Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

There are a few manufacturer's that make video cards that fit in ITX cases.

Gigabyte has a 1070 coming out - http://www.anandtech.com/show/10464/...0-mini-itx-oc-

ASUS has a 970 - https://www.asus.com/us/Graphics-Cards/GTX970DCMOC4GD5/

A Geforce 1060 just got announced, which is a little shorter then the 1070/1080, but i'm not sure if it will fit.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/...-release-date/

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10474/...x-1060-july-19

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Cool; thanks! I knew about the Radeon Nano cards but I don't want to deal with switching GPU type. Not sure how much an upgrade a 970 would be from a 950 (any idea?) so I'd probably wait for the 1070 if it's not too expensive.

Also, I'm not sure if my case uses an ITX MB. Do these cards require that to work? Would the back of the card reach the back of my case to install when I plug it in? The card I have now is about 170mm.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

A 970 would be a pretty significant upgrade over a 950, but a 1070 is a pretty big leap over the 970 too so if you have the patience it would probably be nice to wait. I'm not sure when that Gigabyte card will actually come out though.

As for ITX, it's just a small form factor designation, there's nothing else unique about the cards other then that the length meets the spec of the motherboard/case so that they should fit universally. Otherwise it's just a standard PCI-E video card so probably nothing special you would need to worry about.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Hell, the 1060 performs like the 980 and is $249.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Yeah, I'd really like to get into the 10xx series but I'm not sure if I want to wait for a smaller version to launch. If there were a mini 1060 for $249, I'd order one instantly.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Ah I missed your ITX comment.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

It might be worth waiting a couple weeks to see what the other manufacturers do with the 1060 since they should be out soon. From the Anandtech article -

Although something tells me most of the companies will just slap on existing coolers at first.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

9.75 is still a bit long for my case but it's a good sign. IIRC, my case maxes out at 220mm.

I guess another option all together which I haven't put too much thought into is buying a new case and transferring everything over so I can fit a full size card. I wasn't looking to go to that extent. The mini 970 is sounding like my best option at the moment.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I searched on Newegg and this appears to be the case I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811353044

The spec sheet says up to 230mm but I believe I was told 220. Maybe that was just to be safe. The 950 I have now is ~175mm. So from this, it does appear I'm using an ITX MB?

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Yeah, if the case is ITX the your motherboard would be the same form factor.

I looked up the 970 and the reviews aren't great, seems like there's cooling and overheating problems :(

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I read those same reviews. Do you think they would hold true for the Asus version of the card as well? Or does the manufacture make a difference for that type of issue?

Oh, and thanks for all your replies! I feel so out of touch with PC building...

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I'd say it depends on the manufacturer, never know with each company's coolers. I bet with the 970 you could just underclock it a bit if you go that route and run in to trouble :p

Although honestly at the moment, I'd still say wait and see if any small 1060's come out, look for release dates on the 1070, and all else if you're really itching go for the 970 or an AMD Nano.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Placed an order for the mini 970. Amazon has it pretty cheap right now. I don't see myself upgrading from 1080 any time soon so it should fit all my needs and work in my case!

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Nice, I'm running a regular 970 and it runs everything I throw at it just fine at 2560x1440. Hopefully it works well for you :up:

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Over the last year, I've switched from playing games on both current consoles and my PC, to almost exclusively just my PC. With all the new GPUs coming out recently, I'm getting the itch to upgrade.

I know enough about computers to be dangerous, but that's about it. A few years ago I bought one from Digital Storm with the intention of upgrading it myself as time went on. These are my current specs, and I'm wondering what you guys think I should tackle first.

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4670K CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.4GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

I'm not really considering VR right now, so that's not a concern. But I'm more concerned about future proofing for the next couple years - getting games to run at ultra on a higher resolution display than I'm currently using.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Glad to hear. I've been holding off on starting Doom until I decided how to go with the GPU upgrade. Sounds like I'll be able to max out just about anything at 1080, which is all I need. Thanks again for the replies/help.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

The 770 is still a decent card. I'd guess it would run most things in 1080 at close to max settings. But if you're going to upgrade for the sake of gaming, I'd start there (which is exactly what I just did). With the new 10xx series coming out, there's good deals to be had on a 970/980...especially if you don't have the size restrictions like I do with a compact case.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I'd wait a month or two and buy a 1070. Way faster than a 9 series, and should be good going forward for a while ...

http://www.pcgamer.com/geforce-gtx-1...mance-preview/

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Thanks for the info. I'm not in any hurry to upgrade, but it's been on my mind.

Assuming I do not have any size restrictions, and I don't think I should, the cards are basically just plug and play, correct? I can pop the old one out and put a new one in with little fuss?

