Which GTX970 to get?

[ithehappy]

This is a disease actually, called upgrade-itch.

Anyway, my rig is in my signature, is there anything looks like could and should be upgraded? I mean right now I can spend about 500-600 bucks (USD), but I am quite sure that a whole rig won't be anywhere nearly imaginable in that budget.

Or should I wait till next year?

PS: The topic doesn't make any sense LOL! I haven't even mentioned what I do with my set-up. Well I am a gamer (I guess that was kind of self explanatory anyway), who plays FPS games (mostly, COD, BF, GTA, FC etc.), at 1200p (for the time being) and always liked to have as much frames as possible (I get dizzy when frames go below 30 by the way, at the same time I don't expect continuous 60, 45-50 seems to be the adapted sweet spot) at maximum settings that's it.

I am looking to buy a GTX970. Which one should I get? There's no such budget restriction as long as it stays under 500 USD. Kindly suggest me which one would give me best performance and will have least number of problems hardware wise and should be very power efficient too, thanks.

 

[BUTCH1]

upgrade, you know you want to.

 

[nsafreak]

For gaming I would upgrade the GPU. Which GPU to upgrade to is the question though. If you can wait just another month or so I'd see what the new R9 3X0 series has to offer. Compare it price and performance wise to a GTX 970 and then go from there.

 

[Ken g6]

You might also be interested in a CPU upgrade. I liked this guy's suggestions:

I would get a 95 watt Xeon X5670 for $100 before spending $200 on a W3690 130 watt CPU. Sure stock clocks are higher, but X series overclock better @ less power and heat. Any hexcore cpu overclocked on X58A-UD3R should be good to go

Obviously which is better for you depends on if you OC, but I assume you do.

Oh, and is your RAM not in triple-channel?

 

[bigboxes]

You know you want to. I just upgraded my i7 920 after 5 1/2 years. I'm still waiting on my 970 as I had to return my previous card due to physical damage. It's not a have to, it's a want to for sure. I started with the case, power supply, cpu cooler, decided on the platform (2011 vs. 1150), ram, ssd, motherboard/cpu, had on-board video so I ordered the video card last. Bought each part as I could afford it. I think you're long overdue for a new rig. I'd get the GPU first and save up for the rest. Like someone else said, wait a few months and see what AMD comes out with and choose what is best for you.

 

[escrow4]

A 5820K would be a decent platform and generation leap. X58 is obsolete and the old Nehalems are getting creaky and tired.

 

[Ken g6]

A 5820K plus new mobo would also blow his budget, before adding DDR4 RAM.

But if you're near a Micro Center, a 4790K bundle might fit with a new video card. (Re-use your RAM.) And a 4690K would certainly fit.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

This is a disease actually, called upgrade-itch.

I still think the forums need a 12-step program for hardware addiction. I though the OP put it pretty well -- "a disease."

With that old Nehalem rig, though, I'd start collecting Haswell-E parts for a 5820K system. Pull the string! Pull the string!

Seriously, the recommendation for a 4790K system sound about right. If not, an SSD boot/system disk and a good graphics card.

 

[ithehappy]

upgrade, you know you want to.

LOL course I want to, who would otherwise create a topic first thing in the morning

For gaming I would upgrade the GPU. Which GPU to upgrade to is the question though. If you can wait just another month or so I'd see what the new R9 3X0 series has to offer. Compare it price and performance wise to a GTX 970 and then go from there.

Well I had my eyes set on the 980 actually, but it's kind of costly, I mean very costly actually.

 

[ithehappy]

A 5820K would be a decent platform and generation leap. X58 is obsolete and the old Nehalems are getting creaky and tired.

Actually a 5820k is really affordable for me but the problem is I'll have to redo the whole rig, I mean whole system including motherboard, RAM etc., so the total budget of mine (for the time being) will cross quite easily.

Now the thing is I had a plan to upgrade at the end of this year anyway, I mean a total system upgrade, I had a want-to-spend budget of something like 1000-1200 USD (and I'm quite sure I'll fetch around 180-200 bucks for my current setup), so meaning I'll spend around 1500, and that's ALL I want to spend behind it, I mean that's a set budget of mine, I can spend 3 times without thinking, but I will NOT. So if I spend that 500 bucks now (be it behind a GPU or something else) then I'll spend 1000 later (I mean when I actually wanted to do the upgrade, i.e. later this year), nothing more.

I've told several times by several members of this very forum that I should hold off until Skylake (or something like that, I can never remember the names) releases and I respect this forum and thus the suggestions of members here a lot, that's why I keep asking and I'm asking again, will I still wait, or ... ?

One more important thing which might sound ridiculous to some, is, this time the rig I want has to be power efficient, I mean I'm not buying something which will consume ~200 watts even when I'm just browsing or listening to music etc. like my current setup, that's just ridiculous. My PC is on all time, it gets around six hours rest per week, so it should be power efficient. I know that CPU like 4790k are really power efficient and all but I will actually get a Hexa core one this time, if not Octa core (rare chance, still saying). So one question is, those 5820k, 5930k, if I get one of them will they be same power hungry as my current 950?

Oh, I don't live in US by the way, so I don't even know what you meant by Micro Centre!

