Upgrading GPU & Overclocking Help

[Heskey]

Hi all,

Back in 2012 you helped me build my computer.

It's specs are:

CPU: Intel 3rd Generation Core i5-3570K CPU (4 x 3.40GHz, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 6Mb L3 Cache, Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0)
MOBO: ASUS P8Z77-V
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 XMP
GPU: ATI Radeon Sapphire HD 7870 2GB GDDR5 OC
PSU: Corsair 650W Professional Series Gold AX650
COOLING: Cooler Master 12cm SickleFlow System Fan x2
CASE: Coolermaster Storm Enforcer Mid Tower ATX Case
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB 7200 RPM Internal HDD
SSD: Corsair Force Series 120GB SSD

It's been pretty good up to now but the GPU is 2 years old and I'm not able to run certain games as graphically high as I'd like to. I've recently bought an Xbox 360 PC game pad so I can play Shadow of Mordor, and I want to experience it in all its graphical glory (though I understand its ultra-specs are unreasonably high).

I've been reading the last two days, and the Nvidia GTX 970 is the GPU to go for, in terms of bang for buck - and it's new; released mid-September 2014. Everywhere is raving about it.

I've never SLI'd / Crossfired, and to be honest I don't have the cash to burn for that sort of setup, and I'm not sure if my case/mobo/CPU fan will allow the space for 2x GPU. The 970 is 3/4 the performance of its big brother, the 980, but about 1/2 the price is what I'm reading, and if I were to ever SLI, 2 970s would outperform a 980.

So, which one do I go for? I've read a few reviews that say the ASUS Strix is a reliable brand and model, but is pipped for performance by MSI's version if you can find it cheaper (Scan.co.uk sells it for ?10 cheaper).

But then the Gigabyte Gaming G1 is supposedly the best of them all, although apparently the fan won't stop even on idle.

I'm 99.9% certain that the GTX 970 is the card to go for, given everything I've read - but is the Gigabyte Gaming G1 the after-market version to go for? The price difference between the 3 seems to be neither here-nor-there. I've not heard much about the other brands, except a couple of previously reputable companies dropped a clanger on this particular card (EVGA in particular).

I read PC Gamer, and it's "PC GAMER RIG" this month features the GTX 770 now that it's come down in price to 225... I know this card has been raved about for the last 2 years, so I figure for 75 pounds more, its next generation could be brilliant.

The next consideration was, will my CPU bottleneck this brand new card? And the answer is apparently not. Gamespot benchmarked this GPU with the same CPU, and a few threads say my CPU is still excellent and will last for some years to come provided it's overclocked right, and will not bottleneck a GTX 970.

The final question comes down to overclocking and cooling. I don't have water cooling, I just have an after-market (not stock) CPU fan cooler, and I think 5 fans inside the case.

I've never tinkered with overclocking and cooling much; the technicality and instability of it all has frightened me from doing anything with it really - I OC'd my current CPU and card when I got it but started to experience some game crashes back in January '14 so put the settings back to default and it's been fine since.

If I get this new GPU and maintain the current CPU, could/should I overclock them with your guidance?

TL;DR

1.) HD 7870 to GTX 970?
2.) Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming G1?
3.) i5-3570K CPU?
4.) Additional cooling needs?
5.) Overclocking?

Lastly, should I consider a fresh reformat to boost performance? It's not particularly sluggish but everything is nice fresh. I just hate backing things up, reinstalling, and re-configuring settings.

[ComradeHX]

I would get ASUS or MSI 970 if you don't plan on overclocking them.

R9 290 is pretty cheap too if you can afford.
R9 280x can be crossfired with 7970 too, and maybe 280 as well.

Not a good time to buy CPU right now with Broadwell coming out soon.

I would not get any additional cooling solution unless you find out you are actually limited by heat instead of the chip itself.

[Heskey]

Threads I've read, and benchmark comparisons have the R9 290s as a weaker card than the new GTX 970 - and they had to drop their price to match the 970.

I would like to plan on getting as much out of my PC - I haven't really OC'd before but I'd like to; in any case, the MSI, ASUS, and G1 are all aftermarket overclocked, but I've read the G1 is the best of all 3, despite the fan never stopping.

