Water Cooling R7 GPU or nVidia?

Okay guys/gals... BIG QUESTION... probably asked a gazilion times...

I am in the process of building a new gaming rig. Mine is absolutely quite old yet performs well.. I just want the newest tech I can get with a budget of $2000.

So I have most items purchased or picked out for the build.. However I am wondering?


Radeon or nVidia?

After looking at options for GPU's and not wanting to spend more than $150-$200 on a vid card, I also wanted the option to water cool the GPU as well...

The problem I find is with Radeon R7 cards is that water blocks are not "full size" and only cover the GPU.

Do you tech gurus know of any nVidia cards that will work on a Kaveri APU based system?

And can utilize a full water block?

From different forums and many hours of reading, it was written that a Kaveri APU has a R7 GPU built in, with that said, a R9 card can not be used together with the APU's GPU in a crossfire setup...

...That you have to turn off the onboard GPU of the APU to use the R9 card

OR

Use an R7 card to be used with the built in APU's GPU...

So in closing, just asking if you know of a nVidia GPU that will give me the kind of boost in performance as if I were to use a R7 GPU in crossfire with the APU's GPU setup...

Thanks everyone!

I have some questions regarding what you're trying to do.  Firstly why if you have a 2k budget are you going with an apu?  The apu systems are lower end tier and for 2k you could get a decent system, also a system with dedicated cpu/gpu will outperform a apu gpu setup.  Also you mentioned that you wanted to water cool around a $200 card. I would highly suggest against doing that as the money you spend on a block and necessary hardware will be better spent on a better card.  Is your 2k budget for literally everything (all peripherals, monitor, keyboard mouse case etc etc) ala is this a complete from scratch build?

.... you've got $2000 to spend on a system... so... why are you even piddling with the thought of an APU crossfired with a R7 GPU?

for $2000 you should be thinking something along these lines... http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3dLdn

+1.

But you could even go cheaper just to grab an FX8350. and spend the money you save on a nice 1440P monitor. because an i7-4930K is abit pointless for gaming ☺

And this would be that build!

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3dO1V

Under $2000 USD!

Sorry for such confusion...

Already purchased:

3x Asus 23" VN247H-P monitors

Razer Black Widow Stealth 2014 Keyboard

Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X Motherboard

G.Skill Sniper 2133Mhz 16GB DDR3 Ram (4x4GB)

WD Black2 SSD+HDD...

And yes Nihilyst this is a scratch build... complete custom setup...

Hope that helps...

Sorry for such confusion...

Already purchased:

3x Asus 23" VN247H-P monitors

Razer Black Widow Stealth 2014 Keyboard

Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X Motherboard

G.Skill Sniper 2133Mhz 16GB DDR3 Ram (4x4GB)

WD Black2 SSD+HDD...

And yes this is a scratch build... complete custom setup...

I had be looking at the A10 processors (APU) because of the latest "Mantle" that is coming out... Seeing as how newer games will be taking advantage of that...

As for the $2000, I have about $1100 left I want to spend.. So I knew going into water cooling would be expensive but it's my first time trying water cooling and I like to try new things...

Thanks Everyone for the help!

Even without a budget of $1100, you're going to be far better off going with a CPU + GPU instead of an APU.  I assume you're looking at doing a custom water cooling set up, which to be honest isn't really worth the money unless one wants to do some extreme overclocking - but you're probably like me, and just want to do it for fun. An APU is only really justified if you're going for a less than $500 build, as a $500 build can have a CPU and GPU that will perform better than an APU.

Also, a note on mantle - the only thing that is required to utilize it is an AMD GCN GPU. You don't need an AMD CPU to use it. Also, the largest performance gains are on CPU bottlenecked systems, which for the most part are low end (or systems with 4 GPUs). Also, there's only two games that utilize Mantle, so I wouldn't depend on it too much.

Thanks Morgoth780.

For me, I was looking at watercooling for the quietness of it... And yes, custom loop, So then a A10 would probably be best?

In my old system I have here, I have a Zalman Air Cooler ... An AMD Athlon x64 Dual Core (stock clock is 2.7Ghz but I have been running it stable even with games at 3.0Ghz)...

I will probably then end up getting an A10 CPU and then a dedicated GPU to go with it because after reading some forums, the Gigabyte G1 Sniper will not boot with a Kaveri in place "IF" the bios has not be flashed with the latest update...

Thanks I will keep you all updated as to my progress...

 

The thing is that if you're getting a dedicated GPU, there's no reason to get an APU since the iGPU won't be used. I'd look at getting something like an Athlon X4 760k or going to an AM3+ setup with an FX 4300 or 6300. The Athlon is basically an APU without the iGPU, and it retails for ~$90 (USD) which saves you $50+ (depending on the APU you were planning on).

Watercooling isn't always quiet.  I'd say that a good aircooler will almost always be quieter than a watercooled loop.  An air cooler has lets mechanical points of failure, usually making them more reliable.  Water coolers often have some pump noise, which may or may not bug you depending on the quality of the pump/AIO you get.  Full custom loops are expensive, and I would only suggest them if you had a very, very large budget and wanted to try it out.

AMD FM2/FM2+ CPUs aren't all that powerful.  Even the A10-7850k's compute performance is still far behind Intel's i5s.  Also, your GPU should be one of the most expensive things in your build.  Limiting its price will limit performance to a very large extent.  And to think that you'll be using 3 monitors off an A10 and R7 dual graphics.  You'll need much, much more graphics horsepower to run those.

You've spent a lot of money in the wrong places.  I would be tempted to say that all the parts you have now are highly imbalanced.  If you could return your things and start anew, it would be much, much better.

If you can't, I suppose we can try to work with what you have here.  I would grab a CPU, such as the Athlon X4 760k, as the integrated GPU won't be used if you have a dedicated graphics card.  If you have any money leftover, you could get a A10-7850k to try and take advantage of HSA.  Still, with your 1.1k budget leftover, you can get a powerful GPU.  I would suggest a R9 290/290X IF THEY ARE NOT OVERPRICED.  These cards are great for high resolutions.  A GTX 780 will also be an alright choice.  However, in current days, a strong GPU + decent CPU will get you much farther in gaming than using Dual Graphics technology or skimping out on the GPU.

+1 .... if you can just return the motherboard you could get the FX 8320 and a nice GPU... I seriously doubt the A10 7850k and R7 will give you decent frame rates on a triple monitor setup... they're great for $500 builds for price/performance and will get you playable sub-60 fps on medium settings in a single monitor setup for games with demanding graphics such as BF4... if you throw on two more monitors it'll be a huge disappointment for $2000 spent...

if you can, I'd look to start from scratch... if not, take the mobo back and that should give you plenty to deck out the rig with.... you REALLY don't want to end up spending $2000 and end up with an APU or Athlon X4 760k... 

Haha looks cool.

only one thing i wanne mention to it.. the Asrock 990FX extreme 3 motherboard with only 4+1 powerphase and realy cheap vrm´s is realy Rubbish.

Change the board to an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0, and then im realy happy lol

Grtz Angel ☺