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[rahulkadukar]

Does it make any gaming sense to go for i7-5xxx over i7-4790k considering that I am planning to go for a 980 Ti SLI.

Do the extra lanes in the X99 have any effect on the actual frame rates compared to the Z97.

 

[finalflame]

Does it make any gaming sense to go for i7-5xxx over i7-4790k considering that I am planning to go for a 980 Ti SLI.

Do the extra lanes in the X99 have any effect on the actual frame rates compared to the Z97.

If you're planning to go Tri-SLi, just go for the X99 setup.

Otherwise, no.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

Been debating it for a while, but decided to just what the heck, and buy a XFX R9 290x DD to replace my ancient MSI Radeon 6950. Mainly a 1080p gamer, so no need for a 390x, or a fury.

Probably need to replace my Core i7-2600K and motherboard. Waiting on skylake, probably an I5. Sadly, means i'll probably need new ram as well.

 

[GatticusFinch]

I've been working on my computers for 20 years now, and today I had the worst, most frustrating experience of my life.

I bought a Corsair H100i GTX to replace my evo 212. Instead of making two metal brace brackets, Corsair decided to save a penny and make a plastic one that has plastic sliders for different sockets. Well. What do you think happens when you screw into plastic? The threads get destroyed. What happens when the slider pops out of the track and the thread is destroyed? The bracket won't hold any pressure to keep the cooler on tight, but the screw is now lodged in a tiny hole in the motherboard and can't be removed because it is fused to a plastic piece.

I spent five hours trying to remove the screw lodged in the thread-worn plastic, then removing that from the motherboard. Eventually I had to resort to sanding, cutting, and hacking apart the plastic, removing the cooler (because of course it would happen on the last screw) and then improvising a new bracket holder using motherboard standoffs and rubber washers.

And the god damn thing only saved me a few degrees over my evo.

 

[NeOak]

Been debating it for a while, but decided to just what the heck, and buy a XFX R9 290x DD to replace my ancient MSI Radeon 6950. Mainly a 1080p gamer, so no need for a 390x, or a fury.

Probably need to replace my Core i7-2600K and motherboard. Waiting on skylake, probably an I5. Sadly, means i'll probably need new ram as well.

What you need is to OC that 2600K.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

What you need is to OC that 2600K.

I think I have a cosair H60 on it currently, I could replace that with a more beefy 80i or better, then OC the hell out of the 2600k. Cheaper then a new MB/Ram?CPU, and probably won't matter for the sort of games I play these days.

 

[Aranath]

I'm needing a bit more help with my BenQ XL2420G. It's driving me insane now.

No matter what calibration I do, I can't seem to get my whites to actually look white. They look yellow, unless I set the brightness unacceptably high.

I've followed two different calibration guides on the internet, as well as used an ICC profile (recommended by Sk3tch, which made my display hideous - don't quite understand why). I'm concerned the panel is faulty. I thought perhaps it might be a crappy cable or a bad connection. So I swapped out the DP cable for another and also connected the monitor via DVI using the Classic mode and it stayed yellow. I'm at my wit's end now.

I've read a few things stating that a yellow tint comes from the monitor not producing enough blue. This is my 2nd one now (first one died after a day), so I'm really hoping it's not that and that I'm just missing something obvious.

I was expecting a drop in picture quality from my IPS panel, which I thought would be a worthy trade off for 144hz and Gsync, but this is just ruining my enjoyment and those things are not worth the 500 euros I paid for this monitor if the picture quality is going to be so annoying.

 

[NeOak]

I think I have a cosair H60 on it currently, I could replace that with a more beefy 80i or better, then OC the hell out of the 2600k. Cheaper then a new MB/Ram?CPU, and probably won't matter for the sort of games I play these days.

The H60 should give you 4 Ghz.

 

[longdi]

Does it make any gaming sense to go for i7-5xxx over i7-4790k considering that I am planning to go for a 980 Ti SLI.

