Yet another "Please build me a computer Thread"

[mfenn]

Just because I am my own worst enemy, Could you have built my system cheaper? Not by cutting performance just stuff that is = it?

You could have cut $30 out of the mobo, $40 out of the HDD, and $50 out of the case without changing performance at all.

You could have additionally $100 out of the CPU and $200 out of the GPU and only lost 15-20% overall performance. Finally, you could have cut $100 out of the SSD with the small cost of keeping some lesser played games on the HDD.

 

[MonKENy]

Nvidia had a promo when I bought the Card for Witcher 3 free, and they just released a promo to get Arkham Knight as well. So I was able to get both games free. Considering those were major reasons I built the machine I just knocked over $100 of the price so that made the GPU cost even better. So all in all Im happy.

Its quiet, all good manufactures on the parts, its def powerful so should last another 5 years easy, I think I may have gone higher end of the spectrum but I think it will win out over the long run.

 

[lehtv]

The same promo for Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight applies to GTX 970 as well, so using that to justify the extra cost of GTX 980 is moot.

its def powerful so should last another 5 years easy, I think I may have gone higher end of the spectrum but I think it will win out over the long run.

Well, yes and no. i7-4790K + GTX 980 will not require upgrading quite as soon as i5-4690K + GTX 970. However, the difference in performance is small enough that the $300 you could've saved would be enough for a graphics card upgrade in 2-3 years, and for the remaining 2-3 years of that 5 year span you would enjoy much better performance compared to just sticking with the GTX 980. I'm pretty sure you'll end up upgrading the GTX 980 in a few years time anyway, graphics cards just don't keep up with time that well.

 

[MonKENy]

Took me over 5 years to upgrade my last card so probably not. and honestly the difference was negligable

i went from a

MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

to

Club3D royalQueen CGAX-R927X6 Radeon R9 270X 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card.

And I was still playing at high specs w/30fps for most games with the GTX. I was able to play at very high with the R9 @ 30fps for the most part. So it will last a lot longer. Im not a graphics whore except at the initial build to bench mark where I want to be.

Now granted 4k prices might come down in the future and I MIGHT go 4k but I doubt it at the moment. And if so I can always SLI and make this GPU secondary. the i7 sint changing anytime soon as I dont hear anything about cpu breakthroughs coming down the line that will be cost effective.

 

[lehtv]

Took me over 5 years to upgrade my last card so probably not.

The same would apply to a GTX 970 because it's so close to GTX 980.

However, if you wanted the best performance over time, GTX 970 upgraded to something faster in 2-3 years would be far better than holding on to GTX 980 for 5 years - for the same overall cost. A 5 year upgrade cycle for the GPU just isn't optimal in terms of performance for the money.

honestly the difference was negligable

i went from a

MSI N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

to

Club3D royalQueen CGAX-R927X6 Radeon R9 270X 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card.

Interesting that you found it negligible. R9 270X is twice as fast as GTX 460. Since GTX 980 is also twice as fast as R9 270X, perhaps you will find that difference negligible as well 😕. Certainly begs the question whether the difference between GTX 980 and GTX 970 is meaningful.

Perhaps your CPU was bottlenecking the 270X.

And if so I can always SLI and make this GPU secondary.

SLI is always with two of the same GPUs, so GTX 980 SLI; you couldn't pick some faster card to SLI with the 980 and make the 980 "secondary".

 

[MonKENy]

I concur it was the CPU bottlenecking. I guess then I would run the 980 as a secondary physx card then. That what I meant.

 

[lehtv]

I concur it was the CPU bottlenecking. I guess then I would run the 980 as a secondary physx card then. That what I meant.

GTX 980 is way too fast to use as a dedicated PhysX card, all you need is a lower midrange card like GTX750 to get the full benefits of dedicated PhysX. However, depending on the performance of your main graphics setup, dedicated PhysX may not really make any difference, especially with so few games using hardware PhysX.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I guess then I would run the 980 as a secondary physx card then.

You COULD do that, but that would be a shocking waste of money, and I can't think of why a reasonable person would WANT to do that.

 

[MonKENy]

we are talking in 5 years

 

[mfenn]

we are talking in 5 years

In 5 years, a GTX 980 will be too outdated to serve that function adequately. Whatever new card you would buy at that time would work better for both functions together rather than offloading part of it to an (at that point) abysmally slow GTX 980.