Helping with tech questions - TweakTown's Ask the Experts - Page 10

Hi Simon,

This is a bit hard, because NVIDIA just released their GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost GPU. This will force NVIDIA's partners into pushing out new GPUs in the coming weeks and months. This will also hopefully drive the price down of the GTX 660 and 660 Ti.

If you still wanted to buy a GTX 660 or 660 Ti, then out of those companies I would probably take a closer look at MSI's Geforce GTX 660 Ti Power Edition. It comes with a Core clock of 1019MHz, and 2GB of RAM and a very nice dual-fan cooler.

MSI make some great products, but I would really wait a couple of weeks and let the dust settle on the GTX 650 Ti Boost GPUs.

Hi Peter,

You don't need huge amounts of power for that system, but what I would recommend is getting something that both acts as a future-proof PSU, and a quality PSU. I don't like recommending cheaper PSUs as I've seen so many people over the years lose parts of their PC to a PSU going rogue.

We've just opened up our new Tweakipedia section of TweakTown, where we've built a BitFenix Prodigy using a modular PSU, with the Prodigy being a SFF case - so this is a perfect example. I'd recommend Corsair's AX760 PSU, which you can get from AU retailer Scorpion Technology for $269.

This might sound expensive, but you could use this as your PSU for years to come. Even in a high-end ATX build, 760W of power is more than enough even for the fastest, power-hungry GPU out there.

Corsair's AX760 is fully modular, and quiet - something very important for a SFF build.

Edit: Another PSU I will recommend is Corsair's CX430M PSU, which Scorptech sell for just $79. This has more than enough power for that system, but I would not recommend using this in another system that is more powerful.

Hi Gaelan,

I think the most important thing to take away from your question is the fact you're considering CrossFire, this definitely changes the way I'd answer the question. Because you're already thinking of CrossFire, you're obviously somewhat of a power user, heavy gamer or enthusiast. This makes things easier.

If you weren't going CrossFire, the single HD 7950 would be fine - but because you are going CrossFire, this opens you up to two paths. Getting a single HD 7850 from Sapphire now, and then throwing another one in for some CrossFire action in the future, or you could go even higher end and slap down the notes for that HD 7950 Vapor-X.

This way, you're opening up your multi-GPU path, so that you could have HD 7950's in CrossFire in the future. This would give you plenty of GPU to play virtually all games maxed out, no matter what game - Battlefield 3, Crysis 3, etc - at 1080p at a constant 60fps.

I wouldn't really bother with the HD 7970, sure it's a faster GPU - but the HD 7950 Vapor-X from Sapphire is a kick-ass card on its own. The extra money upgrading to the HD 7970 is better of saved toward CrossFiring your card later down the track.

Hi Lewis,

This is actually a question close to something we've answered previously, I had to double check that I wasn't answering this question twice. But, yes - your ASUS M5A97 is definitely more than capable of taking an AMD Radeon HD 7970 GPU.

You can even CrossFire the HD 7970 if you wanted to, but a single HD 7970 is actually more than capable for most games out right now, even games like Battlefield 3 or Crysis 3.

Hi Josh,

The $300 mark for a GPU upgrade these days is a damn good position to be in - because you can start choosing some seriously fast GPUs. Something I'd recommend for the $300-or-so price point is AMD's Radeon HD 7950 GPU. This gives you a high-end part, with 3GB of fast on-board GDDR5 to play with.

Sapphire's Radeon HD 7950 can be had for $309.99 from Newegg, which fits your budget perfectly (you did say you can go a bit above, so $10 is only a little bit above that $300 price point).

This GPU will allow you to play all of the latest games at medium-to-high graphics at 60fps or more, easily.

Hi Wayne,

This is tricky, but I still recommend Ivy Bridge. Sure, when Intel release Haswell it'll bench better than its predecessors and the competition - but will the cost involved be worth it? Maybe.

If you were playing with a multi-GPU, multi-monitor setup - most likely. The CPU bottleneck would be removed some what with the extra grunt, but again, by how much? 5-10% maybe? 15-20% would be my guess on a high-end, multi-GPU, multi-monitor gaming rig in say, Battlefield 3. But then, you'd not be worrying and just buying it when it hits.

I'd recommend getting an Intel Core i7 3770K, that'll see you through the next year or two at least. You can overclock them easily to 4.5GHz, which will remove most bottlenecks from a single-GPU rig, too.

Hi Gary,

The choice of motherboard and RAM there with the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD4H and G.SKILL Trident 8GB of DDR3 2400MHz RAM is fine. They'll work great together, especially the motherboard. GIGABYTE's range of Z77 motherboards are truly some of the best on the market, and G.SKILL make some of the best RAM on the market.

Depending on the CPU you have, you should be able to squeeze a decent overclock out of your system, too!

Hi Ty,

This one is easy - MSI's GeForce GTX 660 Twin Frozr. Sure, Galaxy cards are great, but MSI's Twin Frozr-based GPUs are really kick-ass. The cooling on them is not only great for keeping the temperatures down on your GPU, but they come factory overclocked, and still have wiggle room to move in the OC department.

I would definitely suggest getting the Twin Frozr card, you truly won't be sorry!

Hi Ben,

This could be quite a few things, but you didn't state whether the problems disappeared when you started using your WD drive. The way the question is written, it sounds like it's all back to normal. If this is the case, then it could be a faulty SSD - the best way to test this would be to take it back to the retailer you purchased it from and get them to RMA it for you.

Before you send it away for warranty, you can try a few things. Try the SSD with a new SATA cable if you haven't already. Take out all your sticks of RAM and just try a single stick. Take out all of your HDDs and use just the SSD.

If you find the same results, then send it back. From what you've told me, it sounds like the drive is faulty.

As for if you "wasted money" on the OCZ drive, definitely not! All components will fault eventually, and I have plenty of friends and family members with OCZ drives who have never had an issue, ever. Sometimes, it just happens.

Hi Peter,

If you're only running a 30- to 32-inch Full HD monitor for games, then you would be fine with a single GeForce GTX 680 - but you mention you want to use it for CUDA, PhysX, Tessellation, 3D and 3D Surround Vision. All of this is very, very stressful on the GPU - and requires more than one to get playable (30-60fps) frame rates in most games.

You mention just one screen, but 3D Vision Surround - which would limit you to 27-inch monitors, and then three of them. If you were going to do this, spend as much money as you can. Obviously two GeForce GTX Titan's would be the best choice - so if this is within your budget, do it.

The GTX 690 cards are pretty crazy - but as you said only have 4GB of RAM. The Titan's 6GB of RAM will be great for the multi-monitor gaming, so you're kind of stuck there. I would still recommend Titan's, but the GTX 690s will give you effective 4-way SLI which would be nearly 50-75% extra performance over GTX 680s in SLI.

Micro-stuttering is very case-to-case, I find I don't experience it - but I am using 120Hz monitors. You would also be using 120Hz monitors since you'd be getting 3D Vision-capable screens, which are 120Hz by default. You might not experience it with 2-way SLI, but if you were to go down the GTX 690 SLI route, the 4-way solution might inhibit problems.