Upgrading My PC - Halp Me

I'm the type of person who, when upgrading something, will go all the way.

So I'm replacing my 560ti with a GTX980.

However I don't know as much about hardware as I should so I want to double check my system is ok otherwise.

My fan is my primary concern:
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler, Revision 2

I think my power supply is ok but you tell me:
Thermaltake ToughPower XT 775W Power Supply, 80 Plus, Cable Management

Case:
Thermaltake Commander MS-III Mid Tower Case

Motherboard:
Asus SABERTOOTH Z77 MB, Socket 1155, Intel Z77 Chipset, 4xDDR3, SATA3, USB3.0, PCI-E 3.0, HDMI, DP, GbLAN, 8 CH, TUFThermal Armor, RAID, ATX

Let me know if you need more information.

Also I'm selling my 560ti to a friend so if anyone has any idea what a fair price is that would be nice too because I can't find a reliable source besides Amazon.

Also I'd like to hear recommendations for which 980 to get. EVGA, Asus, MSI...?

775W should be fine. Unsure on the other points, but I always tend to get ASUS GeForce cards. Personal preference combined with whatever has been available at the time.

the only thing you should ever worry about when changing graphics is how much power you PSU supplies.

and in that respect I think you're good.

(sometimes with ATI you have to worry about weight and holding it up correctly, but that's not the case here..)

these higher end cards could do well with a closed loop WC, though.

Would be pretty awkward if my nice shiny GPU didn't fit in my case.

Just make a little shelf for it and cut a hole into your case, bam, DIY project of the century.

I wonder if you can make a computer inside of a liquid cooled cardboard box?

It's helpful advice like this that makes me glad I made a thread here.

You're welcome, I've been watching a lot of DIY shows lately. :>

(Please notice my sarcasm in all of this.)

.

You need a larger case, that one only supports CPU coolers up to 155mm in height while the 212 evo is 159mm.

I'd humbly suggest taking at look at https://pcpartpicker.com

It's really good at checking part compatibility.

Also I'm a massive ASUS fanboy so I'll aways recommend their internals - never had an ASUS product go wrong on me and they're incredibly resilient. I usually allow a price premium of upto 10% for ASUS vs. other manufacturers before I start considering other options.

I'm confused, are you only upgrading your GPU and you own all the other parts listed in the OP?

Yeah that tripped me up too. Looks like that's what he's up to. In any case the case is going to get a bit cramped I think.

Am I ok with the fan and motherboard? I don't want my 980 to:
A) Catch fire
B) not plug into the rest of my machine.

The 980 actually has the exact same real world power consumption as the 560 ti you're replacing. Apart from making sure your case can take a full size graphics card, which it can, nothing else should matter.

I think the 980 might still take two PCI-E power connections, which any 500+ watt power supply comes with. I didn't look to see if your power supply is modular, so make sure you have the extra cable around if it is. Some modular PCI-E cables have two plugs on them already too.

Yay! Is my cooling fan ok? That's what I'm most worried about.

PS:
If it doesn't fit or doesn't plug in you owe me a refund .


I'm having trouble deciding between the MSI 980 and the Asus 980. Any horrible things to say about MSI anyone?

I'm confused why you're worried about your fan. You didn't mention which CPU you have and I assume you're not over clocking. We use nearly 100% stock coolers in the office. The only reason to get an aftermarket cooler is for the noise, the cooling for overclocking, or the stock fan died.

If your current fan is running and the system isn't obviously overheating, it's fine.

As for MSI, Asus, EVGA, etc. the cheapest one is the best.

I'm worried because it was really cheap. I have an i5 2500k quad-core. I don't plan on overclocking, and my paranoia about my greatest love exploding will probably stop me from doing so, but I might.

Like I said, I don't know as much about PC hardware as I should.

"Obviously overheating" means the computer is screaming warnings at me, right? I had a few fan warnings (low rpm) for a while when I first got my PC but it eventually got up to levels that didn't make the computer bleep and it hasn't happened in a long time.

The 212 Evo is the best in its price range.

You usually don't get warnings for overheating components. When the computer gets too hot it simply shuts itself down
An I5-2500k core is a pretty good core, I still have an i5-750 which runs everything fine And you really shouldn't worry about your cooling fan unless your CPU gets to 60 or 70 degrees on normal load. You can easily check that with some programs like MSI afterburner or whatever.

And for GPU brand, it really doesn't matter. I have a MSI GTX 770 in my pc which I choose because this MSI one was the cheapest and because its fan was among the most quiet ones. Now I don't even hear any increase in noise when my GPU goes to 100% load with benchmarking, and the temperature stays at a nice 60 degrees.

Another thing that might be different among brands is clock speed, but that doesn't matter because you can simply overclock it if you want/dare.

For your PSU, your powersupply is great, I only have 600 W inside and I run my i5-4690k and GTX770 without problems. Your GPU uses even less power than mine so as long as you have those power cables Ben mentioned, you'll be fine

And finally, I wouldn't sell your GTX 560ti for more than 100 euros since the GTX750ti costs 109 euros and is much newer and almost equally powerful. http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-750-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-560-Ti/2187vs2180

$220 (150 euros) for two of them fair? I bought an extra one off a friend but never got around to setting up SLI and now that the 980's out I feel that just getting it is the best way to go.

For the record I have an Asus 560ti and an MSI (the twin frozr one) 560ti (would SLI even work between two different manufacturers...?)

You can SLI two cards of different brands without problems. The slowest card will determine the speed of both cards though. Alias if one is running on 1ghz and the other 1.1 ghz, both will run at 1 ghz

And I think that price is fine for a sli setup, maybe a bit on the high end. But that is because I would prefer buying a new card as well