PC Gaming Rig - Feedback

[Etkini]

I don't feel 16GB of DDR3 is too much.. it's pretty cheap right now so why not get it when you can? If you don't feel like you're using all of it, turn half of it into a RAM drive. The downside it, you'll have to also set up a program to reinstall whatever you had on the RAM drive at every boot, but on the plus side performance-wise it'll blow any HDD or SSD out of the water.

 

As for the GTX560Ti vs GTX570 discussion, two GTX560Tis ($400) is 20%+ faster than a single GTX580. Unless you're running a resolution higher than 1920x1080 or 1900x1200, more than 1GB of video RAM isn't really necessary.. there's only a few games out right now that can even take advantage of it (Metro 2033, GTA IV, Crysis 2), and I can guarantee by the time you'll really NEED to use the full 2GB of video RAM, your CPU will be the bottleneck. What resolution do you plan on playing at mostly?

 

Also, have you looked at Z68 as opposed to P67? Pros\cons of each, that is? Not that there's real cons of either, but with the particular motherboard you have, if you chose to, you couldn't do SLI or Crossfire.

[FMod]

The downside it, you'll have to also set up a program to reinstall whatever you had on the RAM drive at every boot, but on the plus side performance-wise it'll blow any HDD or SSD out of the water.

Except, what are you going to put there? Anything stored on a ramdrive, even with a save/load utility, will often have the changes or the entire data lost, should the PC crash. You can't fit a game like Skyrim there, because it won't fit. You can't fit part of it with junctions, because they'll be lost and take a lot of work to recreate. Finally, nothing you put there will really be any faster than on SSD.

So there are very few uses for a ramdrive the size you'd reasonably have.

[Etkini]

My PC copy of Skyrim takes up 6GB of space.. If you had 16GB of RAM, 8-10GB devoted to a RAM drive would give you more than enough. For someone like me who leaves my PC on 24/7, and after the initial OC'ing rarely gets a crash, it's not a bad option...as it'll stay installed.

 

With that said, there is no negative for having too much RAM. With it being as cheap as it is, throwing an extra $50 for another 8GB of PC3-1600 RAM isn't an insane adventure for most. Not that they're related, but look at the HDD prices of last year before the flood.. $49 for a 1TB harddrive. Now the prices are $150-200+, I see people selling HDDs left and right making a big profit. Technology is always changing...when I built my last rig three years ago I fell into that "Aww, 2GB of DDR2 is all I'll ever need!" bandwagon and a year later DDR3 became popular, prices shot up. DDR4 is expected to become popular in the next year or two, I can see the same thing happening. Rather to have and not need, than need and not have..

 

Unless of course you upgrade every year or two..then the point is nix.

[FMod]

My PC copy of Skyrim takes up 6GB of space..

Do you have the HD pack installed?

But Skyrim doesn't benefit from a ramdrive anyway - I tried, no difference, if it shaved a second or two from start time, it wasn't noticeable - so it isn't really important.

 

$50 isn't a lot, but it's the difference between no SSD and a 30GB SSD, or stock cooling and Thermalright Macho, or GTX560Ti stock and 560Ti-448core-custom cooling.

 

 

DDR4 is expected to become popular in the next year or two, I can see the same thing happening.

DDR4 is expected to become available after two more years (2014). That's available, not popular. Haswell will still use DDR3, by extension so will Broadwell (its shrink).

[LS2GTO2006]

Thanks for the feedback...

 

I have yhi

[LS2GTO2006]

Thanks for the feedback...

 

I have thought about returning 8GB of ram, because I don't know if 16GB is totally necessary. I have a nice mouse and keyboard set, no ball mouse here. :)

 

It is necessary to get an after market heat sink fan? I do not overclock my machines so I didn't get one. I always thought if you were overclocking it is obviously best, but if not its not necessary.

[pwnedbyscope]

I would assume he would use the peripherals from his last gaming rig, but you do have a good point. A nice monitor can make or break the feeling of a game.

ROTFLMAO just imagine a current super video card on a 17" monitor (not even a flatscreen)

 

using ps-2 mouse - that needs the ball cleaned every 10 hours :wallbash:

 

:laugh:

 

I don't think I could even imagine it!

 

A little old tube monitor hooked up to a beast rig running crossfire 7970's and a track ball mouse. The though of that made me crack up. I have though about getting an older mouse for games like Wolfenstein and doom though. A High dpi computer mouse doesn't seem to feel quite right.

sad thing is i know someone who has a setup like that, not crossfire but a 580 ti on a monitor from 1995

[hoofhearted4]

It is necessary to get an after market heat sink fan? I do not overclock my machines so I didn't get one. I always thought if you were overclocking it is obviously best, but if not its not necessary.

 

nope, not necessary at all bro. youll be fine on stock cooling. if you have te extra money you can get a nice cheap heatsink like the Hyper 212+. its a cheap heatsink but very good. youll see some lower temps and itll be quieter esp if you ever swap out the fans. but again, not necessary

[FMod]

I have thought about returning 8GB of ram, because I don't know if 16GB is totally necessary.

Not something you'd bother with a return for really. While 16GB isn't necessary, it might become useful someday. Just low return on investment.

 

 

It is necessary to get an after market heat sink fan? I do not overclock my machines so I didn't get one. I always thought if you were overclocking it is obviously best, but if not its not necessary.

It's preferable if you have ears. If you can't hear your stock cooler as it is, fine, don't bother.

But an aftermarket heatsink can be SILENT. Scythe Mine 2 for instance can run a CPU with turbo off all day without a fan, only spinning up to a 600rpm whisper when it uses turbo. Thermalright Macho doesn't work fanless, but it also works fine with 600rpm.

 

Though, why pay extra for a 2500K and not say 2400 if you're not going to overclock it? O/c these CPU is pretty easy, as long as you have an adequate heatsink. You can just go into BIOS or a mobo-supplied program, change Turbo Boost multipliers from 34,35,36,37 respectively to say 36,38,40,42. This is the preferred method of overclocking Sandy Bridge CPU.

This way the CPU runs at stock clock almost all of the time, and only goes higher when needed. Spacing the multipliers apart keeps system power consumption down, full 4.2GHz will be reached when only one core is in use.

 

On the other hand there are drawbacks to overclocking, such as slower system startup (it might reboot a few times), so don't do it just for the sake of it either, if you don't have any CPU-demanding tasks like playing Skyrim or encoding video as of now.

 

Also, the stock heatsink is too weak for comfortable overclocking, they package the same one-piece aluminum extrusion with every CPU, starting with lowly 2GHz dual-cores, for which it's great, and up to quad-core 4GHz monsters on the top, for which it isn't.

Intel actually uses a tower heatsink when they make i7 builds - http://en.expreview.com/2010/06/09/intel-original%E2%80%9Ctower-%E2%80%9Dradiator-coming-to-light-silently/7143.html - not the tiny round trash. Still uses the same shroudless fan (which is only done to save money, a shroud is good), but Intel doesn't trust the sink they bundle.