My First Post - Expectations of Upgrading My PC

[BP5168]

Hello all,

This is my first post at AnandTech. I've enjoyed the opinions and wealth of knowledge of this board for a while now so I thought I'd just join in on the fun. I do however find myself questioning my new upgrade now so I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask. So on to the question:

I've recently made some purchases and they're going to come in Thursday here in Texas. I will list my current system and parts I've ordered so I would like to know what I might be missing, what might look like holes and large bottlenecks, etc, and what kind of real world difference I will see. I'm hoping pretty large but I haven't built a system in ... well ... 4 or 5 years and really haven't kept up with anything.

My current system:

MB: Gigabyte Z77X-UDH
Proc: i7 2700 Sandy Bridge @3.5
Ram: Corsair DDR2 16g
GPU: 2 x GTX 660's SLI
HD : 1 SATA 1 or 2 SSD and 1 500g SATA I non SSD HRD
PSU: Power and Cooling 750w Mk II
Monitor: Asus VG278HE 3d Monitor 1920x1080 2ms and 120hz

What is on the way:

MB: MSI X99A SLI Plus
Proc: Core i7 - 5820 Caswell E (fan is Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO with 120)
Ram: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16gb 4x4 DDR4 2400
GPU: 2 x MSI 980TI OC Edition
HD : HAVENT ORDERED do I need to?
PSU: Corsair RM1000i Modular Gold 80
Monitor: Bought 2 x Asus PG278Q 2560x1440, 1ms, 144hz (I really want 2560x1440 )

My PC will be used for:

Gaming and work. Gaming is primarily The Division, Battlefront, and that's pretty much it. I like to get on a little and shoot stuff. I also do some video work for golf swings, home movies, light editing, etc. For work is mostly SharePoint development, graphics.

The current parts I had planned to re-use are hard drives, but after reading about SATA I, II, III and doubling transfer rates ... I'm questioning why I'm not using full SSD ... thoughts ladies and gentlemen? I also still plan to use my current mid tower case and cd rom Am I missing something?

I plan to do some overclocking but in all honesty I usually don't over push it at all. I don't try to tweak til it breaks. I'd be happy with the reported 4g OC on this chip.

How did I do? Please let me know... to reiterate, I would like to know what I might be missing, what might look like holes and large bottlenecks, etc, and what kind of real world difference I will see.

The Division looks kinda bad on my current system and runs slow ... having to run 1920 x 1080 and everything on low for 40-50fps is brutal ... doesn't look good at all. Hopefully with this upgrade things will speed up a lot.

Thanks all! Appreciate any and all feedback!

 

[mnewsham]

You could honestly just get the GTX 980s and see almost the same performance boost, i HIGHLY doubt you are CPU bound in any of your current games, your current bottle neck is your GTX 660s. Moving up to 980s removes that bottleneck.


Also, your old PSU was more than fine for SLI 980ti. They only draw ~550w (including CPU, MB, RAM, etc). No real need at all to go up to 1000w, way overkill, you'll never see it hit over 600w from the wall.

 

[BP5168]

Thank you for your feedback

I guess one lesson learned is to ask before pulling the trigger to purchase! LOL!

I had been told that one 880TI would take 550w'ish draw so I thought why not? Hmm, well at least that PSU will be good for years and years to come, unless they change something drastic.

I read a couple of comparisons that one 980TI was a touch better than 2 x 970 running in SLI. I kind of based my purchase on that.

Again, thanks for your input! So based off my current system specs, will it be a huge difference?

 

[Yuriman]

2600K is a solid chip, but there are situations where the Haswell hexcore can stretch its legs, really depends on what exactly you're doing as to whether or not you'll see a difference.

It's possible you could've run a pair of 980Ti's on a 750w, depending on whether you're overclocking, but a 1000w PSU gives you a healthy safety margin.

Why 2 monitors over 1, or 3? With just 2, if you're using them for surround gaming, the bezel will be right in the middle of your view. If you're not using the second for gaming, I might've just kept the old screen and set it off to the side.

Anyway, solid build overall. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

 

[BP5168]

Hi Yuriman, thanks for the feedback

Concerning the PSU, my mode of thinking was having been told by a couple of friends and reading something somewhere that running 2 980TI's was a large draw and at a sale price of $140 I didn't want to take a chance is all. 1000w gives me the headroom and at a good price.

Concerning the monitors why 2 over 3, is I just plan to game on one. My simple ocd wants me to have matching monitors though, however ..... I've never gamed on 3 monitors before ... I bet that would be cool. I see your point, I might just return one monitor and keep the other monitor on for web browsing, music, secondary junk while gaming ... that's a great point, thanks for that.

 

[UsandThem]

The current parts I had planned to re-use are hard drives, but after reading about SATA I, II, III and doubling transfer rates ... I'm questioning why I'm not using full SSD ... thoughts ladies and gentlemen? I also still plan to use my current mid tower case and cd rom Am I missing something

A SSD probably makes the biggest difference in a system feeling fast. I only use SSDs now, but at a minimum use a SSD for your OS and if you want to, your games on one of your old hard drives.

They cost more than regular hard drives, but since you are dropping some serious $$$ on two 980ti cards, the price of SSDs shouldn't sting too much.

I personally like Samsung drives for my OS drive because I have had great luck with their performance and reliability. For my data drive, I picked up a PNY CS2211 on sale.

You can routinely find PNY, Sandisk, Mushkin 480 GB - 500 GB drives for around $100 on sale. The best price right now for the Samsung 850 EVO is $135 for the 500 GB version.

 

[sm625]

Wait for broadwell-E if you can.

 

[BP5168]

A SSD probably makes the biggest difference in a system feeling fast. I only use SSDs now, but at a minimum use a SSD for your OS and if you want to, your games on one of your old hard drives.

They cost more than regular hard drives, but since you are dropping some serious $$$ on two 980ti cards, the price of SSDs shouldn't sting too much.

I personally like Samsung drives for my OS drive because I have had great luck with their performance and reliability. For my data drive, I picked up a PNY CS2211 on sale.

You can routinely find PNY, Sandisk, Mushkin 480 GB - 500 GB drives for around $100 on sale. The best price right now for the Samsung 850 EVO is $135 for the 500 GB version.

Hi, thanks for your input.

My OS drive is an SSD right now, and I believe it's SATA I. Probably going to pull the trigger and go all SSD SATA III and triple the throughput. That's a great point.

 

[BP5168]

Wait for broadwell-E if you can.

I think I had a HUGE itch to upgrade as it's been a while

 

[Burpo]

Don't scratch that itch now.. Your PC is quite capable..