Video Card Advice for New Build

[Remmick Strickland]

Time for a new machine, and I am looking for a little advice on Video Card(s)

Background: I am a enterprise solution programmer with 90% of my time spent writing code, managing databases or surfing the web. The other 10% or so is spent playing World of Tanks. I run 4 monitors, 3 22" LCD with DVI and VGA ports. 1 is a 32" VIZIO TV with HDMI input.

When working I would like all 4 to run smoothly, which I have managed in the past with 2 older video cards but the gaming performance was exactly as poor as you would expect. I only game on the TV, and as such it is really the only monitor I would like to see gaming level performance from. The build parts selected so far (but none purchased) are:

ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard

AMD FX-6300 Vishera 6-Core 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Desktop Processor FD6300WMHKBOX

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-2133C11D-16GXL

Western Digital Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

NZXT Phantom CS-NT-PHAN-R-3.0 Red Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

RAIDMAX RX-735AP 735W ATX 12V v2.3/EPS 12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Power Supply

Cooler Master Nepton 240M - CPU Water Cooling System, All-In-One Kit with 240mm Radiator and 2 Silencio Fans

I also have 2 Radeon HD 6450 cards that I picked up a few years ago, but have never even opened.

What would you guys / gals suggest to handle my video needs? Thanks in advance.

Rem

 

[Anonymouselite5]

What is your exact budget for a GPU after all these parts are added up?

I would recommend a GTX 960, it'll handle most games on your single TV at 1080p quite easily. However it has 2GB's of Vram. Some modern games can use over 2gb's of Vram and that leaves nothing for your other monitors.

So if you can afford it you could buy a GTX 970 or R9 290, the r9 290 is cheaper and both are roughly the same.
The GTX 970 is more power efficient. (note: the GTX 970 has problems when it's vram is used over 3.5gb's, however gaming on a single 1080p monitor will hardly use 3.5gb's)
So I would recommend the GTX 970 since it is a newer architecture than the 290 and can actually out pace a 290.


However if you are compiling etc. on the other screens while gaming. Your CPU will bottleneck~ your system and give you terrible gaming performance anyway. So if you really want to multitask on all your screens it'll be much harder.
So the 970/290 are faster than the 960 and have double the frame buffer (so technically you could game on 3 of your screens ) Also are faster so that means you won't have to upgrade your GPU soon. Your cpu will bottleneck it though.
Although they're much more expensive price point than the 960.

-good luck

 

[HWlover]

What's your budget?
Anyway - http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvn960wf2oc2gd, up to date and your needs, you also can go for r9 280 - http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-r9280gaming3g , but it would be overall worse choice, considering your cpu.

 

[Remmick Strickland]

I would like to keep the whole thing under 1K if I can. Not over 1.2K for sure.

 

[Anonymouselite5]

That's the price for your whole system? you are actually quite limited to the mid end cards as higher end cards will be easily bottlenecked by your CPU.

Is this a list of your already built system?

 

[MalakiArtook]

Thx for the detailed post. First off I recommend you use pcpartpicker to assemble you items. it allows us to get a better understanding of where cost lies and will allow us to provide much more assistance. At first glance it would appear you will have a lot invested into this computer for how it will perform. its on the dead AM3+ which leaves little room for upgrade. The cpu cooler although nifty is not needed and the cost hardly warrants the performance IMO. i would just go get a evo for $30. The PSU is tier 5 and not recommended. Get a good seasonic, corsair, xfx, antec.

If you could give us a budget we could put together a few option for you and higlight the advantages of going different routs.

 

[Remmick Strickland]

I haven't bought a part or spend a penny yet, and am not married to any ideas at all so far. I am moving from a company supplied machine and need to put together my own. I don't compile and play at the same time or anything like that. I work from home and will use the machine for work during the day, and play some games at night. About the only things I am locked into are wanting to continue to use my 4 monitors and having only about 1000 to 1200 to spend on the system. I don't need to buy an OS or optical drive or any of those things, just the core system.

 

[Anonymouselite5]

I haven't bought a part or spend a penny yet, and am not married to any ideas at all so far. I am moving from a company supplied machine and need to put together my own. I don't compile and play at the same time or anything like that. I work from home and will use the machine for work during the day, and play some games at night. About the only things I am locked into are wanting to continue to use my 4 monitors and having only about 1000 to 1200 to spend on the system. I don't need to buy an OS or optical drive or any of those things, just the core system.

Well then I would recommend an Intel based System, I live in Australia so pricing for me is different.

If you can though I would recommend the i5 4960k for your cpu, an after market cooler is optional and depends on what you like.
With that you can buy a GTX 970 or an r9 290, the GTX 970 is newer and is a newer generation of architecture so I would go for that.
Roughly that will put you around 800 dollars, Which leaves you around 200-400 dollars to spend on a case/motherboard/PSU/HDD.
Which is plenty. Any motherboard that has the LGA 1150 socket and 1 PCI 16x slot will be good to go.
As for the PSU I can recommend a Corsair RM 650.

The rest is up to you, I would also recommend for you to use PCpartpicker if you live where it's priced.

 

[HWlover]

I haven't bought a part or spend a penny yet, and am not married to any ideas at all so far. I am moving from a company supplied machine and need to put together my own. I don't compile and play at the same time or anything like that. I work from home and will use the machine for work during the day, and play some games at night. About the only things I am locked into are wanting to continue to use my 4 monitors and having only about 1000 to 1200 to spend on the system. I don't need to buy an OS or optical drive or any of those things, just the core system.

