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can't decide on 980ti

spulse

spulse

spulse

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Joined
24 Sep 2015
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233
hi all - i'm looking at building a new rig before christmas, looking at an i7 skylake with 2 980ti's in SLI, the problem is i'm not sure which brand to go with.

540 for the inno3D 'hybrid' model looks like a bargain for the oc capability plus I really like the look of it and it seems like it would be seriously quiet. The other similar option seems to be the evga hybrid but together it would be nearly 200quid more and i'm not sure what the benefit would be over the former. There doesn't seem to be a lot of reviews on the inno and i'm not familiar with the brand that much, is there a reason it's 'cheaper'?

The air cooled models turn me off a bit with reports of coil whine etc but cards like the msi lightning look stupidly fast - will the price of those be coming down anytime soon?

My budget for two cards is around 1200. The other thing is would I be better waiting for an upgraded model (are nvidia planning on releasing anything else before pascal?)

sorry if something similar has already been asked / needs to be in a different thread :)
 
the inno hybrid looks great value over the EVGA, they are essentially identical, so yes it is just EVGA branding themselves as more "premium", they do generally give very good RMA support, but £100 is a bit steep as your chances of needing to RMA are pretty low in the first place - both cards are "reference" pcb, so the overclock potential will be the same for both

there's no rumours of anything prior to pascal at the moment

what case and motherboard do you have?
if you have decent spacing and a good case (or willing to run with no side panel) then air cooled SLI can work fine, but for more cramped spacing water is a decent idea
 
andybird123 said:
the inno hybrid looks great value over the EVGA, they are essentially identical, so yes it is just EVGA branding themselves as more "premium", they do generally give very good RMA support, but £100 is a bit steep as your chances of needing to RMA are pretty low in the first place - both cards are "reference" pcb, so the overclock potential will be the same for both

there's no rumours of anything prior to pascal at the moment

what case and motherboard do you have?
if you have decent spacing and a good case (or willing to run with no side panel) then air cooled SLI can work fine, but for more cramped spacing water is a decent idea
Click to expand...

Thanks - no mobo or case yet but i'm leaning towards an asus mobo and nzxt s340 case.
 
The blower cooler on the reference cards exhausts the heat on the back of the case.
Most other coolers just let it go around the case, making for 10-12 degrees warmer temps on the top card and making things worst for every other component.

So you either go reference, hybrid, or you have a good chance of regretting it.

By the way, since you're starting from scratch, are you sure about picking Skylake over X99?
 
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I would go blower or hybrid as well. The only thing that worries me with the hybrid is the Inno3D warranty, and I wouldn't pay the premium for EVGA.

It's shame there isn't more competition in that part of the market, if Gigabyte and ASUS got in on it as well it would look much more interesting.
 
Jim99 said:
I would go blower or hybrid as well. The only thing that worries me with the hybrid is the Inno3D warranty, and I wouldn't pay the premium for EVGA.

It's shame there isn't more competition in that part of the market, if Gigabyte and ASUS got in on it as well it would look much more interesting.
Click to expand...
There are two solutions to that:
By the time he builds it, MSI hybrid should be available.
Reference always gives you the option to buy the EVGA hybrid cooler for 90£ (available in UK elsewhere, don't know why OCUK hasn't got it).

EDIT: Also Msi Gaming with G10/H55 (which is a perfect fit) is still about 600£. There are many options. Even just watercooling the top one until you gather money for the one below.
 
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razorpakk said:
By the way, since you're starting from scratch, are you sure about picking Skylake over X99?
Click to expand...

I helped a friend build a 980 (standard) sli rig on x99 last year which is the inspiration for building my own - to be honest if skylake hadn't just come out i'd be considering it but what i've read about cost/future proofing skylake seems to be the better option at the moment. Please tell me if i'm missing something though. I basically want to not have to worry about it for the next 5/6 years and i'm not going to be doing any massive computational stuff so the 6+ core cpus on x99 seem a bit pointless.
 
if you are planning a CPU/mobo build to last 5/6 years then I would go with the 5820k, the extra 2 cores will be made good use of by DX12 apps

an i7 skylake build will be around the same price as a decent X99-5820k build and the 5820k also has extra PCIe lanes which will be useful for running SLI with a x4 SSD
if you get an Asus X99-S board it has an extra slot gap as well which will open up your options for SLI (I run an MSI Gaming with an Asus Strix in SLI and don't go above 80C even on a warm day)
having said that, looking at the case it looks quite compact so the hybrid route does look best unless you want to run with no side panel (I run open case and don't have any problems with dust)

you'll want to run the CPU rad fans to blow out the front though to prevent blowing warm air over the GPU's
 
You shouldn't think in terms of "being done for 5 years", it doesn't work like that, nobody can tell what's going to happen (and maybe nothing will, like the past few years of Cpus).

I don't know what build you have today, but a X99 seems much better value than Skylake to me and more cores will definitely help you in the future more than the roughly 300Mhz you'll get with Skylake.


Just google 5820k Vs Skylake, nobody suggests the latter.
 
thanks for the responses - lots to think about with the cpu!

back to the gpus though - what size of case will I need to fit them in comfortably/without heating issues. Is the nzxt s340 I mentioned too tight for a build like this? (if i'm going hybrid there's the extra fans to consider?)

edit: I've put together a hypothetical build on ************, swapping out the skylake cpu+mobo for x99 as suggested on this thread.

Can anyone see any issues/stuff you'd do differently?

https://uk.************.com/user/spulse/saved/zqpv6h
 
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I've just received my Inno3D hybrid, must say its a very cool & quiet card. In 3Dmark it never went above 56C, in heaven it touched 57C.

This week only price on OcUK is worth it.
 
spulse said:
thanks for the responses - lots to think about with the cpu!

back to the gpus though - what size of case will I need to fit them in comfortably/without heating issues. Is the nzxt s340 I mentioned too tight for a build like this? (if i'm going hybrid there's the extra fans to consider?)

edit: I've put together a hypothetical build on ************, swapping out the skylake cpu+mobo for x99 as suggested on this thread.

Can anyone see any issues/stuff you'd do differently?

https://uk.************.com/user/spulse/saved/zqpv6h
Click to expand...

This OCUK bundle deal is better VFM & way higher spec mobo also £50 cheaper bundle price.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-022-AS&groupid=2833&catid=2836

I would probably go for this PSU higher spec & only a little more. When ocing or even at stock speeds SLI GTX980Ti draws a lot of juice & over time all PSU's degrade so no longer give the same performance as when new so always better to go well over spec to allow for that eventual degradation:
http://www.overocockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-007-SF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2464

OCUK are hard to beat in the UK price wise on highend PSU's & certain CPU/Mobo combos.
 
Evolv ATX and Luxe would be good cases as well, or Define S to keep budget down. The 340 doesn't have mounts on the roof and I wouldn't cheap out on the case for such a great build :P
I would advise one intake and one exhaust besides the radiators to cool better mobo and other components.

Where you can save, if you want, is the Inno3D cards instead of the Evga. Or reference + Evga coolers, which saves you 80£ for the same product (minus 20 minutes of work).
 
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