Skwoad

Ok, thank you

Just to clarify, im currently using 2x4 gb in dual channel. It would be all cool to just add another 2x4 kit? There wont be any interference between the two?

Hey guys, I just have a quick question, I currently have 8gb of G.skill ram, and was looking to upgrade to 16gb. Would it be better to just get a kit of 16gb, (re-use the 8gb in a different computer), or just get another 8gb of the same ram? This is the ram I'm currently using: http://www.umart.com.au/umart1/pro/Products-details.phtml?id=10&id2=153&bid=2&sid=86649& Thanks in advance, I dont know alot about ram

netseer_tag_id = '15360'; netseer_ad_width = '1000'; netseer_ad_height = '40'; netseer_task = 'ad'; netseer_imp_type = '1'; netseer_imp_src = '2';It actually has 4gb or ram, however after the first 3.5 has been used the remaining .5gb is slower. Most games wont be using more than 3gb vram, and at 1080p you 2-3gb is more than fine for gaming. The advertised 4gbvram is just to make it 1440p friendly. In regards to the mobo, any msi, gigabyte and asus motherboards will be fine, and because your getting an unlocked cpu, you will want to get a z97 chipset so you can overclock it

You will see a huge improvement upgrading to a 970/290 from a gt 9600, it is really up to you what card you want to get, neither of them will disappoint. If you can wait to June, have a look at some of the benchmarks for the r9 300 series, they look like they will be very competitively priced

In terms of performance, the 970 will out perform the 290 in both 1080 and 1440p by a small margin, Im not sure what the prices are like were you live, but the 290 is $400~ and the 970 is $500~. If you want best price to performance go for the 290, if you want to get those 5-10 fps on the games go for the 970. One of the biggest differences that are present is the heat output of each card. The r9 290 can get quite hot, but that should be much of an issue. Not sure if this applies to you but, the 970 is alot more energy efficient as well. DSR is done through GForce Experience (Nvidia Desktop App), it lets you change your res. to a DSR res. and therefore making the game render at 1440p / 4k. When in the game you can then change the res. from 1080p - 1440p with ease Edit: Clarity Yes the 1440p res will be available on a 1080p monitor, however this is only available on the 970 as the r9 290 does not support this And no the 970 does not beat the 290 by far, however I own a 970 and am very happy with it

The 970 easily maxes everything out at 1080p, You can also run/use DSR and use 1440p quite comfortably on the 970 Im not 100% about the price reduction, I just assumed because the next gen of cards would be out the price of last gen would drop a little.

If you are really want to future proof it, either go for a 970 or wait until June for the release of Fiji gpu's. There will most likely be a small price drop on the current gen r9 200 series when they are released, so it might be worth waiting it out Apart from that the build looks great (y), And to what @dizmo said, the resolution that you will be gaming at helps decide what gpu you will need Edit: Just out of curiosity, what are you going to be doing for storage?

Ok, thank you very much~ in terms of brands is ASRock any good? I heard they are reliable but I dont see them used that often...

Hey guys, I am looking at getting a new GPU (R9 290/GTX970) in the next couple of weeks and I want to eliminate the bottleneck that my i7-920 @ 2.6ghz would cause. I'm looking at getting an I5 4690K, but I'm not sure what mobo to get with this cpu though, as I will have to get a LGA 1150 socket to fit that cpu in. Any help/recommendations are welcome! I would also preferably like crossfire/sli support as well as support of up to 32gb or ram. I'm looking at spending no more than $200 ----AUD---- on the mobo. Thanks in advance, Skwoad

Ok, thanks for the advice. I just jumped into some battlefield 4 to have a look at Gpu usage and fps. http://gyazo.com/2e105e5757707f7695fe2182aa5e158f ^ That is the GPU usage, and I must say, I am quite surprised. I didn't think it would have been getting limited like this. I also did a fraps benchmark : Min: 34 Max: 61 Avg: 48.8. This was on high settings on Dawnbreaker with no anti aliasing. So I assume even the 7950 is being limited by the 920... So I guess untill i get 100% utilization out of this card I wont be upgrading anytime soon... Would it be anything else apart from the cpu? Or is it 100% the reason?

I don't really want to overclock the 920 simply because of the nature of baseclock overclocking. You say don't buy any new hardware what-so ever? If anything NEEDS upgrading its either cpu or psu. (in that order). I just though the 970 would provide some decent increase in fps. But bottom line, Would it be better to upgrade cpu or gpu in my case? I can post the rest of the system specs if needed.

I'm not sure what the usage is, I dont often look at it. One thing that is a little strange is that my gpu at both idle and under load sits at 60*, it never really changes even when I manually set the fans up to 50%+.

League, CsGO and the indi games are fine. Borderlands runs dips into 30 on ultra, and battlefield 4 runs on high around 50ish I think. With Dota 2, I have a really weird issue that seems to be driver related. Pulling it back to an earlier driver from last year fixed most of the issues, but caused other issues in newer games. It's like fps stuttering? That's the best way i can describe it...

Just a quick question, slightly off topic- With the noctua cooler's backplate, It has 3 options, LGA 1366, 1156 and 775. Would an LGA 1150 fit into the 1156?