Upgrades to come, could use advice

[cdyoung1985]

Got financial aid coming in sometime in January, and putting some towards the pc, and more towards the Harley lol. Next week I'm hoping to get an i5 4690K, and that's probably my last upgrade until I get that money in.

Upgrades interested in:
GPU, either 2nd 7970, or 1 card better than running that in dual
i7 4790K
8 more gigs of ram, or 2 8 gig sticks since I have 2x4 right now, 1866 mhz
Liquid cooling, cpu and gpu's?
SSD
Fans
Fan dust covers

If you had roughly $500, what would you do? May be able to do $800, since the Harley won't be going down the road until after my tax return anyways lol

 

[trents]

Why do you need 16 gb of RAM? Unless you do a heck of a lot of multitasking or run very memory demanding apps like Photoshop or CAD it will not improve the performance of your system.

 

[Theocnoob]

4790K (with bios update)
Fast SSD
second 7970 (or 280X afaik they can Xfire)

$650 ish

 

[cdyoung1985]

Why do you need 16 gb of RAM? Unless you do a heck of a lot of multitasking or run very memory demanding apps like Photoshop or CAD it will not improve the performance of your system.

I've read the card works best with 8 gigs, so thinking having 2, that should double?
http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/?gid=670&graphics=Radeon HD 7970
And if I'm dropping another $350 on my cpu, at least $100 on another used 7970, not sure how much on a real ssd, read the thing wrong, and it's just a 2.5" sata disk drive, pissed me off, found a 240 gig SSD for I think like $87, then what's another $80 on another 8 gigs of ram.

I believe you are better to have both slots on a channel used, correct? Right now I have both slots of channel A with 4gb 1866 ddr3, and believe that adding just 1 more of the same thing to the other channel, and an empty slot loses something for some reason? Could be very wrong, but I'd probably at least want 1 more stick, which I got for I $40, or get a set of 2 8gb sticks for $160, and sell the ones I have now, along with my current cpu, the G3258, and the i3 4150 I ordered today so I don't have to wait until I have at least $250 for the I5 4690k, or $350-400 for the i7 4790k.

I do run Solidworks from time to time, haven't touched CAD in a long time. But I also have typically 10+ tabs on Firefox open, and with a lot of games I'll switch from the game to look something up quick, though after I get my 2nd card, I'll have my 42" tv as my main screen, and then my smaller probably 20something" with Firefox for walkthroughs, and also with some games, like Watch Dogs I'll listen to music while playing the game. Long story short, RAM isn't that expensive, and would rather have too much for now, than use all of what I have...

- - - Updated - - -

4790K (with bios update)
Fast SSD
second 7970 (or 280X afaik they can Xfire)

$650 ish

They do Crossfire, just dunno if there's a card out there that performs as well as 2 7970's, without spending another $300 on just the card lol

 

[Witchdoctor]

if your board has an M.2 slot I would grab an XP941 and a GTX970 , sell off the 7970 and grab a 2666 8GB kit

 

[Theocnoob]

Team Xtreem Cas 11 2666 is $160 for 16GB.

 

[cdyoung1985]

Well I just ordered an i3 4150 for it's hyperthreads so I can play DA Inq, got it for $100, but it's only a temporary upgrade, still going i7 in Jan, and am thinking about going with the gtx 970, but those 2 items and I'm at $6-700, and if I go with the gtx, I should have 12gb ram according to Game Debate, which is another $160 I believe, but I can recoup about $70 or so for my current ram I believe....

 

[trents]

What video card you choose should have no bearing on the amount of system RAM you run. Not sure I follow that reasoning.

 

[Theocnoob]

What video card you choose should have no bearing on the amount of system RAM you run. Not sue I follow that reasoning.

Agreed

 

[cdyoung1985]

Go to http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php?gid=2438&graphics=GeForce GTX 970 4GB

Look a few lines down on the right... Dunno how much it matters, or if it's complete bull, but I've seen it on all the reviews on their site, not sure about the others...

 

[trents]

Go to http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php?gid=2438&graphics=GeForce GTX 970 4GB

Look a few lines down on the right... Dunno how much it matters, or if it's complete bull, but I've seen it on all the reviews on their site, not sure about the others...

Not sure I see what you are referring to. Some guy was advising another guy to add 4 gigs of RAM to his system but that was because he only had 4 gb system RAM to start with. That's another issue.

 

[rayraysfunhouse]

Your GPU has memory for a reason.

 

[cdyoung1985]

Under GPU Features, the 9th line has it... Seemed kinda odd to me, being that the card has I believe 4gb of ram, but I dunno lol. Also recommends an i7 4770k cpu, though I'm probably getting the 4790k, unless the 70 is much cheaper....

 

[trents]

Under GPU Features, the 9th line has it... Seemed kinda odd to me, being that the card has I believe 4gb of ram, but I dunno lol. Also recommends an i7 4770k cpu, though I'm probably getting the 4790k, unless the 70 is much cheaper....

You mean, "Best RAM match 8gb"? Garbage. The amount of system RAM has nothing to do with the performance of the video card per se. It may impact the overall performance of the system but only if there is not enough RAM.

 

[cdyoung1985]

Do you really have to buy your ram in a pack anytime you want more? Why do they not recommend just getting 4 of the exact same stick, rather than saying you have to get all the sticks in the same package?

 

[rayraysfunhouse]

I am a little confused as to what exactly you are asking..

 

[trents]

Do you really have to buy your ram in a pack anytime you want more? Why do they not recommend just getting 4 of the exact same stick, rather than saying you have to get all the sticks in the same package?

It is best to buy RAM in matched pairs. If you have four slots and you are currently occupying only two of them you can add more RAM by buying a matched pair to fill the two empty slots. It's best if they are of the same brand and timing of the original pair but if you go with another brand try to get them with the same timing and voltage as the first pair. If there is too much difference between the two pairs you may have instability problems and may limit overclocking potential. If you are mixing brands and models at least make sure the two sticks in each pair are the same.

"Dual Channel" kits ensure you are getting a matched pair, made during the same production run.

 

[cdyoung1985]

So since I have 2 sticks of G. Skill Rimpjaws X DDR3 1866 9-10-9-28 1.5V, if I get 2 more of the same one I should be ok right? Hoping so, because I don't want to have to sell these, and buy a different set, makes no sense to me lol.

 

[Theocnoob]

So since I have 2 sticks of G. Skill Rimpjaws X DDR3 1866 9-10-9-28 1.5V, if I get 2 more of the same one I should be ok right? Hoping so, because I don't want to have to sell these, and buy a different set, makes no sense to me lol.

Yes all sticks should be identical for best results. If you buy the identical kit again it will be fine.

 

[bob4933]

If you're gaming and general computer tasks, your 8gb is fine. If anything, just get another 2 of the same sticks if you desperately want the 8 extra gb that won't do anything for you.