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[Transhuman]

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/QddLTW

Does anyone with microATX experience know if the fans the Corsair Air 240's come with are enough to keep it cool? Or quiet? (hell, I could just get a full motherboard and go ATX if you think it's worth it)

It's a fairly modest build, but if anyone has suggestions for part swaps, whether upgrades or downgrades, I'm open to anything. I was going to upgrade the PSU to 750, but that's probably overkill considering how much power this will use.

Impart on me your wisdom.

 

[Luke_Wal]

How capable are those beginner builds in the OP? I'm looking at the second level one, specifically (about $600) as a possible entry into PC gaming (finally!), just because it seems the games are so much cheaper on a regular basis. Will it run modern open world games (Mordor, Batman theoretically, or even games like Tomb Raider/Rise of) at at least 30? Or maybe even the fabled 60?

 

[Skii]

Well, you're using m.2 device so set it to m.2. BIOS probably detects it anyway but as the setting is SATA Express it gives priority to HDD/SSD plugged to the SATA ports and not the m.2.

Well I changed from Sata Express to M2 and now BIOS won't even boot up. This has been one massive mess. Don't know what to do now.

 

[Hazaro]

How capable are those beginner builds in the OP? I'm looking at the second level one, specifically (about $600) as a possible entry into PC gaming (finally!), just because it seems the games are so much cheaper on a regular basis. Will it run modern open world games (Mordor, Batman theoretically, or even games like Tomb Raider/Rise of) at at least 30? Or maybe even the fabled 60?

'Good' with a 500W PSU and a 280 is pretty damn capable. Should run quite a lot of games at 1080/60/Medium-High

 

[knitoe]

Well I changed from Sata Express to M2 and now BIOS won't even boot up. This has been one massive mess. Don't know what to do now.

There should be a button to reset the bios.

 

[Skii]

There should be a button to reset the bios.

Manual doesn't mention a button to reset BIOS on the motherboard (Z170-A). The Boot_Device_LED is the one that's lit up.

 

[knitoe]

Manual doesn't mention a button to reset BIOS on the motherboard (Z170-A). The Boot_Device_LED is the one that's lit up.

From reading the manual section 1.6, try clearing the RTC RAM by moving the jumper over 1-2 for 5-10 secs.

 

[LilJoka]

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/QddLTW

Does anyone with microATX experience know if the fans the Corsair Air 240's come with are enough to keep it cool? Or quiet? (hell, I could just get a full motherboard and go ATX if you think it's worth it)

It's a fairly modest build, but if anyone has suggestions for part swaps, whether upgrades or downgrades, I'm open to anything. I was going to upgrade the PSU to 750, but that's probably overkill considering how much power this will use.

Impart on me your wisdom.

For a single GPU system, even a single 120mm intake and single 120mm exhaust is enough as long as cables are not blocking airflow.

 

[Skii]

From reading the manual section 1.6, try clearing the RTC RAM by moving the jumper over 1-2 for 5-10 secs.

The power comes on and the start up screen where it asks you to press F2/DEL shows but when I press F2, it just goes to a blank screen. Do you still recommend me to do what you're asking? Just in case you've misunderstood what I was saying.

 

[LilJoka]

I'm just redownloading the installer using Edge instead of chrome. I posted a link in a post above about someone having a similar problem but with a DVD and that sorted it. I doubt it'll fix anything but it's worth a shot.

I'll change everything to UEFI afterwards and see what happens. I'm pretty sure my USB drive is 2.0 though.

I meant to say USB port.

Also you may just want to download the ISO, use a tool like Hashtab to verify the MD5 checksum rather than downloading the files over and over again. If the MD5 checksum matches that provided with the ISO, then you know that it is an exact copy.

64-bit (x64) Windows 10 Home & Windows 10 Pro en-US OEM ISO

File Name: 10240.16384.150709-1700.TH1_CLIENTPRO-CORE_OEMRET_X64FRE_EN-US.ISO
Size: 4,083,853,312 bytes
SHA-1: 60CCE9E9C6557335B4F7B18D02CFE2B438A8B3E2
MD5: 23E397A21A9E01F141C64B7E1260314A
CRC32: B1A4699E

 

[MillionStabs]

All I do is make sure the power is fully discharge from the PC by turning off the PSU switch or unplugging the power cable, hit power on button on the case, and lastly, touch the PC case with your hands. Then, I am all good to mess around inside the case.

