Helping with tech questions - TweakTown's Ask the Experts - Page 4

Hey there Richard,

Your GeForce GTX 690 is still a good card, but I can see why you're itching to upgrade. The MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning is one of the best video cards you can buy right now, and it would last you for a number of years.

Gaming at 1080p, 1440p, 4K or even VR would be no problem for the GTX 980 Ti Lightning - but your next question: should I wait? That's up to you. If you want to play all of the games that have been released lately like Star Wars: Battlefront, Fallout 4, and more - then yes, upgrade now. You'll be fine with it now, and absolutely fine going into the new year.

If you wait, you could grab the next-gen cards when they're released sometime around the May/June mark if the rumors are correct.

Hey there Adi,

Both paths that you choose will see you with a much better gaming system, but I would really steer clear of buying another SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, and grabbing the new AMD Radeon R9 Fury X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

Both cards are going to be great for the 1080p monitor you have now, and just as good when you upgrade to a 2560x1440 display. The Fury X is a champion at 1440p gaming, sustaining 60FPS+ throughout our benchmarks at 2560x1440. I have no problems recommending you the single Fury X, as it'll beat HD 7970s in Crossfire without a problem, while consuming less power and generating less heat and noise.

Alternatively, you mentioned the GeForce GTX 980 Ti as an upgrade path. Switching to the GTX 980 Ti would provide the same performance jump, so the change is up to you really. Both the Fury X and GTX 980 Ti are incredibly powerful cards, both capable of maintaining 60FPS+ at High/Ultra details in all games right now at 1440p.

Hey there Felipe,

First off, you're going to love the jump from a 1920x1080 gaming monitor to the huge resolution of 2560x1440. I hope that you're going to grab yourself a 144Hz monitor that is capable of AMD's FreeSync or NVIDIA's G-Sync technology!

Either GPU you buy is going to be great for 1440p gaming, but I think I would have to edge you towards the Radeon R9 390. It comes with 8GB of RAM, which will have you gaming for years without a problem. The R9 390 is a great GPU, capable of 1440p 60FPS+ without a problem. If you were aiming for 1440p @ 144Hz, then you might need two of them in Crossfire, or to drop the in-game details down a bit.

Alternatively, the GTX 970 isn't a bad card. The GTX 970 would be an easier upgrade for you, because you're already using a GeForce card. You could just buy the GTX 970, download some new drivers, and you're ready to go.

Either way, you're going to have a great time with a Radeon R9 390 or GeForce GTX 970 on that new 1440p gaming monitor.

Hey Peter,

If you upgrade from your AMD Radeon HD 7870 to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, the upgrade is going to be absolutely huge. You'll go from playing games at lower resolutions and in-game detail levels, to maxing everything out in all games right now.

The new cards will most likely be unveiled sometime in March-June timefRAMe of 2016, and yes the prices on the current cards will drop. If you can continue to wait that long, then wait. But, if you want to upgrade now, you won't be throwing your money away at all.

The GTX 980 Ti is an excellent card, and will see you through 2016 without a problem.

Hi there Krishnakumar,

If you're not a hardcore gamer I would definitely go for one of the quad-core options. Both the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 and Q6700 are great CPUs, with the Q6700 being a little over 10% faster than the Q8200.

An upgrade from your older Pentium 4 processor to the Core 2 Quad Q6700 is going to be huge, and while you might not use the CPU to its full potential, your system is going to feel much faster. I would also suggest doing a full backup of your files and data, and a fresh installation of Windows.

If you've got the spare money, buy a small SSD (60-120GB is fine) and the CPU/SSD upgrade would make your system feel like a completely new PC.

Hey Johny,

That's a great question. Both setups would kick ass, but I would definitely have to recommend grabbing two MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning cards.

First, the MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning cards offer great Titan X level performance, while being cheaper. You can grab the GTX 980 Ti Lightning from Amazon for $804.99 while the Titan X is going to cost you $1000. The $200 premium is not worth it, as the MSI card has some great overclocking headroom.

