 I would be looking at the 4GB versions which would be ~£350 or ~£450 respectively. I can get 2 3GB factory overclocked 660's for ~£360 and net anywhere from a 30% - 60% increase in performance over the 670 or 680. Of course, that is best case scenario when SLI is working, but from what I can see SLI support seems to be very good these days (I kinow its a lot worse on the AMD side). People talk about Bandwidth on the 660's being pants. Yes, this is true, but when paired in SLI this seems to negate this and they become completely different animals.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/10/31/galaxy_geforce_gtx_660_ti_gc_3gb_sli_review/ - 660ti SLI review - look at the conclusion page for their take on SLI vs Crossfire in terms of smoothness/micro-stuttering.

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3129/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-review-incl-sli-kepler-for-p179

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/kfa2_geforce_gtx_660_ex_oc_review,24.html - 660 (non - Ti) SLI

http://lanoc.org/review/video-cards/5953 660 (non - Ti) SLI

I've also looked at the AMD 3GB cards but I don't want to give up Physx, CUDA and the per-game IQ options Nvidia gives through drivers rather than having to use ridiculous hacks or 3rd party software.

The thing is, if I'm going to be spending £300 + on a new GPU, I want the increase in performance to be substantial over my 480GTX, not just slight. Looking at reviews, PC enthusiast forums and youtube videos, a pair of 660's seem like a sure bet. I've not seen anyone who actually has them say a bad word about the setup, only surprisingly pleasant things.



That case does look interesting indeed. The thing that irks me is the optical drive apparently interfering if you have a full ATX mobo... Plus the cooling in the coolermaster (heh) seems much better with a top exhaust fan installed.

Thanks for the advice on the CPU, seems a bit more complex than I thought to overclock that chip. I need to do more research on this upgrade path. If it comes to it then I'll have to go 3rd gen i5/i7.

Can someone recommend me a good Z77 motherboard (between £100 and £150) that is SLI capable?

Buy what you want but all those review except for hardocp only show average fps which is not a very good indication of performance especially for SLI. In Hardocp's graphs I can already tell there is more variance then a single 680 and those are the 660Ti which is a huge difference compared to 660s. I've had GTX470 SLI and now 680SLI and I can say subjectively even if you obtain 60fps it feels more like 45fps with the frame rate jitter or micro stutter.

 

[Smokey]

I want to upgrade something but logically nothing makes sense

MEH

 

[DJ_Lae]

Got most of my build ironed out but I'm waffling a bit on the videocard.

Is it worth the price increase to go with a 7970 over a 7950? I've already got a power supply sitting over in the corner (Antec High Current Pro 750w), would two 7950s fit on that if I decided to go SLI down the road? I'd imagine two 7970s would need more juice, though maybe two 7950s would be overloading it as is.

 

[scogoth]

I want to upgrade something but logically nothing makes sense

MEH

For you? 4 GTX680s 4GB

 

[iavi]

Got most of my build ironed out but I'm waffling a bit on the videocard.

Is it worth the price increase to go with a 7970 over a 7950? I've already got a power supply sitting over in the corner (Antec High Current Pro 750w), would two 7950s fit on that if I decided to go SLI down the road? I'd imagine two 7970s would need more juice, though maybe two 7950s would be overloading it as is.

I was stuck on this decision for a while too, and, in the end, decided that the 7950 was the much better deal. The Sapphire Vapor X 7950, specifically.

Benchs have that card at being able to stable OC a good bit past reference 7970s/680s. Tweaktown averaged a solid 30%+ improvement from stock clocks with the boost bios and OC. For just a couple dollars over $300 ATM on Newegg--rebate deducted. Can't beat that.

 

[DJ_Lae]

I was stuck on this decision for a while too, and, in the end, decided that the 7950 was the much better deal. The Sapphire Vapor X 7950, specifically.

Benchs have that card at being able to stable OC a good bit past reference 7970s/680s. Tweaktown averaged a solid 30%+ improvement from stock clocks with the boost bios and OC. For just a couple dollars over $300 ATM on Newegg--rebate deducted. Can't beat that.

Yeah the prices on 7950s seem to be more reasonable. I've seen one 7970 reach the $300 mark (MSI I think) but it was a reference design and apparently those are quite noisy.

At this point I might as well see what Boxing Day churns up, or if there are any early January sales of note. I'm also curious if they'll be switching the freebie games at some point like many people have rumoured.

 

[EternalGamer]

I've had GTX470 SLI and now 680SLI and I can say subjectively even if you obtain 60fps it feels more like 45fps with the frame rate jitter or micro stutter.

I obviously agree. Two years with a dual card set up and I'm done. Even if you end up with good performance boosts in some games it is aggravating as hell having to set up custom profiles all the time and having to wait for optimized drivers and dealing with the noise and the lack of expansions for other stuff (in my case a sound card). At this point, I consider a dual card set up at a last resort if you absolutely can't afford a better upgrade but really want to be able to play stuff. No way would I personally go back to a dual card set up.

