What would you upgrade of this setup?

orbitalwalsh · 28 Aug 2020 at 17:11

chroniclard said:
You might be able to overclock the GPU a tiny bit and get a few more FPS but its just not worth the outlay. Better off putting that money towards a new GPU that will drastically increase your performance.

Aye, was the 980ti being the HOF and Gigabyte Xtreme you could set huge power limits and volt for big OC under water . Pascal onwards stopped that

dirtychinchilla · 28 Aug 2020 at 18:14

You can still BIOS flash the 970 (not that I’d heard of that before yesterday)

dirtychinchilla · 1 Sep 2020 at 09:04

So, my block arrived on Saturday. It seems fine but I can't test it yet as I don't have anything other than the block.

I've decided to go ahead with water cooling the GPU for now. I figure that I'll want to do it anyway with whatever system I build, whether it's the GPU, CPU, or just one of the two. At the moment I have an AIO for the CPU so I'll stick with that. But I will then have the basic kit for water cooling the whole system anyway, so I'm happy with that.

I bought one of these from eBay, a Magicool DCP450 pump and reservoir for £30. I'm planning to get the following plus hose clamps to complete the set up next month - buying bit by bit. I'm quite happy using hose clamps btw. I had a bad experience with the compression fittings in the past and they're rather expensive.

It's very confusing that a lot of these brands (or maybe it's just Magicool and EK) are using Imperial and others are using Metric for the fittings.

So this is what else I'm looking to order next month (sans hose clamps). Anything stupid here?

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Magicool G2 Slim radiator 16 FPI - 240mm= £27.95
6 x XSPC G1/4" to 1/2" Barb Fitting (Matte Black)= £1.79
1 x XSPC FLX Tubing 1/2" ID, 3/4" OD (19/13mm) - 2m Clear= £7.99
2 x Mayhems Ultra Pure H2O Watercooling/Cleaning Fluid - 1 Litre= £2.50

Total: £61.58 (includes shipping: £9.90)

hlennie · 1 Sep 2020 at 16:26

@dirtychinchilla make sure u sub the users market on the forum for cheap parts look out for a cheap 1070 or 980ti on here and make use of the wanted section on the members market

dirtychinchilla · 1 Sep 2020 at 16:27

hlennie said:
@dirtychinchilla make sure u sub the users market on the forum for cheap parts

Already been checking through there, thank you

what's the conventional wisdom on buying 2nd hand rads?

I found some fittings on the MM but they were metric and I don't know whether I can mix metric and imperial here. Normally not! But I'm also a water cooling noob.

hlennie · 1 Sep 2020 at 16:49

@dirtychinchlla 2nd hand rads bang some vinegar in them leave for a couple of hours flush with water check for leaks then leave to dry. to be honest all the stuff I have brought off the members market has been like new guys on here really look after their stuff. As to the fittings as long as they are G1/4 thread you should be all good.

Don't mix fittings, if u can, try and use the same make that's not to say that u can't but it looks nicer and less problems if one make is slightly loose or tight.

Forgot to mention msi afterburner can clock the 970 about 10% faster

LeMson · 2 Sep 2020 at 03:33

Forget the water cooling if your on a budget, you already have an AIO, ok

Cost of a 970 plus £60 on watercooling above you could have bought or nearly bought a 980ti. Your about 6 years late wcing a 970, and even then it was a daft idea as 980 was top card

Not sure what your gonna bios flash it to?

dirtychinchilla · 2 Sep 2020 at 08:08

hlennie said:
@dirtychinchlla 2nd hand rads bang some vinegar in them leave for a couple of hours flush with water check for leaks then leave to dry. to be honest all the stuff I have brought off the members market has been like new guys on here really look after their stuff. As to the fittings as long as they are G1/4 thread you should be all good.

Don't mix fittings, if u can, try and use the same make that's not to say that u can't but it looks nicer and less problems if one make is slightly loose or tight.

Forgot to mention msi afterburner can clock the 970 about 10% faster

Will do, thanks for the tips. I have it overclocked already actually, but I'm not very happy with the temps.

LeMson said:
Forget the water cooling if your on a budget, you already have an AIO, ok

Cost of a 970 plus £60 on watercooling above you could have bought or nearly bought a 980ti. Your about 6 years late wcing a 970, and even then it was a daft idea as 980 was top card

Not sure what your gonna bios flash it to?

The AIO is on the CPU. What you're forgetting is that I already have the 970. I think I've had it for about 4 years, so I'm not just going to buy a 980ti.

I found some info on how to BIOS flash this card, but it looks like mods may have edited it out as it's vanished. I won't post it again.

In my mind, it's worth the effort to be able to run the card at max, and also to be able to have the kit for when I do upgrade the whole system later this year. I'm keen to see the prices of the new 3000 series GPUs.