As for removing the heatsink, it should come off relative easy by just lifting it. If not, you can wriggle it to loosen it.

Thanks for the reminder. I probably never would have considered to make sure all the power was discharged

 

[Skii]

I meant to say USB port.

Also you may just want to download the ISO, use a tool like Hashtab to verify the MD5 checksum rather than downloading the files over and over again. If the MD5 checksum matches that provided with the ISO, then you know that it is an exact copy.

Okay, I'll download Hashtab. Is this the link?

Anyway, I have a new problem now. Changed my configuration from Sata Express to M2 and my system goes to a blank screen everytime I press F2 to go to bios on the start up screen. Is my M2 chip faulty?

 

[paskowitz]

Excellent. Its time to begin the process!

Thanks one last time for your awesome help

Happy to help. One last *bonus* round of suggestions.

The Air 240 comes with 3 fans (very generous). The Corsair H80GT comes with two fans. The Hybrid 980 ti comes with one fan. You are going to want to think out where and how you connect all these fans. Do this before you assemble your system.

The first thing you should check is the mounting of the two radiators at the front and all that tubing. I would experiment with this before you put anything in your rig.

I would also advise you connect the GPU fan into the Corsair Link header on the CPU cooler, (fan management hardware/software with the H80GT... google it) so you can control your GPU fan more precisely.

The case fans are a simple affair. I would do 1 at the top back and 1 at the bottom front. The last one is extra, but if you really wanted to you could put it in the other top spot. Plug the top one into your mobo and the bottom one into corsair link (so you can set it to the GPU temp).

Finally, I don't know what the mounting situation is like on the Air 240, but I invested in thin rubber washers to put between my case and anything that attaches to it (radiators, fans, HDDs, etc). This is a small investment that really gives peace of mind. There is nothing worse than building, discovering that you have a phantom vibration and then taking everything apart to fix it.

Down the line (not really required) you may want to invest in Noctua fans (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFCRATC/?tag=neogaf0e-20) for better, silent cooling. Also worth looking into is a super fast M.2 SSD (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VELD5D8/?tag=neogaf0e-20) . But those are "nice to haves".

 

[Jag]

I'm ready to start ordering my new build now, but I'm so torn on whether I want to go Haswell or Skylake. I'm looking for a pure gaming build, in the $1k-1200k range, for 1080 and maybe 1440 and maybe Occulus.

I'm coming from a 5 year old Dell first gen i5 with most some upgrades. Anything I get will be a huge improvement, but I'd hate to get last gen tech when current gen tech is out now. Even though I know the difference in speeds is probably negligible.

I'm also probably going to go with a 970 since I've been AMD for ages and hate getting late drivers or lagging behind NVIDIA. It's time to change on the GPU front for me.

Help me GAF. Haswell or Skylake??

 

[JoeyJungle]

The 6700k sold by newegg is showing up on google shopping (though isn't yet available for purchase on newegg's site)

It's happening dot jiff

 

[Skii]

I meant to say USB port.

Also you may just want to download the ISO, use a tool like Hashtab to verify the MD5 checksum rather than downloading the files over and over again. If the MD5 checksum matches that provided with the ISO, then you know that it is an exact copy.

I did the Hashtab as you said and this is what I got:

CRC32: C8E085C2
MD5: 9B8B9CDDCF22DBC8FE248C554409861F
SHA-1: DC2BE1E947BB2A29B13F580A8B06F46F9C3F112A

I don't know what any of it means though.

 

[LilJoka]

I did the Hashtab as you said and this is what I got:



I don't know what any of it means though.

Google has absolutely no hits on that, so im not sure what you downloaded?
Was this the Windows 10 build 10240 ISO?

 

[triplestation]

Happy to help. One last *bonus* round of suggestions.

The Air 240 comes with 3 fans (very generous). The Corsair H80GT comes with two fans. The Hybrid 980 ti comes with one fan. You are going to want to think out where and how you connect all these fans. Do this before you assemble your system.

The first thing you should check is the mounting of the two radiators at the front and all that tubing. I would experiment with this before you put anything in your rig.

I would also advise you connect the GPU fan into the Corsair Link header on the CPU cooler, (fan management hardware/software with the H80GT... google it) so you can control your GPU fan more precisely.

