Upgrade or not

[nelis]

Hi there

I have 2x r9-280x cards that I want to run in crossfire. I've been without my Second card for 2-3 months now due to motherboard broke and now one of my Graphics cards is faulty as well (busy getting a new one from supplier) Now the thing is with my current motherboard can't do crossfire without interfering with my SATA ports. I have the following options.


1. I can wait for devils canyon and stick with 1 card for the time being bu seeing as it's only coming September in US it will most probably be here by October/November.

2. I already have a z87 board coming this week as a work pc build. I can then use my old motherboard cpu and then only buy ram as pc at work. i'm getting the 4770k

3. Get the new card sell it and get a MSI R9 290 gaming and later when i have crossfire again get another MSI r9 290 Gaming.


Where i work they willing to buy my old motherboard and cpu from me so I can get a bit of money back that way as well. Please tell me if I'm not clear on anything so we can understand each other. I want to play games like Watch dogs etc etc in better fps than I can do now cause i mean that's why I bought 2 cards right. I have 2560x1440 @ 96Hz monitor so I need the horsepower. Right now i have to lower the graphics making my experience a lot worse. So what must I do?

Thanks

 

[psion]

z87 + 4770k and r9 290 will last you a couple of years
Just a word of caution on running the MSI 290 gaming in crossfire, I have two 290x MSI gaming 4G, jsut got the second one last week. Single card temps are great but in crossfire the top card gets very hot in the region of 95 degrees during gaming. I'm busy trying different case fan configs etc. but I am not convinced that I will get it down too much. So perhaps look at either a different top card with better cooling or get aftermarket cooling for the card

 

[nelis]

z87 + 4770k and r9 290 will last you a couple of years
Just a word of caution on running the MSI 290 gaming in crossfire, I have two 290x MSI gaming 4G, jsut got the second one last week. Single card temps are great but in crossfire the top card gets very hot in the region of 95 degrees during gaming. I'm busy trying different case fan configs etc. but I am not convinced that I will get it down too much. So perhaps look at either a different top card with better cooling or get aftermarket cooling for the card

Yes but should I rather go 4770k and Z87 and keep my current 2 cards for crossfire or should I rather sell the cards now and get a R9-290 gaming for now and crossfire later when I upgrade to devils canyon. I have a decent case. Corsair air 540 with 3x Cougar vortex fans in the front.

the only thing i need now is the CPU if i go for z87 platform. I'm just scared that my 4770k will run to hot. The board i'm getting this week is the Z87a-g45 Gaming

 

[psion]

In my experience the 4770k runs too hot on the stock cooler, get an aftermarket cooler master cooler or similar for around R600 and you will be good. Stock cooler gave me 95 degrees on prime 95 and it cuts out to stop damage. With the Cooler Master 212 EVO it reaches no more than 70 degrees.

2 MSI Gaming edition 290's in crossfire results in the top card running too hot, even blowing a desk fan at them doesn't help much. So I would recommend at looking at a different card's with better cooling, or go custom.

I can totally recommend the Z87 platform with those specs however if your current rig runs everything fine rather wait before upgrading and get newer hardware and wait till you really need it and save up for a beast.

 

[nelis]

In my experience the 4770k runs too hot on the stock cooler, get an aftermarket cooler master cooler or similar for around R600 and you will be good. Stock cooler gave me 95 degrees on prime 95 and it cuts out to stop damage. With the Cooler Master 212 EVO it reaches no more than 70 degrees.

2 MSI Gaming edition 290's in crossfire results in the top card running too hot, even blowing a desk fan at them doesn't help much. So I would recommend at looking at a different card's with better cooling, or go custom.

I can totally recommend the Z87 platform with those specs however if your current rig runs everything fine rather wait before upgrading and get newer hardware and wait till you really need it and save up for a beast.

Yes I already have h100i. Well i thought really hard about it and maybe i should wait for devils canyon. i know intel is going to improve things here to give us even 4GHz and 4.4GHz boost on stock clocks so there is already a reason to wait. Hope it's not expensive and September might sound like far away but actually it's not much. If i get 4770k now I might be disappointed in myself for not waiting. There is actually not so many games coming out that I know of now that is worthwhile anyway. the only game i wish I had crossfire now is for watchdogs cause i think that's a game you need to play on high graphics. Also another thing i realized today was how much would i get for my cards. Not that much and the R9-290 is not that much faster than my r9-280x. I know it's faster but not the amount I have to pay to get it.

Thanks for the info guys I really appreciate it.