sapphirethunder

I have an MSI Gaming 4G GTX 970 currently, but I'm interested in seeing just how AMD's fresh new GPU and drivers work thus I'm planning an sidegrade without losing a chunk of DX11 performance but gaining DX12 and Vulkan performance. If I were to win this, I wouldn't need to sell my 970 in order to buy the RX 480 and could test them separately. Last time I had AMD gpu, was when HD 6000 series was just few months old.

Alright, + I just noticed that the lock mechanism on the heatsinks has spring on them, so they simply will get pushed back by the needed amount.

Are the thermal pads flexible enough so they can fit even if they are a bit thicker than original?

I was thinking of replacing the thermal pads under my Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0's VRM heatsinks and was wondering what thickness would possibly be the most fitting: 0.5mm, 1mm or 1.5mm (though 1.5 probably is for sure too thick) And another question is that what would be a good brand? The shop I'm looking at, has Phobya, Alphacool and Arctic Cooling. And final question: would it actually be worth the while? Also, any installation/replacing tips are welcome.

It will be more powerful than GTXXX 69 Titan XXX in 4-way SLI.

I normally would say GTX 980TI. but seeing the price difference on there, I'm gonna have to say Fury X. With the current prices on that site, the Fury X has better performance to price ratio.

I would say wait for Pascal/Polaris but build your pc anyway. If you don't have gpu you can use, buy a used GTX 660/660Ti/670/760. They all are powerful enough to play current games at good enough graphics and they are cheap to get and easy to find. You probably could find a 660/670/760 for as low as 75$. 50$ if you know how to haggle. ´Then, when Pascal and Polaris come, you can just keep the gpu you bought, as a back-up gpu for the future if anything were to happen with new gpu. Or simply give it away to someone who needs an upgrade from a GT/R7 x40/50 series card. There is always a lot people who are running cards like GT 210/440/640/730/740/R7 240/R7 250.

Well that explains it then, if that's how it is.

I guess, but 2-3Gb just would make more sense on R7 370. But with current GDDR5 version, it seems to not be possible to properly make 3Gb, instead has to go in increments of 2Gb. Or it is possible but the manufacturers just don't see it as worth it.

I wouldn't really count modded Skyrim in there. Not only is it already an old game, but mods are usually not all that well optimized in terms of memory usage.

Yeah, it doesn't, but that's generally the situation. Of course it can use 4Gb, but it's different thing if the game will run well enough at those settings. Most of the time the graphic settings which R7 370 can run at proper framerates, are still under 2Gb. And the settings which R9 380 can run, are above 2Gb. (but most of the time still under 3gb)

Actually he does. R7 370 with 4Gb is just as bad mismatch as R9 380 with 2Gb. R7 370 doesn't have enough performance to properly run stuff which takes over 2Gb R9 380 has too much performance for it to run 2Gb. Will be hitting the VRAM limits with it. Same goes for GTX 960.

8Gb is pretty much required currently And needs better PSU. Otherwise fine.

OP already found it.

Pretty much close to those. But it would be better to buy Skylake 6600k instead of Haswell Refresh 4690k.