The case fans are a simple affair. I would do 1 at the top back and 1 at the bottom front. The last one is extra, but if you really wanted to you could put it in the other top spot. Plug the top one into your mobo and the bottom one into corsair link (so you can set it to the GPU temp).

Finally, I don't know what the mounting situation is like on the Air 240, but I invested in thin rubber washers to put between my case and anything that attaches to it (radiators, fans, HDDs, etc). This is a small investment that really gives peace of mind. There is nothing worse than building, discovering that you have a phantom vibration and then taking everything apart to fix it.

Down the line (not really required) you may want to invest in Noctua fans (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFCRATC/?tag=neogaf0e-20) for better, silent cooling. Also worth looking into is a super fast M.2 SSD (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VELD5D8/?tag=neogaf0e-20) . But those are "nice to haves".

I'm so glad to know these extra bits, especially the part about the rubber washers. So I'll definitely look into those as well as the noctua fans since I'm trying to build a very quiet machine. I knew a little bit about the Corsair Link header but didn't know it would be compatible with the GTX980ti H's fan so that's an incredibly useful thing I've just learned.

I have a pretty good feeling about the H80i GT and how it will fit next to the GTX980ti H's fan/radiator and I've already been thinking about how they can be arranged in other ways. But I think it'd be optimal to just have them next to each other with just the H80ti in a push/pull configuration. When the parts do finally arrive I'll have a chance to play around with it a bit to try different things, but my gut just tells me putting them next to each other is the way to go, just like in this pic you provided in an earlier post:

http://www.corsair.com/~/media/Corsair/Blog/2014-11/dennis_build_log/dennis-sys1.jpg

I don't know how soon it will be when I make the orders, but when I do (and I will) I'll be sure to upload lots of photos in this thread of the radiator/fan arrangements.

 

[Kudo]

Okay, I'll download Hashtab. Is this the link?

Anyway, I have a new problem now. Changed my configuration from Sata Express to M2 and my system goes to a blank screen everytime I press F2 to go to bios on the start up screen. Is my M2 chip faulty?

I guess your m.2 chip could be faulty as that's definitely something that shouldn't happen when changing that setting.

There's big battery in the motherboard that keeps your BIOS Settings saved, unplug your power supply and take the battery off for few minutes to reset all settings.

 

[Skii]

Google has absolutely no hits on that, so im not sure what you downloaded?
Was this the Windows 10 build 10240 ISO?

I just used the media creation tool off Microsoft's website and chose Windows Pro 10 64bit ISO download.

Here's some pictures of the properties if that helps:

 

[paskowitz]

I'm so glad to know these extra bits, especially the part about the rubber washers. So I'll definitely look into those as well as the noctua fans since I'm trying to build a very quiet machine. I knew a little bit about the Corsair Link header but didn't know it would be compatible with the GTX980ti H's fan so that's an incredibly useful thing I've just learned.

I have a pretty good feeling about the H80i GT and how it will fit next to the GTX980ti H's fan/radiator and I've already been thinking about how they can be arranged in other ways. But I think it'd be optimal to just have them next to each other with just the H80ti in a push/pull configuration. When the parts do finally arrive I'll have a chance to play around with it a bit to try different things, but my gut just tells me putting them next to each other is the way to go, just like in this pic you provided in an earlier post:

http://www.corsair.com/~/media/Corsair/Blog/2014-11/dennis_build_log/dennis-sys1.jpg

I don't know how soon it will be when I make the orders, but when I do (and I will) I'll be sure to upload lots of photos in this thread of the radiator/fan arrangements.

You could replace the stock GPU (Hybrid) fan with a Noctua (they also have rubber mountings, so you wouldn't need washers).

 

[Skii]

I guess your m.2 chip could be faulty as that's definitely something that shouldn't happen when changing that setting.

There's big battery in the motherboard that keeps your BIOS Settings saved, unplug your power supply and take the battery off for few minutes to reset all settings.

Thanks! Didn't know how to reset CMOS with the jumper. Couldn't even tell which pins were the right ones lol.

So yeah, the M2 chip isn't visible under boot priority but is visible when you go into Advanced\HDD/SDD Smart Information. Does that mean it works...?

 

[triplestation]

You could replace the stock GPU (Hybrid) fan with a Noctua (they also have rubber mountings, so you wouldn't need washers).

Ok cool. I'll still pick up some rubber washers for other motherboard mountings.

I'm about to purchase the CPU and SSD right now since they come as a combo. Is this safe to do?