Do the extra lanes in the X99 have any effect on the actual frame rates compared to the Z97.

Yes. I would not buy 4790k imo.
Better to top-up a bit more for 5820K, which is a great value for that added cores and pcie lanes. DDR4 is cheaper and can be reuse in the future. The newer batches of 5820k seems to overclock well into 4.5ghz without too much voltages.

However i would just wait for skylake in 1 more months time to further gauge.

 

[RGM79]

I've been working on my computers for 20 years now, and today I had the worst, most frustrating experience of my life.

I bought a Corsair H100i GTX to replace my evo 212. Instead of making two metal brace brackets, Corsair decided to save a penny and make a plastic one that has plastic sliders for different sockets. Well. What do you think happens when you screw into plastic? The threads get destroyed. What happens when the slider pops out of the track and the thread is destroyed? The bracket won't hold any pressure to keep the cooler on tight, but the screw is now lodged in a tiny hole in the motherboard and can't be removed because it is fused to a plastic piece.

I spent five hours trying to remove the screw lodged in the thread-worn plastic, then removing that from the motherboard. Eventually I had to resort to sanding, cutting, and hacking apart the plastic, removing the cooler (because of course it would happen on the last screw) and then improvising a new bracket holder using motherboard standoffs and rubber washers.

And the god damn thing only saved me a few degrees over my evo.

I hear you - plastic brackets are awful. The metal sleeve-holding holes on my friend's plastic Antec AIO cooler bracket have worn out despite having only tightened and loosened them maybe once or twice a year, and it's been less than 3 years. I have to use needlenose pliers to hold the little metal things in place while I screw tight the cooler.

 

[twozerotwo]

Sup guys. I'm gonna be building myself a PC pretty soon so how capable is "Good - Very capable"?

It falls right in the middle of my budget of $500-$600. I have a PS4 for all the new games so I'm not looking for a PC to play the newest games at max settings or anything like that but I'm really just looking for a build that'll get me good framerates and okay-to-good looking graphics on older games(Souls games, Diablo 3, etc.)

Thanks.

 

[longdi]

I hear you - plastic brackets are awful. The metal sleeve-holding holes on my friend's plastic Antec AIO cooler bracket have worn out despite having only tightened and loosened them maybe once or twice a year, and it's been less than 3 years. I have to use needlenose pliers to hold the little metal things in place while I screw tight the cooler.

Not only plastic, even metal parts in those aio are not spared of low qualityness. I built one pc with cm nepton aio, and the inner threads of thumb screws worn down on second use! It almost ruined the cpu and board as it cannot come off. Lucky i managed to unscrew it and the local cm rma me with a new accessory pack.

 

[Thorgal]

Anyone happened to know if MSI 980 ti's have Binned Cards ?

Anyone ?

 

[longdi]

Anyone ?

I would go by if they did, you would have known of it because they will want you to know of it.

 

[Hazaro]

Sup guys. I'm gonna be building myself a PC pretty soon so how capable is "Good - Very capable"?

It falls right in the middle of my budget of $500-$600. I have a PS4 for all the new games so I'm not looking for a PC to play the newest games at max settings or anything like that but I'm really just looking for a build that'll get me good framerates and okay-to-good looking graphics on older games(Souls games, Diablo 3, etc.)

Thanks.

Get it with a 280 and you'll be golden to drop in a CPU upgrade when you need it.

 

[Rebel Leader]

Computer started up, 1 beep, shut down

Started up agian, 1 beep but no display.hdd icon flashing nor do I hear it spinning

What could the problem be? Hitting the refresh button Wil make the computer boot-up to a blank screen with UFEI bios on the top, then it shuts down. Starts up agian. 1 beep and loads windows

 

[Krecik]

GAF, I need help.

