bigjon said: Mummelmann said: Hmm, why 16GB of RAM? I don't think there's much chance of ever utilizing that much in your build. Your GPU is the same as mine, I run BF3 on Ultra with everything on full @ 1080p resolution on my 27", no problems. The multiplayer is another story, run it on high with a steady 35-40fps but on ultra with everything on full juice I drop into the low 20's and below. Congrats on your new rig!

Why not? RAM is cheap, you're talking an extra £30-£35 for 16GB vs 8GB.

@OP

Wouldn't say that board is 55 for perfomance, all motherboards based using Sandybridge perform the same within 1-2% of each other, even the tiny ones with a smaller form factor...I know because I have the same board and regret it, well I did, not really bothered anymore. Asus have gradually gone down the toilet in terms of quality control for hardware bugs. Do some googling, terrible company these days as far as Sandybridge motherboards are concerned.

The monitor is a big deal, should have gone at least 24 inch to balance with the other hardware you have, 1920x10801920x1200 is too small on a 22 inch which is the sort of resolution you should be running at with that hardware. Paying the extra for that sort of thing actually brings more benefits that the raw components. CPU clocked at 4Ghz+ will make very little difference Vs the graphics card performance, although it looked like you got a good deal.

Also, make sure you run the multi core prime95 torture test to see if you're really stable. Very few Sandybridge CPUs will do 4.8Ghz prime95 stable for 8 hours which is the general benchmark for stability regardless of cooler used.

Actually that motherboard has 3 PCI slots. There is a grey one to the far left that blends in with the motherboard.

after about 4gb, ram is irrellevant unless you plan on doing video editing or something along those lines.
i don't have a gaming computer, but i play Eve online and starcraft 2.
when i play either, i only use about 2GB of ram in total of the 3 i have. guessing higher detail could use a bit more, but chances are not much, i think since i have integrated gfx (its a laptop) it uses ram for the onboard graphics

anyways.
anymore then 8GB is a waste unless you do some crazy stuff, but even the highest end games 8gb is plenty.

A belated congratulations, both on a nice computer, and on (Obi Wan voice) taking your first step into a larger world (/Obi Wan)

That third slot only has 4 lanes unlike the other two, so it's not as good for SLI/X-fire as the first two.

Check this comparison between 16x/x4 and x8/x8.

for some reason my post are not showing.

I definitly needed 8 gb, if I had gone with 4 there would be times I am tapped out, and for the price it would be crazy not to go with at least 8. I did 16GB so I never ever have to worry about it. By the time I have to worry about it none of my componants will be relevant so it will be time to get a whole new rig, which I figure to be maybe 4-5 years from now. I dont mind dropping 1500 on a PC, my wife loves my new PC because it tears through who graphic design needs, and I can use it to work on stuff from home.

I am glad I saved the 100 bucks when I got the 2500k instead of the 2600k, I rarely come close to tapping out my 2500k OC'd to 4.6.

I will most likely buy a 2nd 6950 when the price drops down a bit. 1 card is doing just fine on high or ultra for all games, but I can see needing a bit more in 18-24 months.

Otherwise this is far and a way the best PC I have ever owned. Building for yourself is the way to go no doupt.

For shits and giggles I went on HP.com and tried to build something as good as mine.... I could not, but using the best part they had I built a PC online that was at least 25% less powerful than mine for like 1000 bucks more.

I agree with you about the amount of RAM. I have 4GB and, with all the things I have runing at the same time, I normally use more than 3GB, leaving me without enough RAM to play smoothly. And the difference in price between 8 and 16GB are quite small to not jump directly to 16.

And that's what I've done, waiting to get my new 16GB of RAM with, btw, has cost me the same as the 4 GB I bought 2 years ago.

About the difference in cost between buying the parts and building the PC yourself versus buying an already assembled PC, at first it may seem not worth it as it can cost you almost the same, but the next time you upgrade the cost savings starts to appear as you no longer have to buy certain parts, like the case, PSU, HDD/RAM, etc.

"About the difference in cost between buying the parts and building the PC yourself versus buying an already assembled PC, at first it may seem not worth it as it can cost you almost the same, but the next time you upgrade the cost savings starts to appear as you no longer have to buy certain parts, like the case, PSU, HDD/RAM, etc."

Yep. I agree that for low to mid level systems building is not any cheaper over the short run, I have done a 500 dollar test (I just put stuff in the cart) and the best I could build on 500 was about the same as buying. But for my about 1800 dollar rig (including OS and monitor) I would have paid about 2400 on HP and the one on HP had an older graphics card, locked CPU, and a few other things that make it worse than mine.

Another key thing is PSU, you almost never get a choice. When you assemble one through HP or Dell they select the bare minimum based on the parts you choose. Most parts they choose are not the best brands. They do same thing with MOBOs, if you put you want 8gb of ram they choose a mobo that caps you there, same with PCI-e slots, you are going to get an SLI board ever without actualy putting 2 GPUs on there

So yes as far as power power stats go my 500 build would = HP/Dell etc but mine would have more upgradeablity and quality within. Like I said itsnot even close on high end builds.