Help with undecided GPU for new build

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Ho hum chaps, 

 

So, my new build is in progress and it's long overdue to say the least. Technology has come far over the last 5 years since my last PC construction. 

Like many I have spent a lot of time researching the parts to make up my new dream machine. 

 

Here's what I have so far: 

 

Intel i7 4790

gigabyte Z97 UD5H-BK

Intel 730 250GB SSD

WD-1TB BLACK

BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 750w

BeQuiet Dark Rock 3

Hyper X Fury White 16gb 1833

Fractal R4-WH-W

 

Which leaves all but the GPU to complete it.....

Now, this isn't really aimed at a gaming rig. My full time job is a webmaster, as well as various coding IDE's I use Photoshop, Illustrator and Lightroom from the Adobe 2014 CC suite quite a lot. I'm also getting into Premiere and After effects more & more... hence my need for a new rig. My old Phenom ii Q4 955BE, as good as it has been, and I really can say it has been a brilliant workhorse of a processor is now over 5 years old and doesn't quite crunch the numbers as I would like ...It's also paired up with a Radeon HD5770... which again, doesn't quite fit the bill for what I am aiming to to. Having said that... Star Craft is pretty smooth :blink: , though not maxed out.

 

So over the last week or so I have been looking at the GTX 780, 780ti and the Titan Black... All of which have different price tags, cuda cores and DDR5 memory, the latter being 6GB against 3GB...

 

I want this system to last me a few years.... but certainly don't want to waste money unnecessarily... who does right ?!??

 

So what do we think chaps ? 780..? 780ti or the Titan Black to work with the above spec? Also... if I did get the TITAN, would that bottle neck the CPU ?

 

Any thoughts are VERY welcome.

 

Many Thanks

 

Thomas_the_3rd   )))

 

      

 

 

 

 

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Oh... I should add, I'm looking at the EVGA range of cards. 

[Jodomcfrodo]

780 TI superclocked for air

780 TI classified for water cooling

[Shd0w2]

I say 780ti. 

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Thanks for the prompt reply !!!! 

 

I think thats what I was pretty much leaning towards. I can't seem to find any justification for the 6GB's the TITAN offers!!!

[MikeTz]

I would get the 780 instead of the 780ti because of the preice diffrence but the best would be a R9 290 which is in between the 780 and the ti while costing less

[Thomas_the_3rd]

I would get the 780 instead of the 780ti because of the preice diffrence but the best would be a R9 290 which is in between the 780 and the ti while costing less

I hadn't even considered the R9 290 !!!! Is the longevity equal to the 780's do you think ?

[Enderman]

3GB will last you 3 years fine.

The titan black will not bottleneck your CPU.

You should get a 4790k so you can overclock it and get a lot of extra performance.

[Thomas_the_3rd]

3GB will last you 3 years fine.

The titan black will not bottleneck your CPU.

You should get a 4790k so you can overclock it and get a lot of extra performance.

Thanks for the reply and confirmation of the potential bottlenecking  I'm not too into OC'ing to be honest... I just want a solid stable system. 

[MikeTz]

I hadn't even considered the R9 290 !!!! Is the longevity equal to the 780's do you think ?

Yeah 

[Polyvalent]

Yellow motherboard with a white build?  

 

I'd go with the 780 or 290x.

[Thomas_the_3rd]

I hadn't even considered the R9 290 !!!! Is the longevity equal to the 780's do you think ?

There are reports of the R9 290 running quite hot.... As I'm on air would that not be an issue ?

[Enderman]

Thanks for the reply and confirmation of the potential bottlenecking  I'm not too into OC'ing to be honest... I just want a solid stable system. 

As long as you stress test it after overclocking you can be sure it will be 100% stable

Plus maybe you will want to try it in the future best to leave that possibility door open.

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Yellow motherboard with a white build?  

 

I'd go with the 780 or 290x.

Black motherboard ! It's the Black edition version !

[nikosgevre]

Get nvidia gpu and not amd. For your work nvidia is better (better drivers, physX etc). I would go for 780 just for the price cause u dont game at all. But if you don't care spending some more money buying something better and faster go for 780ti.
r9 290/290x are beasts and they are not bad cards but i would prefer 780/780ti for your need.
Also buy the 4790k. It costs the same and it gives you the opportunity to oc in the future if you want. Just an extra advantage for free.

[Thomas_the_3rd]

As long as you stress test it after overclocking you can be sure it will be 100% stable

Plus maybe you will want to try it in the future best to leave that possibility door open.

Mmmm wise words I guess... Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the K versions sometimes hit and miss... depending on the batch number ? I know the 4770K had reports of thermal indifference's and that the Devils Canyon has supposedly ironed out that very issues...   

[ddeuel]

Either get a 4790k or get a different motherboard, as it is you're wasting money on that z97 mobo if you don't plan to overclock. I would suggest getting a 780 instead of a 780ti or titan because both of those would just be wasting money for you.

Edit: Also that 750w psu is massively overkill unless you plan on adding a second gpu in the future which it sounds like you aren't, so I would suggest getting a lower wattage PSU ~500w or so if you aren't going to overclock.

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Get nvidia gpu and not amd. For your work nvidia is better (better drivers, physX etc). I would go for 780 just for the price cause u dont game at all. But if you don't care spending some more money buying something better and faster go for 780ti.

r9 290/290x are beasts and they are not bad cards but i would prefer 780/780ti for your need.