Yesterday I built my new rig with 4790k, gtx970 ang GA-79x-UD5H. Everything seemed to work fine during light usage, web surfing etc. Before going to sleep I decided to run prime95 and check temperatures. Instantly, as soon as I started the stress test, the machine reset.

I figured it had something to do with the thermal grease, I had some trouble applying it. So today I took everything apart again, replaced the grease (this time I think it went fine) and assembled it again. I had some boot problems, but I solved those by removing peripherals and connecting them one by one.

Unfortunately, as soon as I log into Windows (7 x64) it resets again. Just before the reset I can hear something working a bit louder, but I can't really verify what it is. I'm only sure that it's not the GPU fan, since it's the EVGA ACX cooling and fans are not spinning during low load.

What can I do now, is there any hope?

EDIT: It somehow decided to boot up again. I ran prime95 again, this time slowly increasing the number of torture threads. I managed to get to 3, after about 5 minutes the temperatures (measured with RealTemp) got to >80 degrees and the whole thing reset. After reboot the temps were around 30 degrees, but as soon as I ran Chrome they skyrocketed to >80 degrees and the machine reset. Right now it resets as soon as I log into Windows again. What could cause this?

 

[LilJoka]

Gotcha. Just to be clear, you think the RAID should go on the 6GB ports and the SSD should go on the 3GB? The SSD is what will house the OS, the RAID will just be storage and game installs

It depends on the specific Marvell chip being used, should just test the SSD speed on the different ports using AS SSD benchmark and go from there.

My first instinct would be SSD on Intel 6gbps and RAID HDD on Intel 3gbps. But don't dismiss the Marvell ports without benchmarking them.

 

[Arex]

I'm set on using the define R5 for my build, but my local shops haven't restocked for a while already! Is there similar or better alternatives for silent casing?

 

[LilJoka]

GAF, I need help.

Yesterday I built my new rig with 4790k, gtx970 ang GA-79x-UD5H. Everything seemed to work fine during light usage, web surfing etc. Before going to sleep I decided to run prime95 and check temperatures. Instantly, as soon as I started the stress test, the machine reset.

I figured it had something to do with the thermal grease, I had some trouble applying it. So today I took everything apart again, replaced the grease (this time I think it went fine) and assembled it again. I had some boot problems, but I solved those by removing peripherals and connecting them one by one.

Unfortunately, as soon as I log into Windows (7 x64) it resets again. Just before the reset I can hear something working a bit louder, but I can't really verify what it is. I'm only sure that it's not the GPU fan, since it's the EVGA ACX cooling and fans are not spinning during low load.

What can I do now, is there any hope?

EDIT: It somehow decided to boot up again. I ran prime95 again, this time slowly increasing the number of torture threads. I managed to get to 3, after about 5 minutes the temperatures (measured with RealTemp) got to >80 degrees and the whole thing reset. After reboot the temps were around 30 degrees, but as soon as I ran Chrome they skyrocketed to >80 degrees and the machine reset. Right now it resets as soon as I log into Windows again. What could cause this?

Full specs?

 

[Krecik]

Full specs?

GA-Z97X-UD5H
EVGA GTX 970 ACX SuperClocked
2x8GB RAM 1866 MHz
i7 4790K
Scythe Mugen 3 rev b with Noctua NT-H1 grease
Corsair CS750M

I managed to solve it, at least for the time being. I went into BIOS and set the VCORE voltage to 1.05 (I know it's a bit low and I could safely go as high as 1.2, but better safe than sorry) and disabled the turbo mode.

I noticed that before, when the voltage was set to auto, the MoBo set it to ~1.5V, way too high for my liking.

Now it seems stable, 30'C idle, ~60'C with AIDA64 stress test. Aparently using the newest version of prime95 with Intel CPUs isn't such a good idea, I'm not even going to try now.

And now it's time for the real test - running The Witcher 3. Let's see if anything goes up in flames.

