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there's a frog in my snake oil
I didn't realise the Strix variant of the 970 was so strong on the silence front. This overview is making me very happy

I now have a thoroughly moral reason for having bought it

(Please don't have coil whine, please don't have coil whine...)

---

What do you do about old parts? Sell on eBay? (I'd expected massive depreciation, but looks like there's still a market for second hand cards etc. Might actually recoup a bit if I'm lucky).

Although I've realised my motherboard seems to have more PCIe expansion slots:

1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 *2
1 x PCIe 2.0 x1
1 x PCI
I'm almost tempted to keep the old card and combine it if/when 4k or VR comes beckoning. Would that work? Having AMD & Nvidia cards in tandem? (That's if it's even possible. The 7850 says it requires a 2.1 PCIe, so maybe that rules it out of the second slot? Which looks pretty tight anyway, assuming it's the vertical yellow motherboard slot visible in my pic).

Anyway, fun times

PS What have you done to meeee
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The People's Republic of Clogher
The new gen Nvidia cards have their fans off when the GPU is idling. Even more silence.

Sell your old card - You can't combine the two and nor would you want to. There's a bit more leeway in doubling up on AMD cards but you'll need a Crossfire/SLI compatible motherboard, a beefy PSU and the patience of Job for whenever there aren't any SLI profiles released with a new game, which is often these days.

I got £120 for my old 7950 and even managed to get £40 for a broken 6870 a few months ago which I thought I'd RMA'd back in 2011.

Re: Coil Whine. My 780 is the only time it has been noticeable in a card for me but I've seen a lot of reports of 970s having it. On the 780 it only rears its head when frame rates are super high - over 150 or so. I use Nvidia Inspector (a great tool which you should 100% download) to cap the rates to 120 or even 60.

EDIT - Looks like the new gen of AMD cards, at least the top-of-the-line Fury GPUs, are a bit lukewarm.



980ti prices with 980 performance...

I'm really digging the form factor though.
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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan



there's a frog in my snake oil
Ah ok fair play, I had heard dual GPUs were a pain in the arse on that front ay.

I'm girding my loins for coil whine, which can apparently be fixed in 970s by: trying a different PSU (buggered if I'm doing that), running an intense stress test overnight (often only a temporary fix), and yeah capping performance. Cheers for the Nvidia Inspector tip

Yeah, it does feel like the time to bail from AMD GPUs all told.

(By form factor you mean... how it looks?... God this is all so confusing )

It looks like a 1980s radio grill to me!



The People's Republic of Clogher
Form factor's the length, in this instance - It's a 980ti rival (and I've seen a different set of benchmarks since which show it beating the 980 at 4k) which is 7 inches long. They're even bringing out a slightly less powerful, air cooled R9 which is the length of a PCI slot.

These are going to be great for Steam Machine type under-TV PCs.



there's a frog in my snake oil
Ahh ok. Yeah would be great to see Steam Machine's getting off the ground with a broad audience. Having a 'console' with all the PC's 'unwalled garden' advantages could be really interesting. I do fear that it's too niche somehow to really take on the big boys though. Or at least that it will be hard to get public attention (and if it does gain some ground, may well cause further 'Xbox'/'PS4' first style arrangements, at the expense of PC etc).

Having a pre-baked console+ variant that's def above current Xbone/PS4 specs would def be interesting though



The People's Republic of Clogher

Having a pre-baked console+ variant that's def above current Xbone/PS4 specs would def be interesting though
You'll have one tomorrow. Well above.

Price is going to be the hardest sell. I'd say you're talking 7-800 quid for a PC that'll play the latest AAAs in a way that would persuade console owners to trade up. The little streaming boxes are only going to be of interest to those who already own a decent machine, too.

Steam streaming is impressive but there's still a latency there that would stop me using it with anything action-y, which is why I bought a 25m HDMI cable to hook up directly to the TV.

