by the way, from reading around, it seems EVGA superclocked is usually the best way to go. $100 more, but more speed.
Oh one more thing. Any recommended mother boards?
Any recommended mother boards? (oops, double post)
The quick answer: take a look at the latest mobo comparison on your favorite hardware review site and go based on that.
The longer answer: decide on what features (number and type of PCIe slots, number and type of ports, number and type of slots for RAM, etc.) you need as this will drive the chipset you need to get. Then see how the different manufacturers implement it (i.e. there will be difference in things like which audio ports are on the back panel, # of USB vs things like eSATA etc… you don’t really care about video out since you’ll be using the ports on your GPU) Assuming you’re running a vanilla Windows setup, there’s not much more to it. If you’re running Linux, you have to do a bit more homework to see how well a particular chipset/mfr combo is supported.
Phil, so after some more researching, people are saying the GTX 970 is not too far off from the 980. This makes me think, if I were to get two 970, it costs about the same as a single 980, but will give me a lot more power?
And I should install them as non sli, right?
Thanks again
Hi, two GTX 970 should be 70% faster than single GTX 980 and cost about 70€ more, stunning.
You can work with one card during scene setup to get nice smooth viewport and switch second on for final render.
Based on http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?349952-Nvidia-Maxwell-GPU-Benchmarks
You could install SLI on hardware, on Windows it is possible to disable SLI in driver settings.
Cheers, mib
Awesome. I don’t think I’ll need SLI any way. I do not game, and Adobe premiere and after effects cs 5.5 do not use SLI any how.
If you build a PC and are planning on having the OS on an ssd definitely go for 256GB or more. I have 128GB (around 110 usable), windows already uses up 40 GB of that. A couple decent sized programs and you only have half of that left. I constantly have to move stuff from my ssd to by hdd (1tb), as there is just not enough space. If I was you personally I would wait for SSD’s to get cheaper, Bootup doesn’t seem hugely faster (maybe 10-20 seconds with a fairly full ssd). transfer rates aren’t spectacular either, though I’m guessing this also depends on how fast your processor is and the cables you are using.
I thought I read some place that Windows 7 Home Premium can’t use more than 16 GB of RAM. Is this right?
Possible, idk.
Better of running 8.1 and upgrading to 10 when it comes out.