Thanks to all by the way, forgot to mention it, but its always there even if I forget to mention.

 

[nsafreak]

The i7 5820K and i7 5930K idle at around 70 watts, there may be a watt of difference between the two but it's negligible. Under a full load, non overclocked, they typically hit around 143 watts. So the power consumption between the two is pretty much the same so you're really going to be deciding between the two on whether you want the 8 cores that the 5930K provides or not along with the additional cost. Feel free to wait till Skylake although I'm a bit doubtful that we'll see massive performance increases. In the meantime a GPU is going to be your best bet and can be easily transferred to the full system upgrade.

 

[ithehappy]

70 watts? Brilliant! I saw my friends' 4770k idling around 80+ watts, damn.

Anyway, that's fixed then, now need to decide whether to get the Hexa or Octa core. Won't be able to afford the latter at this time, price will fall in no time though, oh wait, there comes the waiting factor again, LOL.

Right now I can afford a 970 easily, and one member said I could wait for the AMD 3 series which are due next month, so what to do? How much better is a 980 than 970 anyway?

PS: Your comment about Skylake is kinda rare actually, I mean whatever I read all of them said Skylake would be something like a new era or something, a total change, a new standard and all that!

 

[nsafreak]

The 980 is marginally better but the price difference between the two is much larger than the margin of performance. In fact if you get the right 970 it's quite possible to overclock it to the point where it matches a stock clocked 980 in most cases and surpasses it in some. Insofar as potentially waiting for AMD 3 series that's up to you. In your case I would wait for the simple reason that if AMD releases a GPU that competes well against the current nVidia offerings then nVidia may have to respond by lowering the prices of their GPUs. Or you may decide that you prefer the AMD route and get a better bang for the buck card. Either way you win with either less money spent on a GPU or a better performing GPU. Both will perform better than your current GPU so since you've waited so long as is I figure you can wait another month or two .

 

[ithehappy]

Ha ha okay, thanks bro.

 

[Syran]

Wait on GPU until AMD releases the newest card, then get the best bang for your buck in the mid $350 crowd probably. Otherwise, do you have an SSD in that machine?

 

[ithehappy]

No, I had an SSD, which was mistakenly sold when I sold my laptop. Was thinking about getting a 850 Evo, don't know, I mean those are great for overall system but gaming (except the loading time).

What's these Xeon CPUs? I'm seeing some CPU like E5 1660 V3 selling around 600 bucks Amazon US. How are Xeon line-up different from i7 line-up?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Xeon X5675 $125-130 USD
GTX 970 ~ $300 USD

done

 

[Ken g6]

Transcend SSD 370s are really cornering the market on cheap, fast SSDs. They're as low as $45 for 64GB! Pick the largest one that fits whatever remains of your budget after upgrades. My only concern with them is that reliability is unknown.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

What's these Xeon CPUs?

They are fantastic. 32nm 6 core 1366lga socket chips that most will overclock to 4.4GHz under 1.35v

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westmere_(microarchitecture)

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon X5690 - AT80614005913AB (BX80614X5690).html

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

From an outside looking in perspective, I'd suggest a CPU upgrade as BTRY suggested. If I was you perspective(depending on what you use it for) I'd go with a 4690K Z97, reuse the memory and PSU then wait as new GPU'S are coming in soon.
IMHO, nothing I see in the future excites me and I'm a die hard up grader!! I just don't see much new stuff that will out perform existing hardware, then again loss of a job and winter plays into that as well. Plus the fact that the leaps n bounds Intel CPU'S took after the 1366 platform and lack of AMD performance probably doesn't help either.
I'm ready to dump most of the stuff I have, keep what I'm using a few years and call it a day. Good luck either way you go, I'm in tight wad mood!!!

 

[ithehappy]

God damn you guys are seriously encouraging me to consider that Xeon X5675!

PS: One thing I have never understood though, is higher clock rate always better for gaming? I mean I see that gamers always OC their CPUs to something like 4.2 to 4.5 GHz but I don't know, I mean is that just out of fun or is there an actual advantage of it? Say for example a 4.0 GHz CPU will be much better than a 3.5 GHz CPU (for gaming)?

 

[ithehappy]

Transcend SSD 370s are really cornering the market on cheap, fast SSDs. They're as low as $45 for 64GB! Pick the largest one that fits whatever remains of your budget after upgrades. My only concern with them is that reliability is unknown.

Well that bold part is enough for me to not consider it. I can not afford to lose any data, thanks for mentioning about it though.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Devil's Canyon is also a good idea. I don't know what DX12 will bring but I hear it will have some type of parallel thread support er something. Please someone fill is in on this, as from what I'm gathering I think more cores the better. And I know it will be only available on Windows 10, but support for DX12 will go back as far as the GTX 6 series for sure, and possibly even further to Fermi.

 

[ithehappy]

I was actually interested in 4790k at first, but then I thought I will get a 6 core one. I am an idiot and my brain tells me games might need (require/utilize) 6 cores soon, and more cores are better.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I think the biggest tech sided situation that keeps me on my current systems is that DX12 might like more cores on a CPU. The pockets in my pants just laugh at doing an upgrade. They both laugh looking at each other and high five themselves - lol