OTOY Forums

Hi All,

I'm building my PC Rig for Octane. Bit of a newb but trying my best to work this out.

So my main question is whether to buy the MSI 980ti with reference cooler design (1.0GHz) core clock.
http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-vid ... x980ti6gd5

Or should I get the $80 more expensive non-reference cooler MSI 980ti with 1.18GHz core clock.
http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-vid ... tigaming6g

On the surface surely the higher the speed the better? But thanks to Tom Glimps site I'm starting to understand this isn't necessarily the case.
From what I understand the reference cooler pushes hot air out of the machine whereas the non-reference cooler pushes it back inside the case which could throttle my GPU speed.

So I'm looking for clarity - should I buy the cheaper reference design even with its lower clock speed for cooling sake?

This is my case and parts list:
http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/6CJJ4D

The next thing I'd love to know (since I based this off my gamer friends rig) is do I even need the CPU cooler my friend recommended?
- NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
and if not will I need any kind of cooling in this machine, assuming I go 2 x reference cooler cards?

Finally, 1000w PSU- enough for two of these cards?

Thanks a million!

sincerly, confused.