Predicted bottleneck: CPU or RAM?

[honolululu]

I was reading some of the great advice here and was wondering if I could get some of my own. I need advice on choice of RAM and CPU I guess. I'm going to be gaming mostly: Civ IV, COH, FEAR...

Already bought in bold.

Mobo: GA-P35C-DS3R rev 1.1
GPU: MSI 8800 GTX OC
PSU: Antec quad 850W (over powered but only $150)
HDD: Seagate 250GB SATA Drive Barracuda 7200.10
OS: windows xp home
CPU: looking to OC an e4300 to around 2.5-3 GHz
HSF: Tuniq Tower 120
RAM: either Crucial 4GB kit (2GBx2), 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-5300 ~ $264 shipped

or

Mushkin 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) ~$300 w/shipping

The mushkin's look faster but they aren't on the supported memory list.

I figure I ride the cpu hard and maybe get a newer one at a better grade in about a year. I need the 4 gigs of ram for Civ IV: BTS which does have the /3GB flag set.

Thanks for reading all this. Any comments will be appreciated.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Sounds and looks like a sweet system!!
Iwould say off the top of my head if there was a bottlench if you are buying top quality RAM that your CPU will be the bottleneck!!

There are those who will say your PSU is overkill and will tell you to get a Corsair PSU....
If you have your heart set on the Antec....I think you will be happy!!!

Also you might dig around a little...I believe there are several sites that address any questions you might have about your RAM and compatability issues as well as O/C...
Good Luck!!

 

[duragezic]

Wouldn't 4GB be a waste with a 32-bit OS like XP Home?

 

[Blain]

HD

 

[Modelworks]

Looks nice.
I would go with the mushkin.
It may not be on the list but I doubt you will have issues with it.

Originally posted by: duragezic
Wouldn't 4GB be a waste with a 32-bit OS like XP Home?

Nope, you get the benefit if the software has the 3g option set.

Anyone aware of a list of software with the option ?
I know they added it to lotro.

 

[theYipster]

Keep in mind that you won't be able to utilize much past 3-3.2 (maybe 3.5) gigs of RAM on a 32-bit version of Windows. If you're set on buying four gigs of RAM, you must run a 64-bit version of Windows. Vista x64 is a far more mature platform than XP-64, and Vista itself has come a long way over the last nine months.

As for the RAM speed, you'll definitely want the faster RAM for an E4300, especially since you'll be running at a 1:1 divider on that DS3R.

Mark.

 

[zach0624]

I agree with yipster go with vista 64 especially since the drivers have improved so much in the last couple of months. This will allow you to use all of your $200+ investment in ram (it seems like overkill to me) and from what I have heard xp 64 isn't that great. I would also be careful with xp home if you decide to go with it because I have heard both it works and doesn't work with dual cores.

 

[honolululu]

Thanks for all the comments everybody!

Makes sense JEDIYoda. I've gone all this way, think I'll order the e6750.

And maybe I need another drive for a raid setup Blain. Thanks.

Let me run this by everyone.

e6750 2.66Ghz/(1333Mhz/4) = 8 x multiplier.

So if I can kick the FSB up to let's say 400mhz*8=3.2 Ghz, and the RAM would be going at 800/2= 400mhz at 1:1.

But I've seen RAM speeds of 533Mhz in some reviews. Is that where a divider would come in, or I guess you just keep bumping up the bus? So in a perfect world 533*8=whoa 4.2 Ghz