New gaming build ideas? - Page 4

Sorry I never tried surround on my 690, but all those games listed above my 690 rapes at 1440p and nvidia designed the 690 so it doesn't have micro stutter, plus the cooler is really high grade and silent plus its cooling performance is AMAZING! , this is the first dual gpi card that I can leave on stock fan profile and not worry about it getting hot.. I know its abit expensive but honestly this is the best card I've ever owned, even the power draw is really low.. any sli or xfire setup is going to use more power then my 690 and they are going to produce more heat then my 690, like come on 6-8% less performance then sli 680s!? That's amazing scaling .. unless you were planning to do 1440p eyefinity or surround, I'd say the 690 is a winner..

And I'd rather own a 690/680/670 over the 7970 any day just for drivers and in-game performance, but everyone has there opinion, in the end there all good cards!

Mobo $120
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=63945&vpn=Z68%20Extreme3%20Gen3&manufacture=ASRock

4GB 670 $460
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=71248&vpn=04G-P4-2673-KR&manufacture=eVGA

4GB 680 $560
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BGXXB8/?tag=pcpapi-20


EDIT:
I apologize, I misunderstood. I thought a 690 was 2GB only, not 4GB. Since the GTX 690 is 4GB is is more cost effecient to grab a GTX 690 and stick with your current mobo if you are happy with your overclock.
Edited by Ironman517 - 8/8/12 at 10:26am

You cannot 3-way sli on that board.... 690 VRAM is 4GB I was wrong about the 2GB version, there is none. If you are only using 1 x Crossover monitor, stick with a single GTX 670/680. It will be plenty

Get the samsung low voltage ram, it is wonderful

I would agree with alcal, and I would suggest to work with what you have before "swaping" everything.

Your $2000 or so budget, including a 27" 1440p doesn't have to be stretched. What you really need is just a GPU, and probably a nice air cooler for a bit better O/C
If you primary use is gaming, your current rig will do fine. I don't know even if I would replace the Mobo, as it doesn't buy you any "future-proofing" tbh: it won't work with the next generation of CPUs, and the current one doesn't give you any real performance advantage for your cause.

Your board doesn't have a discreet CPU Vcore setting, but that's fine - you can still safely o/c to 4.4-4.5GHz - not bad, and pretty comfy for a ND-14 or silver arrow to cool down.
The board is limited in its PCIe 16x, as the 2nd one is 4x only...no big deal - a single high-end card will serve you fine.
I would choose either 7970 or GTX 670 4GB. The cards are more than capable, and you could SLI them in 1-2 years when you will decide it's actually time to make a switch to a newer system that might actually have more than 1 year's worth of "futureproofing", those will still be fine.

I don't believe ppl recommend 3930K so easily...is it better for folding? Sure...but you will end up spending money to replace everything: PSU won't cut it for much expansion after O/Cing CPU and card, you will be tempted for more ram modules & quad channel, blah-blah here and there...you will be pushing close to $2000 before the monitor comes into play...and yes, you will have no noticeable gain with current games...

If you really want to change your case etc for a visual change, I would understand it. I also think it barely fits the ND-14, and the switch is surely a "future proof" case - or as good as they get I guess - you never know

Stick to smart upgrades instead of unneeded re-hauls.

The gtx690 4gb is only 2gb usable ram, the 4gbs of vram is split up to each gpu making it only 2gb vram.. honestly all this talk about needing more and more vram is only needed if your going high rez eyefinity/surround setups, on a single 1440p monitor 2gb vram is more then enough, even with AA on Max which isn't needed for 2560x1440 resolution. So a 2gb 670/680,4gb 690, and 3gb 7970 is more then enough, and the reason and always has more ram then nvidea is because there cards use more ram then nvidea in the same game at same settings, so unless you plan on doing 1440p eyefinity don't get sucked into the 4gb/6gb cards..

Really? that is very tricky advertising... -.- Was the 3GB 590 the same way? that is really really dumb if that's how it's advertised.....

But yes, for a single monitor. A single card with 2GB of VRAM is plenty. When you get into multimonitor situations, that is when VRAM starts to become a limiting factor.

Yup the gtx590 was only 1.5gb for each gpu, making it only 1.5gb usable vram