MSI GTX 970 vs EVGA GTX 970 ACX 2.0

[Dinkleberg]

agreed, except for the 390x part lol. it's comparable to a reference 980. non reference ones are difference beasts entirely

you can however, overclock your 970 to reference 980 speeds

A 390 overclocked to 1200 MHz, which virtually any 390 is able to achieve, will beat a 970 overclocked to 1450 MHz, and OP said he's not overclocking. The 390X undercuts the 980, and when you start paying more for things like Classies and highly overclockable chips, it's better to get an R9 Fury.

[TonightWeSail]

The SPEC-03 isn't a good case for its price range, for the same price you can get the Fractal Design Define S, and for cheaper you can get the NZXT S340, both are better than the SPEC-03 in terms of cable management and ease of build, and, at least for me, in terms of overall looks, if you really want the SPEC-03, it can easily fit the longest R9 390 out there, it supports cards up to 16.54" while the Sapphire R9 390 is just 12.13".

AMD cards have higher power usage, so they produce more heat than their Nvidia counterparts, on the other hand AMD GPUs have a higher temperature ceiling so they can support more heat than Nvidia GPUs, but nearly any R9 390 cooler will keep the chip running at nearly 60 degrees so there's no need to worry about it, you'll be more than okay, if you want to overclock in the future, just make sure the temps stay below 80 degrees.

I like the look of both of those cases and teh reviews are very positive. However, they don't have any front 5.25" bays for something like optical Drives. I planned on including one, but are they as important anymore these days? i heard that they're becoming 'outdated.' I'm very new to the PC side of gaming and i needed to know if new releases like Fallout 4 come with a physical disc like console games do? Or will they come with a code i can enter into Steam? If so, then i might ditch the optical drive entirely

[Dinkleberg]

I like the look of both of those cases and teh reviews are very positive. However, they don't have any front 5.25" bays for something like optical Drives. I planned on including one, but are they as important anymore these days? i heard that they're becoming 'outdated.' I'm very new to the PC side of gaming and i needed to know if new releases like Fallout 4 come with a physical disc like console games do? Or will they come with a code i can enter into Steam? If so, then i might ditch the optical drive entirely

ODDs are outdated, nearly nobody uses them anymore, you just buy the game on Steam and install it. Some AAA games still come on physical discs but are released on Steam, then Steam updates your game to the newest update, indie games on the other hand, are only available on Steam and GOG.

[Mew]

Get this instead. $250 for an overclocked 970 with a 2 fan open cooler is a steal. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

I like the look of both of those cases and teh reviews are very positive. However, they don't have any front 5.25" bays for something like optical Drives. I planned on including one, but are they as important anymore these days? i heard that they're becoming 'outdated.' I'm very new to the PC side of gaming and i needed to know if new releases like Fallout 4 come with a physical disc like console games do? Or will they come with a code i can enter into Steam? If so, then i might ditch the optical drive entirely

 

Optical drives are almost useless now. I only have one in my current system because I have lots of data on DVDs. But as soon as I build a NAS I'm going to just dump all that data onto some 4TB drives in RAID-Z2 and move my gaming system to a Define S (NAS will go in my current Antec GX500, though I may end up buying a smalller case for it).

[gilang01]

A 390 overclocked to 1200 MHz, which virtually any 390 is able to achieve, will beat a 970 overclocked to 1450 MHz, and OP said he's not overclocking. The 390X undercuts the 980, and when you start paying more for things like Classies and highly overclockable chips, it's better to get an R9 Fury.

And a 970 at 1500mhz beats it hehe. If op doesn't want to Oc, the 390x is a decent choice. Just make sure your psu is up to scratch

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

And a 970 at 1500mhz beats it hehe. If op doesn't want to Oc, the 390x is a decent choice. Just make sure your psu is up to scratch

 

Any benchmarks to show that?

[TonightWeSail]

ODDs are outdated, nearly nobody uses them anymore, you just buy the game on Steam and install it. Some AAA games still come on physical discs but are released on Steam, then Steam updates your game to the newest update, indie games on the other hand, are only available on Steam and GOG.

So i can ditch the ODD completely then and not have any issues? Because i pre ordered Flalout 4 Pipboy Edition and i didn;t know if i needed one or if itll come with a download key along side of the physical copy of the game.

[Dinkleberg]

So i can ditch the ODD completely then and not have any issues? Because i pre ordered Flalout 4 Pipboy Edition and i didn;t know if i needed one or if itll come with a download key along side of the physical copy of the game.

You won't have any issues as the Pipboy Edition comes with a Steam key.

[vembutech]

Both are decent video cards.The MSI can be overclocked a lot further while EVGA is already highly overclocked.

[RyGuy99]

Any benchmarks to show that?

There aren't benchmarks I have seen that show a fair fight. It's either a heavily overclocked 390 vs a low overclocked 970 (most benchmarks) or a high overclocked 970 versus a low overclocked 390.