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Stop me before I make a huge mistake!

S

Super King

Junior Member
I'm buying a desktop for the first time in many years. And I mean MANY. I'll be using it for general multimedia applications, but I also want to get back into gaming. I've been a little out of the loop when it comes to hardware, but have been doing some research online. Now I am in what seems to be the usual position of wanting a good setup, for a good price, without having to upgrade again in 6-12 months. So I'm thinking of the following combination:

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q iP45 (Because it has DDR3 support and I reckon I'll be ableto use this board for a long timeyet)
CPU: E8400 3Ghz (Although I've been toying with the idea of just going with a 2.66Ghz Q9450, which is where your advice would be helpful)
Graphics Card: Radeon HD E4870
RAM: Initially, I guess just 2GB DDR2 1033 (Or should I just go straight 4GB?)In either case, which is better 2 sticks using dual channel, or just one? (Or 4x 1GB if Igo 4GB?)

You guys would know what alternatives I could be looking at here, or if there are any incompatibility issues here that I don't know about. I also know that I should look at someadvancedcooling options with the Radeon card.

Anyway, thanks in advance for the help, and please, be as critical as you like!
 
If you go with the E8400 don't worry about DDR3 it won't make a difference in performance (in may only degrade it due to latency). For gaming and media use a dual core will be more than able to handle the workload for the next few years while we wait for software to become more multi-threaded. I would also suggest going with 4GB of RAM even if you don't go with a 64bit OS. RAM is cheap and its better to have a 2x2GB configuration and not populate all four DIMMs with a RAM upgrade later. Hope that helps.
 
Sure does! Thanks!

Another question though. Which is more important when it comes to RAM? Timing or speed? I've been told not to get anything slower than 4-4-4-12, but I can only find that in the 800Mhz chips. All the 1066Mhz RAM I've found has been 5-5-5-15. Which is "better"? 🙂
 
Thanks for the heads up! It is a great post indeed. Confirms all my suspicions and has pretty much given me what I need to make an informed decision. Thanks again!
 
With Intel chips timings are never as big a deal as with AMD chips. Intel processors tend to favor the higher bandwidth RAM. If you are planning on clocking your CPU and FSB then you may want to look into good ram (but don't bother w/ DDR3). If not I suggest DDR2 800Mhz or 1066Mhz. If you are not overclocking the chip and FSB then don't go over DDR2 1066 because the gains are minimal. The same is true with timings and RAM you will only see a less then a percent gain in performance (so its not worth the time or money).
 
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