I think the SSD would be fine to buy but I don't know if CPUs can actually come as DOA?

 

[Evo X]

I think the SSD would be fine to buy but I don't know if CPUs can actually come as DOA?

Extremely unlikely that a CPU comes DOA these days.

 

[triplestation]

Extremely unlikely that a CPU comes DOA these days.

Since I'll be getting other components later I just want to be sure I'm not making a big mistake here. But at the same time I'd like knowing that a big chunk of this project is taken care of.

 

[LilJoka]

Thanks! Didn't know how to reset CMOS with the jumper. Couldn't even tell which pins were the right ones lol.

So yeah, the M2 chip isn't visible under boot priority but is visible when you go into Advanced\HDD/SDD Smart Information. Does that mean it works...?

Possibly the media create tool is changing a file such that its specifically for Pro, the normal ISO has both version enabled with a menu.

Either way, just try it out, try what i said about setting it all to UEFI mode.

 

[Skii]

Possibly the media create tool is changing a file such that its specifically for Pro, the normal ISO has both version enabled with a menu.

Either way, just try it out, try what i said about setting it all to UEFI mode.

Well I redownloaded it again and this is what I got this time round:

CRC32: 077C9E52
MD5: EE635A8367BF0793EEC9D5A5C430FA0D
SHA-1: F05206E6C6E0F39D2FF845CE61B63F4CAC8EE6C4

Is it supposed to be different each time?

Anyway, tried to boot the USB from boot menu and whenever I press it, the screen goes blank for a second before going back to the Bios screen. I guess I'll redownload it again and try again. I've changed everything to UEFI so I'll post to let you know what happens.

Thanks for your patience

 

[Skii]

Possibly the media create tool is changing a file such that its specifically for Pro, the normal ISO has both version enabled with a menu.

Either way, just try it out, try what i said about setting it all to UEFI mode.

Tried it all in UEFI mode with no luck. Tried the USB drive in both 2.0 and 3.0 ports as well.

What now?

Should I try the new USB I bought or are you sure its not the USB stick that's the problem?

EDIT: Sorry for double post!

 

[MrPing1000]

I'm pondering buying a 2nd 670 off ebay for sli, should tide me over for a couple of years. I'm still completely unimpressed with the top tier graphics cards compared to stuff thats 3 years old. Kepler was just damn good. Main thing holding me back is the odd occasion where games hate SLI and you end up with one card.

 

[LilJoka]

Tried it all in UEFI mode with no luck. Tried the USB drive in both 2.0 and 3.0 ports as well.

What now?

Should I try the new USB I bought or are you sure its not the USB stick that's the problem?

EDIT: Sorry for double post!

Firstly I never use MS tools to download ISOs, I just look for the MSDN hashes posted and then Google those to find the ISO link. I then verify the downloaded copy with hashtab against the hashes provided by MSDN. It's possible that the media create tool is doing something to modify ISOs per download.

Definatly give the new USB a go. I've had a problem where the install.wim file continuously corrupted when I checked the hash from within the ISO (extract ISO, install.wil is inside sources folder) on the HDD vs the copy of install.wim that ended up on the USB stick.

I very much doubt the download is corrupt, way more likely the files on the USB are corrupted when copied.

Seems like Ms have ISOs here
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

[Evo X]

I'm pondering buying a 2nd 670 off ebay for sli, should tide me over for a couple of years. I'm still completely unimpressed with the top tier graphics cards compared to stuff thats 3 years old. Kepler was just damn good. Main thing holding me back is the odd occasion where games hate SLI and you end up with one card.

What the hell are you talking about? A 980Ti has 3X the VRAM and is easily 6X faster than your 670. How is that unimpressive progress for 3 years?

Either way, don't buy another 670. That 2GB VRAM will hold you back. Sell your 670 and upgrade to a 970 if you can. It has more memory and should be at least as fast as 670 SLI without the multi-GPU bullshit.

 

[AmyS]

Samsung Enters The HBM Market In 1H 2016 – HPC and GPU Ready HBM With Up to 1.5 TB/s Bandwidth and 48 GB VRAM

http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/idf-2015-samsung-fertigt-high-bandwidth-memory-ab-2016/
http://wccftech.com/samsung-enters-hbm-market-1h-2016-hpc-gpu-ready-hbm-15-tbs-bandwidth-48-gb-vram/

 

[Skii]

I guess your m.2 chip could be faulty as that's definitely something that shouldn't happen when changing that setting.

