Can't decide which components

Pulssqt

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Hello guys,

First, let me write my current setup.

AMD Phenom II 965 BE
Asrock Extreme 3 970 (I think its about to die every second)
XFX 280x 3GB DD Boost
XFX Core Edition 650w
G.Skill 4x2GB 1333mhz CL9
HDD - crappy WD Blue who is also about to die

My friend is about to buy his new PC, he is switching to intel so he is selling his CPU and Mobo, and he will sell me them cheap. Gigabyte 990FXA UD3 and AMD FX 8350.
I wanted to grab those two from him and get another 280X for CF, but then i would have to change PSU too, which is not a problem. The problem is with CF, I'm scared how is it going to work, will it be a big problem for me, bottlenecks maybe ? How power hungry will 280X CF with OC 8350 be ?
I really don't know what to do atm. Nano is my wish by it's out of my price range sadly.
Or get a 970 and later CF it, if you think its futureproof ?
Ill be playing on FHD, maybe in a year i would upgrade it to QHD.

Give me your opinion on this, what do you think, what would you do ?

Thank you, alot.
 
Solution
My suggestion (on the GPU issue) is instead of trying to cf would be for you to sell your current R9 280X and use the cash you were going to spend on a second card to buy a better single card. The money you saved from buying the card and replacing the PSU should give you a big enough budget for an R9 390 or a 970 (if you didn't hang on for Polaris/Pascal).

Obviously this suggestion is based on the idea that you're already planning to upgrade your CPU, I wouldn't pair those cards with your current CPU.
I would stick with a single 280X. It uses 250W per se under 100% load, so you would need a quality 750W PSU for 2 of them in CF when you calculate the rest of your system and the fact that PSU also needs some headroom. Using 2 of them will increase not only power consumption and heat, but is also not guaranteed to deliver much higher framerates to all games - it depends on a particular game, drivers, and much more. And then there is also a microstuttering issue related to CF as well.

280x should be more than enough for at least a year or so, especially in Full HD. Even more if you don't absolutely must to play everything in ultra details.

Also, FX8350 is quite fine CPU for gaming and there would be no major bottleneck for the card itself - only in particular games that strongly prefer Intel's fast per-thread performance and to which sheer number of cores doesn't mean a thing.
 

Pulssqt

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Thank you for your reply. But today i saw one guy selling 4690k for 200$, so i thought why not ? I think it would be much better than FX.
Now, I'm not sure which motherboard i should get for it, what do you think about Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 ?
 
Both better choices than the FX, especially for gaming. However, consider that you can also get a brand new i5 6600k for $233. Of course, it needs a new motherboard, but you will have a brand new combo with the latest chipset. Seems like a better deal overall.
 

Dustybin

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My suggestion (on the GPU issue) is instead of trying to cf would be for you to sell your current R9 280X and use the cash you were going to spend on a second card to buy a better single card. The money you saved from buying the card and replacing the PSU should give you a big enough budget for an R9 390 or a 970 (if you didn't hang on for Polaris/Pascal).

Obviously this suggestion is based on the idea that you're already planning to upgrade your CPU, I wouldn't pair those cards with your current CPU.
 
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Pulssqt

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Thank you for your answers.
What are the advantages of i5 6600k over 4690k ? Other than newer architecture.

@Dustybin Yes, i was also thinking about selling my 280x, even my friend is begging me to sell it to him haha
I think i will get EVGA 970 SC, if thats okay ?
Also, is this mobo good, Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 ?
 

dustybin8

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Skylake is slightly faster, uses a more modern chipset and faster ram. Most of this doesn't translate into better gaming performance.

The 970 is a decent upgrade if you can't wait for Pascal. You might find the price changes drop the 980 into budget then or just get the 1070 instead.
 

Pulssqt

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Cheapest Skylake i could find here in my country is almost 400$, which is out of my price range.
That means Haswell + 970 + new Mobo...
Ill ask again.. Is Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 any good ?

Thank you!!
 

dustybin8

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Personally I haven't built with that board but I have used a fair number of different Gigabyte boards without issue. It has a good feature set so if it's in your budget go for it.