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Hey guys, I built a mid-range budget gaming rig in '13 with a AMD 7870, and now as I'm going off to college, I'm wondering if I should upgrade my GPU now or wait a few more months. My 7870 still does pretty decently (it's paired with an AMD FX-6300), though now I'm starting to need to lower settings. I'm looking at getting a 970, but as it was released last September, I'm questioning as to if I should hold off until the next gen to get as much use out of the upgrade as possible. I'm not a super hard-core gamer, but when I game I like to have things work well and not get super janky. Plus, I want to be able to handle Fallout 4, and it looks like my 7870 will just barely be able to run it. Thanks in advance for any suggestions! -microapple

Hi, Ive collected data of some cards and their prices, in your opinion what card is best for gaming? price is in 10's of dollars. data is taken from techspot. all cards besides the 970 are used because i cant afford new cards . http://s10.postimg.org/56msk0w3t/Screenshot_5.png

I am currently gaming at 1080p and later at 1440p and with only 2gb of vram i am a little worried it will not be enough also it would be nice go get a stable 60 fps also in the more graphic intensive games. Do you have some suggestions for a new graphics card? I dont really care if it is from nvidia or from amd. I was looking at the GTX 970 but i dont know if it is worth it for 4gb of vram and only a small bump in performace. So i could use some Suggestions from you guys.

I want to hook my graphics card (EVGA GTX 770) to both my monitor and my TV at the other end of my room and have it mirror the output to both. Will doing this make my GPU process the same image twice, impacting performance, or will it be some simple mirroring? If this isn't even possible, are there any other solutions? I'd be happy to hear your discussion!

Hello all, I currently have a 4GB GTX 770 and want to upgrade and was wondering whether it makes more sense to get another 770 and SLI or get a single GTX 970. I know another 770 would be a much better boost but the single 970 would provide enough of a performance boost and I could sell the 770 to offset the cost. The lower cost and the fact I'm not taking a gamble with a used 770 is pushing me toward a single 970. I currently game on a single 1080p display and don't desire to upgrade to a higher resolution any time soon so I don't think the 3.5GB thing will be an issue. I have a Z87 sabertooth with a 4790k. Opinions and insights are appreciated, I'm pretty sure I want to go with the 970 but want to know what other thought. Also, if you have particular experience of Skyrim modded with hi-res textures and meshes with an ENB running on a 970 please let me know what your experiences have been. Another thought, I did consider a 290x but the price and performance are similar enough that I decided to stick with my Nvidia preference. Thanks, Kevin aka beerisyum

This is going to be a long post, and I apologize in advance. Background: About 4 months ago, a friend of mine (who will remain unnamed) had an older computer (Core 2 Quad, DDR2, the works). Then 2 GTX 760s appeared on craigslist for $200, which he bought. My machine at this time was using: AMD FX-8320 MSI 970A-G43 SAPPHIRE R9 270X 4GB I was not happy with my performance and had long been contemplating upgrading to an I5, the highest requirement games I play are: PlanetSide 2 (a lot, I'm addicted to this) GTA V (have not launched yet) Planetary Annihilation (uses a lot of RAM, this isn't an issue and I never notice lag in this game.) I traded my CPU, MoBo, GPU and heatsink for his dual 760s, figuring I could either use or sell them. (I am aware that this was not a good deal on my part, and was aware of this at the time). Then a 4 GB GTX 770 appeared on Ebay and I snapped that up for $200. I then sold the 760s to another friend (@Random32) for $250, which I used with $100 in gift cards to buy: I5 4690k Gigabyte Z97-HD3 CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO With my new hardware my performance in PlanetSide 2 jumped, but still drops below 60 in medium-large battles (~70 per side), dropping below 40 in large fights. About 4 days ago, Random32 ran some tests on the cards and discovered that they had been heavily modded by Alienware (they were taken out of a prebuilt). Each card had 1.5 GB, and was running at 800 MHz (these were using reference coolers). We assume this was done to save on wattage. He and I both agree that nobody involved is to blame and that I should buy them back, here are my questions: How much could I sell the "760s" for? Is me giving him my 4 GB 770 (it's EVGA) a good form of compensation? (he is ok with this) Also, I have yet to OC my I5, will overclocking increase my performance in PlanetSide 2? (CPU is currently my bottleneck) And finally, if I do give him my 770, what is the best card I can get for $200 and, depending on the card, will it bottleneck me in PlanetSide 2? Note that I have 3 1080p screens, with the game running on one while smaller apps such as Chrome or TeamSpeak run on the others, this has been the case since before this entire thing started. Planetside 2 is running off a SSD separate from my OS or other programs. I apologize for the length of the post, but I am in need of advice and trust this forum more than any other.