Also buy the 4790k. It costs the same and it gives you the opportunity to oc in the future if you want. Just an extra advantage for free.

Thanks for the input nikosgeve! I think the 780ti may well be the way forward. I'm still not sure on the 'K'... but I suppose for the price difference (£20) in the UK it will be worth it. As I'm cooling on air though, I don't see I'm going to get a huge amount more out of it ???

[H4X3R]

3GB will be fine for the next year.

I suggest an r9 290x vapor x. It is slightly slower than a 780ti but it has more vRAM (which will allow you to play games at max settings for 2-3 years, longer than the 780ti).

 

Feel free to check out this discussion i had a while back: http://linustechtips...50/?p=2315959

 

 

Thanks for the input nikosgeve! I think the 780ti may well be the way forward. I'm still not sure on the 'K'... but I suppose for the price difference (£20) in the UK it will be worth it. As I'm cooling on air though, I don't see I'm going to get a huge amount more out of it ???

 

Most people here will try to convince you to buy an overclock-able CPU, but the reality is that overclocking isn't all that important. It creates more heat and noise and decreases the lifespan of the CPU as well as costing much more due to you needing a good cooler and pay more for the "K" series. If you use a normal 20 pounds air cooler then you have already paid 40 pounds for virtually no performance gain.

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Either get a 4790k or get a different motherboard, as it is you're wasting money on that z97 mobo if you don't plan to overclock. I would suggest getting a 780 instead of a 780ti or titan because both of those would just be wasting money for you.

Edit: Also that 750w psu is massively overkill unless you plan on adding a second gpu in the future which it sounds like you aren't, so I would suggest getting a lower wattage PSU ~500w or so if you aren't going to overclock.

Thank for the response. The mobo I already got... so no change can happen there. I was deciding for a long time which one to get.. without the need of overkill features as many of the ASUS boards have. I like the fact it has been stress tested. But I won't be OC'ing on it yet.... maybe in the future if I do go with the 4790K. I got the 750w simply because, once the system is built and running smoothly, I plan on setting up an ssd raid array... so I wanted just a little headroom to do that. Even then I know I'll still have headroom left, but more is better than less I figured 

[nikosgevre]

 

Thanks for the input nikosgeve! I think the 780ti may well be the way forward. I'm still not sure on the 'K'... but I suppose for the price difference (£20) in the UK it will be worth it. As I'm cooling on air though, I don't see I'm going to get a huge amount more out of it ???

You can always change it to water cooling but you can easily catch a 4,6-4,9 with your air cooler if your mobo is good. Also you can just go without overclocking right away. You can oc in 2-3 years when you notice some performance reduce in your pc and you can buy a water cooler then. 20pounds more in uk??? In my country (greece) it's exactly the same price...

[Thomas_the_3rd]

3GB will be fine for the next year.

I suggest an r9 290x vapor x. It is slightly slower than a 780ti but it has more vRAM (which will allow you to play games at max settings for 2-3 years, longer than the 780ti).

 

Feel free to check out this discussion i had a while back: http://linustechtips...50/?p=2315959

 

 

 

Most people here will try to convince you to buy an overclock-able CPU, but the reality is that overclocking isn't all that important. It creates more heat and noise and decreases the lifespan of the CPU as well as costing much more due to you needing a good cooler and pay more for the "K" series. If you use a normal 20 pounds air cooler then you have already paid 40 pounds for virtually no performance gain.

Thanks for the backup on the non K version.... that was exactly my train of thought to be honest. This is a low end workstation build I guess... so stability, silence and cool is what I was aiming for, hence the BeQuiet parts  

[Enderman]

Mmmm wise words I guess... Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the K versions sometimes hit and miss... depending on the batch number ? I know the 4770K had reports of thermal indifference's and that the Devils Canyon has supposedly ironed out that very issues...   

Every CPU is different, some overclock better than others. The thermal issues have been addressed, but you will need something better than the stock cooler if you want to overclock. It is highly recommended you do not use the stock cooler even when not overclocking. It is very loud and does not perform well at all. If you don't want to spend too much just buy the non-k version and a hyper 212 evo.

 

If you want something more silent and better performing, get the k version and a noctua NH-D14 or D15 which are very good for overclocking. You caa get a lot of extra performance from your CPU this way which is good for CPU intensive tasks such as rendering and editing.

[Polyvalent]

There are reports of the R9 290 running quite hot.... As I'm on air would that not be an issue ?

 

The card runs hotter than most others but one of the coolers from ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Sapphire, etc should be fine.  As long as its not the reference card.

 

Black motherboard ! It's the Black edition version !

 

Oh good! I was a bit skeptical of the yellow and white color scheme

[Thomas_the_3rd]

Every CPU is different, some overclock better than others. The thermal issues have been addressed, but you will need something better than the stock cooler if you want to overclock. It is highly recommended you do not use the stock cooler even when not overclocking. It is very loud and does not perform well at all. If you don't want to spend too much just buy the non-k version and a hyper 212 evo.

 

If you want something more silent and better performing, get the k version and a noctua NH-D14 or D15 which are very good for overclocking. You caa get a lot of extra performance from your CPU this way which is good for CPU intensive tasks such as rendering and editing.

Thanks again Enderman for your input ! To be honest I don't plan to use the stock cooler.. I have already purchased the BeQuiet Dark Rock 3.. which has had very good reviews. However, whether its good for OC'ing... I have no idea!