New Build, need advice please.

Found out from YouTube that it's 27cm or 270mm so should fit nicely. I'll be buying one of them for sure with how easy it is to unlock.

So let's have a recap, this is what it's looking like now:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 "Dual Fan Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £229.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £508.95

Still need a power supply though. MORE SPEED said this:

1 x XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £81.98

Is that worth the price for what I need?
 
Steve Foster said:
Found out from YouTube that it's 27cm or 270mm so should fit nicely. I'll be buying one of them for sure with how easy it is to unlock.

So let's have a recap, this is what it's looking like now:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 "Dual Fan Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £229.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £508.95

Still need a power supply though. MORE SPEED said this:

1 x XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £81.98

Is that worth the price for what I need?
Click to expand...
thats a good psu choice :)
 
Steve Foster said:
Would that fit? Needs to be maximum 304mm length. Read about some 6950's being able to be 6970's. I'd guess I'd have to email OC's before purchase to make sure I'd get one of them versions.

What clock speed can it get to? Stock at 800MHz but a reviewer said he got it to 950MHz?!
Click to expand...

That's because you can overclock the GPU just like you can the i5K CPU ;)

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/314?vs=292

Now providing you buy a good Z series mobo that does SLI/Xfire properly you can do the above. That's 2 £100 cards vs your 6970, there is a 460 SOC version which can be clocked even higher for £120 ;)

It's worth mentioning that the nvidia cards have cuda support. Essentially it can be used as an additional CPU by some software. (I'll mention now the Z series lucid virtu support does this also with the IGP so it's worth aiming for that mobo) The ati cards dont offer this tech. You do get eyefinity (3 screen gaming support) on one card but I think your more likely to use the encoding ability of the nvidia card than splash out on more screens ;)

Even dropping to a 560ti can make sense if it gives you enough cash to get a good mobo and PSU. Especially when you can drop in a second GPU, preferably a 2nd hand one cheap :) By doing SLI you also get the nvidia equivalent of AMDs eyefinity alongside the cuda and physx support.

Just food for thought. Good luck with the build any questions or problems, you know where we are bud
 
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Steve Foster said:
Is that comparing 1 460 to a 6970? Never used nvidia before so have no idea about them.

This one from OC's - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-160-EA&tool=3

EDIT: I see, SLI on that benchmark, so I'd need 2 of course.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's running two of them. As i said that's the stock 460 which is £100. The SOC for £120 i know from experience will happily sit at 850mhz, stock 460 is 675mhz!

I included the link so you can roughly compare performance to what you are paying. Feel free to adjust the search criteria how you see fit :)

The GPU you linked IS the SOC version, oh and you'd happily run 2 560s on that XFX PSU too, incase you were wondering lol
 
Funnily enough the 550Ti is worse than the 460! (the 460 has far more CUDA cores)
I wouldn't ever usually recommend the 550Ti.

honosuseri's idea is a decent one. I'd be inclined to stick with one GPU however, as it will tend be quieter, more efficient etc... But it's certainly an option :)
 
Noise isn't really an issue with me, the game volume is normally so loud I can't hear the system anyway :P

I've had this 5770 1GB for 2 years now and just feel the need for a more powerful system now that I'm getting back into PC gaming full time (because of SWTOR of course) and I have loads of games on Steam I need to start/finish so I want my system to slice through those games like a hot knife through butter without breaking the bank and £240 ain't that bad for the boost I'd be getting.

So it seems I'll go for 460 SOC SLI then. Anyone know the last time it was on a weekly deal? Won't have the spare money for another month for all the parts combined so wouldn't mind saving a few on those cards =D
 
So it now stands at:

YOUR BASKET
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 £239.98
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
1 x XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £81.98
Total : £600.92

£100 over what I wanted, but it'll be fine. So this would be the full system below when finished:

Finished Product
1 x Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366)
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
1 x XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
1 x My old Blu-Ray DVD+RW Drive
1 x My old HDD even though I have no idea what it is.

Would all that be compatible and ready to go? :D

beejjacobs said:
The EVGA GTX460 SC?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-160-EA

Their only 210mm! Tiny cards :)
http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/01G-P3-1363.pdf
Click to expand...

Awesome, I was going off an Amazon seller.. lol
 
Slight over sight on our part as niether of us mentioned it. But for SLI you need a compatible motherboard. This is the cheapest I believe:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-368-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

I also feel I should say, SLI isn't 100% supported by all games!

EDIT: consider the 6950 linked earlier, or maybe a GTX560Ti:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-153-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341
Or even a cheap 6970:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-142-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

It's up to you. There are so many options. All I'd say is do your research before buying anything. I mean, everything is great it's just the GPU choice to sort out (or motherboard if you decide on 2 460s)
 
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Steve Foster said:
Is this better than the 460? Has a faster clock and should retail around £115, wouldn't two of these be better?

http://eu.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=01G-P3-1557-KR&family=GeForce 500 Series Family&uc=EUR
Click to expand...

It's hard to find a benchmark for the 550 GPUs, which i just take as a bad sign. I'm sure i must have read a review but i have no recollection of it (also a bad sign lol).

My real point is showing the advantages of having a good base to your rig. You need to spend around £100 to get a Z series mobo which does dual cards properly. The cheaper mobos around £80ish dont do SLI so you can see the difference you pay easily for the privilage.

What GPU/s you choose is upto you fella. You can see the 460 SLI performance. There is no upgrade from there though, other than swapping out the cards. So it might be wise to get the best single GPU you can buy along with the SLI/xfire mobo and make sure the PSU can run a second one later.

The 460 SOC is relatively cheap so you could just buy one and buy a SSD instead of the extra GPU/best single GPU price. Then you get faster load times for your OS and games installed to it. You know you can add an additional 460 (or whatever card you choose) if you see one come up cheap much later on.
 
beejjacobs; said:
I also feel I should say, SLI isn't 100% supported by all games!
Click to expand...

That's a game changer... so on some games I'd essentially have the power of only 1 of the cards (which is still better than my current card).

beejjacobs; said:
EDIT: consider the 6950 linked earlier, or maybe a

GTX560Ti:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-153-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341
Click to expand...

Just compared the 560Ti to two 460 SOC and it's worse. The unlocked 6970 would also be better than the 560Ti according to this (if I've done it right):

Vs. Unlocked 6970 2GB

Vs. 2x 460 1GB SLI

So for £230 I could get the unlocked 6970 for the same price with better performance?
 
http://www.geforce.com/GamesandApps
That's says some of the games that support SLI, there's more info on that website too.

Yeah the GTX560Ti is worse than 2 460s, but 1v1 it is better, and you can add another later. Just another option that's all :)

And yes, the 6970 is one of the best cards atm! So definitely better than a 560Ti, was just looking at cards in your budget :)

I don't know much about unlocking the 6950, if you can great as the 6970 is very good
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/314?vs=292
 
Seems like most games have SLI, and I imagine pretty much all future games will support it. However, like honosuseri said; I can't upgrade from 2 460's unless I get new cards altogether.

So even though the unlocked 6970's perform a bit worse than 2 460's, I could also add another 6950/70 in the future. So with just one unlocked 6970 the mobo would be fine I assume but if I wanted to crossfire in the future I'd need that one you linked for £100 that's currently out of stock yes?
 
I didn't mean to confuse. There is nothing wrong with getting a cheap Z series mobo and buying the balls out fastest card you can afford!!

It's your build you know what's best for you. Have some fun with it! write out a few builds in your budget. I'm just pointing out options that you may or might not like to exploit. It's your money divide it out however you wish :)
 
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