Hey forum, I was think about picking up another used GTX 770 for around 200 ish, but I was debating just selling my current 770 and buying a 970 for whatever they cost right now, prob 400ish. Mainly playing big titles and light games like League of Legends and WoW. I also stream sometimes, but I got no viewers =(. Any links to Canadian pricing for cheap 970s would be much appreciated =) Relevant Current Specs: i7 4770k Maximus VII Hero EVGA G2 850W BenQ XL2411Z 144Hz

I have a picture explaining everything. If you for some reason cannot view the picture, here's the skinny on it; SLI, temps are 50c and 32c idle, 78c and 68c load. Have changed thermal paste. Tried old drivers. Good airflow (side panel off and the stock case fans + two Corsair SP120 Quiet Editions on my H100i in H440). Previous temps were 36c/28c idle and 72c/67c load while OVERCLOCKED and OVERVOLTED. Room temperature is a comfortable 18-20c. (edit) I have swapped the cards, and temperatures are minimally improved. It's the current configuration I am running. However, I can't get as much of an overclock with the cards swapped for some reason, which I don't mind. Thanks in advance for any help provided, and I apologize for my lack of forum use in the past few months, been busy with real life things Permalink for the image: http://filz.us/2sbY Direct: http://www.filz.us/files/eadfd25a/7a5/GPU_Temps.png

I have seen a couple of gigabyte gtx 770 4gb for sale and was wondering about the 4gb of vram since the memory bus is only 256bit Okay the gtx 970-980 also have a 256 bit memory bus and 4gb vram and no one talks about the gtx 980 not being good enought to be able to handle 4gb of vram. I have a msi gtx 780 gamiing oc (1ghz) fine for 2560x1080 and easy games on 5760x1080, but for future games i would like a bit more vram since i have 3 monitors (and a 2560x1080) also with gtx 770 in sli i would have much more gpu power then a single gtx 780,970. Even when 2x gtx770 is more powerfull then a single gtx 970, alot of people on forums say it's not powerfull enough to take advantage of 4gb vram, simple because the gpu is not fast enough (even in sli)to use, let's say compared to my gtx 780 vram above 3gb and because of the low memory bus (gtx 780 higher memory bus and not so powerfull as gtx 770 4 gb in sli, gtx 770 4gb in sli has more ram and gpu power but lower memory bus, there for gpu power would compensate for memorybus and both should be able to handle 3gb vram fine?) (Gtx 770 in sli more gpu power,gtx 780 higher memory bus, both should be able to handle 3gb vram fine?) Is the Gigabyte gtx 770 4gb in sli fast enough (they could run about 1200mhz on the core) to take advantage of more then 3 gb of vram even when memory bus is only 256bit? Why isn't people talking about the only 256 bit memory bus on the gtx 980 limit the vram usage?

Hey guys I was recently thinking about going SLI with my GTX 770 because it was not getting the fps I wanted this is the card I have. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127751 I wanted to buy the exact same one as my current one to avoid different clock speeds that fuck up my other GPU I read something that said if you have the same graphics card they will sli but you will get horrible frame rate But I need to buy a different card because that GPU is out of stock like everywhere so yeah thanks.

Hi guys, So, about 2 days ago, with no apparent reason, my GPU fans started running at 100% all the time. The card is working fine and has no other issues, besides that. I updated all the drivers, set the clock, memory and voltage at stock settings, tried adjusting the fans with the ThunderMaster utility, which I normally use for overclocking, but it had no effect.The GPU temp is showing around 30°C when not gaming, so the thermometer is working fine. It is worth pointing out that the fans only max out when windows starts loading. When I'm in the bios they are working fine. Here are my specs: CPU: Intel Core i5-4670k Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB GPU: Palit GTX 770 2GB Mobo: Gigabyte Z87-P PSU: Corsair CX 750W HDD: 1TB WD Caviar Blue SSD: 240GB PNY Case: NZXT Phantom 410 Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit

As you may know by now, I'am playing around with my 770 a bit and try to OC that GPU a bit, after some fun I would like to increase the Voltage now because I only gained about 80MHz more or so stable without. I read that the Voltage is ok as long as the Temp is fine, is this correct ? If not whats the max I should get (just roughly kinda scared of breaking that card). Thanks ahead

