£300 Soon™ Help Me?

[TangoSheep]

Not sure if you can see my current rig, it's not so great at running games. I can barely run anything past medium at 30fps for some reason. I'm only a student so I don't have much money but it's my birthday Friday and so I'll be getting a decent amount then.

Can you help me choose what I need to upgrade?

Thanks, Nathan.

[Jogostar]

I'd say the GPU. Get a 770/780/280x/290.

for the lazy ones:

 

CPU

i7 3770K

 

Motherboard

Gigabyte UD5-H Z77

 

RAM

16GB Corsair Vengeance

 

GPU

Sapphire 6850

 

Case

Bitfenix Shinobi

 

Storage

Samsung 830 + WD Blue

 

PSU

650w OCZ

 

Display(s)

Samsung Something

 

Cooling

Stock(HELP ME IM BURNING)

 

Keyboard

QPAD MK50

 

Mouse

Razer Naga Hex

[JRowe95]

Rig is pretty decent, just slap in a high end video card like a GTX 780 and make sure you have enough watts on the PSU and you should be humming away. A cheap 80 dollar aftermarket CPU cooler might be a good idea. A better SSD couldn't hurt also.

[Askew]

Buy this.

 

That's an R9 290 Tri X OC for less than £300, and then get a CPU cooler.

 

EDIT: Your case isn't very good on airflow, I'd get a reference (blower cooler) GTX 770 and a CPU cooler.

[TangoSheep]

Rig is pretty decent, just slap in a high end video card like a GTX 780 and make sure you have enough watts on the PSU and you should be humming away. A better SSD couldn't hurt also.

£300 will be the maximum, probably won't even get that.

[TangoSheep]

Buy this.

 

That's an R9 290 Tri X OC for less than £300.

That looks like an incredible deal, what's the catch?

[Askew]

That looks like an incredible deal, what's the catch?

 

There is no catch, but your case isn't great on airflow it's going to bake in there with that card, as I've edited my post above you could be better off with a GTX 770 (reference) that will blow heat out of the case rather than into it, and spending the rest on a good value CPU cooler like this.

 

That GPU comes with free Watch Dogs and you get money left over after having bought both out of £300.

[TangoSheep]

There is no catch, but your case isn't great on airflow it's going to bake in there with that card, as I've edited my post above you could be better off with a GTX 770 (reference) that will blow heat out of the case rather than into it, and spending the rest on a good value CPU cooler like this.

 

That GPU comes with free Watch Dogs and you get money left over after having bought both out of £300.

Thanks, you've been a great help and for some reason you find prices waaaaaaay lower than I found.

Ninja Edit:  What case would you recommend I upgrade to some time in the future?

[Askew]

Thanks, you've been a great help and for some reason you find prices waaaaaaay lower than I found.

 

No probs I've been buying PC parts in the UK for years.

 

That 770 is so cheap because Scan have deals with some card vendors to get reference cards in grey box for low low price, and then they do a return to base warranty on them which in my opinion is better than a card vendor's warranty despite being a year shorter, because you can return it straight to Scan for a RMA rather than for instance EVGA which is based in Netherlands for a UK return.

 

That price for a full fat 770 with a 2 year RTB warranty is very good value.

 

Reply to ninja edit : The Fractal Design R4 is rather sexy and good value.

[SymphonyX7]

£300 will be the maximum, probably won't even get that.

R9 290 will run anything you throw at it with everything turned up, and you'll still get silky smooth framerates. It's about 90% as fast as the R9 290X and 780 Ti, for far less money.

If you don't get your target of 300 quid, a Radeon R9 280X would be your next best bet. 3 GB + 384-bit bus ensures it'll last longer than the GTX 770's 2 GB + 256-bit bus. It's cheaper than the GTX 770 too, but you lose out on Nvidia exclusive features (if that matters to you). 

If you still can't get the R9 280X, the R9 280 is what you want. It has less GCN cores than the R9 280X (1792 vs 2048), but it retains the 3 GB RAM and 384-bit bus.

Could you link me to sites where you plan on getting your cards so we can cherry pick the best ones in particular?

Anyway, some cards you might be interested in if you fall short of your intended budget:

£204.34: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-r9-280x-gaming-3g-twin-frozr-oc-28nm-6000mhz-gddr5-gpu-1000mhz-boost-1050mhz-2048-str

£186.82: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-r9-280-gaming-28nm-5000mhz-gddr5-gpu-933mhz-boost-1000mhz-1792-streams-dvi-hdmi-mdp

£179.99: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-xfx-radeon-r9-280-black-52ghz-gddr5-gpu-1000mhz-1792-streams-dvi-hdmi-mdport

P.S. Are you by any chance planning on going multi-monitor?

 

 

Thanks, you've been a great help and for some reason you find prices waaaaaaay lower than I found.

Ninja Edit:  What case would you recommend I upgrade to some time in the future?

I don't recommend reference coolers, even if it's made by Nvidia (and they make good reference coolers). You have much less overclocking headroom compared to a non-reference cooler and they're relatively noisy. Not to mention most non-reference coolers are already OCed out of the box. Non-reference ones are always faster than the reference ones. The difference between the two is like night and day.

[TangoSheep]

R9 290 will run anything you throw at it with everything turned up, and you'll still get silky smooth framerates. It's about 90% as fast as the R9 290X and 780 Ti, for far less money.

If you don't get your target of 300 quid, a Radeon R9 280X would be your next best bet. 3 GB + 384-bit bus ensures it'll last longer than the GTX 770's 2 GB + 256-bit bus. It's cheaper than the GTX 770 too, but you lose out on Nvidia exclusive features (if that matters to you). 

