I disagree. He is planning on a gaming computer, so he needs fastest ram possible. Also, games are getting bigger and bigger, so 500gb will fill up real fast, so 1tb is needed. To get that cpu you recommend is a bad idea. They will end up costing more, so he will need to get a different mobo, which in oder to handle all this well, he needs to be spending much more on mobo and ram. Please take no offense, but you don't seem to be having much knowledge on building a gaming computer. Again, no offense intended, but based on your recommendations, they seem to be rather poor choices for someone on a budget.
Take a look at benchmarks, especially ones based off of real world usage. 1866Mhz makes almost no difference from 1600Mhz. Quite honestly anything above 1333Mhz isn't that significant.
AnandTech - Sandy Bridge Memory Scaling: Choosing the Best DDR3
first one I grabbed, 2 games at bottom of page (real world use). There is essentially zero difference in FPS.
"The results weren't very stimulating, were they? Just as expected, gaming with faster memory just doesn't make any notable difference. I could have potentially lowered the resolution and settings in an attempt to produce some sort of difference, but I felt that testing these games at the settings they're most likely to be played at was far more enlightening. If you want better gaming performance, the GPU is the best component to upgrade—no news there."
second one I grabbed.
The Best Memory for Sandy Bridge Gaming | bit-tech.net
2 different games. difference between the highest and lowest was 1 FPS on one, and 2 FPS on the other... again, practically no difference.
as for the HDD, that is entirely up to him, but seriously, based purely on games, how many can one person play? I have had 7 on my PC at once (some big, some little) and I have never used more than 250GB including the OS and everything else.
based off of newegg, the i3 3220 is the same exact price. The fx-6300 is only $10 more. You can use the same mobo for the 6300 and the mobo prices for the i3 are no different.
---------- Post added at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ----------
Thanks for input oats, and thanks life (hah). I'll stick w/ the quad-core and step down my graphics. I really appreciate your help. Anything else I should know? I'm probably going to order the parts tomorrow.
yes, if you are making a gaming PC, you absolutely do not want to downgrade the graphics card (unless you mean downgrade the $145 radeon 7770 to a $120 radeon 7770). It is the most important component for a gaming PC with the CPU being 2nd. If you play multiplayer, the CPU can become almost as important as the graphics card although that depends on the game and how many people are nearby.
Last edited: