Need a little help upgrading GPU (Maxwell)

[Matthew12106]

Alright so I have some general questions about upgrading I was hoping someone could answer. For my specs look at the signature thingy

 

Just a little backstory, as you can see I'm currently rockin a Msi r7950 Boost OC. It's a good performer but the temps and the noise.... ehhh

So I was planning on getting a r9 r290 but I held of because of the 900 series plus although my 550w would be ok for a r9 290 I just wanted more headroom maybe for OCing my Cpu. I'm so happy I did as the 970 seems like an amazing value card! cool and quiet just want I want

 

Question 1: What do you have to do on the software side of upgrading your gpu. So I'm using AMD  so I know I can't just swap the cards out and everything will work. I think, but I'm not sure when I downloaded the 14.4 amd drivers it told me and showed my how to install Catalyst control center and the drivers and stuff here is the     link . So is that everything I have to do than just throw in the card and than install nvidia drivers

 

Question 2: I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this but I am going to ask anyway. I know nvidia say that you should have 500w minimum and other vendors are saying 550w for there cards but I know they like to exaggerate the hell out of that maybe for people with a low quality PSU. However I think my XFX Core Edition 550w PSU should be fine. So when I get this card I should have a ton of headroom for overclocking my cpu to hell right? My current card has a 200tdp and this only has 150 so I should be gaining even more headroom and should have no problems in terms of power ever...

 

Question 3 (General MAXWELL questions): When the hell will the 970 starts selling in the UK? Also so some of these aftermarket people like gigabyte are beefing up the power connections I guess for better overclocking. But it seemed a bit strange to me are TWO 8 pins really nessesary for the 980 which is a TWO 6 pin card??? I thought if they were going to beef it up they would add like a 8 Pin and a 6 pin like they did the the 970 which would be the card I am getting if I go with gigabyte. Also the Strix 970 GPU interests me. Although it only has one 8 Pin??? will it be getting enough power gigabyte has that plus a 6 pin, where they just going overkill???

 

Gigabyte 980 with its two 8 pins

 

the gigabyte 970 pretty much looks the same just with a 8 and a 6 pin

 

Strix 970 with it's one 8 pin

[Prokart2000]

970 seems good

[Sexy Vanilla Freshness]

 hugely long winded but I managed

 

you uninstall your AMD drivers, fit the nvidia card, install nvidia drivers

 

your PSU will be fine

 

buy a 970 you can get them now at Scan, if you want an aftermarket cooler get the EVGA ACX version.

[Speedbird]

1: Uninstall all AMD drivers before installing the new card

 

2: Your PSU will be fine.

 

3: Sorry, don't know the answer to that. I'm not from the UK, but I guess it should be a few days, or maybe weeks. They're already available here.

[ONEnONLY]

Get this one and overclock it - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010 ( I think its coming out in like 3 to 4 days)

 

Like @Sexy Vanilla Freshness said. your psu is fine and you uninstall your amd driver fit the nvidia card and install your nvidia drivers !

[Matthew12106]

 hugely long winded but I managed

 

you uninstall your AMD drivers, fit the nvidia card, install nvidia drivers

 

your PSU will be fine

 

buy a 970 you can get them now at Scan, if you want an aftermarket cooler get the EVGA ACX version.

 

1: Uninstall all AMD drivers before installing the new card

 

2: Your PSU will be fine.

 

3: Sorry, don't know the answer to that. I'm not from the UK, but I guess it should be a few days, or maybe weeks. They're already available here.

 

Get this one and overclock it - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1010 ( I think its coming out in like 3 to 4 days)

 

Like @Sexy Vanilla Freshness said. your psu is fine and you uninstall your amd driver fit the nvidia card and install your nvidia drivers !

Ok thanks but when you say uninstall the amd drivers will what I posted in the link do exactly that

[Speedbird]

Ok thanks but when you say uninstall the amd drivers will what I posted in the link do exactly that

Yes.

