Help a girl out?

Theocnoob said:

Sounds more like a dual 970 system, really. 3X 1080P is pretty close to 4K. 3/4 of the way there. 2 970s will provide acceptable performance but 1 970 really won't. 2 980s would be even better but the perf per $ is not as good as on the 970.

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You have some reading to do comrade.

First of all, thankyou so much for your time again..

Ok, so I made the RAM adjustment I forgot x99 was 4 channel
The cooler I can't change, I already own it.
I have two seagate 2TB HDD barracudas already in my old system

I play games at 1080p except for Iracing which is why I bought the 3 no bezel screens. It'd be cool to game at 5760 but I understand it will require a second gpu.

Ok, so based on your advice, this is what I'm thinking..

Asus x-99 A for the mobo, it's almost $100 cheaper here in Aus than the FTW and can still SLI when I get a second GPU
Spend the extra on upgrading to the EVGA Supernova G2 750W (Also fine for handling second GPU)

The GTX 970 issue worries me.. For example when I get the money for a second GPU I don't want to think it's gonna struggle with 5760x1080 compared to a 290

It seems at the res I'll be using now it still kicks the 290x's *** in bang for buck and not only that, It's really hot here so I'd prefer NVidia.

I can't afford a 980 yet and I'm currently using a 480 gtx and there is no way I will soil an x99 board with that GPU so I think I'll stick with the 970..

Reading up on the Asus x99-A now...

bob4933 said:

You have some reading to do comrade.

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Care to elaborate?
4K = 4X the resolution of 1080P. 3X 1080P = 3/4 the resolution of 4K.
2 970s provide "acceptable performance" at 4K and will provide more than acceptable performance at 3X1080P. For even better performance though, 2 980s would be even better.

How is recommending 2 970s for 3 1080P screens something that justifies saying "you need to do research"? It's the correct recommendation. Try running Far Cry 4 across 3 1080P screens with a single 970. You won't be pleased.

Indeed Bob. It's ~33% more pixels to render... 3x 1080p is not close to 4k. Pixel density is also a different ballgame. Even though it's 33% short of 4k, the pixel density is still that of 1080p so with that, AA is generally needed Vs 4k, not so much as it's on one screen.

980 can be ok for 3x 1080p. Depends on the title and settings of course.

LongSlenderBody said:

First of all, thankyou so much for your time again..

Ok, so I made the RAM adjustment I forgot x99 was 4 channel
The cooler I can't change, I already own it.
I have two seagate 2TB HDD barracudas already in my old system

I play games at 1080p except for Iracing which is why I bought the 3 no bezel screens. It'd be cool to game at 5760 but I understand it will require a second gpu.

Ok, so based on your advice, this is what I'm thinking..

Asus x-99 A for the mobo, it's almost $100 cheaper here in Aus than the FTW and can still SLI when I get a second GPU
Spend the extra on upgrading to the EVGA Supernova G2 750W (Also fine for handling second GPU)

The GTX 970 issue worries me.. For example when I get the money for a second GPU I don't want to think it's gonna struggle with 5760x1080 compared to a 290

It seems at the res I'll be using now it still kicks the 290x's *** in bang for buck and not only that, It's really hot here so I'd prefer NVidia.

I can't afford a 980 yet and I'm currently using a 480 gtx and there is no way I will soil an x99 board with that GPU so I think I'll stick with the 970..

Reading up on the Asus x99-A now...

Click to expand...

Sounds solid.
You might also want to look at the ASRock Extreme 4 X99 board. Using your current 140mm ALC cooler, you won't be getting earth shattering overclocks anyways, so you don't need a super stout power delivery section on the board.

In Australia a 980 is $700+ and the 970 is $400.... I don't have $300 breathing room and can't wait to save up with no PC for school..

I can save up for another 970 pretty quick, but I hope the memory issues don't stop it performing on the best games at 5760x1080, otherwise I'll be pretty pissed for the money I'm spending

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Sweet, will do thanks...

LongSlenderBody said:

In Australia a 980 is $700+ and the 970 is $400.... I don't have $300 breathing room and can't wait to save up with no PC for school..

I can save up for another 970 pretty quick, but I hope the memory issues don't stop it performing on the best games at 5760x1080, otherwise I'll be pretty pissed for the money I'm spending

- - - Updated - - -

Sweet, will do thanks...

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If you're really concerned, an option you have is to use your 480 for now (I know, I know...) and wait for the AMD R9 390 or whatever they call it, and get that instead. AMD probably won't gimp the memory interface the way Nvidia did. The differences in performance probably won't be massive though. But hey, you never know.

It may not at 5760x1080 depending on title amd settings, however your end game, 4k, it will play a big role. Honestly, if you will be getting 4k on the 970, I'd say run your 480 until you can save up for a 980.

That memory thing could be painful at 5760x1080 and will be painful at 4k.

Damnit, you guys are making perfect sense. I can't believe NVidia screwed up like that... And looking at the benchmarks it really does suffer at the high res compared to the 290's

I'm having to rush a bit more than I wanted because my 2500k died. I really wanted to set up a super solid OC system, but now I'm having to make allowances for the fact I need a PC now.

I wonder if the 480 could handle Iracing at 5760x1080, it did handle 1080p with the 2500k easily, but it's only a 2 core game, I'm not sure the 5820k would help too much

The cooler is the part which really doesn't match the system. Maybe I should save GPU choice till later, get a beefier cooler and wait to see the new generation of AMD's go against the NVidias while the poor x99 slums it with the 480

I mean, us girls are really patient u know...