The performance difference isn't going to be that great, and I don't think that anything you do is going to push anywhere near the 12GB fRAMebuffer on Titan X. If you're gaming at 1080p, I'd recommend a single GTX 980 Ti Lightning, but if you're gaming at 2560x1440 or 4K, and want to hit 60FPS+ minimum, then the SLI setup is going to kick some serious ass.

Hey Dominick,

That's a good question. The answer all comes down to your monitor resolution, refresh rate and what games you play. I'm assuming you have a semi decent processor and 8GB+ of RAM, too. If you have a 1080p 60Hz monitor, the GTX 980 Ti Lightning from MSI is going to be overkill, but it'll last until your next monitor upgrade, too.

If you're gaming on a 2560x1440 (1440p) monitor at 60Hz, then the GTX 980 Ti Lightning is going to be a huge upgrade. The same can be said with more emphasis for 4K gaming.

But the big question is, should you wait for the GTX 1000 series? Well, we don't know when that's coming, but I would be sure that we'll see something next March, and maybe something else in September - the usual NVIDIA release time fRAMes. As I said, it comes down to your monitor resolution and refresh rate. The new GTX 980 Ti Lightning from MSI is a bloody beautiful card, and you will not regret buying it, no matter what.

I wouldn't wait for the new GTX 1000 series if it were me, as you have an older card now. You could always buy the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning now, and then sell it when the GTX 1000 series comes out and you would still retain a nice chunk of the price you paid on the card.

If it were up to me, I'd upgrade to the MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning and keep my ears to the ground here at TweakTown for any news on the GTX 1000 series.

Hey there Ahmed,

To be totally truthful, either motherboard is going to be great. Both of them are based on the same chipset and will have virtually the same feature set (M.2 support for SSDs, multiple PCIe ports, and so much more).

Both of the motherboards are super enthusiast high-end boards that will let you overclock whichever processor you're going to use, and I presume you'll be using a Core i7-6700K, to its maximum potential. Both boards also look great, with similar styling - but if it was down to physical appearance, I think the GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 looks better.

It really comes down to your brand loyalty. I love both brands and have two high-end systems in my office built on a motherboard from both GIGABYTE and ASUS and I haven't had an issue with either. You can be confident in knowing that any choice you make you will love it.

Hey there Riyaad,

This is a great question, as it's very valid to countless gamers who are upgrading right now. Both options will be good for 1080p, but since you're not looking at upgrading to a 1440p monitor for at least a year, I would suggest grabbing a single video card for now. This will save you $400 or so, something that can be put into a single, much better card.

NVIDIA is set to launch their GeForce GTX 980 Ti very soon, so instead of grabbing the two GeForce GTX 970s, or a single GTX 980, I would put that money into a GTX 980 Ti. It will have 6GB of RAM which is more "future proof" than the GTX 980, and it will be much faster than a single GTX 970 or GTX 980.

If you didn't want to spend the money on a GTX 980 Ti (as we don't know the price yet), then an overclocked GTX 980 like the ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Matrix Platinum or MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming 4G LE would be perfect. 1080p and 1440p are nothing to those cards, as they handle them without pressure, at maxed out details, which is what you want.

Hey Jeffrey,

This is a great question, especially with AMD's Radeon 300 series right around the corner. This is something you've got to remember, especially when you're looking at setting up a CrossFire system. If the Radeon 300 series wasn't imminent, then I'd have a different recommendation.

There are three ways to take this: buy another Radeon HD 7850, upgrade to something like the Radeon R9 290/290X, or wait for the R9 300 series. I think you're better off waiting for the Radeon R9 3x0 (something like the R9 380 or R9 390) and buying a single card.

Two of the HD 7850s in CrossFire will chew through some power (500W+ for the full system), as well as causing a lot of heat inside of your case. Then you've got to worry about performance and CrossFire scaling, which to be honest, is not that great. You'll always have better performance with a single card, as you'll get 95-100% performance from it.

Our Expert Recommendation: Wait a few weeks, as AMD will be unveiling its new Radeon 300 series. Possibly sell your card, and put the money you would've spent on a second card, on a mid-range R9 300 series card.