Then i would recommend to go for http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i34370 , if you'll be fine with Nvidia gpu, or http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646e31230v3 , if you want AMD gpu and more powerful cpu.

WoT CPU Test - http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-MMO-World_of_Tanks_9.0-test-wotproz.jpg

As you can see, i7(Xeon) doesn't have any real advantage over i3 in that game, if you're using Nvidia gpu, at least.

WoT GPU Test - http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-MMO-World_of_Tanks_9.0-test-wot_1920.jpg

It's an old one, but 960, for example, should be way over 30 in min. fps.

 

[Anonymouselite5]

Well I still think an I5 would be the best for gaming and the Xeon is not really meant for gaming. Although it CAN GAME.
Also the i5 4690k is cheaper than that Xeon by a little and Gaming performance will be nearly exactly the same.
The i3 does keep up but in newer games it just can't keep up with a high end I5.

Seeing as OP is not doing alot of rendering and/or compiling for gaming the I5 is much better. My opinion.

 

[HWlover]

Well I still think an I5 would be the best for gaming and the Xeon is not really meant for gaming. Although it CAN GAME.
Also the i5 4690k is cheaper than that Xeon by a little and Gaming performance will be nearly exactly the same.
The i3 does keep up but in newer games it just can't keep up with a high end I5.

Seeing as OP is not doing alot of rendering and/or compiling for gaming the I5 is much better. My opinion.

I see that you're "Overclocking Authority")), but does OP actually want to clock? Because otherwise i5 4690k would have very little advantage over i3 4370, and it seems like there is more difference between i5 and i7, than between i3 and i5, both on paper and results, and maybe i'm a bit off, but Xeon should be identical to i7 in game performance, and if i3 can't keep with i5, maybe it's better to skip i5 right away?)
+ Overclock, as always, means additional costs, so it's more of a preference.

http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-Videocards-game_2014-video-CPU-proz_fps.jpg

 

[Anonymouselite5]

I can agree with you on i3's, but the i5 4690k actually can score the same as an i7 (depends which i7 by the way)
The i7 is basically an i5 but with more threads. That Xeon you linked had 4 cores and hyper threading, which means that it looks like 6 cores to your PC.

So in rendering it would be faster as it has more threads to work with and also a higher cache.
In gaming performance a high end I5 is exactly the same as an i7 but with less threads, most games only use 4 threads at the moment but more recent games such as BF4 (for now) can use up to 8 I believe.
Also I'm not sure but since OP in his original list of PC parts included a all in one water cooling loop, I was guessing he wanted to overclock.

Although I agree a high end i3 can be exactly the same as an i5, whereas it's actually the i7's that are the cpu's that people on a budget don't look at as much, unless they are rendering alot. The increased price isn't worth the extra 2 frames you can get in BF4 due to hyperthreading.
Xeon's are the same as i7's with more threads but are technically made for servers, but heck why not
The Xeon you linked could be used the same as an i5 for gaming (you can also turn off hyperthreading).

 

[Remmick Strickland]

So I updated my build ideas and and used the parts picker site:

**CPU** | [Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k) | $219.95 @ SuperBiiz
**CPU Cooler** | [Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2) | $28.75 @ OutletPC
**Motherboard** | [Asus Sabertooth Z87 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-sabertoothz87) | $123.99 @ Newegg
**Memory** | [G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f32400c10d16gtx) | $155.98 @ Newegg
**Storage** | [Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-internal-hard-drive-sv300s37a240g) | $84.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st3000dm001) | $96.88 @ OutletPC
**Video Card** | [EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp42966kr) | $209.99 @ Amazon
**Case** | [NZXT Source 530 ATX Full Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-caso530m1) | $89.99 @ Amazon
**Power Supply** | [Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-rm650) | $79.99 @ NCIX US
**Optical Drive** | [Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-optical-drive-sh224dbbebe) | $13.98 @ OutletPC
**Sound Card** | [Asus Xonar DGX 24-bit 96 KHz Sound Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-sound-card-xonardgx) | $27.49 @ Newegg
| | **Total**
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available | $1131.98
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-03 01:25 EST-0500 |

What do we think of this?

 

[MalakiArtook]

So I updated my build ideas and and used the parts picker site:

**CPU** | [Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80646i54690k) | $219.95 @ SuperBiiz
**CPU Cooler** | [Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2) | $28.75 @ OutletPC
**Motherboard** | [Asus Sabertooth Z87 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-sabertoothz87) | $123.99 @ Newegg
**Memory** | [G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f32400c10d16gtx) | $155.98 @ Newegg
**Storage** | [Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-internal-hard-drive-sv300s37a240g) | $84.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st3000dm001) | $96.88 @ OutletPC
**Video Card** | [EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp42966kr) | $209.99 @ Amazon
**Case** | [NZXT Source 530 ATX Full Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-caso530m1) | $89.99 @ Amazon
**Power Supply** | [Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-rm650) | $79.99 @ NCIX US
**Optical Drive** | [Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-optical-drive-sh224dbbebe) | $13.98 @ OutletPC
**Sound Card** | [Asus Xonar DGX 24-bit 96 KHz Sound Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-sound-card-xonardgx) | $27.49 @ Newegg
| | **Total**
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available | $1131.98
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-03 01:25 EST-0500 |

What do we think of this?

That build looks great! Good job