There's big battery in the motherboard that keeps your BIOS Settings saved, unplug your power supply and take the battery off for few minutes to reset all settings.

Firstly I never use MS tools to download ISOs, I just look for the MSDN hashes posted and then Google those to find the ISO link. I then verify the downloaded copy with hashtab against the hashes provided by MSDN. It's possible that the media create tool is doing something to modify ISOs per download.

Definatly give the new USB a go. I've had a problem where the install.wim file continuously corrupted when I checked the hash from within the ISO (extract ISO, install.wil is inside sources folder) on the HDD vs the copy of install.wim that ended up on the USB stick.

I very much doubt the download is corrupt, way more likely the files on the USB are corrupted when copied.

Seems like Ms have ISOs here
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

IT WAS THE FUCKING USB!!!

I downloaded it again on my new USB, reset the BIOS settings and tried one more time and it let me put in the product key! Installing to my M2 as I type

Thank you guys for all your help! I just hope this is the last of it now.

 

[Fezan]

My cousin wants to get inot pc gaming.
I got him an old i7 950 processor. Can you tell me what graphic card should i pair it with. He has budget for 970 but i am worried that this processor will bottleneck the card

 

[Mordeccai]

I got the step up email from EVGA, upgrading my 970 to the 980ti.

I have a few questions before I pull the trigger.

Is it realistic to expect this card to last me, and run games at ultra settings in 1080p, for the next three years?

And would a 550W psu be okay? I have an i5 3570 over clocked at 4.0, and have no plans to over clock the TI.

 

[Crisium]

My cousin wants to get inot pc gaming.
I got him an old i7 950 processor. Can you tell me what graphic card should i pair it with. He has budget for 970 but i am worried that this processor will bottleneck the card

That'll be fine. Gen 1 i7 is only really held back in a handful of games, and less so if you overclock. With a good cooler you can get a 1GHz OC on it (3.06 stock).

 

[kennah]

I'm pondering buying a 2nd 670 off ebay for sli, should tide me over for a couple of years. I'm still completely unimpressed with the top tier graphics cards compared to stuff thats 3 years old. Kepler was just damn good. Main thing holding me back is the odd occasion where games hate SLI and you end up with one card.

What the hell are you talking about? A 980Ti has 3X the VRAM and is easily 6X faster than your 670. How is that unimpressive progress for 3 years?

Either way, don't buy another 670. That 2GB VRAM will hold you back. Sell your 670 and upgrade to a 970 if you can. It has more memory and should be at least as fast as 670 SLI without the multi-GPU bullshit.

No need to be so mean maybe his usage scenario could be helped by spending 85 to 90 on a second 670.

I know personally I'm hanging on to my 670 for another two years and then upgrading to a cheap second hand 970

Spoiler

because my waterloo will fit

If you don't need the latest greatest games, a 670 is plenty powerful for a lot of people. Myself included.

Gonna be real funny paired with my 5930 though.

 

[Stubo]

I'm pondering buying a 2nd 670 off ebay for sli, should tide me over for a couple of years. I'm still completely unimpressed with the top tier graphics cards compared to stuff thats 3 years old. Kepler was just damn good. Main thing holding me back is the odd occasion where games hate SLI and you end up with one card.

What the hell are you talking about? A 980Ti has 3X the VRAM and is easily 6X faster than your 670. How is that unimpressive progress for 3 years?

Either way, don't buy another 670. That 2GB VRAM will hold you back. Sell your 670 and upgrade to a 970 if you can. It has more memory and should be at least as fast as 670 SLI without the multi-GPU bullshit.

I'd have to disagree with the 'easily 6x faster' statement. This is the closest comparison on GPU bench, but a 680 isn't a huge leap from an overclocked 670 anyway. I'd say a 980Ti is ~2.5x the frames in most games.

Anyway, only upgrade if you're noticing that your framerates aren't cutting it while using the settings you want. I know the upgrade itch is a real thing but it could be worth waiting for the next wave of cards if you can.

Also consider selling on your 670 and then buying the fastest single GPU you can with the money if you're worried about SLI or VRAM issues.

 

[Fezan]

That'll be fine. Gen 1 i7 is only really held back in a handful of games, and less so if you overclock. With a good cooler you can get a 1GHz OC on it (3.06 stock).

