What would you upgrade in my system?
- Thread starter StevieP
- Start date
It wasn't strange - I appreciate the links and may well use them but for the time being your post seemed to indicate that I only needed to update the bios for a 970 to work - which I've not even decided upon!?!?
Thanks for all the advice guys...
I would grab a second hand 2600/2700K, a second hand R9-290 or maybe GTX780, and a new PSU because I had a ModXstream and I don't trust them. 
Alternatively, just clock the nuts off of the 2500K. Mine did 4.6GHz day to day and 5.4GHz for benching. I only sold it because I got hold of a golden 2700K which does 5GHz day to day with comfy volts.
Alternatively, just clock the nuts off of the 2500K. Mine did 4.6GHz day to day and 5.4GHz for benching. I only sold it because I got hold of a golden 2700K which does 5GHz day to day with comfy volts.
If u do want to go 4k deffo the gpu as I think every game I've tried so far on medium settings is using 2.5gb vram with lowest aa.
R9 290x, gtx980 or if u really do like 4k r9 295x2
Newer gen cpu or a 2700k would give some nice performance gains as well
R9 290x, gtx980 or if u really do like 4k r9 295x2
Newer gen cpu or a 2700k would give some nice performance gains as well
I chose the KFA2 card over the others because of the OCUK return policy for these specific cards, plus I believe they come out of the box with higher stock clock speeds etc than some of the other cards...
I really didn't want to risk coil whine....
I really didn't want to risk coil whine....
i run 4k with an i5 2550k5ghz/[email protected] and sli 970's. your cpu is going to bottleneck 2 cards in some games and probably quite badly at stock. An i7 will be faster, but a stock i7 is slower than a high clocked i5 of the same gen with the exception being the 4790k. you need 2 cards to run 4k properly.
I'm really not wanting to go down the route of upgrading my CPU, PSU and possibly even the motherboard, especially as the monitor itself will won't be cheap!
So it looks like my best option is to ramp up the frequency on my 2500k and go for either the 970 or R9 290.
Given this route, which would be better suited for gaming at 1440p, ideally without needing a PSU upgrade? (and assuming that my motherboard bios updates OK further to Lemin's advice above!!)
So it looks like my best option is to ramp up the frequency on my 2500k and go for either the 970 or R9 290.
Given this route, which would be better suited for gaming at 1440p, ideally without needing a PSU upgrade? (and assuming that my motherboard bios updates OK further to Lemin's advice above!!)
980 for the best of both lol
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My personal pick would be an R9 290 PCS+ OC and clock up the CPU.
Vidar is wrong - nVidia and AMD are very closely matched. nVidia tend to have more appealing software to install on your machine but worse in-game performance for the money - note though that this varies extensively by game, by settings, by resolution etc.
In consumer graphics cards AMD are less power efficient and as a result may be noisier due to extra heat to be removed, though they still win the fastest single card award with the dual-GPU 295x2 and even, surprisingly, the most power efficient super-computer award with their FirePro cards (Hawaii is very good at Double Precision compared to anything nVidia can offer). The nVidia options offer the fastest single GPU at 1080p in most games (GTX 980) and better power efficiency but at a price premium.
Both sides have specific games that work particularly well on them and other games that work poorly.
Were I to go for an nVidia card I guess a 970 would be my choice, a 980 isn't enough faster to be worth the extra cash in my eyes and while the 970 has some well-discussed issues above 3.5GB of memory use I'd not let this put me off, it's fairly rare to be between 3.5GB and 4GB anyway.
Edit: Lemin is also being a bit misleading - monitor size is irrelevant. Monitor resolution is what matters. Bigger monitors tend to have higher resolutions, but not necessarily. In general the AMD cards scale better with higher resolutions than nVidia (Titans scale pretty well too I hear) but at 1080p that most folks play at it's not really relevant.
Vidar is wrong - nVidia and AMD are very closely matched. nVidia tend to have more appealing software to install on your machine but worse in-game performance for the money - note though that this varies extensively by game, by settings, by resolution etc.
In consumer graphics cards AMD are less power efficient and as a result may be noisier due to extra heat to be removed, though they still win the fastest single card award with the dual-GPU 295x2 and even, surprisingly, the most power efficient super-computer award with their FirePro cards (Hawaii is very good at Double Precision compared to anything nVidia can offer). The nVidia options offer the fastest single GPU at 1080p in most games (GTX 980) and better power efficiency but at a price premium.
Both sides have specific games that work particularly well on them and other games that work poorly.
Were I to go for an nVidia card I guess a 970 would be my choice, a 980 isn't enough faster to be worth the extra cash in my eyes and while the 970 has some well-discussed issues above 3.5GB of memory use I'd not let this put me off, it's fairly rare to be between 3.5GB and 4GB anyway.
Edit: Lemin is also being a bit misleading - monitor size is irrelevant. Monitor resolution is what matters. Bigger monitors tend to have higher resolutions, but not necessarily. In general the AMD cards scale better with higher resolutions than nVidia (Titans scale pretty well too I hear) but at 1080p that most folks play at it's not really relevant.
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Soldato
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Its the screen resolution, not the screen size thats the issue. A 970 can power a 1440p monitor single handledly, a 290 couldn't.