PC GPU died, need help with what to go for next

[Dhalmel]

Noob question since I'm also following this thread as a blue print to build my pc with: I5 3450 cpu, asus Z71 board, and the gtx670. For the power supply, how much is enough?

500w easy with no GPU overclocking, but personality I would go to 600~650w, just for some headroom and less stress on the PSU's components.


Just be sure to buy from a reputable OEM company, I perfer Seasonic products. Other good brands are Antec, Corsair, Thermaltake, Silverstone, NZXT. You may note I didn't list Cooler Master/OCZ, as I've seen numerous cases corner cutting with alot of their models.


A very high quality PSU that's highly efficient:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088

[Nightdreamer]

500w easy with no GPU overclocking, but personality I would go to 600~650w, just for some headroom and less stress on the PSU's components.


Just be sure to buy from a reputable OEM company, I perfer Seasonic products. Other good brands are Antec, Corsair, Thermaltake, Silverstone, NZXT. You may note I didn't list Cooler Master/OCZ, as I've seen numerous cases corner cutting with alot of their models.


A very high quality PSU that's highly efficient:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088

Thanks for the tip, I'm also wondering how much of a difference would it be to use a SSD over a 7200rpm hard drive for gaming. Was thinking of just using a SSD for games, and the other for internal storage.

[Dhalmel]

Thanks for the tip, I'm also wondering how much of a difference would it be to use a SSD over a 7200rpm hard drive for gaming. Was thinking of just using a SSD for games, and the other for internal storage.

It honestly depends on the game, and how the data is cached and if it's done poorly it can still be slowish on a SSD. (Deus EX: HR release build anyone?)

With my Crucial M4 most games take maybe 10 seconds at most to load maps/levels, sometimes instant.

So YMMV from game to game, but you will definitely see differences in how responsive the OS will be. One thing I can say is to make sure you connect your SSD to your the SATA 6.0 Gbps ports that is running from the motherboards chipset for speed and performance.

Avoid old SSDs that use the earlier Sandforce controller revisions, in my opinion avoid Sandforce completely unless you get the recently release Intel variants.

You should go to overclock.net for more information regarding SSDs, there's just alot to learn about the different controllers, speed, and reliability from SKU to SKU.

[Randelmire]

With the SSD your games will load faster, but once loaded, it shouldn't do a big difference.

I would also like to add about the power supply, usually if you get one a bit bigger (600-650W in this case) since it won't be used at 100% of its capacity, it will probable be more silent too.

Edit : Dhalmel suggested you good brands for PSU

[Jynx]

Thanks for the tip, I'm also wondering how much of a difference would it be to use a SSD over a 7200rpm hard drive for gaming. Was thinking of just using a SSD for games, and the other for internal storage.

Using a SSD for your OS and whatever programs you want to load fastest is always a good idea.

[Esk]

A 60GB SSD really should go into most new builds now at least for an OS drive (and you can easily squeeze a game on too in most cases, OK I cant but meh I have a 2nd SSD anyway ).

But i'd agree with Dhalmel, http://www.overclock.net/ is a great place to read up, i also like Overclockers.co.uk, I would def have an OS SSD over a gaming one anyway.

With a PSU, again I'm just agreeing mostly, named brand over a cheap alternative will save you in the long run and less likely to fail on you at some point.
Work out what you need +10/15% then get a psu above that amount an your good.
Though I would say consider if you will keep it your for next Pc an Will you expand your GPU to multi card at some point.
If Yes then it might be worth pushing up the power a little, a m8 recently ended up with a the Corsair AX850, for the same price as the ugg... one of the 600 variants lol... he only needed similar to you but the PSU is 100x better with the modular cabling as well.

[Nightdreamer]

Thanks x4, love the FF community, always going out of their way to be helpful.

[Cure]

In the end I bought an i5 3570K at 3.8ghz, 8gb Corair Vengeance DDR3 ram, Gigabyte Z77 motherboard and a HD7870 2gb GPU.
Before the servers went offline I could set graphics to maximum except Ambient Occlusion off and get 40 (running through the cities and 60+ fps everywere else. Can't wait for V2.0 now

[Soukyuu]

Good to hear. How's the driver situation? The newest nVidias seem to be running unstably due to their dynamic clocking. My brother and a friend complain about blackscreen crashes etc. and the internet is full of complaints about it too. I usually prefer nVidia cards, but reading reviews lately shows the new nVidias are kind crippled when it comes to graphics compared to AMD pendants (which are crippled in GPGPU performance instead...). Especially annoying is how fast nVidia gives in once you start increasing AA.

Having only had bad experience with AMD GPUs so far (especially drivers), I'm kinda wary of considering them. On the other hand, gaming performance seems to be much better for the same price...