Upgrade suggestions

will13 · 9 Aug 2014 at 13:48

Over last few months I've been thinking of getting a new build, to replace my i5 2500K and 7970.

I've sorta narrowed it down to xfire PCS+ 290's, 780Ti SLI (not sure on vendor) and maybe 295x2, however with the 800 series rumored for sep. release would that be worth the wait?

Reason for upgrade is just my 7970 isn't cutting it in some games at 1440p, at the moment I'm having to play Skyrim at 1080p to get 50FPS (thats because of ENB and mods but still)

Any advice appreciated

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:29

Why not get another 7970/280x? Theyre dirt cheap used atm.

humbug · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:31

A pair of 290's for £600.

In Xfire they are not far behind the 780TI's for £400 less, you also get XDMA on the 290's so no need to worry about SLI/CF bridges, you can put the cards as far apart as your motherboard allows.

If you going to be spending £1000+ on the 780TI's then the 295X2 is better.

The GTX 800 series is an unknown, it might be good value and awesome performance, or it might not be any faster than a 780TI and cost the same or more, given its Nvidia the later is likely to be more true if not less for more money.

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:33

humbug said:
A pair of 290's for £600.

In Xfire they are not far behind the 780TI's for £400 less, you also get XDMA on the 290's so no need to worry about SLI/CF bridges, you can put the cards as far apart as your motherboard allows.

If you going to be spending £1000+ on the 780TI's then the 295X2 is better.

Why? Two 290x would be much cheaper than a 295x2?

humbug · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:38

Resa69 said:
Why? Two 290x would be much cheaper than a 295x2?

Yes, i'm just saying the 295X2 is a better option for its money than 2 780TI's

It also has the benefit of being a single water cooled unit.

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:40

humbug said:
Yes, i'm just saying the 295X2 is a better option for its money than 2 780TI's

It also has the benefit of being a single water cooled unit.

The 295x2 is a pointless product IMO (unless used in a mitx build). For that price you can get dual 290p and custom watwrcool them

will13 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:41

Resa69 said:
Why not get another 7970/280x? Theyre dirt cheap used atm.

To be honest I just don't know if it'll be enough, at the moment I'm playing a lot of skyrim and I'd need pretty good scaling to make another 7970 useful at 1440p, because at moment I get 30FPS and under just in riverwood

humbug said:
A pair of 290's for £600.

In Xfire they are not far behind the 780TI's for £400 less, you also get XDMA on the 290's so no need to worry about SLI/CF bridges, you can put the cards as far apart as your motherboard allows.

If you going to be spending £1000+ on the 780TI's then the 295X2 is better.

The GTX 800 series is an unknown, it might be good value and awesome performance, or it might not be any faster than a 780TI and cost the same or more, given its Nvidia the later is likely to be more true if not less for more money.

Yeah the 290's are the ones that appeal to me most, even more so since a lot of games this year I want to play have mantle

I just though 780Ti's SLI would be pretty good in skyrim judging by single card differences

humbug · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:44

Don't know about Skyrin TBH, if its the only game that matters? you would need to do more research on CF or SLI as its such a CPU intensive game, even with an i7 you might not get that much more out of it with a 780ti SLI or 290/X CF.

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:44

will13 said:
To be honest I just don't know if it'll be enough, at the moment I'm playing a lot of skyrim and I'd need pretty good scaling to make another 7970 useful at 1440p, because at moment I get 30FPS and under just in riverwood

Yeah the 290's are the ones that appeal to me most, even more so since a lot of games this year I want to play have mantle

I just though 780Ti's SLI would be pretty good in skyrim judging by single card differences

I doubt the scaling is good for Skyrim, isnt it cpu limited most of the time? I'm just saying you need to look at other games too otherwise two 290s wont bs justifiable as you can probably get 85% of the performance with dual 280x's and more if you looked into overclocking

will13 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:48

There is other games I will be playing, I was just giving skyrim as a example since its the game I've played the most recently.

I guess the only games I don't play on PC is FPS

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:50

will13 said:
There is other games I will be playing, I was just giving skyrim as a example since its the game I've played the most recently.

I guess the only games I don't play on PC is FPS

Skyrim isnt the best example. Its still a bit of a gamble as I think its very cpu dependent even if you got dual 780ti's you might still not be getting the performance you want

will13 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:52

Resa69 said:
Skyrim isnt the best example. Its still a bit of a gamble as I think its very cpu dependent even if you got dual 780ti's you might still not be getting the performance you want

Just checked and according to my last run with skyrim, I was using 36% CPU and 74% GPU on average at 1080p, if that helps?

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:54

will13 said:
Just checked and according to my last run with skyrim, I was using 36% CPU and 74% GPU on average at 1080p, if that helps?

It seems like 1 core is getting hammered, and the 2nd core is getting used a little bit. As you can see the gpu is still not pushed to the maximum (but this goes for most cards at 1080p)

humbug · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:54

will13 said:
Just checked and according to my last run with skyrim, I was using 36% CPU and 74% GPU on average at 1080p, if that helps?

Yeah that helps, Skyrim has pretty naff multi-threading hence the reason why its so CPU limited and why only 36% CPU usage, its only really using one thread.

The GPU usadge is where its at, 74% the GPU is clearly constrained by the CPU.

What CPU is it?

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:56

humbug said:
Yeah that helps, Skyrim has pretty naff multi-threading hence the reason why its so CPU limited and why only 36% CPU usage, its only really using one thread.

The GPU usadge is where its at, 74% the GPU is clearly constrained by the CPU.

What CPU is it?

2500k

humbug · 9 Aug 2014 at 14:58

Resa69 said:
2500k

Overclocked? if your going for BIG GPU CF/SLI i think you should think about spending some of the budget on a nice new i7 and get the 290's

Edit: that will not help that much with Skyrim, tho will get a noticeable difference... but for most other things a 2500K is a bit too much of an ask where 2 monster GPU's are concerned.

Resa69 · 9 Aug 2014 at 15:00

humbug said:
Overclocked? if your going for BIG GPU CF/SLI i think you should think about spending some of the budget on a nice new i7 and get the 290's

I was just answering the question for him because it was in the original post

will13 · 9 Aug 2014 at 15:01

humbug said:
Overclocked? if your going for BIG GPU CF/SLI i think you should think about spending some of the budget on a nice new i7 and get the 290's

Yeah I was gonna go with a totally new build with 4790K, my 2500K is OC'ed to 4.2

humbug · 9 Aug 2014 at 15:10

Resa69 said:
I was just answering the question for him because it was in the original post

oops, you got me this time

will13 said:
Yeah I was gonna go with a totally new build with 4790K, my 2500K is OC'ed to 4.2

Do it

well, new CPU and Motherboard, you should have enough left out of your £1000 it looks like you were willing to spend for the 290's, they are awesome GPU's, way faster individually than a 7970.

about +35%

will13 · 9 Aug 2014 at 15:13

humbug said:
oops, you got me this time

Do it well, new CPU and Motherboard, you should have enough left out of your £1000 it looks like you were willing to spend for the 290's, they are awesome GPU's, way faster individually than a 7970. about +35%

Hmm maybe I should ask on here before I place order for new build, see if you guys can make anything better?