BonzaiDuck
Lifer
Some of our colleagues have been urging me to dump my eVGA GTX 570 graphics card -- which is running on my OC'd i7-2600K system, 2HDDs and 1SSD, and a Hauppauge PCI-E TV-tuner card. I'm currently running two monitors (desk monitor and AVR/HDTV) -- one on the iGPU and the other on the dGPU. System is in "iGPU" mode for purpose of the switchable Lucid software. I intend to likely add a second model likely connected to iGPU.
I've seen the Tom's-HW January 2014 review of graphics cards "price-to-performance" evaluation. I think I'm starting to gravitate toward an eVGA (or possibly ASUS or Gigabyte) GTX 770. I think I can benefit from 4GB of vRAM instead of 2GB. And according to Tom's I don't see a reason to spend so much more on a 780 card for the fps gains. I certainly don't see a need to spend $1,000+ on the forthcoming release of a GTX 790 dual-GPU.
When I built this system in 2011 July, I gave it a Seasonic 750W "X" series "Gold" modular PSU. Very little has changed with this system since it was initially OC'd to 4.6 (now recently stable at 4.7). I've not had any "perceptions" that the PSU is functioning at any reduced level than it was initially, but capacitor-aging is a fact of life. Stability tests show that the OC settings have only need some trimming as decreases to VCCIO and "vPLL" -- amounting to overall delta of -1.5V. CPU vCORE has been bumped up by about 4 to 5mV -- accounting for a more parsimonious choice during the fall, 2011 overclocking project and a long-standing but very, very infrequent instability at EIST idle.
It appears this infrequent instability has been eliminated, for whichever one or more reasons I pursued -- as much for the reduction of vPLL as for the vCORE bump after recent stress-test failure between 35 and 50 iterations of LinX. The 5mV increase in VCORE likely compensates for pulling back from other settings that would "tone-up" wattage provision to the processor. The problem may even have been due to buggy early-revision driver software. I will know for sure in about another two weeks, but significant improvements in the system since these recent tweaks give me confidence.
The Seasonic -- according to spec -- provides 62A on the 12V rail. The monitoring software and BIOS have never showed any changes in readings of 12.1+V, 5.04V and 3.36V respectively.
The GTX 570 had used more power according to Outervision Calculator results than will a GTX 770, but the calculator suggests between 711W and 761W for the latter. I probably underestimated the overclock possibility for this system when I chose the PSU. The results reflect the "90% TDP" and "100% peak load" settings for the calculator. There is some margin of "slop" in my other choices, wanting to provide for future addition of perhaps one HDD, optical drive or PCI card.
There seems to be an opinion that the EO calculator overestimates the needed PSU spec, or that I might actually run two 760 GTX cards in SLI on a 650W PSU when the 800+ might be recommended by the calculator. I just want to be sure that occasional "shake-down" stress-tests will not reflect an inadequate PSU when I want to isolate any other problems. I can't predict the future on that matter, but I want to limit my uncertainties.
I also accounted for "20% capacitor aging" factor. I'm inclined to think this 30-mo-old PSU is "good to go" for the video card upgrade. The UPS software shows that the total wattage draw for the system seldom exceeds 250W -- usually sitting at more around 150W. The upper value would likely reflect stress-tests under my own customization.
If anyone was able to read this far without closing a thread by "Bonzai-Blabbermouth," do ya got any thoughts or insights on this? I am about to purchase the new GTX 770, probably plan on building another system next year, and want to bundle my purchases of items needed right now to take advantage of promotional payment arrangements. For the next system, I might spring for an 850W Seasonic or something as good -- certainly always looking for "a price." But I don't really want to buy it now.
I've seen the Tom's-HW January 2014 review of graphics cards "price-to-performance" evaluation. I think I'm starting to gravitate toward an eVGA (or possibly ASUS or Gigabyte) GTX 770. I think I can benefit from 4GB of vRAM instead of 2GB. And according to Tom's I don't see a reason to spend so much more on a 780 card for the fps gains. I certainly don't see a need to spend $1,000+ on the forthcoming release of a GTX 790 dual-GPU.
When I built this system in 2011 July, I gave it a Seasonic 750W "X" series "Gold" modular PSU. Very little has changed with this system since it was initially OC'd to 4.6 (now recently stable at 4.7). I've not had any "perceptions" that the PSU is functioning at any reduced level than it was initially, but capacitor-aging is a fact of life. Stability tests show that the OC settings have only need some trimming as decreases to VCCIO and "vPLL" -- amounting to overall delta of -1.5V. CPU vCORE has been bumped up by about 4 to 5mV -- accounting for a more parsimonious choice during the fall, 2011 overclocking project and a long-standing but very, very infrequent instability at EIST idle.
It appears this infrequent instability has been eliminated, for whichever one or more reasons I pursued -- as much for the reduction of vPLL as for the vCORE bump after recent stress-test failure between 35 and 50 iterations of LinX. The 5mV increase in VCORE likely compensates for pulling back from other settings that would "tone-up" wattage provision to the processor. The problem may even have been due to buggy early-revision driver software. I will know for sure in about another two weeks, but significant improvements in the system since these recent tweaks give me confidence.
The Seasonic -- according to spec -- provides 62A on the 12V rail. The monitoring software and BIOS have never showed any changes in readings of 12.1+V, 5.04V and 3.36V respectively.
The GTX 570 had used more power according to Outervision Calculator results than will a GTX 770, but the calculator suggests between 711W and 761W for the latter. I probably underestimated the overclock possibility for this system when I chose the PSU. The results reflect the "90% TDP" and "100% peak load" settings for the calculator. There is some margin of "slop" in my other choices, wanting to provide for future addition of perhaps one HDD, optical drive or PCI card.
There seems to be an opinion that the EO calculator overestimates the needed PSU spec, or that I might actually run two 760 GTX cards in SLI on a 650W PSU when the 800+ might be recommended by the calculator. I just want to be sure that occasional "shake-down" stress-tests will not reflect an inadequate PSU when I want to isolate any other problems. I can't predict the future on that matter, but I want to limit my uncertainties.
I also accounted for "20% capacitor aging" factor. I'm inclined to think this 30-mo-old PSU is "good to go" for the video card upgrade. The UPS software shows that the total wattage draw for the system seldom exceeds 250W -- usually sitting at more around 150W. The upper value would likely reflect stress-tests under my own customization.
If anyone was able to read this far without closing a thread by "Bonzai-Blabbermouth," do ya got any thoughts or insights on this? I am about to purchase the new GTX 770, probably plan on building another system next year, and want to bundle my purchases of items needed right now to take advantage of promotional payment arrangements. For the next system, I might spring for an 850W Seasonic or something as good -- certainly always looking for "a price." But I don't really want to buy it now.
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