BadBacon

What motherboard are you using and how did this happen?

According to recent reports, the1060 would have performance comparable to the 980 at nearly the same price point as an RX 480. As far as I'm concerned, the 480 is comparable to the 970 and 390 in terms of performance with it being only a couple of dollars cheaper. I think Nvidia might've won this round unfortunately...

Sweet Spot IMO is 550w. I would recommend high-end PSU's just for safe measure. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438049 http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-RM550-Modular-Supply-Certified/product-reviews/B00EB7UIO6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=1

Prices will not drop until AMD releases their Zen line of CPU's assuming everything goes according to plan. Soo if you are looking for a cheaper price I'd wait till holidays or at least when Zen drops which might be early October or early next year.

CPU: I5 6600K - $338.00 (Solid CPU that will trash any game out there plus it's overclockable) CPU COOLER: COOLER MASTER HYPER T4 - $33.00 (Solid Heatsink that's relatively silent and allows for moderate OCing) MOTHERBOARD: BIOSTAR Z170 GT7 - $170.26 (PREMIUM MOTHERBOARD W/O BREAKING THE BANK. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW TO SEE HOW AWESOME A VALUE THIS BOARD IS!) MEMORY: 2X4 HYPERXFURY BLACK (2133 MHZ) - $61.60 (Two occupied DIMM slots yield better results than one ram module in one DIMM slot since your running in dual channel as opposed to one) BOOT DRIVE: KINGSTON SSDNOW V300 120GB - $62.70 (SSD allows for quicker boot speeds and less time behind splash screens) MASS STORAGE: WD CAVIAR BLUE 1TB - $69.99 (WD blues are solid options for storage and reliability) GPU: MSI RADEON R9 380 4GB - $325.00 (More than enough to run any game on ultra to high as of 2016) CASE: CORSAIR SPEC 03 MIDTOWER - $79.00 (Cheap and solid case from corsair that features easy cable management and a windowed panel) PSU: EVGA SUPERNOVA NEX 650W FULL MOD (GOLD RATED) - $135.00 (EVGA is known for 2 things. Kick-ass Graphics Cards and fantastic PSU's. You can never go wrong with these guys) TOTAL: $1273.56 This is a mid-range pc that I specifically picked parts for dependent on value and price. Enjoy part hunting! http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/NPxhnQ

That's my issue. I can't find a custom bios for the Zotac 970 Extreme AMP! Edition. I've been looking and I haven't really had much luck. If I can find one I can OC this card even higher and have it stable always. Actually if I had that extra headroom I'd be able to get this card to 1515 Mhz no problem. I would customize my own if actually knew how.

The Zotac GTX 970 Extreme AMP! Edition Card has been giving me lots of issues stability wise for the past couple of months. I just realized the voltage is restricted on the card to 1.21v. Now this is a lower restriction that was present with the reference and competitors cards. Is there a way I can bios flash this card to increase the voltage to its original limit. I swear this card has everything to help it OC stupid high but is limited by its current bios. Normal Factory OC: CORE CLOCK 1404 MEMORY CLOCK 1800 VOLTAGE Lower than 1.2124 (Stable but why?) Idle temps 38-42 C Load temps 52-56 C OC settings: CORE CLOCK 1494 Mhz MEMORY CLOCK 1930 Mhz VOLTAGE 1.2124 (Not high enough to keep it stable for 2+hours) Idle temps 38-42 C (Based on ambient room temps) Load temps 52-56 C (Based on Ambient room temps)

I wouldn't write them off since AMD has pretty much been off the market for Enthusiast CPU's for quite some time. They had rehired the original Designer of the K8 and beyond (Jim Keller) in the AMD golden years to design a new CPU from 2012 till now. So I'm sure he has something up his sleeve. Moreover, I never said equal but similar. Watch this video! If the IPC is 40% better than "Excavator" then it is on par with a Broadwell IPC which is below "Skylake". Note the X99 chipset is still "Haswell".

Don't trust salesmen. They're called salesmen cause they can sell a product worth half its weight. Get a new GPU preferably a 980 ti or a 980. New CPU too.

you could salavage the HDD the optical drive. If you are willing, upgrade to a q6600 quad core. Buy it used and get a cheap 100 dollar GPU from fry's or craigslist. PSU just get one new. Buy a cheap but reliable one though.

Wait for Zen if you can. If not, buy from intel. Buying an 8350 at the change of manufacturing process and newer architecture would result in a loss rather than a gain.

Lend it then get it back asap and give it to your uncle.

PSU w/ RAM upgrade. Then GPU. Being a fellow pinoy I know how the prices are soo If you are going to do this go big since you probably won't want to upgrade for a while.

I would wait since AMD zen CPU will have an 8 core processor out by fall with nearly Identical IPC to the i7 6700k. Better gaming performance and multithreaded performance on a newer manufacture process. The 16nm Finfet. If AMD succeeds then prices on both Intel and AMD processors will drop. Cheaper prices and fall sales equal a happy camper.

For safe operation, I would agree to it being close to if not below 60C. Honestly anything above that will kill the lifespan of your CPU overtime. I have a overclocked FX-8350 at 4.6 GHz operating around 55-58C. Cooling is a must so buy a water cooler or a big ass Heatsink. Besides the TJ Max of the 8370 is the same as the 8350. The 8370 is just overclocked higher out of the box. Same applies for the FX 9000's.