 

[LilJoka]

GA-Z97X-UD5H
EVGA GTX 970 ACX SuperClocked
2x8GB RAM 1866 MHz
i7 4790K
Scythe Mugen 3 rev b with Noctua NT-H1 grease
Corsair CS750M

I managed to solve it, at least for the time being. I went into BIOS and set the VCORE voltage to 1.05 (I know it's a bit low and I could safely go as high as 1.2, but better safe than sorry) and disabled the turbo mode.

I noticed that before, when the voltage was set to auto, the MoBo set it to ~1.5V, way too high for my liking.

Now it seems stable, 30'C idle, ~60'C with AIDA64 stress test. Aparently using the newest version of prime95 with Intel CPUs isn't such a good idea, I'm not even going to try now.

And now it's time for the real test - running The Witcher 3. Let's see if anything goes up in flames.

1.5v vcore would be used for 4.9-5Ghz overclock, it's insane. Sounds like you need to update the bios as early bios versions were setting the vcore too high.

Using prime95 28.5 is not advised since it uses AVX2 stress test which can cause vcore to rise by 0.1v under adaptive settings.

 

[publicpwnerer]

Hey there PC GAF. I'm in the market for a new monitor. More specifically, a 1080p G-Sync monitor, as my PC specs revolve around 1080 for the time being.

Currently there are 3 (only 3) monitors to choose from. Bare in mind these are Australian prices;

1. Acer Predator XB240H $499 AUD
2.AOC G2460PG $565
3. BenQ XL2420G $599

I'm just wondering if anyone knowledgeable can give me an idea as to the main differences, if any, between the 3 monitors. I'm not generally cheap by nature, but I'd prefer to spend as little as possible (barring any significant or compelling factors), as I'm currently saving for a new PC sometime next year.

Not sure if it's relevant, but my gaming specs are;
i5-3570K @ 4.2, 680 2GB SLI (Reference), 16B RAM - and obviously, @ 1080.

I'm looking to build a new system sometime next year, around an i7 / 980Ti type card...whatever the next series equivalent is, shedding SLI (Although there hasn't as much of the fear / doom & gloom single card users seem to suggest there is about SLI). Noise and heat are my biggest concerns.

 

[DrForester]

Got a strange issue.


Switched over to Display Port from DVI cords for G-Sync. About 75% of the time when I turn on my PC, only one monitor comes on (usually, but not always the same one). Simply unplugging and plugging back in the monitor fixes the problem instantly, but it's a royal pain in the ass having to reposition my desktop icons every time, as the move from 2 to 1 monitor screws them all up.

-I experience no problems once computer is on and I unplug/plug in switch
-I have my monitors plugged into the same card, and experience the problem on both cards


Any thoughts?

 

[MedIC86]

Is a 660watt platinum rated psu from seasonic enough for a single not overclocked MSI 980GTX? (no watercooling, just usual setup for the rest of the pc)

 

[Frankfurter]

Yes. It's probably enough for two.

 

[M.D]

Hey guys, need some help

I bought the BenQ XL2430T which is a 144Hz monitor and set the refresh rate to 144 in the Windows settings

Do I need to change the in-game refresh setting for the games I play as well? I have a 970 so I won't be able to reach 100+ FPS in new games, do I just leave the refresh rate at 60 or turn it up to 140?

Also, is there any good explanation to what an ICC profile is? someone here who shared their setting for the monitor also shared an ICC profile but I have no idea what it is (I have tried reading about it but still don't really understand what it does) or if I should use it?

Benq XL2430T Settings

He also talks about tweaking his VT to 1500, and I can't find that setting or what it does

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Need a new GPU for my workstation computer and it's a toss up between these two:

Gigabyte AMD Radeon 8GB R9 390 G1 Gaming that I can get for £264
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB G1 Gaming for £276.

Pros of the AMD card is that it has a newer implementation of Windforce fans - it only has two of them (so it's shorter), has two extra LEDs that I like (silent + stop indicators), and has 8GB memory. It is also faster than a stock 970 at 1440p, which is what I will be using.

