Hi Andy,

Yes, the CoolerMaster Silent Gold 800W is an excellent PSU, and would be most capable of driving your SLI'd GEFORCE GTX 680 setup.

NVIDIA have also done quite well on power consumption levels on the Kepler-based GTX 680 GPUs, meaning they use less power than the older generations of GPUs at the high end, and under stress. If you already have the GPUs, the CoolerMaster Silent Gold 800W is a fine PSU to acquire.

Hi Megs,

Double-edged answer, so yes and no. For a single-screen gamer, no it wouldn't. If you were to be on a triple-screen, 120Hz setup, then depending on the game yes.

For the most part, the Core i5 3570K is absolutely more than enough. If it's not enough, then a bit of overclocking would definitely push you over the edge and give you that bit extra grunt that the SLI setup would require.

I'm going to guess that you have a single monitor (or TV) setup at 1080p, so if you do, then the CPU is fine.

Hi Gianluca,

Out of those two GPUs, I would definitely recommend the GEFORCE GTX 670. The GTX 670 is the third-fastest GPU in NVIDIA's Kepler range of GPUs under the slightly-faster GTX 680 and the dual-GPU from NVIDIA, the GTX 690.

The Radeon HD 7870 on the other hand, is a mid-range offering from AMD. Their equivalent to NVIDIA's GTX 670 would be the Radeon HD 7950, which is AMD's second-fastest GPU as they don't have a dual-GPU HD 7000 series card just yet.

As for running your games at 1080p on your 46" HDTV, your Core i5 3570K is absolutely fine, and a GTX 670 would work with that perfectly. You should be able to run all games at maxed out settings at over, around, or just under 60fps, depending on the game and settings used. The HD 7870 might have some issues pushing 1920x1080 at full settings in games such as Battlefield 3, but the GTX 670 shouldn't.

Definitely grab that GTX 670 and get ready for some insanely good times whilst gaming!

Hi Megs,

This is a tricky question, as it would depend on the power supply unit (PSU) in question. If it were a generic, non-branded PSU, I would suggest to not hook the GEFORCE GTX 680 up to it. If it were a branded PSU by a company such as Corsair for example, then you should be fine.

If we look at our review of the reference GTX 680, it has a 3D Mark 11 load consumption of 456W. But, a generic 500W might not actually provide 500W of power, it might only provide 400, 420, or 440W of actual power. My advice would be to check the brand, and if its a relatively unknown brand - use caution.

If the 500W PSU you have is an unknown brand, or a cheaper model, I'm not saying it won't work, as it might. But, I would suggest going for either a lower-end card with less power requirements (such as a GTX 660 Ti). My better suggestion would be to pick up a Corsair-branded PSU, or similar, when you purchase the GTX 680 GPU.

Hi Anos,

The processor you still have, whilst it's not the current generation, is still more than powerful enough for the setup you have. You're playing at 1920x1080, which isn't really pushing the CPU to its limits on the current generation of games. Your GPU setup would most likely benefit from a faster CPU, but do you really need to purchase it? I wouldn't recommend to do so.

I would wait it out and spend that saved money (which wouldn't just be on the CPU, but motherboard, and RAM) and put it into some new video cards in the future. Next-gen games should launch sometime next year with the next-gen consoles, and will definitely require more grunt. But, even then, your CPU should still fare well.

I would suggest overclocking your CPU a little bit more (if you've got the know-how, and cooling) and save that money for some gruntier graphics cards next year. Again, everyone has a different opinion, but these days, CPUs aren't the driving force of power for gaming as they used to be. You've got a great CPU, I'd keep it for now. I hope that helps you!

Hi Andrea,

Intel's Core i7 2600K is a great processor, and if the 3770K wasn't out, I would have no problems recommending it to you. But, the problem is that Intel have released the 3770K, and it is definitely the best bang for buck you can go for.

It does get a bit hot when overclocked, and under strain, but this is mostly when all 8 threads are being utilized at 100%, and for gaming and general use, this is only a tiny portion of its use. If you were using it for video editing, or something equally straining, then you might think twice. But, you've said you're only overclocking to 4GHz, and at 4GHz, those overheating issues don't really pop up.

If you were pushing it past 4.5GHz (up toward 5GHz) then yes, it would be a huge consideration to not go for the 3770K if you were worried of overheating. But, these days, getting an Intel-based CPU to get hot enough to run into problems, is hard, unless pushing it past some serious boundaries (not only speed, but voltage).

I definitely recommend you go for the Ivy Bridge-based 3770K.

Hi Rahul,

Out of the three CPU's you've got to choose from, the Intel Core i7 3770K is definitely the best one, and will give you the most performance out of your GPU, should it be NVIDIA's GEFORCE GTX 670, or AMD's Radeon HD 7970. It's the highest end Core i7 in the LGA1155 socket, and would definitely pull some great performance from your GPU.

Hi Sam,

First off, this all depends on the games you play, and the frame rate and detail you like to maintain, and look at. I would suggest simply adding in another HD 6970 for some CrossFire action, as you'd have the power of two GPUs versus the since GEFORCE GTX 680. But, upgrading to a GTX 680, would give you a better upgrade path for the future.

It's a hard answer, to steer you toward your best choice. If you were planning to go toward a multi-GPU solution in the end, then I would suggest the GTX 680. If you were to buy a 4GB card now, you can always pick up another 4GB card in the future, and it would set you pretty straight for years to come on 3x1080p screens.

Either option is going to give you a great performing rig. One thing I would recommend is check your power supply unit (PSU) and make sure that if you do go down the route of another HD 6970, that you have a 650W brand-name PSU (like Corsair) minimum. If you have a 350-500W, continue on your single card, and maybe upgrade to the single GTX 680.

Hi Barb,

Definitely. The memory between your two HP-branded PCs can be changed around. If you're looking at upgrading the systems, you can just buy some DDR400/PC3200 memory. I think it is more confusing as they are listed as "non-ECC", and "SDRAM", but both systems take the same DDR400/PC3200 standard.

As always, just be careful when installing memory, and make sure the pins line up when installing it. If you run into any problems, feel free to shoot me an e-mail, or submit another question.

Hi Greg,

The yellow port on the back of your ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard is an S/PDIF port. It is used solely for digital audio. These ports are commonly found on motherboards, and act as a digital output port for audio. This means you can play digital audio such as Dolby Digital 5.1, or DTS tracks from a DVD for example through the S/PDIF port.

It will allow you to plug an appropriate coax cable into the port, and into an audio/video (AV) receiver. The AV receiver would then decode what it passed through the port (the audio track) and output it as intended from your source (DTS, DD5.1).

If you'd like to read up more on here, check out the Wikipedia page on S/PDIF.