Hi I recently became hooked on Battlefield 3, and as i have always been an eyecandy freak :banana: I don't drink or smoke :nerd:so i splashed out on a new Sapphire 7970 vapor x 6gb and 3 x 27 inch monitors which are the hi res so im running 7680 x 1440. I now need more power ! so i will be crossfireing another 7970 6gb to take advantage of the hi res monitors. (which currently set at medium graphics quality in BF3 multiplayer, of course i can go higher but this setting at this res allows me 50-60 fps) But i would like to set the in game settings to at least high. So i think that extra ram does come in handy when running eyefinity. The help i need is what mother board and coolerf or chip set to buy to really enhance these two cards in crossfire. Im considering Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 Motherboard But im not entirely certain if this board will accomodate two 7970 vapor x s as they take up 3 standard slots each ! with the new i7 oced to 4.6 ? correct ? also can someone recommend a chip cooler ? Any thoughts and suggestion swould be much appreciated.:infinity:
Update your sig It helps to know the rest of your system so recommendations can be made elsewhere if required. Obviously your video card isn't a 920 @ 3.6Ghz, and that can't be your CPU either since you have a Z77 board!
Need to know which cpu your are using, is it for the X58 board or the Z77. how much ram are you running?
as i need to upgrade my mobo to accomodate two 7970 i thought i may as well upgrade my chip ....pointless? If i could somehow get the cards to fit on my x58 i woould probably do that but the one card covers the last PCI slot :3eyes:
If you can't fit the cards you will need to upgrade! Thing is, now is a bad time to upgrade to Ivy, I would definitely wait until Haswell comes out and upgrade to that instead (better overclocking, supposedly, AVX2). 1333 RAM will be detrimental to performance to a small extent, if you want to upgrade the motherboard sell you 1333 RAM and try and get 2133 RAM instead. Not sure how Haswell will respond to different RAM speeds, but Ivy 'works best' with 2133. It doesn't affect framerates too much in normal gaming, but future games once the Xbox ports come out may have advantage if their memory use is heavier. For BF3 and other games in the foreseeable future, 16gb (2x8gb) of at least ddr3-2133 RAM would be more advantageous than 32GB of 1333 RAM. Since you are talking about BF3, and most likely BF4 later on, the i7-4770K Haswell (or whatever the equivalent of the i7-3770K is) will give you advantage over an i5-3570K due to the threading optimisation.
Thanks ThatGuy91 awseome information. do we know when the release dat efor this Haswell ? what mother board will it require ? the x78 or z77 ...i guessi could google these things ..but where is teh fun and personality in that ? Thanks again ! Just read a little about the HAswell chip, it sounds like its got better on board graphics capabilities and better power consumption (idela for lappies), which when i have 2 x 7970 seems a bit redundant ? Perhaps teh Ivy bridge with the lower price tag will still be a more viable option.?
Ivy is unlikely to drop too much in price. Haswell CPU's fit into a new socket called 'Socket 1150', and require new motherboards.These motherboards are z87. Some pics have been posted in the last couple of days on this forum of a couple of the Asus z87 boards and of the Asrock z87 boards. The onboard graphics will by no means come close to one HD7970, let alone two! So certainly won't make 2xHD7970s redundant. If Lucid MVP actually worked reliably, and is available on z87 boards, then the new Intel graphics may be of benefit even with your HD7970's, but like I said it hasn't had the best track record. Good principle, less than good execution! It all comes down to your budget. If you had to budget for either Haswell i7-4770k+z87 board+2x8gb DDR3-2133 RAM or a new HD7970, Haswell would be the way to go! Of course, you could then sell your existing hardware and put that towards a second HD7970. I believe that even if you could run 2xHD7970 cards you won't get the full benefit of 2xHD7970's in Crossfire using your current system. BTW, Ivy's typically get around 4.4Ghz (I believe) reliably, although some people have been unlucky and only been able to get 4.2Ghz or even less :S. Running 4.6Ghz is actually significantly harder to get due to voltages and heat. All depends on how much you can spend, what Haswell actually costs, and what you can get for your existing hardware.
any idea what the Haswell and this new mother board is going to cost ? There is a ceiling to my build im thinking $1500 that including the second 7970 which on mwav i can get for 600 so $900 for new chip, cooler, and mother board....
Excuse my language, but you should be able to sh!t it in! with a couple of hundred or so to spare (even when considering 2x8GB DDR3-2133 RAM). Leaked prices of the i7-4770k suggests around $368, although some places maybe a bit cheaper than that on release. Motherboard will probably be $180 for a good one (although you can get enthusiast boards that cost a lot more), and DDR-2133 $139. Haswell may benefit from even faster RAM, but DDR3-2133 is most likely still the 'sweet spot'. 2x8gb DDR3-2400 RAM is $154. So, even if you went $240 for a high end board, and DDR3-2400, it still comes to $762 with the CPU included. If you add a high end cooler to that, you still come under $900.
I would suggest you get a soundcard. All this money spent on gear and you are neglecting sound output completely.
If he gets for instance, an Asrock z87 Extreme 6 board that has the 'purity sound' on it, probably won't need an additional sound card. Sure, a good sound card would still be better, but you have to justify the cost. Apparently with the new EM shielding, new codec, new headphone amplifier, and new circuit design it's supposed to be superior to current onboard sound solutions.
Just a question regarding buying a sound card for his new build..I am using onboard sound but i have it connected through the optical output on my mobo directly to my amplifier with good quality home theater speakers and the sound quality is awesome.My question is if you have your mobo sound connected like that doesn't that bypass the onboard sound chips and sends the audio signal directly to the amp which does all the processing? So a good sound card connected directly to speakers makes the quality difference. Am i wrong???
you don't need soundcard for a headset, since headset has it own prebuilt soundcard. That why its using USB port to receive digital signal. You need soundcard to output high quality analog signal. Good headphones (not headset) will justify good soundcard. From personal experience, good headphones paired with good soundcard by far superior than any given headsets. 5.1 or 7.1 headsets become just a joke.
Soundcard can't drive speakers alone, you will need amplifier to boost signal. If your amplifier can receive analog signal from soundcard, just amplify it and pass it to speakers, you might have better audio quality. However it you already have a good DAC in your amplifier, I don't think it will be worth it.