New GPU / Mobo. Nvidia or AMD?

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sam_sam

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Jan 17, 2012
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Hello all,

I've recently got a refund on 2 of my items (both had faults), an ASUS motherboard and a 290x, I'm looking to purchase these items but need some advice please.

Asus X99-E WS Workstation Motherboard

i7-5930k (Currently have a 3820 but a friend is buying it).

And two of any of these GPU's:

MSI Radeon R9 290X Gaming Edition 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

or R9 290X ASUS DIRECTCUII OC (Which I had one previously).

Or Nvidia, my knowledge is limited on their cards but definitely would consider.

If someone could possibly point me in the best direction, this system will be for gaming on a BenQ XL2430T LED 24 -inch Gaming Monitor @144hz playing all the latest generic games like FarCry 4, Elder Scrolls Online, DayZ, THE WITCHER 3 (this is the most important).

(It will have 2 monitors attached to it although only one used for gaming whilst the other is used for music / browsing / twitch and 2 TV's, the TV's are purely for movies).

The rest of my components are: -

16GB Kingston Hyper X 1600 CL9

Noctua NH-D14 + all Noctua fans around the case (I'm sure this'll fit the 2011-v3 socket?) - 3-6 months and it'll be upgraded to EK watercooling.

PSU Corsair AX1200i

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB + WD HDD Black 1TB

I really appreciate everyone's thoughts and suggestions!
 
Hey there.

Do you have any intentions with CAD or rendering in general or just gaming?

The question above is because don't see the point of getting the X99 motherboard with an i7-5930k unless you just have a lot of money available to spend.

A Z97 motherboard combined with an i7-4790k could already be considered overkill for gaming purposes.

 
Hey, thanks for your reply!

I edit gaming videos that's about it, but I like to be seriously future proof and would also like to get the full use out of the 144hz monitor.

There is a cap on money otherwise I'd go for the 295x but it looks around £1500 for two GPU's, a motherboard and processor.
 
Now I took the time to type this to another poster looking for help and suggestions. This is my take on the X99 and how future proof I think it is.

The thing is, the future we actually know of, for now, is the Skylake microarchitecture. That is a new socket type. Nor the Z97 (LGA 1150) or the X99 (LGA 2011-3) (As far as I understand) won't support Skylake CPU's (LGA 1151). However, both will be upgradable to Broadwell processors. For now we don't know if Broadwell will be worth it, but the main idea is that both builds are equally upgradable to the Broadwell architecture. So if it would be necessary, you'd still be able to upgrade your CPU to a newer one using the Z97 path.

My second thought is DX12. From the statistics and benchmarks shown, it shows that it demands significantly less CPU power and rely more on the graphics cards. If this is right, the i7-4790k should be promising for a while. The i7-5820k has 6 cores with hyper threading (adds 2 virtual cores), whilst the i7-4790k has 4 cores with hyper threading (also 2 extra cores).

The majority of todays games require a strong quad core processor like the i5 Haswell's to work optimally. If games would start using more in the future, they surely won't use more than 2 extra cores which an i7-4790k could still make use of. Especially with DX12 I expect the 4790k to not have problems for 3 years and maybe even more.

For gaming, I say that Z97 is enough. That is my input.
Click to expand...

That's just my taking on X99 for gaming but also video editing. There are great Z97 motherboards on the market that are as durable as a more expensive X99 motherboard. I think technology moves so fast that sticking with one piece of hardware for longer than 5 years is not going to happen, not ideal at least.

Workstations purposes however don't need an upgrade and have the potential to be great for 10 years or even more. X99 is great for that.

Anyways, do get the i7-5820k instead of the 5930k unless you plan on using 4 way graphics cards. Other than that there really isn't a difference, besides the significant gap in price (30% more expensive?).

That is just the way I think about it. If you have the money though I don't expect this to be a problem for you anyways.
 
Brilliant reply thanks, I think I'll stick with the X99 board but go for the 5820k instead, more to spend on the GPU's!

Do you have any information regarding which GPU would be best for this situation at all?
 
Ok, we got that out of the way!

Now one thing BEFORE we move on to the graphics cards 😉

I understand you have 1500 to spend on the graphics card(s) minus processor and motherboard costs?

So I understand the CPU cooler and RAM is no part of the 1500 GBP budget?

Also, Did you make sure to choose DDR4 RAM instead of DDR3? Only DDR4 is compatible with X99, also you have the opportunity to use quad channel RAM (4 x 4GB DDR4-2133 or higher) for even better performance than dual channel (2 x 8GB).

DDR4 RAM costs more than DDR3 RAM.
 
That is correct, £1500 for the Motherboard, Processor and GPU's.

Motherboard = £350

Processor = £350 (it's around £320 but let's call it £350)

That leaves £800 for the GPU's and possibly DDR4 RAM which I didn't even think about, what a fool!

The RAM can possibly wait for 3-6months though since it won't need to be low profile when switching from air to water cooled, blame the NH-D14 even though it is an amazing air cooler!

I've seen the MSI 290x 8GB versions, which is slightly confusing me... that's a lot of VRAM but to my knowledge 8GB is more than enough and if not a better card with higher clock speeds etc will perform higher?
 