If you still can't get the R9 280X, the R9 280 is what you want. It has less GCN cores than the R9 280X (1792 vs 2048), but it retains the 3 GB RAM and 384-bit bus.

Could you link me to sites where you plan on getting your cards so we can cherry pick the best ones in particular?

I'm not really bothered on where from but I live in the UK so overclockers.co.uk is a favourite.

[TangoSheep]

@SymphonyX7 I'd like multi-monitor at some point but again, money is a bit restricted at the moment.

[SymphonyX7]

I'm not really bothered on where from but I live in the UK so overclockers.co.uk is a favourite.

Edited my post above which includes some picks from Scan.com. I looked at the stuff in Overclocks.co.uk and Scan.com's prices are much better.

If multi-monitor 1080p, at least an R9 290 is your only option. If you can't acquire all three monitors and the R9 290 anytime this year, it will be for naught. If you'll go multi-monitor down the line, I suggest getting a card that will max out at 1080p. In this case an R9 280X or GTX 770. You should look at a multi-monitor setup again once the new GPUs are out, but it's unlikely anything new will come out this year as both Nvidia and AMD are still stuck at the 28 nm manufacturing node.

You could also go multi-monitor on the cheap like I did, but I use 900p (1600x900) monitors instead. The total pixel count is just 4.32 million, compared to 6.22 megapixels for a triple 1080p setup. Benchmarks at 2560x1600 (4.1 megapixels) is representative of performance at 4800x900, which is triple 900p.

[Askew]

I don't recommend reference coolers, even if it's made by Nvidia (and they make good reference coolers). You have much less overclocking headroom compared to a non-reference cooler and they're relatively noisy. Not to mention most non-reference coolers are already OCed out of the box. Non-reference ones are always faster than the reference ones. The difference between the two is like night and day.

 

That's not why I recommended it to him, you can max out kepler cards using a reference cooler, temps will be high but manageable, I recommended him a reference cooler specifically because of his case.

[Karumu]

Thanks, you've been a great help and for some reason you find prices waaaaaaay lower than I found.

Ninja Edit:  What case would you recommend I upgrade to some time in the future?

everytime someone asks this im just gonna say 750D because it is my muse and my flame.

[TangoSheep]

everytime someone asks this im just gonna say 750D because it is my muse and my flame.

I'll check it out, cheers.

[FireFox]

What is with the trademark thing?

[SymphonyX7]

 

That's not why I recommended it to him, you can max out kepler cards using a reference cooler, temps will be high but manageable, I recommended him a reference cooler specifically because of his case.

That's exactly why I don't recommend it. Yes, it's a cheap GTX 770. But only because it's a reference GTX 770. You can max it out, but the fan would be noisy and the temps not ideal. The case airflow doesn't matter much since the reference cooler uses an enclosed blower design. It's only bad when there's something extremely wrong with the airflow design where hot air is stagnant and used to cool the card, but this is rare. The point is, there isn't much headroom compared to a non-reference cooler, in addition to non-reference cards having higher clocks out of the box.

In this case, might as well get a non-reference R9 280X which is cheaper, faster, more quiet and cooler than the reference GTX 770 -- and you have overclocking headroom to boot.

This £204.34 card will give that reference GTX 770 a drubbing: : http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-r9-280x-gaming-3g-twin-frozr-oc-28nm-6000mhz-gddr5-gpu-1000mhz-boost-1050mhz-2048-str

[DJ46]

That's not why I recommended it to him, you can max out kepler cards using a reference cooler, temps will be high but manageable, I recommended him a reference cooler specifically because of his case.

What is so bad about a Bitfenix Shinobi?

I has quite good airflow.

[TangoSheep]

What is with the trademark thing?

I guess you don't follow many gaming companies or you don't reddit often? It's a common term used by companies that are bringing out a new project or something. They always say "Soon" so it turned into a trademark.

[JAKEBAB]

Just get the R9 290x and chuck some cheap fans in your case for now better of getting a better gpu now and living with a bit of noise then getting a lower end gpu and then having to save up again to get a new one.

[Mophead]

 

 

That's exactly why I don't recommend it. Yes, it's a cheap GTX 770. But only because it's a reference GTX 770. You can max it out, but the fan would be noisy and the temps not ideal. The case airflow doesn't matter much since the reference cooler uses an enclosed blower design. It's only bad when there's something extremely wrong with the airflow design where hot air is stagnant and used to cool the card, but this is rare. The point is, there isn't much headroom compared to a non-reference cooler, in addition to non-reference cards having higher clocks out of the box.

In this case, might as well get a non-reference R9 280X which is cheaper, faster, more quiet and cooler than the reference GTX 770 -- and you have overclocking headroom to boot.

This £204.34 card will give that reference GTX 770 a drubbing: : http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-msi-radeon-r9-280x-gaming-3g-twin-frozr-oc-28nm-6000mhz-gddr5-gpu-1000mhz-boost-1050mhz-2048-str

 

^This. The 280x is a great card.

[SymphonyX7]

Just get the R9 290x and chuck some cheap fans in your case for now better of getting a better gpu now and living with a bit of noise then getting a lower end gpu and then having to save up again to get a new one.

There are no R9 290Xs that cost £300... The cheapest R9 290 is £314.75 while the cheapest R9 290X is £403.55. Do note that I excluded any reference R9 290 and 290Xs.

[Sintezza]

i would say grab a nice R9-290. Powercolor PCS with backplate, a Sapphire Tri X OC, or Asus direct CUII OC.

[TangoSheep]

There are no R9 290Xs that cost £300... The cheapest R9 290 is £314.75 while the cheapest R9 290X is £403.55. Do note that I excluded any reference R9 290 and 290Xs.

There's a R9 290 for £284 here