Hey guys, I am overclocking my GPU atm, and noticed that the MSI Furmark seems way more stressful for my PC, although it only runs at 720p without AA compared to 1080p 2x AA at Geeks3D. When I get the GPU 100 MHz more in MSI software it crashes but in the Geeks3D, 1080p,2xAA, it runs smooth. Have you discovered any problems that are similar to that ? Also, when I OC my card with about 150-180 MHz more my Display Drivers crash, although the Temps and everything are ok, is this already the limit ? I OC the GPU with Afterburner, I don't mess with the Voltage atm, only the memory and the Clock, would the GPU maybe perform better if I OC Clock and Memory an a same level? Because now I OC the GPU aslong as it gets then the Memory. My Card is the GTX 770 3x OC, Thanks ahead

So i recently build my computer about a month ago and I have run into a recurring problem. After powering on my computer and using it for a varied amount of time (browsing the internet, playing league of legends) both monitors turn different colors (red, pink, purple, blue) then become unresponsive. not bsod. my computer specs are as follows. intel i7 4790k gtx 770 corsair hx750 corsair vengence ram 16gb ddr3 1600 samsung 128 evo ssd wd 2tb green drive asus maximus impact VII noctua NH-D14 HWMonitor says my cpu is running 32-33 degrees and my gpu 29 degrees celcius. Any help would be greatly appreciated. this has been a problem since the computer was build but has been occuring more and more often

Hello LTT Forum, I've been procrastinating to make an account for this site for a while now but I am ready to ask this somewhat embarrassing question. So I recently bought a second GTX 770 Gigabyte Windforce Edition 2GB. Had it installed and set up no problem with a new Power Supply (Corsair 650w Gold Certified). Problem is I don't know how to get the most out of my system. I play games and still get somewhat the same FPS as I did with a single GTX 770. I made sure to enable the "Maximize 3D Performance" so that SLI is enabled. I've updated to Windows 8.1 Pro to take advantage of the DirectX 11.2 and possibly the 12.0 hopefully. I've look around for many different ways to get the most out of my setup without asking but am almost ready to jump overboard so I swallowed my pride and thought to ask here instead since i've been watching Linus for almost over a year now on youtube. Im guessing maybe my CPU is bottlenecking my GPUs but Its at a stable overclock @ 3.8 GHz kept under 50 degrees Celsius full load. My motherboard is MSI x58 Platinum SLI (MSI-7522) with 10 GB of Corsair XMS3 DDR3 666 9-9-9-24. I understand since I am using a 60Hz Monitor which would be a reason for screen tearing but its still pretty bad. Anyone can give me some information on what to do next ? Upgrade my CPU, RAM and MB finally? Or just go for a single 970? Any information would be nice. Thanks !

A while ago I had trouble with my laptop. I had very low fps, lower than i used to have. after I looked on the web, someone pointed out that i should downgrade my GT630M's driver to the 314.22 driver. this worked perfectly. Now my friend, who has a laptop with a GTX 770M has the same problem, however he can't downgrade to the 314.22 driver. Does anyone know if there is another "magic driver" that can fix this issue. Thanks in advance.

I'm just wondering for my build Would a G3258 Bottleneck a Gtx 770?.... In case you wonder what games i will be playing here they are: Minecraft,Gmod,Bf3/4.

So while browsing through my local classifieds (kijiji) for a good deal on a gpu for my first ever rig, I came across some really good deals.. Considering that I planed on getting an EVGA card with their ACX cooler so that could paint the shroud and add a backplate too, I found two cards that would fit the bill at really nice prices and even the option to buy two of each card as the sellers had two cards (different sellers) I thought who better to ask than the LTT forum for their opinion and which they would buy Options (All with EVGA's ACX cooler their SC editions, all 2GB GDDR5 versions, and all in CAD prices) GTX 760 for $100 GTX 760 in SLI for $250 (different seller from the one above) GTX 770 for $200 GTX 770 in SLI for $350 In my mind, the single 770 for $200 makes the most sense and is a really good deal considering that $200 would get you an r9 270(x) or a GTX 750ti if you bought brand new from a chain store like NCIX. However the single 760 has the best bang for the buck but won't hold up as long as the 770 in terms of performance/ "futureproof" Which would you buy?

I am in the process of building a PC and would really like a Geforce GTX 770 with the stock cooler. However I CANNOT find a single one on the market with this cooler, only ASUS and MSI ones. Does anyone know where I could get one with the stock cooler? Please Help.

I'm running a R9 270x, and I was thinking of upgrading soon. I have a budget of $200, I was thinking of purchasing a GTX 770. (There's a guy in my town who sells them for $200 new) but I'm not sure if i want to drop $200 on last gen hardware. I was also thinking of purchasing a R9 280, or something along those lines. I've come to the forums to seek help! Thanks in advance.