Pros of the Nvidia card are that it'll overclock really good whilst taking a lot less power, and this means it'll push out less heat. I think acoustics of both cards will be pretty similar, but I can't find a review of the Gigabyte AMD Radeon 8GB R9 390 G1 Gaming anywhere so can't be sure.

EDIT: I'm currently leaning more towards the Nvidia card but would like to support AMD

 

[longdi]

Workstation? Meaning secondary pewpewpew gaming?
In that case, don't AMD 390 have more compute power while Nvidia 970 have a lead with CUDA support.

 

[Snakethesniper]

Speaking about thermal paste, someone suggested the Noctua NT-H1. Is the Arctic MX-4 a good equivalent?

Bumping! (Now the noctua is available, so I would buy it).
Also, after how much time should you change the thermal paste?

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Workstation? Meaning secondary pewpewpew gaming?
In that case, don't AMD 390 have more compute power while Nvidia 970 have a lead with CUDA support.

Yeah, gaming on the computer in question would be secondary. It will be used heavily for Photoshop/Illustrator. Not clued up on CUDA as I only have an Nvidia GPU in an aging laptop.

 

[GRaider81]

Could someone help me regarding installing windows via USB?

If I purchase a copy via someone here/reddit am I purchasing the key?

If that's the case where do I download windows?

Once I download windows to the USB, do I just plug in to my newly built pc and go from there?

If I get a key/download from someone for windows 8.1, can I still upgrade to 10?


Sorry if these are simple questions, I'm a complete noob regarding this stuff.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Once you have a legitimate copy of Windows 7/8, you should be able to upgrade to W10 for free for 1 year after the 29th July release date of the new OS.

However, I ain't seen no notification on one of my computers that others are getting which is asking them if they'd like to upgrade to W10. The computer in question has a W7 OS installed via a W7 OEM disk.

You'll find info on how to install Windows via USB by Googling my friend.

 

[Septimus]

It's been hell not having a gaming PC since I moved. Money isn't really an issue but I've been waiting for Skylake and if the rumors are true that the high end CPUs are launching next month... then next month I'm building mine!

 

[kennah]

Yeah, gaming on the computer in question would be secondary. It will be used heavily for Photoshop/Illustrator. Not clued up on CUDA as I only have an Nvidia GPU in an aging laptop.

Get the amd. Cuda is only used in some after effects filters at this point.

 

[NeoFaff]

Hi people, I'm in need of a 5 button mouse so I can bind my mic key to the mouse. Has to be ambidextrous and around the size of the g100s. Would like a similar sensor as well but that's asking too much.

I currently use the Logitech g100s. Aside from the Razer Abyssus which is very similar but only has 3 buttons, are there any other 5 button mice similar to the G100S?

 

[Gambit61]

Anyone have issues using the DVI port on their GTX 970? Starting yesterday it stopped working like usual, basically any display I connect to it now (either through DVI or a DVI-VGA adapter) is stuck in sleep mode, yet Windows/Nvidia Control Panel shows it as active and awake. I ordered a displayport adapter for my second monitor already but was just wondering how this even happens and if there's a fix.

 

[MedIC86]

Once you have a legitimate copy of Windows 7/8, you should be able to upgrade to W10 for free for 1 year after the 29th July release date of the new OS.

However, I ain't seen no notification on one of my computers that others are getting which is asking them if they'd like to upgrade to W10. The computer in question has a W7 OS installed via a W7 OEM disk.

You'll find info on how to install Windows via USB by Googling my friend.

I thought pirated copy's were eligible to upgrade as well?

 

[PopcornMegaphone]

Bit of a PC newbie here.