I'll be really interested to see what performance you get with the 970 and your current CPU. It should be a pretty noticeable upgrade, especially when you look at the latest GPU hierarchy chart.

They say to go three levels above your present GPU for a meaningful upgrade, and you're going up four.



there's a frog in my snake oil
And lo, it is done



Got home from work around 11pm. Went to bed... a lot later

I had all those heart-pumping incidents along the way that make DIY engineering so stimulating . Realising you're working without being earthed (again!)... spending sweaty minutes trying to fathom the hidden GPU clip... realising at the last second that 6 of the GPU power points aren't actually flush (and narrowly staving off its immediate demise I suspect). Fun

And lord was the card a tight fit. I've no idea what the wee board sticking out of the mobo is under the GPU here, but... I hope it's relatively heat-proof!



I've heard some people prop up the far end of the board. Not sure how they're doing that though.

Turns out the reduced PSU wasn't actually modular either, and my cheapy box doesn't really have any tidy holes to run wiring round the back, but reckon it's just about clear enough.

Anyways, a mountain of faffing under way to get the games to run sweet, but initial impressions are very favourable (early hours of the morning favourable )



The People's Republic of Clogher
Woo-hoo! Gawd bless her and all who sail in her.

Is that card under your GPU a sound card or some USB ports? If it's covering the intake fan (or even half a one) I'd be very quick to remove it. Sadly that's the trade-off with the mini motherboards - I've got 5 or 6 PCI slots below the GPU and one above it.

Monster card sag (it's probably glandular) is caused by a less than rigid case, usually, not the PCI-E slot.



there's a frog in my snake oil
*EDIT*

Oo good call, it just seems to be some old firewire ports that I never use. Got them as they've been useful in the past for loading footage from cameras, but not really an issue these days. Pretty sure I can dump em.

And yes, I think my case is made from recycled Citroens or something



The People's Republic of Clogher
As a Citroen owner, I can sympathise. Lovely car... built from egg boxes...

They might be USB3 ports or something? If they're blue then it's USB3.

Now all you need to do is download Unigine Valley, turn everything up to the max, VSYNC off and show us your frames! Mine benchmarks at 67 on 1080p. I'm interested not because of the E-Penii aspects but it's been mentioned everywhere that the 970 has basically the same grunt as my 780.



there's a frog in my snake oil
Think my CPU is holding it back



I'm assuming Vsync is off natively on the card as my screen is 60hz. Haven't found where to faff with that yet in the card or Nvidia software. Didn't seem to be a Vsync option in the freebie Unigine.

Bit disappointed not to be hitting 60, but not totally surprised on full ultra considering the architecture. I'm sure there's some more frames to be squeezed out of it tho

If it was a stark choice between ultra at 45 and visibly less gloss at 60 I think I'd probably go for the former. Hopefully I'll be able to massage each game to give me something damn pretty at 60 though

*EDIT* Dammit, looks like CPUs really can make a difference. Couple of YTers with i5s but same stock Strix GPU hitting 60. Meh. (Seems my score isn't that unusual though going by forum threads).

Looks like it might be time to play with the overclocking facility... (It came with GPU Tweak bundled, which looks quite natty. This thread is intriguing me )

*EDITEDIT* Gah, even using settings hedged up towards his I'm still only getting 51

Drivers are all fresh n sparkly. Not sure what else would explain the slight lack of umph beyond the CPU. Possibly some AMD stuff still lingering (I've stripped out most of it but bit leery of anything that might affect the CPU as you say). Other users on that thread saw a 12fps rise in the test so looks like I've still got some detective work to do...



The People's Republic of Clogher
Damn, I thought as much but hoped it wasn't gonna bottleneck that much. That benchmark seems pretty CPU dependant though - It's hitting 60-70% CPU load throughout. You'll not notice as much difference on most games.

I wouldn't think about overclocking until you ever find that performance in a particular game isn't what you expect. My card's a monster - Here's the two benchmarks with stock settings and what I normally game at:

Stock


Overclocked


EDIT - My overclock settings. I'd recommend MSI Afterburner.