Theocnoob said:

Care to elaborate?
4K = 4X the resolution of 1080P. 3X 1080P = 3/4 the resolution of 4K.
2 970s provide "acceptable performance" at 4K and will provide more than acceptable performance at 3X1080P. For even better performance though, 2 980s would be even better.

How is recommending 2 970s for 3 1080P screens something that justifies saying "you need to do research"? It's the correct recommendation. Try running Far Cry 4 across 3 1080P screens with a single 970. You won't be pleased.

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Give you a hint. Go look at minimum fps of 970 sli rigs. It's not pretty.

A single 970 won't cut it. A single 980 might do 5860x1080p on some advanced games.

LongSlenderBody said:

The cooler is the part which really doesn't match the system. Maybe I should save GPU choice till later, get a beefier cooler and wait to see the new generation of AMD's go against the NVidias while the poor x99 slums it with the 480

I mean, us girls are really patient u know...

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I don't see anything wrong with the cooler personally. Are.you just overclocking to get extra speed or are.you benchmarking with this? I'm sure that cooler will allow for 4ghz+ clocks pretty easy.

As far as the last part... I'm married and have nothing to say.. but will shake my head in agreement, lol!

EarthDog said:

I don't see anything wrong with the cooler personally. Are.you just overclocking to get extra speed or are.you benchmarking with this? I'm sure that cooler will allow for 4ghz+ clocks pretty easy.

As far as the last part... I'm married and have nothing to say.. but will shake my head in agreement, lol!

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I am about as patient as a starving infant haha!

With regard to cooling

1) It is really hot here and even with airconditioning my computer room can get to 80+ degrees regularly and I don't want to miss out on the headroom that the 5820k gives you for performance if I only have to increase my cooling investment by $100... Every minute less of rendering, exporting time is helpful, not to mention less lost frames when editing footage with multiple layers of effects.

2) It'd be fun to do some benchmarking, especially since I'm investing enough money to have a decent platform to do it with. The thought of being able to run a 5820k, EVGA x99 board and (eventually) multiple 980's is quite exciting...

3) I was hoping to build a system on my budget to run any game I want at 5760x1080. Im not an 'Ultra Settings or Die!' kind of girl so I thought that with a one Video Card and 5820k I could achieve that with overclocking...

I just can't make up my mind...

Sensible choice seems like this

A) Save money by getting Asus x99-a instead of EVGA FTW/Classified
B) Ditch the single 970 idea and use the money saved on the board to put toward a 980
C) Keep the cooler at least until I find it lacking after testing it out

There....

I made up my mind... That is what I'm going to do.

LongSlenderBody said:

Sensible choice seems like this

A) Save money by getting Asus x99-a instead of EVGA FTW/Classified
B) Ditch the single 970 idea and use the money saved on the board to put toward a 980
C) Keep the cooler at least until I find it lacking after testing it out

There....

I made up my mind... That is what I'm going to do.

Click to expand...

I agree with A, B and C.
You can't play any game out there at 3X1080P with a single card, unless it's a Titan Z or an R9295X2. 2 980s on the other hand, you can play anything out there at that resolution.

I suggest you play on a single monitor for the time being, even though 1080P is children's play for a 980, and then move up to using all 3 monitors once you add a second 980.

The only thing I would suggest is that you get a hard drive. You've only mentioned a 250GB SSD and that's not enough storage. Add a 1TB HDD. I like WD Caviar Blue/Black.

LongSlenderBody said:

Sensible choice seems like this

A) Save money by getting Asus x99-a instead of EVGA FTW/Classified
B) Ditch the single 970 idea and use the money saved on the board to put toward a 980
C) Keep the cooler at least until I find it lacking after testing it out

There....

I made up my mind... That is what I'm going to do.

Click to expand...

This is the right choice

Good choices Slender. You'll find that cooler just fine for your uses.

Here is our review of the 980 strix to show what it can and can't do on a couple of titles at 5760 res. Keep in mind, the settings we use in these games are essentially their highest In most cases. Granted that is how I like to play but you can see some are plenty playable, while gpu killers like metro and crysis3 would need significant changes to play (lower AA back off to high type thing).
http://www.overclockers.com/asus-poseidon-gtx980-graphics-card-review/

And another :http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Gaming/7.html

I have a 2TB seagate barracuda which has been reliable so far. I'll keep the WD Caviar in mind if I decide to run a raid setup..

I Just sent my order. ETA 4 working days!!

Hopefully be able to order a 980 next week, which will give me time to scour through your reviews

Unfortunately I will be back to annoy you again soon with more silly questions !

Strix is a good card to get. Good fan profile by default, fans don't spin most of the time. Upgraded PCB components. Decent price. I have the Gigabyte G1 gaming 980 and I kind of think I should have gone for the strix but I'm happy with my card. It costs more than the Strix.

Yeah one card just can't quite get it done on the top titles, even with a heavy OC according to the documentation..

At least I can play a max settings 1080p though which I couldnt on my current PC so that is awesome!!

Plus Iracing at 5760x1080 will be a cinch and that is what I've been playing most lately anyway

At least now I know that for another $1500 I'll be futureproofed for a while and have a good platform for some Overclocking adventures :thanks:

The Strix looks pretty sexy.

You'll be fine for most games at 5760x1080 with a single 980, that's what I'm running.