To rebuild or upgrade

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 15:43

Hi,

I was cleaning out my computer today and unfortunately I pulled out one of my 980ti's without opening the clip on the PCI-E slot. Anyway it looks like the board isn't functioning fully and none of my PCI-E slots seem to be working. I have 2 980ti's but neither works, in windows it says there is a hardware fault.

I'm going to need to buy another board but I was wondering whether it would be better to upgrade to just get a like for like board and move everything over, my specs are below;

MSI X99A Gaming 7 Motherboard
Intel i7-5820K
G Skillz 4 x 4gb
GeForce GTX 980 Ti x 2 SLi

Appreciate any help

Quartz · 18 Jan 2020 at 16:19

A replacement X99 motherboard is not going to be cheap

It's probably best to take the opportunity to upgrade. Today's equivalent of the 5820k is the Ryzen 3600, a cheap mainstream CPU. A quick check at one of OCUK's competitors shows X99 motherboards on sale for £290. You can buy a B450 and Ryzen 3600 for that (though not the RAM).

That said, there are some no-name mATX X99 motherboards available at a certain auction site for much cheaper. They're probably fake.

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 16:54

Quartz said:
A replacement X99 motherboard is not going to be cheap

It's probably best to take the opportunity to upgrade. Today's equivalent of the 5820k is the Ryzen 3600, a cheap mainstream CPU. A quick check at one of OCUK's competitors shows X99 motherboards on sale for £290. You can buy a B450 and Ryzen 3600 for that (though not the RAM).

That said, there are some no-name mATX X99 motherboards available at a certain auction site for much cheaper. They're probably fake.

Thanks for the quick response. Since the only issue is that PCI-E socket do you think it would be worth getting this repaired? or try to repair myself? It's literally just the socket that's been pulled loose.

The other option you've said, would I be able to transfer the ram I already have to the B450 board?

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 16:57

If it's just the one PCI-E slot that's not working, why not sell your 980TI's and buy a new single GPU to use in the working slot?

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 17:42

Gray2233 said:
If it's just the one PCI-E slot that's not working, why not sell your 980TI's and buy a new single GPU to use in the working slot?

Yes this might be an option. I've just checked and if I only have one card on the board it works fine. Tried it on RDR2 and to be honest it performed almost the same as 2 980ti's!

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 17:46

p4rma said:
Yes this might be an option. I've just checked and if I only have one card on the board it works fine. Tried it on RDR2 and to be honest it performed almost the same as 2 980ti's!

SLI isn't that great anymore, it used to function driver side but now it's down to the game developers to implement it themselves, so it rarely gets done.

980ti's still sell decently, as mentioned you could sell them both and pick up a 5700XT or maybe 2070S with most of the cost covered. You would see a good improvement in the majority of modern games.

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 18:04

Gray2233 said:
SLI isn't that great anymore, it used to function driver side but now it's down to the game developers to implement it themselves, so it rarely gets done.

980ti's still sell decently, as mentioned you could sell them both and pick up a 5700XT or maybe 2070S with most of the cost covered. You would see a good improvement in the majority of modern games.

Well I'm glad my mobo is still working and at least one of the PCI-E ports is working, I was thinking about replacing the PCI-E connector however, your idea seems pretty good by selling my 2 x 980ti's and upgrading to a 5700XT or 2070+. I haven't had an AMD gfx in sometime so I might need to do some research. I was looking at the 2080 but would my CPU be a bottleneck considering it's a i7-5820K?

Would you replace the PCI-E slot or sell the 980ti's and upgrade the GPU. I still kinda bummed one of my PCI-E slots is screwed but if like you say SLI is dying then there's no point being so disappointed. Damn I should be more careful when cleaning my PC!

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 18:24

The 5820K is still a good CPU, it's about on par with an AMD 3600 I imagine so there's definitely room for a strong single card upgrade.

What monitor are you using, what resolution do you game at?

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 18:44

Gray2233 said:
The 5820K is still a good CPU, it's about on par with an AMD 3600 I imagine so there's definitely room for a strong single card upgrade.

What monitor are you using, what resolution do you game at?

