At which point will the amount of ram not be a bottleneck in games?

[jtvang125]

Gonna go with a 5870CF setup. I also picked up a q8400 and 4gb of ddr2-1066. 4gb should be plenty for today's games right?

 

[jdjbuffalo]

Yes, there are very few games that even use more than 2GB of RAM. Although, i would make sure you are running a 64bit OS (Vista or Windows 7). Otherwise you are only getting about 3.25GB.

 

[Blain]

Although, i would make sure you are running a 64bit OS (Vista or Windows 7). Otherwise you are only getting about 3.25GB.

A 32-bit Windows XP OS or even a 64-bit Vista will both prison-rape your memory...
XP, because it won't use all 4GB's and Vista, because it's such a huge resource hog.
64-bit Windows 7 is the only way to go!

 

[pjkenned]

1. Run Win 7 x64.
2. Depends on the game and display resolution, along with what else you are driving. I'm guessing you are doing multi-monitor 1920x1200 or higher resolution with that much GPU power. Some high resolution games + OS + a web browser or two will eat 4GB of memory fairly quick. Realistically, you want as much cached there as possible.
3. If you had 6GB, I would say you are going to run into a CPU bottleneck well before RAM.

 

[Qbah]

I really hope you're gonna OC that Q8400 sky-high with the 2xHD5870 setup... It's a 2.66GHz 4MB cache last-gen quad-core... Far from a speed demon, especially for CrossFired HD5870s.

As for 4GB RAM, that's plenty for anything. Make sure you're running Win7 x64 for best gaming experience.

 

[Rifter]

the CPU will become the bottleneck, OC the hell out of it.