 

[mkenyon]

Buy what you want but all those review except for hardocp only show average fps which is not a very good indication of performance especially for SLI. In Hardocp's graphs I can already tell there is more variance then a single 680 and those are the 660Ti which is a huge difference compared to 660s. I've had GTX470 SLI and now 680SLI and I can say subjectively even if you obtain 60fps it feels more like 45fps with the frame rate jitter or micro stutter.

So this. They need to be able to run frame latency tests. It's such a visual difference. Average frame rate means almost nothing in terms of a smooth and consistent experience.

Take it from someone who games on 3 670s and a single 7970, both with similar processors, very often.

Does anybody have a recommendation of good 120mm fans that'd be fit to replace the stocks that come with the Corsair H100i?

Don't bother, they're good fans. Just set it to low.

 

[kharma45]

Got most of my build ironed out but I'm waffling a bit on the videocard.

Is it worth the price increase to go with a 7970 over a 7950? I've already got a power supply sitting over in the corner (Antec High Current Pro 750w), would two 7950s fit on that if I decided to go SLI down the road? I'd imagine two 7970s would need more juice, though maybe two 7950s would be overloading it as is.

Depends on whether $60-80 is worth this jump to you http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/645?vs=618 That money could be put towards an SSD if you don't have one already.

 

[EternalGamer]

Yeah the prices on 7950s seem to be more reasonable. I've seen one 7970 reach the $300 mark (MSI I think) but it was a reference design and apparently those are quite noisy.

At this point I might as well see what Boxing Day churns up, or if there are any early January sales of note. I'm also curious if they'll be switching the freebie games at some point like many people have rumoured.

I wouldn't have paid $400+ for it but I paid $360 for an overclocked 7970 + the 3 game deal (free shipping and no tax). This is the one I got:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009B6Y01Y/?tag=neogaf0e-20

It had a good review from Tom's Hardware too.

Depends on whether $60-80 is worth this jump to you http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/645?vs=618 That money could be put towards an SSD if you don't have one already.

You are right, of course. But if he is already talking about maybe upgrading to two cards in the future, it might be better to just get the faster one he wants now for the $60 difference. All I can say is I'm pretty happy with my purchase. Now if Amazon would just mail me that code for the damn bundle already....

 

[NoRéN]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007RESG7G/?tag=neogaf0e-20

These Corsair fans are more expensive than what you linked but they are VERY good. Super quiet, great airflow. I've had some vibration issues in my case and these fans are fantastic replacements. Each mounting point is rubber so it dampens quite a bit.

I replaced a 200mm with 2 of these and my back 120 with it. Very happy with the change.

This makes me feel very good since that's what I bought last night.

 

[mkenyon]

Corsair can be hit or miss, and sometimes people are slightly taken advantage of just by brand recognition. The AF/SP fans are most definitely a home run though.

 

[NoRéN]

Corsair can be hit or miss, and sometimes people are slightly taken advantage of just by brand recognition. The AF/SP fans are most definitely a home run though.

That's why I went with the AFs.

Because you said so...


So if they suck...


I'll find you...

 

[DJ_Lae]

Depends on whether $60-80 is worth this jump to you http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/645?vs=618 That money could be put towards an SSD if you don't have one already.

I have an SSD already but that's still money that could be shuffled elsewhere on my build. Right now the XFX 7900 cards are $90 apart at NCIX, $270CDN for the 7950 and $$360 for the 7970.

Interestingly, there is no longer any mention of free games with those cards, so maybe the deal ended or NCIX just ran out of codes?

 

[xJavonta]

My friend asked for help on a new PC. He had a budget of $550 and he said he wouldn't mind going slightly over if he could get much better. I told him to spend whatever he has left after the rest of the parts are picked out on a card, recommending a 7850 since it's a good card for the price (right?), someone jumped in and told him that the 6570 isn't much different from a 7850 and it'd be smarter for him to get that instead and save some money. Now he's conflicted. What do I tell him? Unless I'm really that fucking stupid and a 6570 isn't much different from the 7850, or is he spouting bullshit?

 

[Hazaro]

My friend asked for help on a new PC. He had a budget of $550 and he said he wouldn't mind going slightly over if he could get much better. I told him to spend whatever he has left after the rest of the parts are picked out on a card, recommending a 7850 since it's a good card for the price (right?), someone jumped in and told him that the 6570 isn't much different from a 7850 and it'd be smarter for him to get that instead and save some money. Now he's conflicted. What do I tell him? Unless I'm really that fucking stupid and a 6570 isn't much different from the 7850, or is he spouting bullshit?

wut

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/613?vs=549

Go with the OP build and spend the extra on graphics. Won't let you down.

 

[Smokey]

I obviously agree. Two years with a dual card set up and I'm done. Even if you end up with good performance boosts in some games it is aggravating as hell having to set up custom profiles all the time and having to wait for optimized drivers and dealing with the noise and the lack of expansions for other stuff (in my case a sound card). At this point, I consider a dual card set up at a last resort if you absolutely can't afford a better upgrade but really want to be able to play stuff. No way would I personally go back to a dual card set up.

