Need help deciding which component is better

RainGivingPain · Jul 13, 2015

I think the title says about enough. I'm referring to the last three component-sorts only (GPU, Motherboard, and Harddrive).

Case: Fractal Design Define S
Cooler: Silverstone Argon AR01
CPU: Intel Core i5 4590 3,3 GHz, 6MB
RAM: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) CL9 1600 Mhz, Blue
SSD: SSD 250GB Crucial BX100
Power Supply: Fractal Design Integra M 550W 80+ Bronze, Modular
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 390X Tri-X 8GB +/- EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX 2.0+ Cooling
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 +/- ASUS H81M-PLUS mATX
Harddrive: 1TB WD Blue 7200rpm 64MB +/- 1TB Toshiba 7200rpm 32MB¨

The last three sorts of components consist of two kinds each (marked with a bold +/- in-between), this is because I can't decide on which to go with. I won't be streaming games, I won't overclock and I won't go SLI. Does it matter much in gaming performance or at all? Other than that primary concern, additional advice is also welcome.

/// Thanks!

Mugglensu1984 · Jul 13, 2015

The Radeon R9 390X Tri-X 8GB competes with (and sometimes surpasses) the Nvidia GTX 980 4GB!!

So the choice is obvious the Radeon R9 390X Tri-X 8GB!!

Z97 chipset is for overclockers and gaming PCs. H81 is a low-budget chipset.

Buy the Z97 motherboard!!

WD Blue is very good.

cdrkf · Jul 13, 2015

My personal picks would be:

The 390X (double the memory and faster than a 970, albeit with higher power consumption I think this is a nice card).
[strike]ASUS motherboard (Asus kit is always top notch and lasts ages, although Gigbyte is also decent).[/strike] Mugglensu is correct actually the Z97 chipset is the better choice (doh!).
Toshiba HDD (the extra cache isn't going to make much difference to performance, and I've had 1 too many failures with WD drives to trust them, although I'd take a Segate HDD over either).

geofelt · Jul 13, 2015

I have a method to pick between equally performing products.
Go to newegg and find the candidates.
Filter on the most reviews by verified buyers.
Then look at what percent of the reviews have one or two eggs indicating some sort of a problem.
In particular, look at the reasons for a bad review. Some are not very valid, so exclude those.

On the graphics card, the 390X is a rebrand of 290X, so there are not many reviews.
In the past, R7/R9 cards have had a higher initial failure rate:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Failure-Rates-by-Generation-563/
I think EVGA GTX970 is more likely to be a good card for you.
Do not be swayed by Vram marketing.
VRAM has vecome a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, so there may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.

On the motherboard, Z97 is good, particularly if you might ever want to buy a "K" cpu for overclocking.
But, I think a H97 motherboard would be better.

I think WD blue is probably better , but I have no stats on that.
Look up the newegg reviews of each.

cdrkf · Jul 13, 2015

geofelt :

Ram (of any type) is only a problem when you run out. So in that 2gb / 4gb comparison there's little difference *however* many modern games are using much more vram (partly as a result of the consoles using more).

The 8gb of vram isn't much of a benefit *right now*, however it could very well be important in a year or two (and when buying a high end card this is an important consideration). The point is, if a game releases with super high resolution textures that use say 6gb of vram, any card with less than that will drop in performance *a lot* due to the card having to fetch data across the much slower pcie bus. A card like this with 8gb would simply keep on going- this is the main argument against AMD's new high end Fury cards, 4gb is kinda the lower limit I'd accept on a card I'm buying right now.

As for defects, as the 390X is based on the mature 290X I doubt it will be a problem as the GPU has been around for a while now. I still think at the same price the 390X is the better buy.

RainGivingPain · Jul 13, 2015

Mugglensu1984 :

cdrkf :

geofelt :

cdrkf :

I want to thank you all for your very insightful answers. Nice people, straight to the point, considerate, good, good, goodie good. I had to pick one official answer, but you all helped, really.

@geofelt Thanks for being thoughtful. I did the newegg thing with the GPUs but the 390X doesn't have a lot of reviews yet. The ones that do exist, though, seem to think it's pretty flawless except for its size and maybe it being too warm sometimes, but that doesn't bother me. I don't think issues will appear with any GPU I get because they check to make sure they work before they install them. Not only that but there's a 2-year guarantee, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

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