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Here's mine that I recently built:

Asus Z87-EXPERT ATX LGA1150
Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core w/ cooler.
16GB DDR3 RAM
Crucial 64GB SSD
Seagate 2TB HDD
GeForce GTX 770 2GB
Cooler Master 850W PSU

All stored up in this case:
Cooler Master HAF XM (Black) ATX Mid Tower

A question for people in the know - will I ever need 16 GB of RAM or is 8 fine for current games/apps?

Thanas wrote:A question for people in the know - will I ever need 16 GB of RAM or is 8 fine for current games/apps?

8 GB is fine for consumer stuff if you have an SSD.

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Sadly but unsurprisingly TSMC have confirmed delay of 20nm high performance to late this year; i.e. no major improvement in GPUs until Christmas. Intel's 14nm Broadwell is also going to be nearly a year late; they claim for market reasons, but in truth shrinks are just getting really hard. Process nodes used to be on about a 4 year cycle until the mid 90s, when things kicked into high gear. The industry had an incredible run from 600nm (first Pentium) down to 32nm (Sandy Bridge), averaging a process node every other year, but now it looks like we are heading back to a 3/4 year cycle. Of course the constant delay / failure to commercialise as expected of EUV has to take a lot of blame for that.

Starglider wrote:

Thanas wrote:A question for people in the know - will I ever need 16 GB of RAM or is 8 fine for current games/apps?

8 GB is fine for consumer stuff if you have an SSD.

I don't, sadly. So is it necessary to have 16 GB then?

16 gig is overkill unless you're doing stuff well-beyond even the highest levels of gaming. 8 gig, even with a normal hdd, will be sufficient for you.

My spare/backup office machine has 8 GB and no SSD and it's hideously slow due to constant paging to disk. However it is possible that I have lost track of 'typical use case'.

I'm not sure there's actually such a thing.

Either way, an SSD would probably be a better use of a hundred-odd euros initially; a lot of games aren't even able to use more than 4GB at once anyway, and some are even capped at two. (It's mostly Windows Vista's fault.) And grab a copy of Freemeter or some similar system-resource monitor and see what's getting thrashed the heaviest when you play a particular game, because it's not always obvious.

Thanas wrote:

Starglider wrote:

Thanas wrote:A question for people in the know - will I ever need 16 GB of RAM or is 8 fine for current games/apps?

8 GB is fine for consumer stuff if you have an SSD.

I don't, sadly. So is it necessary to have 16 GB then?

I'm not sure about EU prices, but even Swiss prices for an SSD were pretty normal.

Thanas wrote:

Starglider wrote:

Thanas wrote:A question for people in the know - will I ever need 16 GB of RAM or is 8 fine for current games/apps?

8 GB is fine for consumer stuff if you have an SSD.

I don't, sadly. So is it necessary to have 16 GB then?

If you're not the sort who likes to have his desktop absolutely lousy with concurrently running applications (or a few really memory-intensive applications), then 8 GB is more than enough.

I have 4 gig of RAM myself, and my computer's only slow with boot times, and that's largely because I have a shitload of stuff that has to run on start-up. And the primary hdd is pretty close to full. When money allows, I'll likely upgrade to a bigger hdd or maybe get an ssd and run the OS and a few other things off that, with Steam and shit running off the current hdd. Unless I can find a comfortably large ssd, then I'd toss Steam on it, too.

I've had 16 GB RAM since I built this machine three years ago, and in that period I don't think I've ever seen more than 12 in use at any one time, and that's only if I have a bunch of content-heavy tabs open in Chrome. It's usually more like 6-8, even while gaming.

Under the average PC gamer's use case, 8 GB should be more than enough for at least a few years, and you can easily toss another 8 in there if and when the need ever arises.