SLI, imo, is almost required at 2560x1600 if you want to keep settings high as well as a good frame rate.

At 1920x1080 I tend to agree with you.

 

[mkenyon]

Yup, that's what SLI is really for. Getting performance that isn't otherwise achievable with a single card.

Trying to game that 10% over a single card with two weaker cards will almost always result in dissatisfaction.

 

[xJavonta]

wut

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/613?vs=549

Go with the OP build and spend the extra on graphics. Won't let you down.

That's what I recommended to him. But this guy keeps coming back and countering my arguments with stuff like "I doubt he'd be using any type of AA, AA doesn't matter it just makes the game look better." which is leaving my friend Danny (the guy asking about building a PC), confused and conflicted.

 

[mkenyon]

Ask for proof. Guy is confused or full of it.

 

[kharma45]

That's what I recommended to him. But this guy keeps coming back and countering my arguments with stuff like "I doubt he'd be using any type of AA, AA doesn't matter it just makes the game look better." which is leaving my friend Danny (the guy asking about building a PC), confused and conflicted.

Tell him he's talking shit and show him the Anandtech comparison for one.

 

[Stubo]

That's what I recommended to him. But this guy keeps coming back and countering my arguments with stuff like "I doubt he'd be using any type of AA, AA doesn't matter it just makes the game look better." which is leaving my friend Danny (the guy asking about building a PC), confused and conflicted.

Wait...what?

 

[Ty4on]

That's what I recommended to him. But this guy keeps coming back and countering my arguments with stuff like "I doubt he'd be using any type of AA, AA doesn't matter it just makes the game look better." which is leaving my friend Danny (the guy asking about building a PC), confused and conflicted.

Show him this. AA makes a big difference in motion.

 

[kharma45]

My brother has just ordered the ASUS DirectCU II V2 7850, will be interesting to see how it compares to the MSI TF3 one in this PC.

 

[i3allistic]

quick question, i have a AMD II x4 athlon 620 and thinking about upgrading my Graphic card to a Diamond 7850 2gb ram which fry's is having on sale right now for $149 after $20 rebate. Is it worth it? I don't need the latest and greatest for Computer Gaming ...thanks

 

[mkenyon]

What is your current card?

But yeah, that's a good price on a 7850.

 

[GK86]

quick question, i have a AMD II x4 athlon 620 and thinking about upgrading my Graphic card to a Diamond 7850 2gb ram which fry's is having on sale right now for $149 after $20 rebate. Is it worth it? I don't need the latest and greatest for Computer Gaming ...thanks

For the big boys to answer your question, you will probably have to let them know what card you would be upgrading from.

Edit- mkenyon right on cue.

 

[scogoth]

SLI, imo, is almost required at 2560x1600 if you want to keep settings high as well as a good frame rate.

At 1920x1080 I tend to agree with you.

Yep but if your buying 2560x1600 IPS or 120Hz or three screens then you can afford dual/triple high end GPUs. On another note I'm thinking I might go another 680 I want my 120fps 5760x1080 BF3

 

[i3allistic]

For the big boys to answer your question, you will probably have to let them know what card you would be upgrading from.

Edit- mkenyon right on cue.

Sorry, I currently using a 5450

 

[mkenyon]

I bet a socket 2011 proc running at 4.8GHz would help too. Just sayin'

Sorry, I currently using a 5450

That is a *huge* upgrade.

 

[Artanisix]

Someone help me out here. I want to play in 3D @ 1080p at a comfortable FPS. Games like Hawken, Dolphin-emulated games, etc. What GPU should I go for? I'll be upgrading from a measly GTX 460.

 

[mkenyon]

Someone help me out here. I want to play in 3D @ 1080p at a comfortable FPS. Games like Hawken, Dolphin-emulated games, etc. What GPU should I go for? I'll be upgrading from a measly GTX 460.

Going to want lots of VRAM and an i5/i7 running at 4.5+ GHz for the CPU constrained games like Hawken.

I think NVIDIA's 3D solution is supposedly a bit better than AMD's. Go with a BenQ XL2420T monitor, and a 4GB 670/680. If you aren't happy with performance, add a second.

 

[scogoth]

Someone help me out here. I want to play in 3D @ 1080p at a comfortable FPS. Games like Hawken, Dolphin-emulated games, etc. What GPU should I go for? I'll be upgrading from a measly GTX 460.

I would say stick nvidia has their 3D support is quite a bit farther ahead AMD. That being said 3D support is very game dependent. I've never heard of hawken so you will have to research it's 3D compatibility. Dolphin and emulators are extremely CPU defendant and last I tried their 3D implementation (about 8 months ago) was useless and almost all games had rendering problems with overlays, menus, shadows, etc. but I hope it's improved since then.
I would suggest a 670 for its modern games because 3D is effectively doubling the amount of rendering that needs to be done.

Edit: I need to type faster.