Plec · 2 Sep 2020 at 08:18

dirtychinchilla said:
I'm keen to see the prices of the new 3000 series GPUs.

If you haven't seen them already:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/buy/

But no date/price for 3060 yet (not unusual for staggered release). But there will be high demand across range due to pricing and performance. But, there should be a glut of 2070/2080s soon second hand.

dirtychinchilla · 2 Sep 2020 at 08:41

Plec said:
If you haven't seen them already:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/buy/

But no date/price for 3060 yet (not unusual for staggered release). But there will be high demand across range due to pricing and performance. But, there should be a glut of 2070/2080s soon second hand.

Thanks for that. I somehow think I might be looking at the second hand releases! I guess it might be too early to tell, but would I be bottle necking my PC if I ran one of these cards with my old 2500k?

Plec · 2 Sep 2020 at 09:12

dirtychinchilla said:
Thanks for that. I somehow think I might be looking at the second hand releases! I guess it might be too early to tell, but would I be bottle necking my PC if I ran one of these cards with my old 2500k?

Yes, considerably, given the speed bump across the range (e.g. 3070 faster than a 2080Ti - so the 3060 'could' be on a par with the 2080 Super)

A second hand 2070 would be a sensible option when they start to hit the MM once the 3070 is released in October. Even that will be bottle necked but you won't notice - plus the hope is that the second hand price will be very competitive with so many users off loading at the same time. You may get yourself a real bargain and a card more power balanced for your system than a 30XX which would have a lot of power/money left on the table when in use.

dirtychinchilla · 2 Sep 2020 at 09:31

Plec said:
Yes, considerably, given the speed bump across the range (e.g. 3070 faster than a 2080Ti - so the 3060 'could' be on a par with the 2080 Super)

A second hand 2070 would be a sensible option when they start to hit the MM once the 3070 is released in October. Even that will be bottle necked but you won't notice - plus the hope is that the second hand price will be very competitive with so many users off loading at the same time. You may get yourself a real bargain and a card more power balanced for your system than a 30XX which would have a lot of power/money left on the table when in use.

Awesome, thanks for the advice. In time, I want to upgrade the whole system so I don't know what the best route will be. My budget constraints are temporary, so part of me thinks I'll wait it out and get the lowest price of these new cards, and then in time replace my CPU and everything involved in that. But, that could be uber expensive.

I just don't want to upgrade and then still be sitting way below the current standard.

LeMson · 2 Sep 2020 at 09:38

Once you factor in the cost of a block it'll put you at the next tear, 3060 plus block = 3070 money

You can ghetto something but nvidia FE cards have decent coolers now so no need to wc them

dirtychinchilla · 2 Sep 2020 at 09:52

LeMson said:
Once you factor in the cost of a block it'll put you at the next tear, 3060 plus block = 3070 money

You can ghetto something but nvidia FE cards have decent coolers now so no need to wc them

That's fair. It might actually be worth it with the 20xx cards I guess? They may already have blocks

Plec · 2 Sep 2020 at 09:53

dirtychinchilla said:
My budget constraints are temporary, so part of me thinks I'll wait it out and get the lowest price of these new cards, and then in time replace my CPU and everything involved in that. But, that could be uber expensive.

Sensible, but ideally, when you eventually upgrade, you would do so from the ground up - having looked over your spec. The 2500K has been a monster of a CPU - but if buying new components ideally start with a new chipset, CPU etc and then spend money on new GPU and a monitor if needed.

For immediate GPU gratification for your present system - the secondhand market will hopefully be your friend very soon, as mentioned. This will be the one component that dates the fastest - so unless you plan to do a wholesale system upgrade very soon i would get the best pound : performance card balanced for your present system and then sell it on again once you have new foundation to build on. Although, if you were to get a 2070 Super, on the cheap, and game at 1080p you would probably be able to sit with it for a while even in your new planned system.

LeMson · 2 Sep 2020 at 10:19

dirtychinchilla said:
That's fair. It might actually be worth it with the 20xx cards I guess? They may already have blocks

The 20xx series was where this fell apart, they didn't supply the founders editions with blower coolers. So all the day 1 buyers (lulz as no bugger bought the 2080 or 2070) weren't forced to choose between a blower and gimp performance and going deaf or water. Hence all the wait for AIB's comments we used to get - not so much now!! last time the AIBs were more expensive than nvidia.

I don't like selling hardware so understand if you wouldn't want to too, but selling your 970 and £60 on top must bring you near secondhand 980ti money. Presuming your PSU can handle it

dirtychinchilla · 2 Sep 2020 at 13:52

Plec said:
Sensible, but ideally, when you eventually upgrade, you would do so from the ground up - having looked over your spec. The 2500K has been a monster of a CPU - but if buying new components ideally start with a new chipset, CPU etc and then spend money on new GPU and a monitor if needed.

