[Silmatharien]

I've been out of the hardware loop for a few years but this is the system I've been mulling over:

CPU: Core i5 750
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3
Video card: XFX Radeon 5870
RAM: Some G-Skill

I already have some other parts like the hard drive and a 600w Antec PSU left over from my old PC which I think should be more than sufficient.


I'm going to be using this system primarily for gaming as well as a bit of coding and HTPC stuff. Games will probably include Crysis, RPGs, and Splinter Cell off the top of my head. As I'm going with a P55 motherboard, I'm really limited to 4GB or 8GB in order to stay in dual channel. I also plan on OCing this system. I was looking at this RAM in particular:

G.SKILL PI 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (6-8-6-24) for $140 CAD.

I think there is a comparable 4x2GB set of the same RAM but it is $270 CAD.

My main question is: Is there any reason at this point that I should be considering buying the 8 gigs at this point vs. the 4?

[jgv115]

Just get the 4.

4 is the perfect amount of RAM to have atm.

[tinymouse2]

Is there a point for 8GB right about now? Doubtful. I haven't maxed out my 4GB yet unless I'm being silly and loading up 4 games at the same time :P

Also 8GB will limit your overclock compared to the 4GB. You'll be wanting to overclock that i5 to about 3.6GHz to remove the bottleneck from your 5870.

So I would go for 4GB to get the maximum overclock

[SpoonXps]

Is 6gigs not an option? I think 6 is perfect.

[Mr.Guvernment]

i5 is dual channel not tri.

4G should suffice, even when i had 8 G and i multitask like no other, i think i only hit 4-5G with VM's running.

[SpoonXps]

Originally Posted by Mr.Guvernment

i5 is dual channel not tri.

4G should suffice, even when i had 8 G and i multitask like no other, i think i only hit 4-5G with VM's running.

I understand it's not tri...but he can go 1x2gig and 1x4gig or 2x1 with 2x2.

[Trap05]

There's no point in spending the extra money as stated 4GB is the sweet spot

[tinymouse2]

Originally Posted by SpoonXps

I understand it's not tri...but he can go 1x2gig and 1x4gig or 2x1 with 2x2.

Yeh no real point in doing that. If you're going to do that you might as well go for 8GB.
4GB is the sweet spot at the moment. If you can get 8GB and you can still overclock it to the same level then you should do that. Unfortunatly unless you have a couple of mates with some spare DDR3 you're not going to be able to do this.

At the end of the day it's your choice if you want to go between moar RAMz or moar ovurclokz. Since you need about 3.7GB maximum at the moment I would go for 4 but 2x2GB so you have the choice of an extra 2x2GB in the future (you will need it sometime soon).

[Silmatharien]

Thanks for all the opinions. I was really leaning towards 4 anyhow. I would have done 6 but I want to do dual channel so that's out for me. As for 8 GB, to get 2x4GB DIMMs would have been really expensive and I do want to get a good OC out of this system.

I never multitask a ton. If I game, I'm going to turn everything else off so that I get the best performance anyway.

[diaz]

If you have money for 4G sticks, get yourself the 8G's and be done with it. Oh, and GTX 470. Tesselation beast. DX11... *wink*elbow*

-D

[tinymouse2]

You con't have to get 2x4GB, just get 4x2GB. A lot cheaper and better performance (as far as I know, if you have to shoot me down please go easy )