Green Build GPU Decisions

Hi Guys

Cant decide on what to do. I am building a M-atx bitfenix prodigy m green build for fun but cannot decide on what graphics card to get. I initially wanted to do a budget build but it got out of hand when my hx620 went pop so I went and I got green braided cables and an ax860i.

Spec
CASE: Bitfenix prodigy M Green (£75)
CPU: Pentium K (£50)
MB: Gigabyte sniper m5 z87 (£75)
Ram: Green Corsair vengeance 2133mhz 8gb (£75)
Cooler: H75 (£53)
PSU and Braided green cables (£260) Facefalm :l
FANS: Corsair SP120 Green LED x3 (£30)

I am struggling between gtx 960 and gtx970.

GTX960 Advantages
Cheaper
Only looking for 1080p card atm
No reports of terrible coil white (yet)
Lower temps for quieter operation

Disadvantages
2GB for dsr no thanks..
Crap sli performance
crappy price point

GTX970 Advantages
Better price vs performance that 960
dsr options on more games as 4gb (see if it actually looks any different)

Disadvantages
Cost
Coil Whine

Graphics card makes.

EVGA: I trust this brand as they have never let me down but the gtx 960 is plain looking and the 970 has the tiniest bit of blue on it :l not sure if they still pick the better chips for ftw series anymore as they have 2 classified series to feed...
MSI: 100 million edition that matches my whole green theme but doubt if they "cherry pick" gpu's for it as at the moment the 100million edition is the same chip as the gaming just with a back plate.
Gigabyte: Never used before but the G1 series has apparently cheery picked gpu's which might give a better temp for overclocking etc.

The 100 million edition would match bet but I have no idea if scan will ever stock a 960 100million edition or when the 970 version will come into stock and if it has a pants chip in it.

Thanks in advance

imgur.com/2W2eGFl
Old picture before I changed the fans and send the rm750 back for being too long

Not every card has coil wine, yet any card can have it.

MSI have their new 100 Million edition cards as you've mentioned.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-m...z-to-1279mhz-d

And their cooler, according to countless reviews, is among the top 3 at the moment, and probably the one I'd go for.

I wouldn't be getting the pentium K. Although capable, many games REQUIRE 4 cores (well, 4 threads). Because of this, you won't even be able to launch games like FarCry 4.

There's always Galax too

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...14&subcat=1010

That's a lot of money for a PSU. Just get a CS550 and a H440 in green and get extensions. Take a look at my build log - some really nice cable management opportunities.

Thanks for the reply I will try the Pentium k for a bit see how I get on if it sucks I will just put a 4790k in my girlfriends machine and nick her 4670k as her cpu has terrible temps. Never looked at KFA before tbh

As MrRockliffe says, I would personally think twice before going for the Pentium K processor - I recently had problems trying to get Far Cry 4 to run on a dual-core CPU (short answer, it won't), & I suspect more games will require 4 threads minimum down the line.

I wouldn't go for a Z87 motherboard at this point - there's not that much difference in price at this point, & Z97 boards have the advantage of M.2 support & SATA Express etc.

Your 860W is quite over-powered for such a system, even if you plan to SLI it.

I've got the MSI Gaming 4G 970 card, & is does have a small amount of coil whine during the intros in Far Cry 4, but that's because the frame-rate is huge. Once you're in the game, the coil whine stops. It's a great card though, no complaints performance-wise.

I got the z87 board because I managed to snag it for 75quid and thought id try a Pentium k initially see how much I can get out of it and see what its like on games. PSU is very much overkill but this rig will probably be an upgrade project in the future and I wanted slime green coloured cables etc so went with corsair and with hx620 dying popping on me I don't want to use a cheaper psu. If your msi 970 doesn't have much coil whine I might get myself a 970 then. This is a fun project rig I have 2 rigs for trying new games anyway gtx670sli and gtx760sli builds (I live between two locations a lot). I think in the future this rig will be the only one to get upgrades as its small enough to sling around.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by forsakenrichy

I got the z87 board because I managed to snag it for 75quid and thought id try a Pentium k initially see how much I can get out of it and see what its like on games. PSU is very much overkill but this rig will probably be an upgrade project in the future and I wanted slime green coloured cables etc so went with corsair and with hx620 dying popping on me I don't want to use a cheaper psu. If your msi 970 doesn't have much coil whine I might get myself a 970 then. This is a fun project rig I have 2 rigs for trying new games anyway gtx670sli and gtx760sli builds (I live between two locations a lot). I think in the future this rig will be the only one to get upgrades as its small enough to sling around.

---

I think coil while varies from card to card, so it might be worth doing a bit of research on which models tend to suffer the most. The KFA2 card MrRockliffe linked to does have a no-whine guarantee, which might be worth the small premium.

TBH I wouldn't touch a GTX970 with a barge pole, and the GTX960 is just way overpriced. Not sure about the Pentium K either.

I've just built this and it's a great system.

860K
MSI A88X
8gb Crucial Cas8 1866Mhz 1.5 volts
R9 290

I know the graphics card is overkill for the system even overclocked, but for £220 with FreeSync and Mantle it's a bargain. If I was buying now I would go with an R9 285 as they are around £150.

I need to go NVidia because I have a NVidia shield and play games on the go. I haven't had Ati since like 2005 I think and that was AGP but it was a good card tbh. Got my psu through today just waiting on retailers to stock the card I think I want. i.imgur.com/UfvUWks.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by forsakenrichy

I need to go NVidia because I have a NVidia shield and play games on the go. I haven't had Ati since like 2005 I think and that was AGP but it was a good card tbh. Got my psu through today just waiting on retailers to stock the card I think I want. i.imgur.com/UfvUWks.jpg

---

Nvidia are doing a recall/refund thing on the GTX970. Just a heads up.

"Hey,

First, I want you to know that I'm not just a mod, I work for Nvidia in Santa Clara

I totally get why so many people are upset. We messed up some of the stats on the reviewer kit and we didn't properly explain the memory architecture. I realize a lot of you guys rely on product reviews to make purchase decisions and we let you down.

It sucks because we're really proud of this thing. The GTX 970 is an amazing card and I genuinely believe it's the best card for the money that you can buy. We're working on a driver update that will tune what's allocated where in memory to further improve performance.

Having said that, I understand that this whole experience might have turned you off to the card. If you don't want the card anymore you should return it and get a refund or exchange. If you have any problems getting that done, let me know and I'll do my best to help.

--Peter"

Not quite, they're saying you're entitled to one, and they'll help as best they can. They're not doing the the refunding, nor recalling.

Just get a core i3 instead of the Pentium K.