For immediate GPU gratification for your present system - the secondhand market will hopefully be your friend very soon, as mentioned. This will be the one component that dates the fastest - so unless you plan to do a wholesale system upgrade very soon i would get the best pound : performance card balanced for your present system and then sell it on again once you have new foundation to build on. Although, if you were to get a 2070 Super, on the cheap, and game at 1080p you would probably be able to sit with it for a while even in your new planned system.

My plan right now is to get this GPU water cooled. Then look at upgrading the chipset and running the 970 for a bit longer, eventually getting a new GPU. But given the potential flood of 20xx cards maybe that's the wrong way to do it?

LeMson said:
The 20xx series was where this fell apart, they didn't supply the founders editions with blower coolers. So all the day 1 buyers (lulz as no bugger bought the 2080 or 2070) weren't forced to choose between a blower and gimp performance and going deaf or water. Hence all the wait for AIB's comments we used to get - not so much now!! last time the AIBs were more expensive than nvidia.

I don't like selling hardware so understand if you wouldn't want to too, but selling your 970 and £60 on top must bring you near secondhand 980ti money. Presuming your PSU can handle it

I'm completely lost on what you're saying here, sorry! Bear in mind my computer knowledge is about 8 years out of date.

I would definitely sell the 970 at some point, but not to get the 980.

I will also need a new monitor at some point. I guess you don't really notice when you use it everyday, but my monitor is old and crap.

LeMson · 2 Sep 2020 at 14:27

You should be looking at the 980ti, a very different beast to the 980. They are around £110 on ebay, get one with a dual or triple-fan cooler, not the reference single fan design.

In the days of the 970 (and current AMD lol) the nvidia/amd reference cards came first, they had crappy blower style coolers, hot and loud. So the people jumping on the new card sales, a lot went with water cooling to mitigate the hot (or suboptimal) and loud cooler. But people were doing it on the top card at the time the 980. it made no sense really to get a 970 and water cool it with a block, just spend the money on a better card to begin with.

It was sensible for 980 owners as it gave more perf on the best card, and got rid of the crappy cooler. Contrast with the 20xx cards shipped with decent dual fan coolers from the getgo, as will the new 30xx series, the coolers these days don't need fixing. The gfx card forum isn't full of people going water on the new cards, reviews pending on the new cooler but it should be decent cooling and not noisy, water just doesn't make sense.

I run a 970 in my second PC, so not hating the 970, but at this point your polishing a turd water cooling it, it's 6 years old. Less so if you are doing it ghetto with bits you have already, but if your spending money buying a block etc well they tend to be card specific. Will be hard to move on and get money back on.

dirtychinchilla · 2 Sep 2020 at 14:51

LeMson said:
You should be looking at the 980ti, a very different beast to the 980. They are around £110 on ebay, get one with a dual or triple-fan cooler, not the reference single fan design.

In the days of the 970 (and current AMD lol) the nvidia/amd reference cards came first, they had crappy blower style coolers, hot and loud. So the people jumping on the new card sales, a lot went with water cooling to mitigate the hot (or suboptimal) and loud cooler. But people were doing it on the top card at the time the 980. it made no sense really to get a 970 and water cool it with a block, just spend the money on a better card to begin with.

It was sensible for 980 owners as it gave more perf on the best card, and got rid of the crappy cooler. Contrast with the 20xx cards shipped with decent dual fan coolers from the getgo, as will the new 30xx series, the coolers these days don't need fixing. The gfx card forum isn't full of people going water on the new cards, reviews pending on the new cooler but it should be decent cooling and not noisy, water just doesn't make sense.

I run a 970 in my second PC, so not hating the 970, but at this point your polishing a turd water cooling it, it's 6 years old. Less so if you are doing it ghetto with bits you have already, but if your spending money buying a block etc well they tend to be card specific. Will be hard to move on and get money back on.

That was very comprehensive, thanks very much. I'm just going to run the 970 for now and do the water cooling - I have the block and it cost me £15 so no major complaints, and the rest of the kit I'll be able to use to cool the CPU when I upgrade. Obviously with the correct water block.

I had a better look at the 30xx cards and they are just monsters, and that's not for me. Nor do I have anything in 8k, and my monitor currently doesn't even do 4k. But, I'd upgrade to 4k at some point. It's hilarious not knowing what you could be using! Monitor really hadn't occured to me this whole time.

orbitalwalsh · 2 Sep 2020 at 14:53

A lot of 2070S will.also hit second hand market. Worth the shout . 2080ti will be low now but when stock of 3*** reaches zero and Pre-orders mount, so will second hand prices to claw at it .