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Yeah, the 770 is still solid, but out of all the components that would be the first thing to target. If you're wanting better performance, i'd try and wait for 1070 prices to come down to normal as well.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Yeah, all the cards I've bought the last few years have been hassle-free. Plug in, Windows handles the default drivers and then you can go and install the card-specific ones from the manufacturer's website.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Dammit. Doom is $28.88 at Green Man Gaming right now. Bought it for more than that in the Steam "sale" last week. :)

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Success!
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8824/2...b8ef6fc9_c.jpg

Started up Witcher finally as well. Man, that game is beautiful.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I was finally able to breakthrough NewEgg's ordering page and buy a GTX 1080.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Nice! I honestly didn't think my 970 would feel so out of date already :sad:

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

sell it to me for $150 so you can buy a 1080, haha.

my wife's hackintosh needs a graphics card and i'm hoping to either get a 960 for $100 or a 970 for $150-175 eventually.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I ended up ordering a ASUS 970 today from newegg. it will be around $170 after coupon code and rebate. cant wait to play Overwatch on it. Probably start up WoW again too

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

built my first gaming pc last week

got a fx 6350 and a sapphire rx 480

went cheap on the processor should of gotten the i5 6600k that i was wanting, someone gave me a new amd motherboard so thats why i went with that

6350 seems to do ok

i got the 480 undervolted at 1050 on the last two states in wattman and it stays at 1266mhz when under load, also undervolted the memory at 950 and have it at 2100mhz

getting a 8074 firestrike benchmark with that

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Starbound just left Early Access today. I haven't played it in probably 2 years, but even back then it was pretty awesome. Basically Terraria on steroids and sci-fi.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

they need this on xbox one

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Thinking about buying a new monitor. This is what I've got now (and the rest of my specs are above).

HP 25bw Monitor (1920 x 1080 60Hz)

This is the new one I'm considering. I've read a lot of good things about it and this is apparently a decent price for a monitor like this.

http://http://www.bestbuy.com/site/d...&skuId=5293502

My question is, aside from size, how much, if any difference will I actually notice with this upgrade display?

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

It is coming at some point. They basically have to redesign the entire interface for it though. I hope that also translates over to the PC side, because the interface is not very good as it is. Super fun game though. I think I put like 30 hours into it in the last week, and I'm not even into these sort of sandbox building games.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

I really like my ASUS G-Sync monitor, but I guess a lot of it depends on how sensitive you are to screen tearing and frame rate drops. It's definitely made my gaming a much smoother experience overall.

The only thing that might suck is your 770 might not be powerful enough to run everything at native 2560x1440 without dropping down some of the graphics settings or bumping down the resolution.

Also, it looks like your current monitor is IPS, versus the TN panel in the Dell. As someone that also went from IPS to TN, I definitely noticed the worse viewing angles although since I'm pretty stationary at my computer desk I got over it fairly quickly.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

High refresh rate displays are awesome. Even stuff like moving the mouse around on the desktop will feel more responsive compared to 60Hz. GTX 770 is getting long in the tooth and modern games won't be able to run at 25x14 with great frame rates, but lowering the settings should get a lot of stuff playable. G-SYNC is great for eliminating tearing and input lag and proving a smooth gaming experience, even if your frame rate hovers in the 40's.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Great information. Thanks!

I was afraid my 770 might hold things back but I was planning on upgrading that before the end of the year, so I think that'll be ok.

And I'm pretty stationary at my desk as well. I wouldn't anticipate the viewing angle being a problem.

I'll probably sleep on it and see how I feel tomorrow. I wasn't really ready to drop $500 on a monitor this week, so I may hold off for a little while. Maybe see if this goes on sale again, or if Dell gets some refurbs in.

Thanks again.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Be sure to think about your video card purchase when picking an adaptive sync monitor. If you think you might switch to AMD for your video card, you'd want FreeSync instead of G-Sync.

FreeSync monitors are usually a lot cheaper than G-Sync, so if you don't care whether your next card is Nvidia or AMD, you can save money by going FreeSync + AMD.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Is there a real difference between NVIDIA and AMD? Is one measurably better than the other?

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Here's some more:

- I have a 600 W power supply. When should I upgrade that? And how do I find out what to upgrade that to?

- If I want to add RAM, do I just buy a couple more sticks and put them in the two remaining slots on my mother board? Anything special to look out for (make sure they're compatible w/motherboard, same type as existing RAM, etc.)

- And should I ever have to swap out the motherboard itself? At what point does one become obsolete?

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

They're pretty similar, but diehard fans of each will argue to the death that their brand is better.

Whichever you pick, just be sure to get one of the latest generation cards that have come out in the last few months. Try to avoid reference cards and Founders Edition cards, and instead get an aftermarket card.

There aren't enough Vulkan and DirectX 12 benchmarks to compare, but most levelheaded people think that the newest Nvidia cards get better performance in DirectX 11 games and the newest AMD cards get better performance in DX12 and Vulkan games. We won't know for sure for a while, until the drivers mature and more games use DX12 and Vulkan.

Like I said before, though, just make sure the adaptive sync on your expensive monitor matches the card you buy.

Re: PC Gaming Thread
 

Probably plenty.

If you have more slots, yes. You'll have to make sure that the RAM is the right pin count for your motherboard and runs at a speed that your motherboard supports. If you replace an old motherboard with a new one, your RAM probably won't be compatible.

If you upgrade processors, you'll probably need a new motherboard. Make sure that your processor socket type matches your new motherboard, and that your motherboard supports your processor's chipset.

https://pcpartpicker.com/ is a good reference. You can choose various parts and it will tell you if you have incompatibilities.