A system of cells interlinked
The i5/i7s are REALLY tough to beat right now. What a great chip...
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



The People's Republic of Clogher
Yep, my 4670k is another monster - I've overclocked it really conservatively and even then it's running at 4ghz with temps under 60c at load. I could get 4.5-4.7 easily but there's no need to stress it as I've had no performance complaints.

My 8 core AMD owning mate can't get it through his head that my i5 is a better gaming CPU. Games are about single core performance - I'd take a beefy quad core every day over an 8 with the same output specs.



The People's Republic of Clogher
*EDITEDIT* Gah, even using settings hedged up towards his I'm still only getting 51

Drivers are all fresh n sparkly. Not sure what else would explain the slight lack of umph beyond the CPU. Possibly some AMD stuff still lingering (I've stripped out most of it but bit leery of anything that might affect the CPU as you say). Other users on that thread saw a 12fps rise in the test so looks like I've still got some detective work to do...
Have you thought about overclocking your CPU? The AMD gaming chips are the Black Editions with unlocked multipliers (their equivalent of the Intel Ks) but you should probably be able to wring something extra out of a non B-E. There will probably be a software overclocking program bundled with your motherboard drivers if you can't do that in BIOS, which I'd always recommend.

RAM's dirt cheap these days, too. 16GBs of really fast DDR3 will set you back about £75.

It won't make a difference in gaming but should speed up general desktop work.



there's a frog in my snake oil
Damn, I thought as much but hoped it wasn't gonna bottleneck that much. That benchmark seems pretty CPU dependant though - It's hitting 60-70% CPU load throughout. You'll not notice as much difference on most games.
Ah ok that's something . Yeah gaming wise the experience has been pretty swish, although noticeably 'sub 60'. I was just slapping everything on max last night though

I think once I knock a few select things down I should be skirting 60 in a lot of them. Dying Light excepted

(Nice to know I can go gung ho and get a few more frames if I need them with the overclocking though. I've got a preset set aside)

God, 30fps minimum though. Droooool. I've gotta look into what other CPUs could fit in the ungainly slot I have [AMD Socket FM2+ Athlon]. Seems to be limited to a 4 core if I'm understanding it correctly, but the Intels do seem to get more out of each core compared to the AMDs, so may still have some room to manouver. (Just no morality left if I spend any more cash )

Will see how the parts sales go....



The People's Republic of Clogher
A quad core will definitely give you a boost over your dual .... although an i5/Z87 mobo bundle (you can keep your RAM) would set you back around £200 and if you're going that far I'd recommend you get a new case as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, the rabbit hole.

Actually, your experience mirrors mine almost exactly when I bought my last card (a 7950) to liven up my below-par CPU. I got a significant boost in performance but knew it was bottlenecking. I ran the 7950 with the new i5 for about 6 months and found a 20-30% framerate improvement over the old PC.



there's a frog in my snake oil
My current is a quad, but I notice that when you get minimum specs it'll say Intel quad / AMD 8-core, so I'm assuming it's do to with that different way Intel uses the cores, as you mention.

Also... I'm petrified of fitting a new mobo . And of spending any more money. I'm definitely definitely definitely making do for now.

Definitely.

For now



The People's Republic of Clogher
The x2 in your CPU benchmark specs indicates a dual, no? APIs confuse me, to be honest. Maybe that's referring to the onboard graphics.

EDIT - Ignore me, it's a quad core.

EDIT 2 - Apparently overclocking's not great on that chip, sadly.



The People's Republic of Clogher
Here's a handy website for BritFos looking to buy PC parts - http://www.pcpricechecker.co.uk/

I see that 980 GTX prices are dropping like a stone, so much so that it's beginning to look decent value. £395 for an MSI version which is a drop of around £100 in a matter of months. £50 more and we'll talk.