anon3na

Honestly I am not sure which cooler is better, there doesn't seem to be many benchmarks. Just go with the one which looks best for you, or is the cheapest. Gigabyte, Saphire and MSI are all reputable brands?

Saphire had the best coolers on the market for amd right now, the vapour x and trix....get the sapphire if u can

The Titan Z is a complete Potato of a card IMO... It is stupid for gaming, as the r9 295x2 beats it at a lower cost, and 2 Titan blacks massively out preform it due to thermal throttling of the titanZ... It only really has a niche use as a card for a cuda developer who need double presicion, and can fit a 3slot card where 2 2 slot cards wouldn't fit.... I believe 2 980s preform slightly better than the 295x2, and will require much less power, but is probably more expensive (not sure about America though).... Go with whichever one ur more comfortable with, though I believe 2 295x2s are pretty worthless as the card already runs 4k at pretty much max.

The nh-d15 also has noctuas newer fans the Nf-a15, and the wider fin stack gives it greater compatibility with high profile ram. However I don't think the price premium is justified over the nh-d14, unless u really need the extra preformance. From what I've seen both coolers stomp on 120 and 140 fan radiators, especially the d15, while being extremely quiet.

I am not going to say that gsync is nonsense but personally I don't think that it has too much value on a 1440p 144hz monitor, but saying that I've always been a 60fps guy. I think gsync makes much more sense on the acer 4k panel as it will make the 30-40fps seem much smoother, than it would be without gsync. The price tag on the swift is also very hard to stomach IMO... Has any1 had personal experience with the benq bl2710pt? I'm interested in buying it as the price seems very good.

I preferred it when evga stuck with just black and grey, that way the card suited almost every build. I like this particular cards looks a lot but the blue accents on their other cards really put me off

You actually have a really good point about running temperature which I hadn't even considered. I do think maxwell is indeed a step in the right direction but i dont think the 900 series has much value in Australia, considering how it has undercut prices of older gen cards which have pretty much the same preformance. Non reference desings seem to be 500+ while the 290x windforce is only 469. Rather I think the next refresh cycle of maxwell will be far more interesting than this. I think from benchmarks from various sites the 290x seems to have an overall lead over the 970 (I think Linus got a really bad sample). But in hindsight of making this thread, I have to say its probably my fault for expecting too much, and im kinda sour cause I need to build a system for myself within the month or 2 and I was really hopeful that maxwell would blow 7XX out of the water with raw preformance. That probably coloured my view with bias, as after watching a few videos I have to admit it is impressive to reach max overclocks before temperature becomes the limiting factor. Saying that though I think Maxwell gets roughly the same preformance boost as other cards when ocing, despite the higher overclocks but that is probably due to the cut down ammount of Cuda cores As far as the 980 goes I think that card makes little sense in Au with pccasegear selling the ghz edition of the 780 to for 599, along with other retailers selling cheaper 780 tis Arround 620~650, since reference 980s are Arround 700 and non reference are all 800+ from what I've seen(That being said I can understand ur decision considering your bad experience with the 780 TI, but in general I've heard the card seems quite solid)

Where I live there has always been a massive jump between the X70 to X80 cards (Arround $200), and an even bigger jump from the 780 to the 780 TI. However the release of maxwell has made the prices of the 780, 780 TI, r9 290x and r9 290 drop to values which pretty much make them better value for the money, and the demand for these cards isn't that high, while maxwell cards disappear from stock which really does confuse me.My biggest scare is this will turn out a bit like the 770 where originally the 780 was overpriced, but upon amd releasing competition, the 780 dropped to 770 prices and the full gk110 core was released in the 780 TI (nvidia has got to do, what they have to do to get a profit eh) But still if I bought a 770 I would feel quite rotten as the card isn't up to scratch for 1440p IMO, which is my desired resolution. I think the gtx 980 is fully enabled gm 204 core from what I've heard from lurking on other forumns (not the most reliable resource), but I'm still nervous about diving into maxwell to build my own personal rig.

