I figured my money would be much better spent upgrading to non-stone-age technology. Though since I'm relatively broke I can't get all the bells and whistles I want right off the bat, but basically just for starters I've picked this which I can get for just over $500 (while keeping my HDDs, case and all other junk):
I've done my research and while the CPU choice is a no-brainer, the mobo has excellent reviews and is a stable overclocking platform and is tomshardware.com's benchmarking Socket 1366 mobo.
Anyways, I can't decide on which RAM to get. The mobo supports DDR3 2000/1600/1333. 2000 and 1600 is overclocked though, but I'm trying to not spend over $100 in RAM for the time being. I just want the bare minimums for my computer to run with a Core i7 for now, which is why i'm not getting a massive GPU or SATA drives just yet.
So far I've found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161314 It seems reasonably priced and mildly overclockable, obviously slower ram/less memory is cheaper but I want no less than 6gb and DDR1333. Using this RAM, CPU and mobo combo should cost me just shy of $600.
So, I ask you, fellow computer geeks, is this a smart buy overall?
Wagz From United States of America, joined Mar 2003, 504 posts, RR: 18 Reply 1, posted (4 years 2 months 15 hours ago) and read 1395 times:
I don't know a whole lot about this new age of RAM, but since you mention you're using your old hard drives for now (and I assume an old OS on it), I hope you have some 64 bit OS on there. 32 bit OS's like XP Home and Vista Home can only address in the neighborhood of 3GB or so of RAM (depending on other hardware in your system). So your 6GB of RAM will be very wasted otherwise.
I had 2GB in my system and added another 2GB of the same model RAM (full well knowing this limitation with Vista Home) and my system was able to address only 3.3GB of it. I wound up taking one of those two new sticks out since it was causing random blue screens and just went with an even 3GB.
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Goldenshield From United States of America, joined Jan 2001, 5441 posts, RR: 12 Reply 2, posted (4 years 2 months 14 hours ago) and read 1387 times:
Quoting Wagz (Reply 1): 32 bit OS's like XP Home and Vista Home can only address in the neighborhood of 3GB or so of RAM (depending on other hardware in your system).
My Laptop with 32-bit Vista Home can adress all 4 gigs.
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FLY2HMO From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (4 years 2 months 11 hours ago) and read 1375 times:
Quoting Wagz (Reply 1): I don't know a whole lot about this new age of RAM, but since you mention you're using your old hard drives for now (and I assume an old OS on it), I hope you have some 64 bit OS on there.
I have Vista Ultimate 32bit but Its an easy and free upgrade to 64bit. That is assuming Vista doesn't go apeshit after the mobo and CPU swap. The last time I did that nothing changed really, but the only thing that different was the mobo itself in that it had an AGP slot (old one didn't). This time I'm changing everything, RAM, CPU and mobo, so we'll see how Vista handles the swap.
Quoting Wagz (Reply 1): I had 2GB in my system and added another 2GB of the same model RAM (full well knowing this limitation with Vista Home) and my system was able to address only 3.3GB of it.
I have the same issue here but it's not because you need a 64bit OS to recognize all 4Gb, it's just that the rest of that memory is being allocated to other tasks (AGP PCI, etc) and is therefore "invisible" to the OS, but it's still being used. That's what my Intel mobo's manual says anyways.
Waterpolodan From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 1649 posts, RR: 5 Reply 4, posted (4 years 2 months 9 hours ago) and read 1362 times:
Quoting Goldenshield (Reply 2):
My Laptop with 32-bit Vista Home can adress all 4 gigs.
I'd check again. 32-bit vista can't utilize more than 3.2 gigs of RAM under any circumstances, because of the limitations of a 32 bit architecture. That's not to say you cant' have 4 gigs in your computer... My laptop has 2 2gig sticks in it for a total of 4, and my device manager recognizes all 4 gigs, but Vista 32 bit can't use all 4, and that's straight from microsoft.
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