(You could argue about that this belongs in the Graphic Cards section, but it's more about EVGA's strange move ) While browsing the Graphics cards section of the internet, (and investigating the big price derange of EVGA from US to EU), I noticed the following: EVGA has REMOVED the 760, 770, 780 and 780 Ti from their US webshop, even though KEEPING it on the EU stores. On the Forums and Press release sites, there is no explanation as far as I've been able to find. Why do you think that EVGA did this?

For starters this problem does not exist when the graphics card is not plugged in. Setup - USED Asus Gtx 770 with 2gb (Some have 4gb) - Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 - EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 When trying to boot with the card powered and installed. Hdmi running to the motherboard, causes a solid grey screen without giving me any BIOS. When trying to boot with hdmi to the card. No signal I have tried to install drivers (Without Card) but they will not complete installation due to lack of a present card. Please Save Me J.

Before we begin, a word from your reviewer: image heavy, data capped people beware! And now back to the review. Unboxing and Overview So around a year ago (august 2014 to be exact) I picked up the new Silverstone raven 5. I got it so early I'm likely to be one of the first few people in the UK to have received one. Specifically, as you can see in the image below, I have the 505th Raven 5. After all this time I've decided that it deserves a review, now that my system is complete (shameless plug to check out build log that still hasn't been updated) http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/194325-wip-branwen-the-raven-rises/ To start with, it comes in a large, coloured box that details the case itself. It’s also red and black. Because red and black means powerful don’t you know? I'm not sure on how I feel with a coloured box, the pessimist in me keeps thinking that Silverstone have spent too much on making the box look nice, and the actual product won't be up to scratch. Nextly (making words up now as well), when removed, which is very difficult because of the damn push handles in the box, it is held in some very thick hard foam which is unlikely to result in any damage, even after a couple of knocks and drops, so kudos to Silverstone for that. Not quite the Linus approved soft foam, but this is good enough for a sub £100, fairly lightweight case. It is also in a black cloth bag to keep it from getting scratched etc. And so here we are, the Raven 5 by Silverstone, their latest in a long running series of aggressively styled, bird named cases that have become a major success story for them, even so far as to them making a website specifically for the Raven series. It is made of steel and plastic, all in black. It is largely constructed of plastic on the exterior, due to the aggressive styling of the case being too difficult to make from just metal. Or at least too costly. From the front of the case, you can see the beak-like design, with a large white V clearly visible. This bar is the power indicator light, so will be a bright white when turned on. You can also see a black slit on the side at the bottom, that’s for the slot loading optical drive that I’ll get to later on. However, the ability to have an optical drive at all is a nice thought from Silverstone, as I personally still use one every so often. Now we come to the side, which has a clear, albeit very reflective acrylic window to let you see those smexy components inside, as well as your face when you look in it. I would have preferred a less reflective window, but for that you'd probably need to go for a glass panel, which would need to be done yourself. It is possible however, as the window is held in by screws, not rubber sealant. The rear of the case doesn’t look like the normal rear of a case. There’s only one “fan mount” and no expansion slots. There’s a reason for this, you’ll see in a minute. Also, a very nice magnetic filter is provided that will help catch lots of that horrible mixture of hair, dead flesh and other bodily remnants. (dust, for those that hadn’t figured it out yet) Now to the other side panel, this is very similar to the other side, just without a window. That’s kind of to be expected however. There is no bulge for cable management as you may see on other cases. This is to keep the front facing symmetry of the case, but as we shall see may cause an issue. And so the top, which has an interestingly designed plastic “mesh” to cover over lots of secrets inside. But before you get to see that, here’s one of the two integrated fan controllers that’re build into the case and are already connected. Sadly they can only control one fan each and are covered by the grille on the top, but they have three settings: low, medium and high. My suggestion is to put it in medium and leave it there if you don’t want to be fiddling around with it. Now you see the top of the case, with something interesting up here. All of the expansion slots, and another fan mount as well. Now, why would all of these be here? Well you’re just about to see why. And there it is, the reason for the PCI-E slots being up top. Those two, dinner plate sized 180mm fans blowing fresh air up the case. But these aren’t just any old 180mm fans, these are silverstones premium AP181 fans. (If anyone gets the reference to a certain advert there, you win an internet cookie) these fans have silverstones infamous multi bar grille on the back of them, designed to help channel air through the case in a vortex, instead of it being dispersed straight away like other, airflow based fans. These fans should create two columns of air rising up through the case and pushing them out the top, giving optimal cooling as it goes with the understanding of heat