I have two monitors both max refresh rate is 60hz
1# Samsung 32" UJ590 UHD 4k Monitor
2# ASUS PB287Q Gaming Monitor - 28" 4K UHD

I usually game at 3840 x 2160 but some games I turn it down a notch like RDR2 to improve the FPS.

I'm going to take your advise and try to sell my 980ti's and hopefully depending on what I get buy a 2080. Like I said I've not had an AMD GPU in a long time since it was ATI so I'll probably have to do some more research.

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 18:54

If you game at 4K you may well be better off with the 2080 or 2080S.

While the 5700XT is a fantastic card for the price, it's a little slower than a 2070S on average.

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 19:02

Gray2233 said:
If you game at 4K you may well be better off with the 2080 or 2080S.

While the 5700XT is a fantastic card for the price, it's a little slower than a 2070S on average.

Thanks for your advise, I think it'll come down to cost. I'll see what I get for my 980ti's and if I get a good price I might go for the 2080/2080s if not I'll go for the 5070XT which from what I've seen should be able to play the games I want at a slightly lower resolution which I can live with.

Also since the 2070 and 2080 would easily go over the 60fps mark there's no point me getting it since my monitors are only 60hz

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 19:32

p4rma said:
Thanks for your advise, I think it'll come down to cost. I'll see what I get for my 980ti's and if I get a good price I might go for the 2080/2080s if not I'll go for the 5070XT which from what I've seen should be able to play the games I want at a slightly lower resolution which I can live with.

Also since the 2070 and 2080 would easily go over the 60fps mark there's no point me getting it since my monitors are only 60hz

Yeah, the value of the 5700XT is very hard to beat.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Powercolor Radeon RX 5700 XT Dual Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £338.99
1 x Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming OC 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £369.00

Total: £707.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)

I'd opt for one of these if you decide to settle for a 5700XT, the Gigabyte is probably the best all round 5700XT but the Powercolor Dual Fan for £339 is outstanding value.

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 20:21

Gray2233 said:
Yeah, the value of the 5700XT is very hard to beat.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Powercolor Radeon RX 5700 XT Dual Fan 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £338.99

1 x Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT Gaming OC 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £369.00

Total: £707.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)

I'd opt for one of these if you decide to settle for a 5700XT, the Gigabyte is probably the best all round 5700XT but the Powercolor Dual Fan for £339 is outstanding value.

That's very good value for money, thanks for the links.

I've played GTA & RDR2 and can barely see a drop in performance! I may just keep one 980ti for now and on the plus side make some money on selling the other card. The only thing that's keeping me from switching to AMD is gamestreaming, is there an equivalent for AMD? I have a nvidia Shield so that's why this comes in handy and also use Moonlight on other devices.

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 20:26

As I don't use those sorts of services I'm not sure if there's an equivalent AMD side I'm afraid.

I'm sure someone else will be able to chime in and advise you in that regard, but if you're happy with your performance under one 980ti you may as well continue using it.

p4rma · 18 Jan 2020 at 21:55

Gray2233 said:
As I don't use those sorts of services I'm not sure if there's an equivalent AMD side I'm afraid.

I'm sure someone else will be able to chime in and advise you in that regard, but if you're happy with your performance under one 980ti you may as well continue using it.

I see AMD released AMD Link in December so this looks interesting however, like you say I may just stick with the one card for now. Thanks again for your help, I guess breaking my PCI-E slot is going to get me back some money.

Oh and I looked at SLi supported games and you're right it looks like they aren't as common these days; https://www.geforce.co.uk/games-applications/technology/sli?title=&sort_bef_combine=created+DESC

Gray2233 · 18 Jan 2020 at 21:57

p4rma said:
I see AMD released AMD Link in December so this looks interesting however, like you say I may just stick with the one card for now. Thanks again for your help, I guess breaking my PCI-E slot is going to get me back some money.

Oh and I looked at SLi supported games and you're right it looks like they aren't as common these days; https://www.geforce.co.uk/games-applications/technology/sli?title=&sort_bef_combine=created+DESC

Unfortunately yeah, as I said with newer games it's down to the game developers to implement it, which just isn't worth the time investment for them given how niche it was to begin with.