Rather than looking at the brand of the power supply, try look for the original manufacturer... For example the coolermaster v650 and v750 don't seem to preform as well as the v850 onwards, which was attributed to the fact that they use different OEMs. Honestly I think it's best looking for a psu with ur desired wattage efficieny, etc and then look up the corresponding johnny guru review if available... I wouldn't buy a power supply which hasn't been reviewed by the site, but I'm sure there are other reputable sites which also give good reviews

Sorry for dupe thread, i should have checked before i posted, sorry guys I guess I probably just expected too much from Maxwell and the 900 series considering im looking to build a system soon I did not mean to raise controversy, Im just curious as to why people are so excited over the launch, when perhaps it hasn't been as good as i expected. I am not a fanboy to any company, and i guess I didnt truly consider the influence that my context, "living in Australia" had on the impact of hardware costs. I was also too narrow minded to consider the preformance jump from Pre 700 generation to the 900 series. Perhaps my memory fails me but i think that the 600 to 700 series offered a bigger preformance delta, but looking at the pricing in the USA, I can see that this is the first time that nvidia has priced so aggressively on launch.... Oh well hardware costs have always sucked here anyway Sorry once more if i came across as flame baiting i sincerely didnt mean to

If you're one of the people, who have bought a 970/980 why did u buy it (regular upgrade cycle, better perf per wat, etc) and did the fact that maxwell was a new architecture, influence your decision. I'm asking this cause personally I'm not that impressed with the current release of maxwell cards, but I think it's largely due to the distorted pricing in Australia where 780s and r9 290xs are cheaper than 970s and the premier 780 Tis (such as the ghz edition) are $100 cheaper than the reference 980. From most benchmarks it seems that the 970 Trades with the 780 and r9 290x (keep in mind Linus' sample is pathetic) and the 780ti and 980 are pretty much equal with the 980 generally coming out on top slightly (frame rates u won't really notice in the real world). In the end preformance per dollar really doesn't make much of a difference in costs, unless you want to do SLI in which nvidia cards can get away with small power supplies. I think the Maxwell architecture has impressive potential, but I think nvidia deliberately matched the preformance of a 980 to a 780ti and a 970 to a 780, but I think supply and demand has twisted their aims to output these cards at a better preformance per frame, since there release has managed to undercut both the 780 and 290x (I'm guessing this is the reason why nvidia discontinued the two 780 cards). I think big things can be expected from the maxwell architecture, but rather in the next refresh cycle, rather than this one. Saying that as far as sales go nvidia is doing extremely well right now as the 970 probably comes at a much more reasonable costs outside Australia.

Saphire implementing semi passive before it was even mainstream Jokes aside check to see if u have accidentally set a semi-passive fan profile. People have been doing this for quite some time, even if the manufactures are trying to implement it now. If ur fan profile is stock see if it works with a custom fan profile. Else just RMA it.

90 degree mounting only really helps when air cooling... It uses the principle that hot air rises but im skeptical of how influential this is on temps... Saying that the tj11 pretty much has the best air cooling configuration of any case, but I think it's due to the effectiveness of silverstones fans If ur doing any water cooling, and want to minimise modding I would say its best to avoid the cosmos... I think the case is quite pretty but lacks the functionality that the 900d brings as far as radiator support goes. For a black and brass mod I think the corsair 900d would be more appropriate for the job, and if ur wallet is prepared the tj11 can be even better.

The enthoo pro all the way It has best fan/radiator expansion for a case of its price (far better than the Stryker) Design is less aggressive (advantage or disadvantage depending on ur taste) Comes with strong cooling out of the box especially if top drive cage is removed(check bit tech) Fans are higher quality than coolermaster fans Has a strong built in feature set such as the pwn hub Much more modable due to limited use of rivets

I think people heavily underate the Asrock lineup. The Z97e-itx is packed with features and has better audio than the average mini-itx motherboard.