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[Smilie]

you can get a R9 280 for that price
link

would think this will be a better card
might be a bit more power hungry though

btw what case you using?
might want to check
as the newer high end video cards are quite long
and wont fit in a lot of old cases

Novatech currently have this graphics adapter on offer for £209

My current build spec has this graphics adapter as a potential upgrade.

I see Overclockers have it listed as £299 but Amazon have it also listed at £209 - I'm not sure what the saving /offer is from Novatech, but is it worth the extra £50?

[Smilie]

I would say yes
but i play games a lot on my PC

the 290 is a huge improvement over the 270X

but i think the 290 needs a lot of power
so you might need to get a more expensive PSU for it as well

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

What RAM would I need for a "ASUS Z97-PRO Intel Z97 (socket 1150) Motherboard"?

Not really up on RAM technology at the moment - I've seen cheap RAM and expensive RAM - the more expensive is faster I guess so need something middle ground.

Any recommendations?

Any standard DRR3. Speed is a relative non-issue, and if you're not overclocking the maximum speed supported by any Intel processor is DDR3-1600. There's no real cost advantage to go below this and no real performance advantage to go above this so just get what's cheapest. Even the cheapest RAM will easily overclock to one or two speed grades above what they're rated at.

---------- Post added at 12:39 ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 ----------

Originally Posted by damien c

The only time you will see the need for faster ram is benchmarks and possibly photo editing, but not 100% sure about the last part.

Makes very little difference in photo editing, actually RAM bandwidth has the biggest impact in "RL scenarios" on file compression.

---------- Post added at 12:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 ----------

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

Novatech currently have this graphics adapter on offer for £209

My current build spec has this graphics adapter as a potential upgrade.

I see Overclockers have it listed as £299 but Amazon have it also listed at £209 - I'm not sure what the saving /offer is from Novatech, but is it worth the extra £50?

The R9 290 is excellent performance for the price and it always has been, but is a serious compromise on power efficiency and noise. Aftermarket coolers are a lot quieter but it's still a card that sucks 30% more power than a GTX 970 while being 10% slower. But it's the fastest card you can get for the money. £299 is definitely overpriced for that card, I bought one for £260 six months ago.

---------- Post added at 12:43 ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 ----------

Originally Posted by Smilie

I would say yes
but i play games a lot on my PC

the 290 is a huge improvement over the 270X

but i think the 290 needs a lot of power
so you might need to get a more expensive PSU for it as well

It does use a lot of power, yes, but a 500w PSU will be fine (again, excluding ridiculous overclocks, but hardcore overclockers should really know enough to not have to ask)

[alferret]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Much better value for money, and a good processor too. RAM and mainboard choice depends on if you're overclocking or not. I personally wouldn't bother, as modern Haswells don't overclock that well and suck a lot more power while doing it.

The 4790k as well as the 4690k have very good overclocking capabilities, so on air he should see at least an extra 20% out of his chosen CPU assuming cooling is adequate.
The devils canyon processors are designed to be clocked. Which is why they are not locked.

[qasdfdsaq]

Both of them have pathetically poor overclocking capabilities compared to previous generations though. They're not designed to be overclocked any more than any previous K processor, they're really Intel's desperate attempt to undo the reputation damage they did by switching to pathetically cheap and poor thermal compound on the original Haswells. The underlying architecture (and overclockability) hasn't changed one bit.

Most sites have found getting a 10% overclock over it's maximum stock speed is the practical limit on air, and it'll use up double the power doing it. None of them have been able to get 5Ghz or over without unconventional cooling, and that's not even 14%. Less than 20% more performance for 200% power isn't a decent payback IMO.

As a reminder the 1st generation i7s which actually 'very good overclocking capabilities' would easily overclock by 40% at stock voltage, and nearly 60% on good air cooling.

[alanbjames]

What i like about MSI motherboards is the Overclock Genie that will do some overclocking for u safely.

I have the AMD FX8320 Eight Core 3.5Ghz which is running at 4.1Ghz.

[alferret]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Both of them have pathetically poor overclocking capabilities compared to previous generations though. They're not designed to be overclocked any more than any previous K processor, they're really Intel's desperate attempt to undo the reputation damage they did by switching to pathetically cheap and poor thermal compound on the original Haswells. The underlying architecture (and overclockability) hasn't changed one bit.

Most sites have found getting a 10% overclock over it's maximum stock speed is the practical limit on air, and it'll use up double the power doing it. None of them have been able to get 5Ghz or over without unconventional cooling, and that's not even 14%. Less than 20% more performance for 200% power isn't a decent payback IMO.

As a reminder the 1st generation i7s which actually 'very good overclocking capabilities' would easily overclock by 40% at stock voltage, and nearly 60% on good air cooling.

Whilst it would be quite easy to get into a discussion about the virtues of the refresh chips and their predecessors I can only really comment on my own experiences.
25c @ 4.5 idle and mid'ish 50's under load on air, 4.6 and low 30's with a little tweaking and mid 60's underload and finally 4.7 with the same idle and mid 60's low 70's either I have a peach or these crappy CPU's ain't as bad as some say they are.
Either way I'm happy, even tho my 4.7 oc failed on prime after 2 hours but is stable at 4.6 after 9+ hours
I guess if I went liquid I may get a bit more out of, but hey ho. Not to shabby for just over 160 quid.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by alferret

Whilst it would be quite easy to get into a discussion about the virtues of the refresh chips and their predecessors I can only really comment on my own experiences.
25c @ 4.5 idle and mid'ish 50's under load on air, 4.6 and low 30's with a little tweaking and mid 60's underload and finally 4.7 with the same idle and mid 60's low 70's either I have a peach or these crappy CPU's ain't as bad as some say they are.
Either way I'm happy, even tho my 4.7 oc failed on prime after 2 hours but is stable at 4.6 after 9+ hours
I guess if I went liquid I may get a bit more out of, but hey ho. Not to shabby for just over 160 quid.

An overclock to 4.6 on a processor with a max stock speed of 4.4 is hardly meaningful by any standards. Unless you're referring to the i5, at which point going from 3.9 to 4.6 is slightly better but still poor compared to going from 2.8 to 4.6 on previous generation Core CPUs.

Going back to my RAM question -would this would be perfectly fine for the system board?

[alanbjames]

I wouldnt like to say, if i were u i would do research on how overclockable it is as when u overclock sometimes it may require a different voltage on ram.

I went for Corsair Red 1600mhz as i read it was good overclockable ram, supported XMP profiles and also had the cooling fins....

This is the ram i have except i have 16gb....
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...2a1600c9r.html

Not really fussed about overclocking - the stock speeds will be ample for me at the moment.

[alferret]

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

Going back to my RAM question -would this would be perfectly fine for the system board?

Yea, that's fine, I use corsair vengeance 2x 8gb 1600mhz but the low profile version due to limitations with my heatsink.
If you set XMP in the BIOS it uses different timings which reads the DIMM's spd chip (I think) which does make a difference to memory speed, not read up much on it but in windows experience my memory went from 7.6 to 7.7 when enabled.

Thanks for that. Looks like I may need a dummies guide to overclocking soon!

[damien c]

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

Thanks for that. Looks like I may need a dummies guide to overclocking soon!

It's not that hard anymore to be honest, but if you want to see a video look for the one on Youtube by OC3D.