No option for overclocking as he has only 500 watt power supply and lives in hot region

 

[byropoint]

Would a 550W Seasonic be enough for a R9 390?

 

[garath]

Incorrect. Raid 0 combines the drives. Thus, 2x128GB = a 256GB in Windows while also providing almost twice the read and write speeds. I have been running Raids forever.

Oops! My bad. Memory failed me thanks for the catch. Don't want to give the guy bad info.

 

[Raticus79]

I have two Titan X cards with an old Z68 motherboard and a 2600k, which limits them to PCI-E 2.0 x8 each. I had been waiting on Skylake to upgrade the rest, but might go for X99 with a 5930k or 5690x since Skylake-E won't get here for a while. No big rush, it's fine for what I'm currently playing.

Are there any tools for reporting on the PCI-E statistics to see how much it's currently limiting things? I have a 4K monitor and a 1440p/144, so I expect it's coming into play, I just haven't been able to find anything that shows how much improvement the 4x PCI-E bandwidth would get me with those cards.

 

[Rufus]

Would a 550W Seasonic be enough for a R9 390?

Depend on the rest of your system. CPU, other extension cards, number and type of drives, fans. Basically, fill this out:
http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

 

[byropoint]

Depend on the rest of your system. CPU, other extension cards, number and type of drives, fans. Basically, fill this out:
http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

That's a great tool, bookmarked, thanks!

 

[Got the Shakes]

Well did my first build ever with an i5 4590 and a GTX 970 in a mini ITX case. Took me a little under two hours and everything actually worked properly to my surprise. Unfortunately I'm too tired to setup Steam tonight, but I did setup Plex Home Theater on it and that's working right. Was actually easier to build than I thought going in, but it feels good to have a machine that I built from the ground up.

 

[Mordeccai]

Depend on the rest of your system. CPU, other extension cards, number and type of drives, fans. Basically, fill this out:
http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

Well according to this, with my cpu over clock and a few peripherals, they give a high of 515 watts of power with a 980ti. Looks like my 550 is good to go then. Great link!

 

[LilJoka]

IT WAS THE FUCKING USB!!!

I downloaded it again on my new USB, reset the BIOS settings and tried one more time and it let me put in the product key! Installing to my M2 as I type

Thank you guys for all your help! I just hope this is the last of it now.

Lol hopefully time to enjoy the PC now.

 

[knitoe]

I have two Titan X cards with an old Z68 motherboard and a 2600k, which limits them to PCI-E 2.0 x8 each. I had been waiting on Skylake to upgrade the rest, but might go for X99 with a 5930k or 5690x since Skylake-E won't get here for a while. No big rush, it's fine for what I'm currently playing.

Are there any tools for reporting on the PCI-E statistics to see how much it's currently limiting things? I have a 4K monitor and a 1440p/144, so I expect it's coming into play, I just haven't been able to find anything that shows how much improvement the 4x PCI-E bandwidth would get me with those cards.

Not much differences.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_980_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html

 

[Evo X]

No need to be so mean maybe his usage scenario could be helped by spending 85 to 90 on a second 670.

I'd have to disagree with the 'easily 6x faster' statement. This is the closest comparison on GPU bench, but a 680 isn't a huge leap from an overclocked 670 anyway. I'd say a 980Ti is ~2.5x the frames in most games.

Anyway, only upgrade if you're noticing that your framerates aren't cutting it while using the settings you want. I know the upgrade itch is a real thing but it could be worth waiting for the next wave of cards if you can.

Also consider selling on your 670 and then buying the fastest single GPU you can with the money if you're worried about SLI or VRAM issues.

Not being mean. I was addressing his BS comment about being "completely unimpressed" with the progress of GPUs in the last 3 years.

And actually, the closest comparison to the 670 available on that website is the 580, not 680:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1444?vs=1496

In Shadow of Mordor Ultra settings, a 980Ti is 5.7 times faster. Not to mention the minimum framerates, where the lowest the 980Ti goes is 56fps, and the 580 dips to 7.2fps. Even if you look at averages, the 980Ti is at least 3-4X faster. I don't see how that is unimpressive.

Now if he was talking about CPU progress, I'd be inclined to agree, but high end GPUs have gotten way more powerful since the 670 came out, and buying another one now is a poor investment.

 

[triplestation]

What are the bare minimum components needed to check if a motherboard is DOA?