Not sure if this is the right thread, but is there a good reason why I shouldn't order this HP machine:

HP Envy Phoenix 850se

i7-5820K Processor Hexa-Core CPU
16GB DDR4 2133 Memory
2TB Hard Drive
GeForce GTX 980 4GB GDDR5 FH GFX
DVDRW
WiFi N + Bluetooth 4.0
Windows 8.1

$1829 - 30% w/ coupon code FIREWORK30 - $250 Rebate = $1030.99

Via Slickdeals


Seems like a killer deal. I don't think I could build something this cheap. Right now my only reservation is the 500w power supply and I'm not sure it can be upgraded. I doubt I can overclock with it. There are other config options in the link.

 

[Soodanim]

Hey guys, need some help

I bought the BenQ XL2430T which is a 144Hz monitor and set the refresh rate to 144 in the Windows settings

Do I need to change the in-game refresh setting for the games I play as well? I have a 970 so I won't be able to reach 100+ FPS in new games, do I just leave the refresh rate at 60 or turn it up to 140?

Also, is there any good explanation to what an ICC profile is? someone here who shared their setting for the monitor also shared an ICC profile but I have no idea what it is (I have tried reading about it but still don't really understand what it does) or if I should use it?

Benq XL2430T Settings

He also talks about tweaking his VT to 1500, and I can't find that setting or what it does

Some games will just use whatever you've set the refresh rate to in Windows, some will let you pick your refresh rate in game in the same way that you can pick your resolution, and others are limited to 60 or 30fps so it doesn't matter. The main reason you'd want to match the refresh rate to that of the game's likely FPS (i.e. setting it to 60/80/100/120hz so you can cap at a certain framerate) would be for V-Sync. But you could just leave it at 144hz and enable triple buffering, which if I'm not mistaken eliminates tearing at the cost of some input lag (depending on method used). I don't know too much about that, maybe Durante will swing by and explain it.

ICC profiles are colour profiles for calibrating your monitor. If you can get a colour profile and load that into Windows, that would be even better than doing it via NVidia control panel (if you're NVidia) because that sometimes loads so quickly that Windows' colours load after it and override them. it's a bit annoying. Search color in Control Panel and it should be something about advanced colour settings, at least in Windows 8.

 

[Captain.Falafel]

Currently in the preliminary phases of planning out building my first PC. I have a question that has been irking me lately that may be entirely stupid, but I'd greatly appreciate an answer nonetheless.

If you're building a PC from scratch and you don't have an optical drive - how do you install an OS?

 

[Soodanim]

Currently in the preliminary phases of planning out building my first PC. I have a question that has been irking me lately that may be entirely stupid, but I'd greatly appreciate an answer nonetheless.

If you're building a PC from scratch and you don't have an optical drive - how do you install an OS?

Most people * download an ISO of Windows and put it on a USB memory stick. If it's USB3 I imagine the installation will be very bloody quick.

 

[Felix Lighter]

Bit of a PC newbie here.

Not sure if this is the right thread, but is there a good reason why I shouldn't order this HP machine:




Via Slickdeals


Seems like a killer deal. I don't think I could build something this cheap. Right now my only reservation is the 500w power supply and I'm not sure it can be upgraded. I doubt I can overclock with it. There are other config options in the link.

That is an exceptionally good deal for a prebuilt. The concerns would be motherboard and power supply. It really comes down to how good is HP's warranty.

 

[PopcornMegaphone]

That is an exceptionally good deal for a prebuilt. The concerns would be motherboard and power supply. It really comes down to how good is HP's warranty.

Thanks for your reply. I just learned the power supply cannot not be removed and upgraded, which is a major bummer. I'm still tempted, but I'm leaning no. I really wish there was a 600w in there. It would make my decision much easier.

 

[Celcius]

Currently in the preliminary phases of planning out building my first PC. I have a question that has been irking me lately that may be entirely stupid, but I'd greatly appreciate an answer nonetheless.

If you're building a PC from scratch and you don't have an optical drive - how do you install an OS?