The R9 290X is never good enough to utilise that 8GB VRAM. It's more of a marketing gimmick than anything in my mind.

I'll name two options for 800 GBP, still two options with DDR4 RAM costs added to that 800 BPR.

GTX 970 SLI:

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB FTW+ ACX 2.0+ Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£316.99 @ Novatech)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB FTW+ ACX 2.0+ Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£316.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £633.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-24 15:54 GMT+0000

GTX 980:

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (£443.22 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £443.22
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-24 15:56 GMT+0000

I expect the GTX 970 SLI to perform better than the R9 295X2. However I wonder if It's enough for 4K Gameplay.

GTX 980 is a great all rounder, better than both the R9 290X and GTX 970.

Both are exceptional options for 1440p. So yes, I suggest Nvidia ahead of AMD.
 
You're converting me to the Green side!

I've only ever had an Nvidia card back in like 2005-6, always been with AMD since.

It's tempting, a 980 SLI could be affordable too but would the temperatures be acceptable with reference coolers for the 3-6 months until being watercooled or would you recommend MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte coolers on them for the extra price?

The DDR4 can wait a month or two as that's going to be another £200 for 16GB unless only 8GB is needed? (So many questions sorry!)

I haven't purchased the BenQ monitor yet but all I'm hearing nowadays is G-Sync, G-Sync, G-Sync... would it be advisable to get the BenQ XL2430T LED 24 or wait for a G-Sync version?

 
X99 only supports DDR4 so DDR3 wouldn't work. You need it. 8GB is enough, you can get another 8GB later.

With SLI I definitely suggest non-reference graphics cards like the Gigabyte for example. 3 Fans on there, great cooling.

G-Sync is a good feature, but I have not really deepened myself into to that so I don't know which monitor supports what.

Can't help you well there. G-Sync monitors are already on the market right?

The BenQ XL2420G Supports G-Sync
 
Oh damn, assuming DDR was forward and backwards compatible... stupid.

Will the performance be relatively the same with 8GB DDR4 as compared to 16GB DDR3 and I'm guessing Corsair is probably the way to go?

I'll borrow some money and get the DDR4 sorted out then, hopefully there's some decent low profile lurking around online.

You've switched me to Nvidia, I hope you're happy ha.

Definitely will be going towards the 980's in SLI, even so I could purchase just one now. Get the DDR4 and in a months time purchase the 2nd 980.

Once again, thank you for all of your input and at such a quick pace too!




A quick edit: Or even better, purchase the card at reference and then a second reference card at the time of watercooling?
 
Good choice on the graphics cards.

And yes, that's also a good point there by adding the other reference GPU later along with water cooling. You'll be fine that way.

Regarding performance between DDR3 and DDR4, honestly It's not a huge difference. However, 8GB is all you need for gaming so you'll be fine with that. For stuff like rendering and multitasking though 16GB's of RAM will come in handy.

Have you decided which case you are going to buy?

 
Brilliant, that's all sorted then thank you!

I've already got my previous case which is the Thermaltake Level 10 GT - Black.

The Corsair Obsidian 900D has always caught my eye but for now the Thermaltake is perfect, plenty of room and decent cooling with the Noctua fans.

Which are your preferred cases?
 
I can't seem to find a reference cooled 980, well... I'm guessing the EVGA GeForce GTX 980 is the reference cooler but it's more expensive than the aftermarket coolers?

Unless I'm missing something, my head is everywhere looking at all these parts.
 
I own the NZXT H440 as my signature says. I like the Enthoo Luxe as a full tower and It's priced well for all the good features it has.

The 900D looks like a really good case though, although It's on a different price range compared to the Enthoo Luxe.

Here the NVIDIA Reference GTX 980 model:

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Video Card ($599.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $599.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-24 12:55 EDT-0400

The non-referenced ones are actually cheaper than that one indeed. I thought you were going for the Nvidia reference because of the way it looks. I love the Nvidia reference models.

 
Sorry I didn't see, that is a seriously nice case. I recently built my friend a computer with a case similar to that, wish I went for the sleek simple cases now they look much smarter.

It's a shame I can't find anywhere that sells the reference 980 in the UK.

Bestbuy don't ship to the UK apparently but you can use an international shipper, not entirely sure though it may just be easier to purchase the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE 3X you mentioned before!
 
ECC can be useful but I never pay attention to them if It's not for serious rendering work.

The performance will be roughly the same really.

Maybe 0.2-0.4% better performance on the Kingston Fury RAM? You won't notice anything different. That's why I chose RAM that is a bit cheaper yet also resulting in good performance.
 
Yeah, I've always had non-ecc in my builds.

It transpires I do not need to go for low profile RAM anymore, I caved in and have touched the savings... The watercooling and 2nd card will be purchased straight away... Cringing but it was too tempting.

Is there much difference between low profile and normal RAM? Usually there are just heatsinks on the top I'm guessing?

Would it be best to stick with the low profile or go for something else?
 


2666MHz? I guess it would add some better performance but you would not probably notice a difference.
 
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