rising, so is pushing the hot air out in the direction it is meant to go, instead of making it go at angles like normal cases. Although in a case with fast moving air I'm unsure on how believable that is. And here, you can see behind the motherboard tray, where there are two 2.5” SSD mounts, which initially stumped me on how they hold the drive in, but actually only require two screws as the other side is held by some pins that are sticking out. It’s a nice little design that makes good use of the MoBo tray. There isn't much room here, but enough for me to just about fit my fingers around when the panel is shut. We get on to the main front now, where you can see a 3.5” drive cage, with room for a total of two drives. There’s barely any motherboard tray here you may have noticed, which is good in parts for the access to the backplate if a CPU cooler is fitted (I would advise having a tower air cooler in here, as it will have air from the bottom fans being pushed through it) however this also potentially weakens the structure, which is why there are handles on the top. Not for carrying, although they can be used for that, but to increase overall case rigidity. The PSU is mounted above the drive cage, which means that, with my own measurements, you can get away with a 160mm length modular PSU with the cage in, but any size one really if it is removed. Annoying yes, but that’s something you have to accept. I managed to squeeze a 170mm XFX XTR into here, however I would not suggest ANYONE do this, as the cables are at ridiculously tight angles that is putting unnecessary strain on the cable and connectors. I personally am looking to get a NAS and another SSD, so then I can remove the cage and allow more room for the cables. And lastly, we get to the dust filter on the bottom. This thing is huge, held on rails, and is pulled out from the front with a little tug from grabbing the base of it. To remove this when you first get it, you need to remove two little screws holding it in on the underside, as otherwise it won’t go anywhere. It's also a rather fine mesh, which is far better than on many other cases that seem to use a loose "net". And this is what a completed system will probably look like with the side panel off And with the side panel on and running Temperatures The CPU is stress tested using the AIDA64 stress test for 10 minutes, and the GPU will be tested using unigene valley at ultra with 8x AA The CPU is an i7 4790k running at 4.6Ghz, cooled by an alpenfohn brocken. The GPU is a reference GTX 770 at stock core speeds using a 102% power limit in MSI afterburner. The GPU memory is overclocked by 253Mhz. Fan speed | CPU idle © | CPU load © | GPU idle © | GPU load © Low 37 84 35 85 Medium 35 80 35 82 High 34 79 34 81 As we can see, temperatures are fairly impressive with an ambient of around 22C. From the results, medium fan speed is clearly the way to go, with it keeping within what I would consider the margin of error to high and all whilst putting less strain and wear on the fan bearings, and also being quieter. Noise This is entirely subjective, but at low fan speeds on idle, the CPU and GPU are clearly making far more noise than the case fans. At medium speeds on idle the case fans are audible but not intrusive, especially when having either headphones on or having speakers playing. At high speeds the fans are loud, even when playing games using headphones at times, depending on what is happening. I would not recommend using the high setting, as it is intrusive and unnecessary. Conclusion And so, in conclusion I think we can safely say that this case is an individual (almost). It bucks the trend of normal black boxes, instead going with a different internal layout that gives it improved air cooling, but this of course comes at the cost of space being wasted in the top section, with the top cover to protect the cables actually meaning that space that could be useful instead houses a bunch of cables and nothing else really, and the cable management space could be bigger with more cable tie points, but when you have thick side panels on it that have a fancy removal mechanism, then you have to accept things like that. Overall, it’s worth the compromises that are made in the space department for the effective and efficient cooling, which is unrivalled by anything other than Silverstone’s own cases. My changes/afterthoughts If I was to make any changes to this at all, I would probably make it a bit wider, so as to get some extra cable management space in the back, and the top would have a PSU bracket mounted higher up to support longer units with the drive cage in. Personally I would like to get hold of a popular case like the define R5, as well as an airflow based case with a standard layout like the 450D, just to test how big of a difference there is between the motherboard layouts and cooling setups. I would also like to change the cooler to something like the Silverstone HE02 or NH-D15 to see what CPU temps are like with different fan layouts including passively cooled.

I just killed my r9 290x (the geto mod for a aio (uneven pressure which cracked the gpu die)) I can get another one for 200$ or I can get a gtx 770 for the same price and for an extra 75 I can get a gtx 780. my plans are to go 4k eventually (sometime soon) and was wondering which of the cards I should get because everything else is basically out of my price range

So I have been overclocking my geforce gtx 770 with a stock cooler and while running bechmarks have noted dow a temperature of 81 degree Celsius! Is that something I should worry about? Here are my overclocking specs: Coreclock: +100MHz Memory Clock: +300MHz PTT: +106 % Voltage: 12.5 mV Note: I know that my card can officially keep up with a temperature up to 98 degree celcius but I am still worried to see it run that warm ...