[mvitkun]

Question 1: What do you have to do on the software side of upgrading your gpu. So I'm using AMD  so I know I can just swap the cards out and everything will work. I think, but I'm not sure when I downloaded the 14.4 amd drivers it told me and showed my how to install Catalyst control center and the drivers and stuff here is the     link . So is that everything I have to do than just throw in the card and than install nvidia drivers

That's usually sufficient, if you end up having problems there are multiple driver uninstaller type programs.

 

Question 2: I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this but I am going to ask anyway. I know nvidia say that you should have 500w minimum and other vendors are saying 550w for there cards but I know they like to exaggerate the hell out of that maybe for people with a low quality PSU. However I think my XFX Core Edition 550w PSU should be fine. So when I get this card I should have a ton of headroom for overclocking my cpu to hell right? My current card has a 200tdp and this only has 150 so I should be gaining even more headroom and should have no problems in terms of power ever...

Well "no problems in terms of power ever" is really putting a lot of pressure on anybody answering this question, I mean a lot of things could happen to cause problems with your power supply which would cause some power problems.

But generally, yes, you should be fine with the exception of an Act of God.

Question 3 (General MAXWELL questions): When the hell will the 970 starts selling in the UK? Also so some of these aftermarket people like gigabyte are beefing up the power connections I guess for better overclocking. But it seemed a bit strange to me are TWO 8 pins really nessesary for the 980 which is a TWO 6 pin card??? I thought if they were going to beef it up they would add like a 8 Pin and a 6 pin like they did the the 970 which would be the card I am getting if I go with gigabyte. Also the Strix 970 GPU interests me. Although it only has one 8 Pin??? will it be getting enough power gigabyte has that plus a 6 pin, where they just going overkill???

As said above they are selling on Scan.co.uk.

The GTX 970 consumes a max of 180-190 watts, each 6 pin auxiliary connector can provide 75 watts in addition to the 75 provided by the PCI Express lane, that's a total of 225 watts which gives it enough headroom for it to boost a bit.

An 8 pin increases that from 75 watts per connector to 150 watts. so an 8 pin and 6 pin connector would give you 300 watts, and an 8 pin and 8 pin connector would give you 375 watts max power available.

Now why would it need anywhere near this much, well if you plan to run it stock it won't but if you overclock it significantly then having more than 30-40 watts of headroom is nice and with GPU boost, even without manual overclocks, having that extra 50-100 watts of headroom can mean huge amounts of performance.

[Matthew12106]

That's usually sufficient, if you end up having problems there are multiple driver uninstaller type programs.

 

Well "no problems in terms of power ever" is really putting a lot of pressure on anybody answering this question, I mean a lot of things could happen to cause problems with your power supply which would cause some power problems.

But generally, yes, you should be fine with the exception of an Act of God.

 

As said above they are selling on Scan.co.uk.

The GTX 970 consumes a max of 180-190 watts, each 6 pin auxiliary connector can provide 75 watts in addition to the 75 provided by the PCI Express lane, that's a total of 225 watts which gives it enough headroom for it to boost a bit.

An 8 pin increases that from 75 watts per connector to 125 watts. so a 8 pin and 6 pin connector would give you 275 watts, and an 8 pin and 8 pin connector would give you 325 watts max power available.

Now why would it need anywhere near this much, well if you plan to run it stock it won't but if you overclock it significantly then having more than 30-40 watts of headroom is nice and with GPU boost, even without manual overclocks, having that extra 50-100 watts of headroom can mean huge amounts of performance.

Thanks dude so which do you recommend out of

 4GB EVGA GTX 970

4GB MSI GTX 970

4GB Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 

[mvitkun]

Thanks dude so which do you recommend out of

 4GB EVGA GTX 970

4GB MSI GTX 970

4GB Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 

They're all the same chip; I hear people complain about all brands and I hear people praise all of the brands being too unreliable, noisy, etc, it just comes down to personal preference and pricing.

So go with whichever one piques your interest.