It's in the OP:
"4. Next, download the Microsoft USB Installation utility. Use this to put Windows on a Flash Drive."

 

[ameratsu]

So I'm going through the preliminary stages of building a skylake-s (probably i5-6600) gaming PC. I'm not going to be reusing anything except the SSD from my current PC, so i'm just wondering if the graphics card offerings that are out there now will change significantly between now and say September when Skylake-S is presumably readily available.

Does it make sense to begin looking for deals and piecing it together now? Or should I buy it all with my cpu/mobo.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

Unless you're using a pre-Sandy bridge cpu go for the G-Sync. Skylake will be another incremental performance increase that, even with DDR4 and USB 3.1 added, probably won't make a big enough difference.

G-Sync, on the other hand, is fucking incredible.

I'm still on Lynnfield (i5-750) and the chip lottery didn't give me great OC results (3.6 was as stable as I could get it). G-Sync is amazing, but I'm still waiting on a good IPS monitor variant, and my motherboard really needs to be upgraded (USB 2.0 era) as I've had some USB ports short out and whatnot.

 

[M.D]

Some games will just use whatever you've set the refresh rate to in Windows, some will let you pick your refresh rate in game in the same way that you can pick your resolution, and others are limited to 60 or 30fps so it doesn't matter. The main reason you'd want to match the refresh rate to that of the game's likely FPS (i.e. setting it to 60/80/100/120hz so you can cap at a certain framerate) would be for V-Sync. But you could just leave it at 144hz and enable triple buffering, which if I'm not mistaken eliminates tearing at the cost of some input lag (depending on method used). I don't know too much about that, maybe Durante will swing by and explain it.

ICC profiles are colour profiles for calibrating your monitor. If you can get a colour profile and load that into Windows, that would be even better than doing it via NVidia control panel (if you're NVidia) because that sometimes loads so quickly that Windows' colours load after it and override them. it's a bit annoying. Search color in Control Panel and it should be something about advanced colour settings, at least in Windows 8.

So if for example I have game with the option to change refresh rate and I put it at 144, but it actually runs at 60 or whatever, v-sync won't actually work?

I put in the ICC file that I found, thanks for the help!

 

[j-wood]

How can I benchmark the marvell ports? Is there a tool you guys recommend?

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

Get the amd. Cuda is only used in some after effects filters at this point.

Thanks for your advice.

Quick Google regarding choosing GPUs for Photoshop specifically and I found this quite interesting:

Buying a Video Graphics Card for Photoshop

When buying a Graphics Card for Photoshop many fall into the specs that are marketed toward gamers, such as VRAM and CUDA Cores/Streaming Cores. VRAM isn’t really important for Photoshop assuming you already have a decent amount of overall RAM (8GB or more). As for CUDA Cores/Streaming Cores, Photoshop’s primary GPU intensive features usuaully only use a maximum of 500 CUDA Cores when working with larger images such as those from DSLR Camera, but if you are going to be working large and complex images and photo manipulation a Video Card with at least 1000 CUDA Cores is ideal.

If you are also using Adobe After Effects more CUDA Cores would be better, however if you are only using Photoshop you don’t need to max out this feature.Memory Interface Width is actually more important to GPU Performance for Photoshop (if not in general). 4GB 128Bit Video Card is not as good as a 2GB 256Bit Video Card. If you consider your data a vehichles then 128Bit Video Cards are like having those cars on 4 lanes, where as a 256Bit Card would be like having them on 8 lanes.
Graphics Clock Speed would be the speed limit on those individual lanes of traffic. The other spec you need to pay attention to is Bandwidth.

This guy is saying (memory) bandwidth is more important so that suits the AMD card as even though it has masses of memory it has also got huge memory bandwidth of 384 GB/s whilst the 970 weighs in at 'only' 224 GB/s.

But the memory on the 970 should be much more overclockable so it's not an easy win for the AMD card.