I've been working on building a gaming PC. The hole graphics card thing is making me double guess what I should get. I have made 3 builds and can't figure out what one would be the best for gaming. I may add another graphics card down the road to run dual graphic cards, So keep that in mind. I would like some input. Although the price is high on the first one because of the hard drive and cpu cooler. What one do you think would be the best? Also what is Duel SLI and what does it do? What one do you think would work the best. I think build 2 would look the coolest just because it would match the best, but that's not really what I'm going for. I'm going for the best computer I can buy on my budget. Any input is welcome. Also what is the point of running dual graphics cards if both cards have to store the same stuff? Does it improve your performance at all?
i would go with the second one according to benchmark it compete against a nvidia gtx 770 and seam like the best value for the money but that just my opinion thought
The new AMD cards are a little confusing. The 285 is designed to replace the 280. Slightly different specs and lower VRAM though.
The 285 competes with the GTX 760 and really smacks it around and can actually beat the 770 in some games. The 280X (Although a smaller number) is actually more powerful and directly competes with the 770. Beating it 9/10 times and is cheaper.
Here this is what you want ... If what you want is an Intel based rig ... keep in mind that some prices have changed for some of the parts you had selected. This will game strong for $1000 ... can be OCed .. no need for SLI or Crossfire graphics.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XNGqNG
Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM CPU cooler
MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM
Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card
Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl)
XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
I included a 1TB WD blue HDD in the build ... but you can add it later if you can not afford it now. And I killed the water cooler .. totally unnecessary unless you plan on overclocking in the near future. If you do not plan to overclock ... you could save about $40 on the motherboard and stay within budget.
I do plan on overclocking. Also later on down the road could I add another card (when I come up with the money). Also what is 2 way crossfire? What does it do? I moved some stuff around. Could I add another card with that power supply? Heres what I changed. Input is welcome :) http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Gw68P6
The price to performance is better suited to AMD on rigs of $1000 or less. And it is complete ... no additional costs are needed ... good all around PC that will game strong.
two way crossfire is adding a second Gigabyte R9 290 Windforce and linking them. Honestly ... with this GPU it is not necessary if you are not using multiple 1440p monitors. It will run most games on max settings at 1080p.
The watercooling is unnecessary and kinda 'meh' ... and you do not have a storage drive,
The R9 290 4GB GPU will perform better than the ones you were looking at. It is quite powerful and works as well on AMD or Intel platforms. Both the rigs I suggested will out perform the ones you were considering.
If you plan to do serious OCing you should consider a watercooler with a larger radiator. Beyond this my knowledge of watercoolers is limited as I prefer not to use them. I do not attempt (or recommend) anything but medium light OCing.