Here's my build that I am in the process of building
A Asus F2A85-V Pro Socket FM2 Motherboard - ATX, Socket FM2, AMD A85X FCH, DDR3 1866 MHz
AMD FX-9590 Eight-Core 5.0Ghz Processor
32Gb ram
2TB hard drive
Dual EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN BLACK

A bit overkill but building such a high end machine so that I won't have to upgrade for years to come

If money is no object, then Intel's highest-end processors are significantly faster than AMD's, even with fewer cores and lower clock speed.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:If money is no object, then Intel's highest-end processors are significantly faster than AMD's, even with fewer cores and lower clock speed.

true but I like AMD

dragon wrote:

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:If money is no object, then Intel's highest-end processors are significantly faster than AMD's, even with fewer cores and lower clock speed.

true but I like AMD

Well, the FX-9590 costs more than an Intel Core i7-4770K, and is worse in pretty much every way.

Quick question about video cards again:

I am considering upgrading from my XFX HD 4850 to a GTX 750Ti. It is just at the upper limit at my price range of 170$-ish. My question is that is there anything better coming in a month or two in similar price range/performance-per-money? Is the Ati-equivalent of the above better/worse for the same price (I am considering switching to Nvidia due to Ati considering my card to be too old to support and due to newer games)?

The Radeon R7 265 is noticeably better then the 750 ti for the same price.

So I'm going to play Star Citizen, just got the dogfighting module beta, and lo and behold my GPU can't handle it.



Which is honestly not a surprise, so it's time for an upgrade. (Incidentally, I don't know why it says I'm running DirectX 10; I know it's actually DX 11.)

Minimum system requirements include NVidia Geforce 460GTX or AMD Radeon HD5850. Recommended is GTX 670 or higher, and to run smoothly at maximum graphics settings they recommend a GTX 780.

I know what to do with getting and installing cards, but my concerns are power supply and cooling. I take it as a given that I'll need to upgrade the power supply (currently 300W), but cooling is my major concern. My current card's thermal design power is 11W, while I'm looking at cards with TDPs of 160W or greater. Can the stock fans handle it, or will I need to add more and/or replace the case?

Your fans are fine, cards at that size are going to be dual slot that have fans that blow the air out of the case anyway.

Thanks, good to know.

One more question. How likely am I to get screwed on buying a refurbished card rather than dropping roughly twice as much on a new one? I mean, I can go spend $700 without breaking much of a sweat, but I'd rather not if I don't have to.

Refurbished hardware usually has warranty time-limits far shorter than new equivalents. Like 3 months vs >1 year. It really depends on how much you trust the manufacturer and who is refurbishing the hardware. That said, $700 on a VC upgrade is pretty steep. I've skated by just fine over the years staying in and around $300 for a new card. Anything higher tends to be overkill and much cheaper than that tends to be underpowered and obsolete in less than a year or so, but to each his own.

"Obsolete" only matters if you insist on always playing at max settings. I've never spent that much money on a graphics card and I've never had problems with my computer being unable to play stuff I'm interested in. $200 should be plenty to play anything out there on aesthetically pleasing graphics settings.

Spending $700 on a graphics card is beyond wasteful.

Oh. Teach me to talk about this in the middle of the night; that was a typo. I meant to hit 4 on the number pad, guess I tagged 7 and didn't notice. At any rate, thanks, all.

I'm planning to purchase this rig in the new year: http://pc.ncix.com/ncixpc_new/ncixpc.cf ... 72-6207300

For those who don't want to click the link, the important components are the following:

MOBO: ASUS Maximus VII Gene mATX
PSU: Corsair 750W (80 Plus Gold)
CPU: Intel 4970K
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 970
RAM: 16GB DDR3

For storage, I'll be transplanting a 240GB Intel SSD and a 3TB HDD from my current rig. Additionally, I'll be ordering a second 3TB HDD with the rig. Will the PSU be sufficient to power the listed components, as well as the aforementioned 2 HDDs and 1 SSD, along with a liquid cooling system and a blu-ray burner?

I want to be able to play Total War: Rome 2 (and hopefully, the upcoming Total War: Attila) at max settings, while maintaining 30+FPS. I do not plan to game above 1080p on this rig, which is why I have chosen the GTX 970 over the R9 290 and the GTX 980. The seemingly absurd amount of HDD storage is for other, unrelated purposes.

Any thoughts or concerns that I should be aware of? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: CPU should read i7 4790K, not i7 4970K.