Upgrade Time!

[GreyKnight]

With a nice tax rebate and the usual double monthly income for December over here, it's time for me to splash the cash on my PC. I'm looking at keeping my chassis, HDDs & SSDs, and PSU, so could anyone see anything on this list and say "DON'T GET ITEM X"?

 

Motherboard = Asus X99-S

 

CPU = Intel Core i7-5820K, 6x 3.30GHz

 

Graphics Card = GALAX GeForce GTX 970 EXOC, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI

 

RAM = Kingston HyperX Predator DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-2133, CL13-13-13

 

 

 When the graphics card gets cheaper, I'll buy a 2nd one for SLI. In the meantime, I'll try and use my current GTX275 as a PhysX engine.

 

 Anyone know for sure if my 750W Corsair PSU could handle all this? Might have to go to a 1000W PSU?

[Pooka]

Go to NewEgg.com, call up Computer hardware, then Power supplies, on the left side is a tool called "Power Supply Wattage Calculator", use that and you should get an idea what would be required for that awesome machine.

[FoolTrottel]

Just a hint: Save some bucks and get an i5.

The hyper threading stuff an i7 offers is hardly ever used... Maybe read up on it though, I might be a bit behind in knowledge ...

[Jabo]

I agree with FT on the hyperthreading - yeah, looks great on paper but I'm not so certain in real life - Whichever option you go for, make sure you get the K variant, this is completely unlocked and suitable for overclocking if you want to go down that route - I've got an i5 2500K and it's happily handled everything I've thrown at it so far

[CaptJackG]

Howdy Greyknight,

 

In my new machine I have the same setup as you are looking at with the same MB, Processor, and the 980 video card. I'm using an 850 Corsair power supply and it seems to be just fine. So far I've just maxed out everything in CLoD, DCS, and BOS and they all look great.

[GreyKnight]

@ Pooka - Thanks for that link, that was almost useful, but it seems out of date. It didn't have my motherboard, graphics card, or RAM type listed. But I found this instead -> http://www.coolermaster.outervision.com/PSUEngine2

 

@ FT & JABO - I've got the money, so buying an i7 is fine by me. I already have an i3, so an i5 isn't much of an upgrade to me. I hoping in 3 years time, the games will make better use of hyperthreading.

 

@ CaptJackG - I was going to get a 980 card, but I stuck with one 970 card and I might end up buying a second 970 in a few months. Good to hear yours runs fine, that PSU calculator says those items I'm buying plus the HDDs & other gubbins comes in at only 427W. So my 750W PSU looks good enough, so far.

[DD_Brando]

I was watching the TEK last night about a similar rig that they built - and they seemed to think that a 600 watt Corsair would be fine for that combo . . .

[GreyKnight]

Okay, I upgraded all these components at the weekend and it works like a dream. Set all the graphic options, in all my games, to max and they all run smooth (I love that part of upgrading). Not tried a flight sim yet, but Planetside2 never moved from <60FPS in huge battles and looks divine!

 

But... I have a question for all you SLI/multi-card experts. I wanted to keep using my old GTX275 as a PhsyX engine. But when I installed Win 7 x64, with both cards fitted, it didn't recognize the GTX970 and installation of the nVidia drivers failed everytime. Pulling out the older GTX275 and rebooting worked, and nVidia drivers installed perfectly. Re-fitting the GTX275 and booting up caused a B.O.S. So in the end I gave up and left it out.

 

Now, I'm thinking maybe it was because I left an SLI/CFX motherboard jumper set on default? It has 3 settings: disabled, 2-Way, or 3-Way. I'm wondering if I need to switch this to 2-way first, even though I'm not using SLI, I'm just using 2x independent graphic cards. With the GTX970 connected to the monitors and the GTX275 left alone to PhysX only.

 

Anyone have experience in this?