[LITOralis.nMd]

We have nearly same system built at same time, think I waited until August 2012 when the GTX670 dropped in price.


TL;DR

1.) HD 7870 to GTX 970? GTX 970
2.) Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming G1? Asus Strix or Gigabyte triple fan solution.
3.) i5-3570K CPU? Keep it. overclocking your CPU/mobo/RAM combo is very easy.
4.) Additional cooling needs? You have alot of CPU cooler options.
5.) Overclocking? You can get up to 4.1Ghz or 4.2Ghz right now. For another US$120 you can get up to 4.4Ghz to 4.8Ghz, depending on the luck of the draw on your CPU's inherent individual stability.

For gaming, until game devs use more than 2 cores effectively, the 3570K when OC'ed is going to be good to go until 2017ish,

[LITOralis.nMd]

Max GPU/PCI Card Length 270mm / 10.63 in with HDD cage
390mm / 15.35 in without HDD cage

Cooler Master Gaming ? Products: Enforcer

[Heskey]

Hi LITOralis - you helped a lot in building my rig Now there's a question... Will that card fit in my Mid tower?

I've suddenly started reading a lot of 50/50 comments about coil whine. I don't know if it's hyper sensitive people. I mean, my PC is under my desk and the fan noise is quite a low drone. I've never experienced coil whine before but some YouTube videos of it make me think it would drive me mad.

Across all brands, people reporting some cards whine, some don't - total luck of the draw?

[LITOralis.nMd]

in the top brands, pretty much luck of the draw.

Also how clean your PSU power output is can affect it.

[Heskey]

Well it's a good Corsair brand, and people say 500W needed to cover that card, and I have 650.

I've gone with the Gigabyte card; just hope it fits!

This leaves me with questions re overclocking and reformatting.

[MaSSive]

Id stay on stock clocks if I dont have performance issues. Only then would I try to boost performance by overclocking. OCing without actual need is just a waste of power, money and degrading your components. Also OCing already factory OCed GPU isnt wise.

Reformatting/reinstalling OS is PITA. I want to do it, but I cant really do all the shit I need to. Backup, reinstall OS, then apps, then games, do the tweaking....if you dont have to dont do it.

[Heskey]

Agreed.

Can you recommend any programs for giving my PC an enema? I'm looking to remove all the files left over that a normal uninstall doesn't get rid of, and old drivers, and generally just anything that's potentially slowing it down or doesn't need to be there.

What's the name of that program that will literally dissect your hard drive and tell you what's taking up what space? I remember I used it once and there were a couple of folders hiding in obscure places with previous patch versions of a game I no longer played taking up TONNES of space.

I've gone through Control Panel uninstalls

I've ran ESET Anti-Virus

I've defragged both hard drives, and deleted all temporary and cached files.

I'm manually going through folders and stripping out deadwood.

From the control panel Uninstall, there's a number of programs that I'm not rightly sure what they do / I've certainly never needed to use them:

Corsair SSD Toolbox 1.1.0.0
Intel Control Center
Intel Management Engine Components
Intel Rapid Storage Technology
Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver
LOTS of 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2005/8 Redistributable versions going back to 26/09/2012.
Unity Web Player

Any ideas which ones are deadwood?

[LITOralis.nMd]

Sequoia view. (not sure it works on win8 though)
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven: Download SequoiaView

treexy's driverfusion. Be careful , this can nuke your PC !!!

CCleaner by piriform.

hijackthis from and only from bleepingcomputer.com

There is also a new program that removes old DirectX and .Net framework installation msi's from your steam directory: TikiOne-Steam-Cleaner



DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THE LISTED PROGRAMS.

(You can delete Unity Web Player, it's a browser addon that allows you to play Unity game engine games and view 3d Unity files and movies in your browser.)

[Heskey]

Sequoia was pretty good, also used CCleaner and Tiki's.

Also disabled and removed hiber.sys - managed to save 10GB on my SSD and 100GB on my HDD.

All parts and air cans have arrived now, but will be waiting until Tuesday before I mess around with the hardware.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

I uncheck an option on CC cleaner now, gave me slow downs, something like Windows file search iirc, I unchecked that as an option or the pc took a while to find stuff after being cleaned.
Only the latest version has it as default clean.

Unity is used for the Lego website games....